Scientology?

As I mentioned in my previous post, Amy's grandmother passed away earlier this week and Amy took a flight out to Colorado the following day to be with her family. I, of course, followed suit and arrived here on the 29th after getting everything at home arranged with the dog and cat, and celebrating my birthday with my family.

Whenever I have to take a flight anywhere, it is usually my time to catch up on some reading. I usually don't read much outside of box scores, sports articles, and the occassional blog, so I somewhat look forward to this time. I've been in a rut the last few trips, reading the cop stories of Stuart Woods, which are light and easy to read. I've read about 10 of his books now, and just finished "Reckless Abandon" on the flight over.

Recognizing the impending boredom of my one week stay here in Colorado, I realized a new book (or three) would be needed, so Amy's family was nice enough to drive me to a used book store to locate a few others. I immediately went to my fallback, and grabbed Stuart Woods' "Swimming to Catalina" and then began searching the store for something new and different.

It is at this time that I saw a section labelled "Occult." Well, that sounds like something new and different for sure. Most of the books were about UFOs and Roswell, but then I saw it...the book I had actually been wanting to look into for some time...L. Ron Hubbard's "Scientology: The Fundamentals of Life."

After seeing the South Park episode about Scientology, I have been curious as to what exactly the whole thing was about...it couldn't be about the alien creatures they talk about, right?! Plus, anything that can drive a man like Tom Cruise insane is worth purusing...I mean this is the guy who got over Goose's death to save Iceman from the MIGs, dammit. So, I grabbed the book as well as a book about the power and mystery of Pyramids, and was on my way.

I read pretty quickly, when I actually read, and within a few hours I have completed this piece of garbage, disgusted that I wasted $2.50 on it in the first place. Allow me to enlighten everyone.

To begin with, I was a psychology major in college and have some pretty strong, though very loose (I strongly believe that organized religion and rules are bullshit) beliefs of my own, so I'm likely not L. Ron's target audience for this. Within a few 'chapters', about 30 rules or concepts have been discussed, each one very simplistic in nature, though organized in a way to confuse the reader. Some of the ideas are foundations of psychology, though they are intermingled with completely absurd thoughts as if both are to be considered fact.

Having lied often in my life, especially when dealing with clients, I recognized this technique immediately. Let me explain: Say you want to lie to someone and you want it to seem true or believable. The easiest way to help validate the lie is to encircle it with undeniable truths. To the listener or reader, they hear a bunch of things that they agree with and therefore lump the other crap in with it and take for granted that it must be true as well. Well played, L. Ron, well played. But wait, what else have we here?

He's employing the technique of using the anti-negative. This technique was used by Nazis as well as by George Bush in dealing with the war. For Bush, it was the manner with which to prevent anti-war sentiment. He grouped the troops with the war, and to protest against the war would mean to turn your back on the poor troops. Nobody would do that, right? Well, here's the great one, Scientology puts itself in direct contrast with the destruction of the world using nuclear weapons. WHAT??!!!! I kid you not, listen to this shit,

"The primary race of Earth is not between one nation and another today. The only race that matters at this moment is the one being run between Scientology and the atomic bomb. The history of man, as has been said by well-known authorities (who?), may well depend upon which one wins."

Well, I don't want to continue to bore you with this, but needless to say, there was no talk of aliens as South Park had suggested. They did talk about "thetans" which are the spirits that control our mind and body, and pass from one body to the next following death. I'm not gonna argue with this, because many people believe in this sort of thing, though the necessity to give it a new name is pretty funny. I'm naming my new fantasy baseball team the Thetans by the way...don't try and steal it.

Also, I finally realized why only the filthy rich and celebrities are heard of doing this. In order to be a part of this, you need to be "processed" which appears to be a VERY time consuming (i'm talking 25 hours to complete one task) process of stupid and basic question and answer series. And I'm sure no one will sit there and do this with you for that many hours for free?!!

Well, I've ranted enough about that. I enjoy learning about other people's beliefs and such, but this one just seems a bit too hokie and based off of lies and half-truths. Guess I'm not converting...but maybe I'll want to build myself a pyramid tomb????

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my 28th birthday...which is somewhat scary because I really lost track of 23 through 27. Birthdays sort of lose their luster after 16, with the exception of 21, which is always exciting. They are especially unspectacular when they are three days after Christmas and most people are either exhausted (or broke) from all the Christmas stuff, or are anticipating a New Years disaster in three more days. Usually, this leads me to uneventful birthday gatherings with a spattering of my friends for dinner and some drinks.

Tonight will be no different as a group of us are headed to Hinode Japanese Steak House for some dinner, freshly prepared in front of you by the chef...always fun. This used to be a common dinner option when I was in college, since there were a bunch of date functions and such, and nothing beats a volcano made of onions or flying shrimp when you're trying to impress a new girl. Since college, though, I really haven't been to this type of dining that much (twice in the last five years), so I'm pretty psyched.

Unfortunately, I will be flying dateless tonight as Amy had to depart for Colorado this morning as her grandmother became suddenly ill and very unexpectantly passed away yesterday afternoon. Where today would typically be a very festive and upbeat day, there is a dark cloud looming over it now, and my prayers go out to Amy's family for their loss.

However, in some ways an occurrence like this helps you to appreciate every birthday, and your friends and family that are able to share these times with you. You really don't ever know when you won't be able to share a time like this again...and ironically the last time I ate at Hinode (the second of the two times) was with Amy's grandmother during her only visit to Maryland last September.

Early NFL Predictions

It's been a while since I've thrown up a sports prediction post, or a post about sports at all for that matter. Since I stopped posting my weekly picks, I've actually been doing OK. I won the pool one week and tied for first, but lost on the tie breaker (total MNF points) another week, going 13-3 both those weeks. I'm feeling the swami mojo returning, so, I bring to you my early NFL Post Season Predictions.

NFC Wild Card Matchups
Washington over Chicago - Washington makes the playoffs as the 6th team after wins against the Giants and Philly to end the season. They'll pull this Week 1 Rematch out in another boring low scoring affair.
Carolina over Tampa Bay - Carolina will host this game and their defensive line will completely shut down Tampa's offense for a relatively easy victory.

AFC Wild Card Matchups
New England over Jacksonville - The Jags got lucky making the playoffs with David Garrard, but one game is all they'll see as the Pats front seven will destroy them.
Cincinnati over Pittsburgh - Too much talent on the Bengal offense to be held back, even by the Steelers.

NFC Divisional Matchups
Washington over Seattle - This one will be a nail-biter, just like their regular season matchup, but the Skins will come out on top with the help of John Hall's leg.
NY Giants over Carolina - Tiki, Tiki, Tiki. Eli may have just as many weapons as his brother, but Tom Coughlin realizes who to give the ball to.

AFC Divisional Matchups
New England over Indianapolis - When is everyone gonna stop sucking Peyton Manning's dick and realize that Tom Brady is the best quarterback in football right now. Did you see what he had to work with this year? Tom and Bill are gonna do it to the Colts one more time.
Cincinnati over Denver - Marvin Lewis should win Coach of the Year honors, and this game will help show why.

NFC Championship Matchup
NY Giants over Washington - Gibbs is good, but the Redskins just don't have enough talent on offense to hang with the Giants.

AFC Championship Matchup
New England over Cincinnati - I swear I've seen this scene before...Pats are going to another Super Bowl. That linebacking core is pretty nasty.

Super Bowl XL
New England over NY Giants - The Patriots organization is just too well run for anything short of a disaster (and it was close this year) to stop them. Tom Brady wins another one and the attention will still be on the fact that Eli Manning (and not Peyton) went to the Super Bowl.


And those are my picks...with two weeks to play, some of these teams might not even make the playoffs, but I'm sticking with it. You may begin berating me....now.

J-Man vs. Bahama Boozin'

Yikes. Been a week since my last post. Perhaps if I stopped going out at night, drinking, and taking the wrong drugs (prescriptions...that is) I'd be able to get over this head cold (working on a week plus, now) and feel more like typing. But alcohol has always been my downfall and that leads me to my final installment of the stories of my trip to the Bahamas.

Story 1: Prejudice Bitch
Now this story has less to do with my drinking and more to do with another persons drinking, but it's still a classic. It's the third night at the place, and Amy has been losing big at blackjack, so she's not in the best of moods to begin with. We decide to give it another shot and sit down at a table with her co-worker's husband Jim. It's just the three of us and things are going OK for a while, not winning too much, but not losing our ass either.

After about a half hour of this, two other guys from the company group walk over to our table. Both of them are absolutely hammered. The one guy, we'll call him Pete, (because I think that's his name but I'm not sure) is the owner of the company's cousin and apparently recognizes Jim, so he and the other guy (who cares what his name is, he's not important to this story) decide to sit down. This is when the chaos begins.

Within moments, it is apparent that Pete is going to have a very hard time focusing on the game. He is slurring his words, not responding to questions from the dealer, and begins to harrass the staff of the casino because his cards were getting "scooped" by the dealer at the Caribbean Stud table, even though he was in. This beligerence carries over to the waitress, who he refers to as "huney" and demeans her for a lack of speed in bringing him a drink. (This was a common occurrence with most of Amy's co-workers). Soon, the table has turned sour and Amy is getting frustrated by the 2-3 minutes that it takes for this guy to make a decision on whether to hit or pass. God forbid the times when he wants to split.

It has become too much for Amy to handle and since her money is dwindling again, I propose that we get up and move to the next table over, which is completely empty. Luckily, the shoe is about to end, and when it does, Amy and I color out and move to the next table. We assumed that the others would stay put, but we were wrong.

Immediately, Jim has colored up as well and has moved to our table, which is not immediately a bad thing...except that ol' drunken Pete is confused by the exodus, and still wants to play with us. He and the other guy also color up and stumble their way over to us. Just great, this can't get any worse. Or can it????

What I hadn't noticed when Amy and I departed was that an older black woman had just sat down at the table next to Jim and was getting ready to play. And almost on cue, all five of us (white people) got up and moved tables. Oh boy!

The lady shoves her way in between Amy and Pete (I've sat at the last position at the table) and throws her money down, glares at each of us and pronounces, "WE are in the Bahamas, trying to have an enjoyable time. Why can't we just put that bullshit behind us and just play a game? My money is just as good as yours, and I probably know how to play better anyway." Uh, awkward.

Amy immediately tries to defend our move, by saying that we did not move because of her, but the lady does not want to hear it and dismisses her with a "You don't have to give me any explanations, you prejudice bitch." This is bad, but it can't get any worse right???

Wrong. The lady begins to win a couple of hands in a row, including a few blackjacks, which leads good ol' drunken Pete to ask this winning line to the dealer, "Are you guys sisters?" Oh, Jeez.

Her response, "Why, because we're both BLACK?!"

Someone, please kill me.

Story 2: Daquiris are 2 for $10
So, it's our last night on the island and Amy's boss has paid for everyone to go to a bonfire party where there will be food and all you can drink Bahama Mamas and Kamakazis. Did someone say, all-you-can-drink? The last time I went to an all-you-can-drink, I ended up scuplting a bowl out of newspaper on the metro as I vomited all over myself, so this was likely destined for disaster from the beginning, but let's continue.

So we get to the bonfire, and not only are the drinks free flowing, they're also really fucking strong. It doesn't take long before I'm loaded, dancing with the fire breather lady and talking to a fat couple about how bad Brett Favre is playing this year. Sadly, the bonfire came to an end a few hours later, but the party can still continue as Amy, Lorrel and Crystal (from the dolphin story) and I all head to the marina bars to grab a few more drinks...like I really needed one.

We had been to the marina bars before and they are much like the bars of New Orleans, where it is just a bar that you walk up to from the street, with no where to go into. In my previous visits to these bars, I had learned that the key is to order multiple drinks. Beers are one for $4 or 2 for $5. That's a deal. So, when we get there, I immediately order myself and Lorrel a beer and turn back to the ladies, who have not had a drink in a while. And this is where things start to turn bad.

Amy looks at the two beers with disgust, and asks, "Where's mine? You didn't even ask?" Uh, oh.

"Oh sorry, I didn't know you wanted anything."
"I do, I'll have a strawberry daquiri."

I ask Crystal if she wants a drink, but she does not. And then I turn to the bar, Daquiris are one for $8 or two for $10. Holy Shit, NOW THAT'S A DEAL. Now here's where things get even worse.

So I turn to my right and see three young girls that have just walked up to the bar, but don't have any drinks yet. Always the thinker, I step over to them and ask if any of them was planning to order a daquiri, because my girlfriend wanted one and they were a deal if you got two.

Now, this probably wouldn't be a big deal if this were three guys (though I probably wouldn't assume they would want a daquiri) or maybe if it were three fat girls (yeah, I said it), but apparently this was a very bad move given the actual circumstances.

This is when Amy appears and gives me a shove, "What exactly are you doing?" (Notice the "exactly." Not sure why, but women use this one alot)

"I was asking them if they were gonna get a daquiri, because it's a deal" (The hole is dug, I'm just digging deeper now)

This is when the barrage of punches begins, starting at my stomach and working its way up to two right hooks to my jaw and cheek, in coordination with her outburst, "Why..are..you..fucking..doing..this shit..on my..company..trip!!!???"

This is followed by a "You're such an asshole" and a "We're through" and the night is now a complete success.

Stunned by everything that just occurred, I had only one recourse but to finish my beer.

J-Man vs. The Dolphins

I've been sick the last two days (go figure: 79 degrees in the Bahamas, 18 here) so I don't really feel like writing a whole story about swimming with the dolphins...so here's a quick summary.

This was one thing I've always wanted to do, so when the opportunity presented itself, I jumped at the possibility and jumped into some relatively cold water to do so. The two dolphins we swam with were pretty cool and did some nice tricks, including hugging, waving, talking, kissing and of course, jumping (after we were out of the water). The dolphins were much bigger than I had originally imagined, but at no point did I ever feel afraid. They are quite cool creatures. Here's some more pics:

Totally got her number, BTW.

Yes I know, that's pretty damned cool. They call me the Beastmaster.

And this is the dolphin spitting at me. The instructor thought it would be funny for me to show everyone the "splash" command.

Fishing Pics

J-Man vs. The Barracuda

It's our second day in the Bahamas and one of Amy's co-workers is extremely psyched that he has secured a boat to take us out deep sea fishing. He finds Amy and I eating breakfast with two of Amy's other co-workers, Crystal and Lorrel, and demands that Lorrel join him on this voyage.

I am a complete outsider in this group to begin with, then add onto that the fact that I neither golf (well, I have, but I really suck) nor hunt (which it seemed all of them do??), and I'm basically like the fat kid in gym class. So, of course, no invitation is directly extended to me. However, Lorrel is insistent that I go, so that Amy will go, and therefore his fiance will go, so who am I to argue with that kind of logic? I figure an afternoon of sitting on a boat waiting for the fish to grab while throwing down some beers can't be that bad, so I'm in. I fork over the $175 for Amy and I, and we're in.

Now, there may be some of you that already know what "deep sea fishing" is, but it is not what I had originally thought. The boat does not stop moving. You do not hold your fishing pole. And throwing down beers is a recipe for disaster.

What you do do is sit on a stank boat that is constantly "trolling" the waters with 4 or more lines cast out behind the boat. It's hard enough to stand on the boat when you're sober, so after my first beer, I decide that I'm cut off. Within an hour of our departure, Crystal is puking, I haven't touched anything associated with fishing, and the same four lines are still dragging behind the boat. Another hour passes and now I'm searching for my iPod to take my mind off of the sheer stupidity of this endeavor.

Perhaps the fish like Evanescence, because Amy Lee gets out two words when our first line takes hold, then a second one snags a moment later and the excitement has begun. Lorrel and the other guy quickly spring to a seat and the captain puts the pole in their hands to reel the fish in. Seems simple enough...tug and wind...I take notice of the way to reel it in since I've never done this before and feel a bit more at ease as the fish get pulled in rather easily. When the fish is right by the boat, the captain snags it with a hook (I saw a trident in a store while I was down there, and was very tempted to buy it) and chucks it into a bin. What a blood bath! 2 hours, 2 Wahoos (that's the name of the fish they both caught) and now back to the iPod.

More time passes and Amy's co-worker says I should get into the chair so I can get the next one that grabs. I take my place and wait...and wait...and wait. And then we've got a grab. The captain puts the rod in position in front of me and the instructions begin.

"Let it go until the reel stops moving, then start pulling him in slowly"

(Simple enough)

Except the reel keeps spinning and spinning. Why is this fish swimming further and further away damn it! Finally, he stops and the reeling must begin. I start turning the reel as I had seen but this whole tug and wind out the slack thing complete eludes me.

(You see, so that you don't strain yourself too hard, you are supposed to tug back with your whole body, then lean forward as you reel so that you're merely reeling in the slack)

Had I thought this through during one of the first two hours of mindless sitting, perhaps my right arm wouldn't be burning as I fight this fish closer and closer. Did I mention that I'm not right handed? The others on the boat are continuing to scream with encouragement as I reel the fish closer and closer, and there is no giving up at this point. Not since the first time I laid my eyes on Swank magazine has my forearm ached, but as the fish gets close and flies out of the water, I see my competitor and I make the last of the reels.

The captain hooks the fish and everyone stares in amazement at the fish I have brought aboard.

A 3 foot, 30 lb. barracuda with teeth like a rabid dog sits in a pool of blood in the bin, flapping and snapping its final breaths. The biggest fish anyone caught that day, and the first fish I have ever caught in my life.

I have felt the power, I must kill again.

Oh, the Stories I Could Tell...

Well, I just got back from my trip and let me just tell you that the next few posts are going to be stellar. I don't quite feel like writing up a full post right now, and alot of these stories will need to be posted separately, so here's the sneak previews:

• The Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3 are taping in the Bahamas so I saw the midget pirate and the funny bearded old guy pirate just walking around and drinking
• I went fishing for the first time in my life and caught a baracuda
• I swam with Dolphins
• Amy was referred to as a "prejudice bitch" by an older black lady in the casino
• I continued to prove that a stingy Jew is a better haggler than any island inhabitant or Mexican
• If you think you have a drinking problem, hang out with Amy's co-workers and you'll realize what a drinking problem really is
• Amy punched me in the face twice last night

Check back soon, I'll give you the sorted details to go along with these headlines in the coming days.

Heading South

Just like the birds, the pool man must also head south in search of warmer climates. Unfortunately, I'm only going for a week, not the whole Winter. Fortunately, I'm leaving tomorrow for Our Lucaya in the Grand Bahamas, just in time for the first snow/rain mess that's supposed to hit DC.

Amy's work is flying all of the managers and a guest to the island to stay for the week...free of charge. Plus, they're giving us a $600 hotel credit to work with. Talk about a nice Christmas bonus.

So, as you can imagine, there won't be any new blog entries for at least a week. I'm sure I'll have some nice pics and stories when I get back though. In the meantime, when you're shoveling the slush off your driveway, you can think of me sitting on a beach having overpriced drinks brought to me. See you when I get back.

Special Shoes

As expected, I've made fun of one too many retarded guys and god is now punishing me...well, at least this is part one of the punishment.

About five weeks ago or so, my right arch in my foot started to bother me. I assume the pain was caused by my 5 year old Timberland work boots which I've been wearing not that it's getting colder, or possibly my 4 year old cleats that I wear to play outdoor football. More than likely, it's a combination of both. The pain started off with just a mild discomfort, but by now it has gotten to the point where I can barely walk barefoot after playing any sort of sport. Something needs to be done.

So, I go to the Wizards game on Wednesday night. No, not to fix the foot problem, I just went to watch the Wizards play...bear with me here. They won the game, and there were some great highlights from the on-court action. But the true highlights for me were off-court, in Section 102, directly to my left.

It was during warm-ups that I first noticed them. Yes, THEM. There were two. Two of my old buddies from high school...none other than JP and Mongo (that's what we'll call him at least, I never knew his name). They are big time Washington sports fans. Some might even consider them superfans with their respective Nationals and Redskins Starter jackets, poorly shaped Capitals and Wizards caps, and large foam fingers. Hell, this is the third sporting event I've personally seen them at this year! Yes, even I would consider them superfans. Retarded Superfans.

I immediately call my buddy Kupe to let him know of my sighting, overwhelmed with joy. And then, I notice him...sitting about 10 rows up from the Superfans, directly to my left at the end of the section. Could it be? Am I so lucky? Yes, there is a dwarf sitting in the same section as two retarded guys. God has truly blessed me this evening. Or has he?

As if from the bible, God is quick to punish me for my mockery. I woke up Thursday morning with more pain in my right arch than ever before. Something definitely needs to be done now.

So Thursday night, I'm at the mall with Amy, buying new shoes with extra arch support and "special" inserts. Yep, special. It's not Down Syndrome special, but the process has now begun. It won't be long now before I get an incurable cramp in my hand, an uncontrollable urge to hug everyone and will spit up on myself.

Crap, that sounds like my typical Saturday night. ("We should have listened!")

The Music Has Returned

After several weeks of no background music, I finally located another website that can bring that added touch back to this blog. It's like a chocolate mint left on your pillow by the maid after she's turned down your bed. Or like a happy ending by the masseuse after she's turned down your blow job requests. Huh?

Enjoy your afternoon delight.

He's Alive

After a prolonged hiatus, I have returned to bore you with countless painful stories and commentary. I hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving holiday...or perhaps you had one more like mine:

TUESDAY
Amy's family is flying in from Colorado for a 5 night stay at casa de J-man, and I'm on call to go pick them up at the airport. This wouldn't normally be an issue, but they are coming into BWI at 6 PM...right in the heart of rush hour. Great planning. Amy escapes from work at the last minute to join me on my blissful 1 hour 45 minute drive up to BWI to pick them up. What are my thanks for this journey and the ensuing return trip...Amy yells at me because my breath stinks while we're waiting for them at the airport. You try sitting in a car for that long and see how good your breath smells.

WEDNESDAY
More drama as I decide I really don't feel like meeting Amy and her family for lunch. Bad idea. After getting hung up on twice and then not being able to get through to Amy's cell phone, I return home to an awkward exchange before heading out for Chili's with them. And what better way to cap off the afternoon than taking her parents (by myself, she had to go back to work) to go see Harry Potter. But wait J-man...didn't you already see Harry Potter on opening day?? Yep, and I was tricked into this one by the thoughts that the IMAX version was showing at Rio Cinema. Still a good movie, even the second time around. (Yes, I just bought myself a pocket protector)

THURSDAY
Sweet turkey day!! This is the second year that we have had Thanksgiving at my place, and this year was to be the biggest Thanksgiving gathering in quite some time...14 people in all. The crew included my parents, my younger brother Kevin, my grandmother, my loud, Jewish princess, New Jersey born and raised, ballroom dance crazed aunt (I could write a whole blog about her, but you'd probably all throw up in your mouth after the first two paragraphs), Amy's parents, and a random (well, Amy knew them) family of five that Amy invited over. Now there's really too much to write it all as a part of this blog, so let me hit the highlights and maybe I'll write up the other stuff in a separate blog later.

THANKSGIVING HIGHLIGHTS

• Amy's step dad knows absolutely no one and therefore stays in the living room watching football the whole time
• My dad is a grumpy old man and therefore stays in the living room watching football the whole time
• My dog has to go outside 6 times during the day and still pisses on the floor
• The family of five consisted of a 2 year old boy, a 4 year old boy, and an 8 year old girl. Obviously, I had to mock the toys that they brought with them and show them my impressive collection of Gameboy games, Playstation games, Transformers, GI Joes, WWF action figures and M.U.S.C.L.E.S. (oh, yeah. I still had those pink little bastards too). I would have to say that 'they got served'.
• Amy gets nauseous midway through all the cooking and puked about 3 times
• Amy's mom shuts off the oven the turkey was in, after pulling bread sticks out of the second oven. Of course, we didn't notice this until 45 minutes later when I noticed that the turkey didn't look much different and the oven wasn't very hot.
• The smoke alarm went off three times, as the juices from the turkey overflowed into the oven and caught on fire.
• My brother, mother and grandmother up and left before dinner to go let out my brother's girlfriend's dogs at her parents place 30 minutes from my house...like they needed 3 people to do that
• My aunt grabbed the cat and locked herself and the cat in my bedroom for 1/2 hour...then she yelled at me because the kids were too loud for the cat
• And I drank...alot.
• Like you wouldn't have?

FRIDAY

When will this week end? Amy leaves me home alone all day with her step-dad and he stays upstairs working on her computer while I watch Tivo in my basement. Unfortunately, Amy and her mom don't make it back from shopping before my football game, so guess who's coming with me? Amy and her mom show up for the game too, and of course this is the game where three fights break out, including my brother getting elbowed in the nuts and one of our guys getting ejected. Classy.

This night also happens to be my 10 year high school reunion. There was much internal debate as to whether I wanted to go and ultimately I came to this conclusion:

"I haven't missed you for 10 years, what's another 10?"

Plus, I got punched in the face at my game and have a cut on my lip which looks more like a herpes sore. Always a great conversation starter:

"Been 10 years, how have you been, J-man?"

"Never been better...now that I found Valtrex."

SATURDAY

Nothing says Thanksgiving weekend like a day trip to Atlantic City with your girlfriend's parents. The bad part is: 3 hours in a tight car together. The good part is: 5 hours of gambling all by myself.

After sitting at the same blackjack table for 5 hours, sucking down around 12 Captain & Cokes and making numerous Asian friends, I stood up from the table with the exact same amount of money that I sat down with. Guess I can't complain. Oh, wait. Yes I can, here comes another 3 hours in the tight car.

SUNDAY

Ahhh, my sanctuary. NFL Sunday with my buddies at Union Jack's in Bethesda. Nothing can spoil this. What??!!! Amy invited her stepdad to go with me??!!! And then made plans to have dinner at my parents' house at 5:30 PM!

HAPPY MOTHERFUCKING THANKSGIVING!!

Productive Saturday

Typically, my Saturdays over the last couple weeks have consisted of waking up around 10:30-11 AM, checking my computer for new emails or new fantasy football news, checking in on the week's worth of internet porn that I missed, and then lounging around the house watching Tivo until Amy gets home from work to lecture me on my complete and utter laziness.

This Saturday, however, things were a little different. I still rolled out of bed and handled the email, football, and porn tasks (some things aren't meant to be changed), but then the cleaning began.

You see, tomorrow, Amy's mother and step-father are coming into town and to call the house unkept would be a bit of an understatement. My computer table was completely covered in papers and old bank statements; my closet had a mound of clothes about 2 feet high, as did the area on my side of the bed; there is catnip on every carpet in the house since Chloe decided that cat toys are also dog toys; and there are four cups of pudding that should have been eaten two weeks ago sitting in the refridgerator.

Something needed to be done and looking around, I saw no one else capable of doing it...since I was alone. I set right to it, grabbing my first mound of clothes and heading to the laundry room. For those that tuned in late, here's how I handle laundry, and within minutes the first load is in.

I head up to the refridgerator and pull out the cups of pudding that have been taunting me for the last few days as they have now shriveled to the "crunchy on the outside" stage. A few dry heaves later and I've got the pudding out and down the garbage disposal. Unfortunately, the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, so there's one more thing I have to do, before I can put the pudding stained cups in for a cleansing. While I'm here, I clean the four pots and pans left in the sink and give the countertop a once over just for the hell of it.

Now, where's that vacuum? I haven't vacuumed the house in...well, I can't ever remember, but I know I had a vacuum that my older brother gave to me. After searching around, I locate it and start to vacuum up the catnip. Unfortunately, the vacuum isn't sucking and after a quick inspection I realize that the filter is clogged and needs to be cleaned. Luckily, I clean dirty filters for a living (hello, the name of the blog), so this challenge does not throw me off.

I pull out the cartridge and assume hosing it down like I do with pool filters would probably not be a good idea (and that's where the good ideas ended). I notice a bunch of dust and crap embedded in the fins and I begin tapping it in the basement bathroom waste basket. Whoa! Bad idea. Now, I have to quickly vacate the bathroom and the smoke screen I have created before I have myself sneezing until Thanksgiving (and here I figured it would be diarhea). I learned from my first attempt, so I take the cartridge up to the larger trash can in the kitchen to finish the job. Maybe, I should have taken it outside...but, at least I was making strides in the right direction. Now to finally start that vacuuming.

Once I turn the vacuum cleaner on, the dog and cat are going ape shit running all over the place like it was fucking Godzilla. By the way, the previews for the new King Kong look pretty sick. The running around is amusing to me, so I chase them both for a little bit before I complete the cleaning of the whole basement and living room carpet upstairs.

I change over the loads of laundry, fix myself a quesadilla, and it's on to the computer desk. Lucky for me I decided to do this, because as I'm organizing the papers, I find the Comcast bill, which is due today. Soon, I've made a bunch of piles and thrown away all the useless papers. I haven't kept my Quicken records up to date in three months, so I grab the credit card bills and bank statements and start entering the info. as my desk is becoming more and more visible.

An hour and a half later, everything is entered and my desk is functional once again. I'm sitting at my desk, so why not see how the internet porn has changed since this morning? Hell, I've earned it. Now, that's a productive Saturday.

Renewing My Dork Membership

With all the football I've been playing and watching lately, perhaps I have started to get away from my roots. The sporty jock thing is great and all, but deep down, I'm a huge dork. I've already mentioned that I went to a nerdy school and I went to see the Star Wars movie in a previous post. Plus, I'm writing this blog, so the dorkiness is still alive. However, it appeared as if my membership in the society of dorks was starting to drop to the levels of my membership in the religion of Judaism (I think I'm down to just Hannukah and Matzoh Ball soup now), so it needed a bigtime boost.

And what have we here...a new Harry Potter movie? The fourth installment...and I have seen and own the previous three. I wouldn't possibly go see it on opening day, would I? And I certainly wouldn't go to see it all by myself, would I? A Harry Potter movie on opening day, all by myself!!!!

I think I just extended my membership for 1 more year.

A Weekend of Disappointment

Last weekend had the potential to be a very good weekend. We're not talking midgets on donkeys holding sparklers and parading through my neighborhood good, but when are we really?

The setups were all there:

Friday night, as I mentioned, I had my indoor football team pitted against the biggest bunch of jackasses in our semi-final matchup. We have never beaten them, but we had never beaten the cops (different story, bear with me) until that previous Sunday, so miracles can happen and this would be our moment to shine. And by shine, I mean lose embarrassingly, 12-31.

So Saturday morning, Davidson is playing Georgetown at Georgetown. These games usually bring alumni into town for some good old fashion liver punishing and inappropriate looks from all the stuckup Georgetown fans. This year, I even went so far as to attend the Davidson pre-game brunch. What did I get?

Brunch with four dorks, hearing about how one works with handicapped children (and of course, I can't laugh) and another is moving to Argentina...where the beef is "wonderful," perhaps "fabulous," or even "to die for." And the brunch food was bad to boot. "Should have stayed at a Holiday Inn" my ass.

Then, we get to the game, run out of Beam in the first half, and my buddy Ellis is the only one who gets shitfaced, because he's willing to drink second hand tequila from some old people sitting behind us. But Davidson did win, so it's not all bad.

So Saturday night rolls around, and Ike's engagement party is on the queue. I get home from the Davidson game, clean myself up, put on a nice button up "party" shirt, and some black slacks (trust me this is alot, I work with pools during the week and wear waffle shirts) and we head down to Cafe Matisse. I can now add "valet parking" to my list of things that scare the crap out of me, because as the random guy is driving away in my car, I just felt unsettled. And then I walk up the stairs, and everyone is wearing a sports coat. Thanks for the info., Ike! At least I stole the floral display, which is really brightening up the dining room.

An early departure, and its Sunday morning, and time for our second matchup in Outdoor Football with the other half of my team from last year, who started their own shitty squad. We tied them in our first game, but this time we spanked 'em to the tune of a shutout, and kept our playoff hopes alive. (I don't play offense in the outdoor game, so the puny 8 points we put up is not my fault)

Unfortunately, our hopes dropped very quickly as the aforementioned cops gave an old fashion Rodney King smackdown to the team we were hoping would win in the game immediately following ours. That's like giving a kid a lollipop and then kicking him in the nuts. Well, sort of. Now, we need one of the two worst teams in the league to beat either of those teams next week, along with us beating the best team in the league in order to make the playoffs. Guess I'll be getting my Sunday mornings back real soon.

And then the Redskins game...I won't even discuss it.

Following suit, I'm expecting to get a stomach virus just in time for Thanksgiving...with extra diarrhea, Amy's parents are coming into town.

Brain Farts 4

Well, I know I've been sparse on the posting, but I'm trying to bring you guys quality instead of quantity. Nah, I'm just lazy. And in that spirit of laziness, you're not even getting a full post, instead here is my fourth installment of brain farts...not as good as the real shit, but still funny.

• Don't you think that people should have to pass some sort of written test in order to drive bigger cars and SUVs? Perhaps, the larger the car, the harder the test? And the test for women is harder than that for men, just to be on the safe side? And the test for Asian people is nearly impossible, just to be on the really safe side? I swear it took this one lady 10 minutes to pull her SUV into a parking spot at my work, and I just had to sit there and wait. And here's the ironic part...she was driving a "Navigator."
• Does anyone else think, just for a second or two, that the new Mariah Carey song, "Shake You Off" might have something to do with shaking that last bit of pee out at the urinal? (Now, you'll never be able to listen to that song the same again. You're welcome.)
• My girlfriend got the cat a collar with a bell on it, so now she looks AND sounds like a dog chew toy.
• If you go to a Greek restaurant and order a gyro ("he-ro") and they call it a "jai-ro," is that a bad sign?
• This isn't a funny one (were the others?), but tonight is the second and possibly championship rounds of my indoor football league. Unfortunately, the first game is against the team of fast, obnoxious players who were our only loss during the regular season. In preparation for the game, I did not shower yesterday and have not yet showered today. Try and cover that, bitches.

Davidson v. Georgetown tomorrow...football at its finest. Have a good weekend, all.

When Sports Go Wild

No wonder WWF (it's still WWF to me) hasn't been as popular as it was back when I was in college. Here's a few plots that would have seemed perfect for WWF programming:

• One member of a tag team feels his partner isn't pulling his own weight. He begins to doubt their ability to win and blames the losing on his partner. Week after week, they make their rants to the cameras, eventually leading to one calling his partner a fag and ultimately dismantling the tag team forever.
• Several high profile players are continuously destroying their competition, garnering belt after belt on their way to a sure stop in the WWF Hall of Fame. But wait, JR finds some B-12 shots in their lockers? When they are approached by Vince McMahon, they ademantly deny their use of any illegal substances and continue wrestling and winning championships...only to fail a random drug test right as their storied career is coming to an end?
• Two female wrestlers begin to have a very close relationship. In a backstage scene, two other female wrestlers nearly pee their pants waiting to use the bathroom. When the first two wrestlers leave the bathroom together after some obvious hanky panky (can't you see King Lawler having a field day with this one), a brawl ensues.
• Two wrestlers are in the midst of a match and tumble to the outside. A few fans get over zealous and spill a drink over the heel (that's wrestling lingo for the bad guy). He pounces on the fan, driving management to force him to sit out for several months as punishment. Upon his return, he shows no remorse and swears he will remain an uncontrollable animal.
• The tag team troubled wrestler from the first plot joins up with the likes of a real fan favorite. They start out winning, but the same problems resurface and ultimately drive the two apart...perhaps to a one-on-one no holds barred competition.
• Vince McMahon is certain the drop in ratings is due to the sloppy and hip-hop look of his wrestlers and feels that all wrestlers need to wear shirts and ties during all pre- and post-match interviews. The black wrestlers feel this is a racially motivated move, and a giant racial war breaks out throughout the entire WWF.

These would all be great WWF plots. Unfortunately, the "real" sports already took them all. I guess wrestling is gonna have to resort to fair competition and good sportsmanship now, so we have something different to watch.

Why I Should Move to Hollywood

Well, if the creation of the show "Joey" wasn't bad enough (my version would have been better)...Hollywood has gone and stolen another one of my ideas.

Not more than three weeks ago, Kupe, Kevin and I were discussing random shit when we came up with this winning joke, but really saw nowhere specifically that it could be used.

In reference to playing golf
Guy #1: Man, that guy is really bad at golf. What's his handicap?
Guy #2: Down syndrome


And then, I'm watching SNL last night and I see the previews for "My Name is Earl" and this exchange:

Some Guy: How many birdies did you hit?
Fat Guy: 12
Some Guy: That guy hit twelve birdies? What's his handicap?
Earl: Nothing, he's just a little slow.


Ridiculous. Again, my version would have been better.

Halloween Pics: Uh-Oh

This is when things just got ugly...are my eyes even open?? God bless Halloween...only 364 more days til the next one.

More Pics

You can also go check out some of the other pics from the night by going to Kupe's blog:

Not in Those Words...

Halloween Pics: Pooh

Halloween Pics: Woopie

Halloween Pics: Dirty Sanchez

Halloween

Well, Halloween was this past weekend (well, technically it was yesterday, but who parties on a Monday?) and after 2 straight years going as a clown, a new costume was introduced. Not wanting to deal with all the face paint, my buddies Kupe, Ike and I decided to go as the MLB steroid violators (equipped with extra muscle shirts and syringes). We decided on Giambi (me), Palmeiro (Kupe) and McGwire (Ike) given our general appearances and the fact that we actually had some Yankees and O's stuff. Anyway, after attending a couple parties, we headed out into Adam's Morgan. And that's when the fun really begins.

I'm really too tired right now (stupid time change) to go into all the details, but I will give fair warning to anyone out there interested in dressing as a Yankee (or possibly a Red Sock) for Halloween. If you are not a fan of that particular team, you are in for a large amount of heckling and arguments regardless of whether you want it. I had a girl (Red Sox fan...of course) try to start a fight with me in the empanada place after she informed me that the Yankees sucked, and I informed her that if she wanted to go on rooting for the Red Sox, that she'd better plan on living to be 100 if she wanted to see them win another pennant. Then I stumbled on home...enjoying Julia's finest Saltenas Empanada. Hard to support a team that wins it all every 86 years.

Anyway, here's a couple pictures to follow of some of the highlights of the evening:

Pumpkin Carving

Last night, following my football game, Amy and I carved the pumpkins that she had gotten a week ago for Halloween. It's been about three years since I last carved a pumpkin, but I think I did a pretty good job. Plus, I got a ton of pumpkin seeds, which I roasted and have been eating for most of this morning. Here's a pic of the pumpkin.

It's supposed to be Butters from South Park.

The Robbery of Ricky Paugh

I just got back from the DC Improv and seeing my college buddy, and old roommate Ricky Paugh, perform as a part of the DC Comedy Showcase. The Comedy Showcase was a contest between 8 up and coming comedians, wherein the best comedian (as determined by three borderline professional comedians...or for the purposes of this blog entry, assholes) would win a chance to perform with a big act and compete in an even larger competition towards the dead end job known as stand-up comedy.

Anywho, we get to the Improv nice and early and my buddy Kupe has secured us the front and center seats for this joyous occassion. There's eight of us in our group and as my first captain and coke goes down and the lights dim, we come to the realization that this is a very Pro-Rick crowd. Home field advantage...I don't blame him for stocking the audience.

The show begins with the MC doing his bit. He's OK and has some decent pops, before introducing the first act. To call the first act a train wreck would be an understatement. The guy was a 6'8" black man who had just gotten out of prison (no, I'm not a racist asshole who naturally assumes all 6'8" black men have just gotten out of prison) and he was high (no, I'm not a racist asshole, but all 6'8" black men who have just gotten out of prison are likely high). I don't quite remember much of his act, but I am just glad he didn't steal anything or pull out a gun. The only laughter was what I will term "nervous, please don't rape my girlfriend chuckles" and he was done.

The next few guys are a blur as the Capt. is flowing like water, and the comedians are very forgettable. One shmuck tried to pull a Mitch Hedberg rip-off set...what the fuck? And then, Ricky was up.

Ricky shot up there with some high intensity, and threw out some local, "this city is a pain to get around in" jokes. Solid performance and the crowd is with him. He's dancing around the stage like an ADD kid who needs his ridilin as his veins are shooting out his neck, and we're all lovin' it. I truly laughed out loud during two or three of his jokes, and he buttoned things up with the always popular suicide bomber joke. I know, but he made it work. He went off to a thunderous roar and all of us at the table are confident he's definitely the winner...at least the best thusfar, though there's still 4 guys to go.

More of the same bullshit, no talent ass clowns for the next hour, including a Carlton from Fresh Prince wannabe, a redneck, and Rick's toughest competition, a spastic joker with a disturbing habit of pointing and touching his own groin, even when talking about a woman's hot love oven.

They wrap things up with a special appearance by a "more popular" professional comedian, who was decent, while they tabulated the votes. All the comedians were then brought out onto the stage (except the 6'8" black man, who is mysteriously missing?), so that they could all make a final appearance as they read the top three:

#3...Carlton (SWEET!!!)
#2...Redneck (HOLY SHIT, RICK WON THIS THING???)
#1...SPASTIC GUY??!!

What the fuck?!!

I knew that 6'8" black guy was gonna steal something.

Place Your Bets: Week 7

Still under .500 (36-49-3), so I won't make any commentary again. Now, I'm just playing for pride:

St. Louis (-3) vs New Orleans in Baton Rouge
Green Bay (Pick 'em) at Minnesota
Indianapolis (-14.5) at Houston
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (-1)
Chargers (+4) at Philly
Lions at Browns (-3)
49ers (+13.5) at Washington
Cowboys at Seattle (-4.5)
Buffalo (+3) at Oakland
Ravens at Chicago (-1.5)
Titans (+5) at Arizona
Broncos at New York Giants (-2.5)
NY Jets (+7) at Atlanta

Thirsty Thursday

Every three weeks, I have tried to put together a happy hour with all my employees to try to break things up from the "monotony" of simply coming to work, working, then leaving. This is a concept I just introduced this year, and termed the day as "Thirsty Third Thursday."

Well, today just happens to be a Thursday, and the last time we went for drinks was three weeks ago. Unfortunately, not everyone gets up for this event each time it rolls around, but this week we had 4 (a fifth showed up later) of us partake. And an excellent choice for mid-day drinks and food was the ever popular Hooters.

The four of us swing into Hooters, grab ourselves a table, and our waitress is over in a few seconds. She introduces herself (Stephanie) and takes our drink order (I got carded, always nice). She's a decent looking girl, but really not all that great. She's about 5'4", blonde, a bit on the thicker side, thus giving her some nice cleavage, a little bit of acne, and there's something else that's very odd about her. At first, I can't pick up on it. She's friendly enough, cracking jokes, making an impressive catch of two wings with a second plate as they fall from their own plate, and she even stays around to talk for a bit.

And that's when I realize what's wrong. She's staring right at me as I make a comment, but she's ALSO staring at Manny, who's sitting to my left. How is that possible? Staring at two people at one time???

She has a lazy eye.

Monotony

I'm sure everyone runs into this feeling every once in a while...the feeling that you are stuck in a rut of doing the exact same thing every day, every night, every week, every month with little variation and therefore little to get overly excited about.

Well, that's where I'm sitting right now, and perhaps that explains my lack of posting recently. As a child, you always look forward to growing up and doing adult stuff, but I don't think as I kid I knew how good I had it.

I've been working in my company for the last six years, (more if you include the occassional Summers through high school and college), and though it is physically demanding at times, it really doesn't seem to challenge me in a manner that keeps me engaged. I know exactly what I need to do in most situations, and there is rarely a challenge that requires more than two extra hours of my attention to resolve. Then it's back to processing paperwork, making sales calls, and dealing with the antics of unmotivated, under-educated employees.

Is this what being a working world adult is all about? Is this why you hear about people working for the weekend? Or why people bitch about their jobs?

Now, don't get me wrong...I probably have it much better than alot of people, since I have no direct overseeing boss to harp on me (except for the 300 clients that never cease to find something to bitch about), and I have no cutthroat co-workers trying to bring me down to lift themselves up a peg. But, it's still a routine, a monotonous, almost-second-nature routine that I wake up to each and every day.

But the irony is, soon my busy season will be over, and my work days will dwindle to just a few hours of training and re-organization...and I'll look forward to rediscovering my monotonous, almost-second-nature routine, because it's just that.

So, this weekend, I guess I'll raise a glass to the boring routine that is work...and then I'll walk up to random girl and smack her on the ass...just because it's something different.

The Greatest Game(s) Ever Played

This weekend was truly a showcase of football greatness. I am not typically a college football fan (since my alma mater, Davidson, is not what you would consider a "big time" program...or even a "small time" program...or possibly even "worth watching"), but this weekend's matchup between USC and Notre Dame was arguably one of the best football games I have ever seen. My buddy Boland was fortunate enough to actually be at this game, though the outcome was definitely not what he was hoping for. For those of you that missed it, I'm sure it will be on ESPN Classic every day this week, as it is definitely a new instant classic.

However, it was not the only great game I was able to watch this weekend, because Sunday morning at around 10:15 AM, the second greatest game ever played in rec league football was just beginning. With several players missing from the Shockers (like the sexual move), we were forced to call in one sub and play with the bare minimum 7 players against the second place Rottens. A win would put us into second by 1/2 game, with only 5 games remaining. A loss would put us a game and a half back, and virtually out of playoff contention barring two miracles (or losses by the Rottens...your choice).

The Rottens got the ball first, and against our bare-bones team of players playing out of position, drove down for a quick score, taking an early 6-0 lead after a missed extra point. Our defense sured up on the next few drives, but our offense was having trouble moving the ball for the whole first half (including 3 botched snaps by our fill-in center), and a missed field goal to end the first half left us still down, 0-6. We start the second helf with the ball, though we're now throwing into the wind and getting more exhausted with each passing moment...then the miracle catch occurred.

We're on our own 30 or so. Francisco (one our receivers) is set to run a fly route from the left side, while I was lined up on the right slot, running a 10 yard drag. Our QB has some time (for once, we were overmatched in the size department too) and chucks it up for Fran. The ball's underthrown a bit, as Kevin always seems to do, plus the wind, but Fran gets his hands on it, as does the defender. The two of them are wrestling over it and they begin to fall down from the collision, the ball bobbling around in Fran's hands as they go...and that's when I make my break.

I'm close enough at this point and absolutely no thought is running through my head (per the norm) as I snatch the ball away from the both of them and begin sprinting down the field. Not since the time my Junior year of college when I outran a dog in a drunken haze (no, I'm not shitting you) have I ran so fast. Within moments I am at the twenty and realizing that I am way too out of shape to be pulling this shit. I hear a defender closing on me now as I'm running out of steam but his late dive to try to grab my heels is too short and I stumble into the end zone for the score, and we're up 7-6.

All of a sudden, the flood gates are opening as both teams drive quickly down the field, and we're sitting up 15-14, after two successful two point kicks, with a little over two minutes to play. We probably should have switched to a deep zone defense, but instead we stay with our 4 man blitz, and it costs us...one play, 70 yard bomb, and they're now on top, 22-15, after a successful two-point kick. Now, we've got just under 2 minutes, three timeouts, and still only seven very tired players staring 70 yards at our goal. We pick them apart, 10-15 yards at a time, and now sit within striking distance, at the 25 yard line with 8 seconds to go. One last play, everyone into the endzone.

Kevin scrambles to buy some time and rolls to the left. He throws the ball up off his back foot and from where I'm standing on the right side of the field, it is obvious it is not going to make it into the end zone. The receiver and two defenders collide at the one yard line, and the ball falls to the ground as time expires.

Now that would be a good, though sad for us, ending, but I said this was a "great" game.

Laying on the ground next to the ball sat a flag, and this one's not over. Pass Interference on the defense, one untimed play from the one to decide the game. Where have I seen this shit before?

I stay in the backfield as a fourth blocker, as my brother rolls to the right on this final play. Their zone defense is covering our exhausted receivers well, so Kevin tucks the ball and sprints for the corner...extends the ball...and HE'S IN THERE FOR THE SCORE!

Now I'm gonna end this story here, leaving everyone with a victorious feeling inside, much like the triumphant Matt Leinart took USC in for the win on a final 1-yard run.





But didn't the USC kicker miss the extra point? These games were a little too similar in that regard.

Happy Birthday Langley

Today, my buddy Langley is 29, and since I was unable to make it out on Saturday to celebrate his old age with him, I figure I'll give him a shout out. Sorry, again about not making it out.

Place Your Bets: Week 6

Sorry about the lack of posting this week, I've been a little under the weather and the weather hasn't helped either. Anyway, gotta throw up my picks so you know who to bet against. Here goes:

Giants at Cowboys (-3)
Panthers (-1) at Detroit
Falcons (-5.5) "at" New Orleans
Vikings (+3) at Chicago
Redskins (+5.5) at Kansas City
Bengals (-3) at Tennessee
Jaguars (+3) at Pittsburgh
Browns (+6) at Baltimore: UPSET SPECIAL (+210)
Dolphins (+3.5) at Tampa Bay
Patriots at Denver (-3)
Jets at Buffalo (-3)
Chargers (-1.5) at Oakland
Texans (+9) at Seattle
Rams (+13.5) at Indy

I'm just hoping for an 8-8 week at this point.

Wow...This Weekend Sucked

Thank god it's Monday. This was arguably one of the worst weekends ever. Since it was pouring like a bitch all weekend, I didn't go out on Friday night. Then, all day Saturday, I just sat in my house and watch TV and played video games. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the dog was also opposed to going outside, and therefore shat in the house twice and pissed in the house once...that I've found.

Then, Saturday night rolls around, and since I was basically stir crazy, I demanded Amy and I go out for dinner just to get me outside. We went to Rock Bottom (and I am now a member of the Mug Club...$4 Mugs of their finest ales) and came home with the worst shits ever (yes, that is two shit references in only two paragraphs). Thanks, Rock Bottom. Needless to say, that kept me in for the night, even if I wanted to venture out into the wet and cold.

So Sunday rolls around, and because of all the rain, my football game is cancelled. Sucks. On the only positive note, we tried out Union Jack's for football watching after the debacle at Caddies two weeks ago, and I'd have to give it an overall positive review. The menu was much larger, as was the place, though they were a bit understaffed once the crowd rolled in for the Skins game (which was a ridiculous game). The waitress was also hotter than those at Caddies, so they've got that going for them as well...and there's free pool on Sunday in case the games really suck. But the real highlight for afternoon was the fact that Joe Jacoby's table was the one right next to ours. What a neanderthal...solid. Now, back to the shittiness.

So, I wake up this morning and look at my fantasy football games...losing all three. Hopefully, next weekend will be better. Langley's birthday on Saturday guarantees I'll at least get drunk...which is nice.

Place Your Bets: Week 5

Since I really stunk up the joint last week (4-10, bringing my total to 25-34-1) and since I just wrote a relatively long entry already today, I'm just gonna put my picks without any commentary, and will continue to refrain from "expert" commentary until my record returns to .500, which may never happen. Anyway, here goes:


BETS I LIKE FOR THIS WEEK:
New Orleans (+2.5) at Green Bay
Tampa Bay (-3.5) at NY Jets
Philadelphia (-3.5) at Dallas

UPSET SPECIAL:
Cincinnati (+145) at Jacksonville

MY OTHER PICKS:
Seattle at St. Louis (-3)
New England (+2.5) at Atlanta
Chicago at Cleveland (-3)
Miami (+2.5) at Buffalo
Baltimore at Detroit (-1)
Tennessee at Houston (-2.5)
Indianopolis (-14) at San Francisco
Carolina at Arizona (+7.5)
Washington (+7) at Denver
Pittsburgh at San Diego (-3)

I need to go 12-2 this week to pull back above .500. Well, at least I'm still a game ahead of Catheter Man, who's 24-35-1.

New Jeans

Let me just start by saying that all this rain really f-ing sucks. I have never seen so much constant pouring before in my life. And yesterday, I got to see it first hand. We had a couple guys call in sick yesterday, so once again I was out on the road and travelled down into DC to do a couple pools.

My buddy Kupe and I were working together and we finished up our first job without too much of a problem. We then get to our next job, which is a pool closing, and unload the 200 lbs. worth of stuff and get it set up pool side for the close-down. Well, about five minutes into my vacuuming of the pool, the rain begins. Within 3 minutes I'm pretty wet, 5 minutes I'm soaked, and within 10 minutes I might as well have been vacuuming from inside the pool. We run back to the truck and try to wait out the heavy rains, but when twenty minutes pass and the guy's front yard is covered in standing water, I think we need to call it a day.

We run like mad through the standing water to grab our pump and such from pool side, clean up the place and get out of there. My shoes and socks now have their own standing water in them. We make brief stops at our remaining jobs just to throw in some Chlorine shock so they'll be OK til Monday, then I drop Kupe off at his place in DC.

It's only about noon at this point, so I grab some lunch with my bro (after heading home to change clothes) and then decide it's time to get myself some new jeans.

You see, I don't tend to buy nice clothes for myself on a regular basis. I'm pretty content to wear Old Navy stuff that costs me about $10 each, and since my job requires I wear crappy clothing, I never have much of a need for anything better. Most of the time, I just wait til my birthday to pick up some of the nicer stuff that I wear out to dinner and to the bars. But today, I was gonna break the mold.

The last few weeks, I've been noticing that my old nice jeans are not fitting quite right, perhaps in part to my new McDonald's diet, or perhaps because they're all about 3-5 years old. The worst part about the old jeans is that they seem to be way too tight in the crotch, something that is definitely a concern when heading out. Constantly adjusting yourself probably doesn't sing too well with the ladies. Or you run into a problem that happened to me about 2 years ago.

At the time, I was living in DC with my buddy Greg. He had invited over his sister and a friend of their family, who ended up being pretty hot and had amazing boobs. Well, we head out to Lucky Bar that night and I'm wearing a pair of jeans that are hugging the boys just a bit too well. So, I'm getting drunk and when she wants to start dancing, I'm like 'What the hell' (I mean, I've done the running man in this place before, I think I can handle dancing with this chick)

So we're dancing, and then she starts grinding up on me. This is normally not an issue, but these damned jeans have my dick pinned down my left leg...and she's rubbing right on that. There's no time to make the adjustment and get the soldier out of there (as I mentioned above), so he decides to stand up and fight.

So, as I was saying, it's time to get some new jeans, so I head over to Lord & Taylor at White Flint Mall. This is a nice place and I actually got some shirts here a couple months back (I don't get Summer stuff for my birthday since it's in December) that were nice.

They've reorganized the place, but I eventually find the jeans. They've got a bunch of different brands and usually I would just grab two or three and get the hell out of there, but it's like 1:30 at this point and I have no idea what size I wear anymore, so I figure I'll try some on. Holy shit, I did not realize what a disaster this would be, and how different jeans are cut by each brand.

First off, I used to wear 34-32, but I guess that was just because jeans were made "Loose Fit" and "Baggy" the last time I bought some. Apparently, the McDonald's diet not only makes me fatter, but makes me shorter, as I ended up with 36-30 this go round. And this took about 5 different trips back and forth to the dressing room to figure out.

I now find the appropriate size and start looking at different styles of jeans. Most of the jeans look really gay now. One pair was pre-faded in the thighs and butt, and it just looked weird. Then, a couple other pairs had holes in them or about-to-be-holes. I've got a whole closet full of these from chlorine stains, and I really don't think that is a smart call as the holes just get bigger with each wash. Perhaps the pool man is the trend setter without me even knowing it. If Timberland boots with shorts comes into style in a couple years, you'll know who to thank.

Anyway, I finally get everything squared away and find some less flashy jeans. I'm ready to pay, when I realize I didn't look at the price tags. $110 for a pair of Kenneth Cole jeans!!!!! What the fuck!!!! No, fucking way. Those went right back on the hanger. Shit, for that price they better give me wood right when I put them on. I ended up with two pairs of DKNY jeans and a pair of Lucky jeans (these were a sentimental purchase, as I used to have a pair when I was 17 and they got destroyed doing pool work a couple years ago).

For these three jeans, I paid almost $225 and spent almost an hour in the store. And this is why I will not buy another pair of jeans for 3-5 more years.

Top 10: Sports Movies

With all the great sports going on right now, including the uneventful return of the NHL last night, and my recent watching of "The Longest Yard" on DVD, I felt I'd put up my take on:

The Top 10 Best Sports Movies
10. Rudy - There's something about a good underdog story that makes a great sports movie...and this is one of the best. The last scene always gives me goosebumps.
9. A League of Their Own - Call it a shitty pick since it's about women baseball players if you want, but this is a really solid movie. Tom Hanks is freakin' amazing in this and I would definitely consider it one of the best.
8. Major League - This is a staple of mine...I think I've seen it over 50 times, including the terrible made-for-TV versions. Wild Thing out of the pen is always a money moment.
7. Bull Durham - Most people would put this higher up, but I'm really not that big of a fan. It does have some classic baseball lines, especially the Costner speech about what he believes in.
6. The Natural - Again, this is one other people may put up higher, but I really think it's only the second half of the movie that makes this one great...plus the soundtrack.
5. Remember the Titans - I think as far as "movies" go, this is a great one...then add to that the football parts, and you're sitting in the top 5.
4. Any Given Sunday - It's a bit corny at times, but the football scenes and Pacino's speech about "A Game of Inches" makes this one a classic. Man, that speech is great.
3. Field of Dreams - Everytime I watch it, I just marvel at how great a story it is. It could just as easily be my #1 with these other two.
2. Miracle - This one doesn't get much respect, but I think it is one of the best team sport movies out there. The scene where the coach works them until the guy says he plays for the USA is awesome, and the Miracle on Ice is one of the best moments in sports to see on the big screen.
1. Rocky - This is THE underdog movie, and a sports classic. I don't care what anyone else says, this is my #1.



Getting this list to 10 was tough.

Ridiculous Bet: Yanks-Angels

Thoman bet me $20 that the Angels would beat the Yankees in the ALDS. Go Yankees.

McDonald's Monopoly

God, do I hate this stupid game. Every year, I feel compelled to buy McDonald's food just to get the game pieces. I don't even like hash browns and I got some yesterday morning. Then, today I won a free medium fries on my morning drink cup. So, of course we hunted down a McDonald's for lunch so I could use the freebie.

Unfortunately, you don't get a game piece with the medium fries and I don't really know how to order something without making it a combo, so I ended up ordering a chicken mcnugget combo meal (biggie sized for the fries with the game pieces) AND redeemed the free fries with it. Yeah, that is just too much food, and the fries tasted like shit by the time I got to them as well. So I ate like 10 fries. What a waste.

I plan to be over 185 lbs. by Saturday.

Busy Weekend

I feel my blog entries have lost their flair lately. Perhaps, I'm growing bored with writing stories, or more likely, I have nothing too particularly exciting to talk about. This weekend, however, was very busy for me from a sports point of view, so I'll drop a few of the highlights here, and possibly make a few bold predictions for you guys to mock related to the MLB playoffs.

FRIDAY NIGHT
Sadly, I stayed at work until 7 PM...not working, but playing the incredibly addictive game I had stopped playing years ago, Civilization III. Trust me, if you haven't played this game and you value your free time, don't start. If you have played this game, you understand my addiction. Anyway, I ran from there to my football game, where we pulled out a victory, though I didn't catch a TD for the first time this year. Perhaps it was because my gloves smelled like Big Foot's Dick since I left them in my bag with a sweaty T-shirt. Honestly, no one wanted to stand within 5 feet of me, which really helped in making us practice our no huddle offense.

Later, I headed down to Adam's Morgan with my buddies Jay and Ellis, along with two friends of Ellis's who used to live in New Orleans. Nothing too spectacular to speak of, although we did see a very forward and perhaps retarded Russian guy aggresively hitting on women while wearing his suit jacket inside out. For those who know the places I go to drink, the suit jacket alone is grounds for mocking him, then to have it on inside out (and it wasn't a fashion statement, unless "dumb ass" is the statement) was pure comedy.

SATURDAY
Went to the Nationals game with my brother and his girlfriend, as well as my parents and grandmother. Not quite the best crowd to go to a Saturday afternoon game with, but it was a family thing...gotta do it once in a while. The best part is that my dad refuses to switch Metro trains ("it's too hectic and stressful"), so instead of driving 2 minutes to the Grosvenor Metro by my house, he drives us all the way to New Carrollton (40+ minutes) so we're on the same line as RFK, nearly killing us when he almost went the wrong direction on Route 50. Yeah, that's not hectic or stressful?

SUNDAY
Went to the Redskins game (Yeah, 3-0!!) with my buddies, Kupe, Zack, and Scott, after our morning outdoor football game, where we won 13-12. Our first win of the season...finally. I bought new gloves, since the stank didn't go away on my old gloves, which I may now have to burn.

At the Skins game, it's always a freak show, but we definitely had the cream of the crop in our section. I really wish I had a camera, because my words alone can not do justice to the guy sitting one row in front of us to the right. He was probably about 6'2" 380 lbs. (fat pounds) and was wearing a 5XL John Riggins jersey that I don't believe has been washed since it was likely first purchased in 1983. This guy is so big that he overlaps into the two seats on either side of him, which is killing the guy to his left and forces him to vacate the seat in the second half. The best comparision I can give you is to think of a real life "Comic Book Guy" from the Simpsons. Classic.

The game was pretty exciting, as you can imagine, but the downside to any close Redskins game is that all 80,000 people leave at the same time...which translated into a 2+ hour trip back to Rockville. That's why I only go to one game a year.

AND NOW MY MLB PREDICTIONS:
NL MVP:
Andruw Jones

AL MVP:
David Ortiz

NL Cy Young:
Chris Carpenter

AL Cy Young:
Mariano Rivera (Yeah, that's right)

ALDS:
Red Sox over White Sox in 4
Yankees over Angels in 4

NLDS:
Astros over Braves in 5
Cardinals over Padres in 3

ALCS:
Yankees over Red Sox in 6

NLCS:
Astros over Cardinals in 7

WORLD SERIES:
Astros over Yankees in 6 (Yankees will score an assload of runs in the two wins though)

Yeah, I know. All the ESPN guys are picking the Astros, and I'm a Yankee fan, but Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens are ex-Yankees, and Pettitte is arguably the best playoff starting pitcher out there right now. Pitching wins championships, and they have the best staff out there...even against the Yankee lineup.

Artist's Rendering

This is my artist's rendering of me kicking my fantasy football opponent's ass this week (he started the smack talk but I can't put pictures on the site) Notice the fine details such as the fact that I am driving a Caddilac...like Williams, and the life-like facial features including blue tears. Truly a work of art.



Yeah, I have way too much free time.

Place Your Bets: Week 4

What a great weekend for sports! The weather is finally getting to feel like football should be played, and baseball is winding down. How amazing is the AL East and Wild Card race. As a Yankee fan, I am going nuts getting basically an extra best of 3 series with the Sox before the real post season begins. You can't ask for any better.

Add to this the winding down of the fantasy baseball season, and I am basically at my computer checking scores 20 times a night. I've pretty much locked down 4th place in my keeper league (too many injuries and a crappy Beltran left me short) and it looks like I'll win the 3rd place game in my head-to-head league, but in my Yahoo league, I'm in a dog fight with my buddy Thoman for first place...I'm down by one point right now, but I've got innings to eat and pitchers to eat them, with hopes I can get a few wins and gain about 3-4 points by doing so.

If you think that's not enough sports, I'm heading to the Nats game this afternoon with my family to hopefully watch them destroy the Phillies season, and then I'm heading to the Redskins game tomorrow to hopefully watch them move one step closer to the undefeated season.

Plus, I've got an outdoor football game tomorrow at 9 AM after playing and winning in my indoor football league last night. Hopefully, we'll rebound from our 20-20 tie last week, which cost us a chance at a three way tie for 2nd and instead leaves us in last place.

With all this going on, perhaps this excuses my poor performance in making my NFL picks last week. I finished with a record of 5-9, dropping below .500 for the season to 21-24-1. Thankfully, I only threw real money on the Cincinnati game last week, and that came up golden. Here's what we've got this Sunday:

BETS I LIKE FOR THIS WEEK:
Indianapolis (-7) at Tennessee: Steve McNair is banged up again and the Titans defense is definitely the worst one the Colts have faced all year. They have to cover the spread sometime.

Detroit at Tampa Bay (-6.5): Detroit is coming off the bye week, which makes this even a contest. Carnell Williams has been running the hell out of the ball, and Brian Griese has been terribly underestimated for almost a year now. Tampa is for real and should be able to walk through the Lions at home.

Seattle (+2) at Washington: Being a Redskins fan, this hurts me to bet against them, but they have really been lucky to win both their games this season and Seattle is not the type of offense that will let Washington squeak out a low scoring victory. I suspect we'll see a lot of Shaun Alexander, setting up some deep passes over the depleted Redskins secondary...and I'll be there to bitch.

UPSET SPECIAL:
I haven't gotten one of these right this season, so I don't even know why I try. There really isn't a great upset pick out there, so I'll go with the Jets (+280) to pull it out over the Ravens. This is going to be an ugly game, with two backup quarterbacks doing their worst. I have faith in Herm Edwards, though, as he seems to find a way to win every year with a squad that I feel is just a big pile of crap. Go Crap.

MY OTHER PICKS:
San Diego (+5.5) at New England: Tomlinson is real good and losing Rodney Harrison is real bad. Maybe the Chargers don't win this, but I think it'll at least be close.

Denver at Jacksonville (-3.5): I've been picking Jacksonville alot this year and I still like what they're doing on defense. Hopefully, their offense will look better than Kansas City did against the Broncos last week.

Houston at Cincinnati (-10): This spread is pretty steep given that Houston has had two weeks to try and remember how to play football. But they did forget in the first place, so I have to pick the extremely hot Bengals.

Philadelphia at Kansas City (-2): I think this is the week T.O. becomes a distraction on the field. Arrowhead is just too tough a place for me to pick against the Chiefs too, even off the short week.

St. Louis (+3) at NY Giants: The one week I suck it up and pick the Giants and they go and stink it up. Arguably the matchup of the two teams I dislike the most. I really don't care who wins this, so I'll take the upset.

Buffalo at New Orleans Saints of San Antonio (Pick): If the Angels can do it, why don't the Saints? In either case, the Saints need to win this game and with Takeo Spikes out for the Bills, they may be able to ride Duece for the victory at "home."

Minnesota at Atlanta (-6): The Falcons defense is not the Saints defense, so I think the Vikings and Daunte Culpepper will fall back to the shittiness we grew accustomed to in the first two weeks.

Dallas (+3) at Oakland: I'm sure Parcells was real pleasant this week after to the loss to the Skins and narrow victory over the crappy 49ers.

San Francisco (+2.5) at Arizona Cardinals of Mexico City: I knew it was only a matter of time before the NFL decided the Cardinals were too shitty to allow them to stay in the US. I guess it was the only way they figured anyone would come and watch this game. And just think, they'll play another one later this season.

Green Bay at Carolina (-7.5): The old Brett Favre would be a lock to shine on Monday Night, but the "old" Brett Favre is a shell of the man we used to watch...and the Packers look like crap. I hope he surprises me, he's such a gamer.

Let all the games begin.

Who wants a T-Shirt?

Nothing says "classy" like a homemade T-Shirt that says, "Place Vagina Here" with arrows pointing up and down. This one was made especially for my brother, who will be wearing this to the Maryland homecoming tailgate and game this Saturday. I'm sure it will prove to be a party favorite...courtesy of the J-man.

Ouch

This is why I should probably stop playing football twice a week. I would have to say I have never felt pain like I did when I decided that putting rubbing alcohol on these cuts would be a good idea.

Horrible Waitress

I'm sure everyone has a story just like this, so I believe you will be able to relate to my deep disappointment as I tell you about how a waitress ruined my Sunday.

As has been the usual for me since the football season(s) started, I get up on Sunday morning to play in my outdoor football game, then I head home to get cleaned up and head down to Caddies in Bethesda to watch the football games. In years past, my buddy Zack has had the Direct Ticket, so I've become accustomed to watching every single game on Sunday, and since I am in 3 fantasy football leagues and have a terrible gambling problem, I always have some team to root for. Prior to the season, there was much thought that was put into deciding where to watch the games, as Zack had moved to Philly, taking away the Direct Ticket with him. In the end, we decided on Caddies.

The main advantage to Caddies was that there are three easily visible TVs in the back room, along with a good shot of the other 6 TVs in the front room. Plus, it is one of few sports bars we could think of where we could get an actual comfortable seat, as opposed to a stool or high chair (I really don't feel like sitting in a stool for 5 hours after playing football).

So the decision was made and the first few weeks were exceptional. The food was not the greatest, but the service was good and the waitresses were pleasant (and somewhat hot) and most importantly, they kept our glasses full and made sure the TV was always playing football.

That is, until this Sunday. Kupe and I roll into the place and assume our usual table, but for the third week in a row, we are greeted by a different waitress. No biggie, I'm not partial. She comes in and takes our orders and all seems pretty well. The games have not yet started, and the TVs are showing the Presidents Cup and 2 ESPN Pre-game shows. This is fine until we realize it is gametime, and nothing has changed.

We get the waitress's attention and tell her what we'd like to see on the TVs, to which she gives us the always pleasant, "God, I hate Sundays." Uh, OK. That's a bit of a downer. You know what I hate, negative commentary when I'm about to enjoy 1/17th of the greatest 4 months of the year. But I digress.

She finally gets the games on two of the TVs, but the Presidents Cup is still on the big screen. We assume that since it is Caddies (of golf terminology) they are sort of required to show golf, so we don't make that big of a fuss...but there's really no one else in the place. Then magically, one of the TVs changes channels to something crappy. And the waitress is no where to be found. 10 minutes later, we flag her down and tell her about the issue, to which she now gives us the even more pleasant, "Don't you guys have anything better to do?" Uh, OK. That's a bit of a downer. You know what, I do have something better to do, it's called watching football and drinking beer, and you're the one stopping me from doing it.

Why we didn't get up and leave at this point is beyond me. It's not like we were being rude or not ordering anything. We both ordered lunch and I had already had one beer and a soda by this point. Plus, we drop about $100 a week in this place every week, and for once, aren't actually obnoxious in a bar setting. But I digress.

We continue to watch the 1 PM games, my brother arrives and gets himself a menu (she's no where in sight) and orders some food and a beer after a nice wait. After he finishes his food and realizes it's gonna be a nightmare to get the girl's attention to pay for it, he drops me some cash and heads out.

There's still about 2 minutes left in most of the games, when I finally see the waitress again. She comes over and as I'm about to order another beer, she gives us the warm, "So, you guys all done?" Uh, OK. Apparently, I fucked this girl's mother and urinated in her bed before burning their house to the ground in a past life. No, we're not done. There's still the Steelers-Pats game (the game I really wanted to see) at 4:15 PM, so get me a beer. She brings me a beer and disappears as usual. (I didn't really say that...that would be grounds for her attitude, but I'm taking the high road for once, instead)

And that's when the 1 PM games end... and the 4 PM start... and there are 3 screens of "NFL Scoreboard" on. Fuck this. I locate another waitress (the one we had week 1, and who has been pleasantly waiting on people on the other side of the back room all day) and ask her if we can get our check. She prints it out for us and we get the hell out of the there. We probably could have just walked out, if we never planned to go there again, but I enjoyed the first two weeks and hopefully I'll never see "Meredith" at my table again.

This much I will say. If I walk into that bar and she's the waitress for my table, I'm going somewhere else.


And then we find out that Flanagan's is closing in two weeks...talk about a shitty Sunday.

Place Your Bets: Week 3

Well, Week 2 was a slight bit better than Week 1, but I would really like to see some improvement in the picks I'm actually putting money on...I haven't gotten one right this year. Fuck. Anyway, the totals for last week were 8-7-1* (I didn't write about the Pittsburgh game for some reason, but I got it right on Amy's office picks, so I'm taking the Win...bite me). On the season, that puts me at an unimpressive 16-15-1. Still on the positive side, so let's look at this week's matchups:

BETS I LIKE FOR THIS WEEK: (You should probably bet the opposite)
Carolina (-3) at Miami: Carolina proved they are still one of the best, winning against New England last week. The running game looks strong and the defense should have little problem stopping the Dolphins.

Cincinnati (-3) at Chicago: The Bears are still a crappy squad, I don't care what they did to the Lions. Cincinnati, and Carson Palmer, have looked nasty thus far and I see that continuing for at least one more week.

Oakland at Philadelphia (-8): I just don't think Oakland has really made that big of a step forward with the additions of Lamont Jordan and Randy Moss. Their defense is still garbage and Philly should easily win this one by 10 or more.

UPSET SPECIAL:
As much as I hate to do it, th e Giants (+220) have looked very solid and have more than enough weapons to take down the Chargers. Eli has a lot to prove, going to San Diego where he refused to play, and this is the perfect time for him to show it. I still hate Shockey though...I hope he breaks his leg dancing after a touchdown.

MY OTHER PICKS:
Jacksonville (+2.5) at NY Jets: The Jets have looked like crap thusfar and Jacksonville's defense was able to hold Peyton Manning to 10 points. They should pull this one out.

Tennessee (+6.5) at St. Louis: I don't necessarily think Tennessee will win this game, but Mike Martz will find a way to keep this one close and the Titans will cover the spread.

New Orleans (+3.5) at Minnesota: I've been on the anti-Vikings train all season and it should continue to disappoint.

Cleveland at Indy (-14): This is a big spread to try to cover against the always surprising Trent Dilfer (didn't they say his starting record is something like 22-7?), but Indy has a lot of pent up offense waiting to shoot out after a 10 point showing last week. They could score 50.

Atlanta (+2.5) at Buffalo: Haven't I picked against the Bills every week? Why change now?

Tampa Bay (-3.5) at Green Bay: I wonder if they Bucs have ever been favored in Green Bay when Brett Favre has been a starter? I think it's justifiable this year...man, does that defense suck.

Arizona at Seattle (-6.5): The Cardinals have absolutely no running game, a terrible defense, and Kurt Warner as their quarterback. I still think he could have a good season this year...especially playing from behind all the time, but this one should be Seattle's game...by 7.

New England at Pittsburgh (-3): The Steelers are arguably the best thing going right now, and they get to replay the AFC Championship game that ended their Cinderella story last year. Yeah, I think they have a bit more pushing them in this game.

Dallas (-6.5) at San Francisco: I'm glad the old San Fran squad reared its head last week. Let the losing continue...and the era of Alex Smith begin.

Kansas City (+3) at Denver: It's always tough to play in Denver, but I have to stick with the Chiefs until someone proves they can stop the two-headed monster of Priest and Diaper.

BTW, Diaper is the new nickname to be used for anyone in your group who doesn't yet have a nickname. Trust me, it's very catchy after a few disappointments. DIAPER!!

Top 10: Just Pointless

This Top 10 List is brought to you in part by my buddy Pogue, who brought up three of these points during football watching on Sunday at Caddies. The topic is different, but the points are the same. I hope you enjoy the:

Top 10 Most Pointless Things People Do
10) Leave your hand on the stick shift even when you're driving an automatic - I'm pretty sure you're not going to need to quickly put it in park, justifying the move
9) Clap and cheer at your favorite sports team while watching them on TV - To quote Pogue, "I'm sure they can hear your support and are really getting fired up about it"
8) Talk or clap while watching a movie - This is more a pet peeve, though if you ever watch a movie in "certain" theaters, it is definitely an interactive experience. I'm sure that's what the director intended. And as for clapping, Pogue adds "I'm certain the movie theater relays your response directly to the director and production company." Morons.
7) Women refer to their friends that are women as "girlfriends." - This is not really necessary, we don't tell you that we're going to play poker with our "boyfriends" tonight. That's just gay.(Again, a Pogue contribution) This does, however, continue to support my theory that all women are, in part, lesbians.
6) Look around before telling an inappropriate joke - I think the look around is the international symbol that an inappropriate joke is about to be made, you ain't fooling anyone.
5) Push the elevator button more than one time - I'm sure it has a sensor inside that speeds up the elevator with every new push
4) Pretend to not like the movie "The Notebook" even though it is really a treasured addition to your DVD library, to be watched again and again - Huh?
3) Duck when you drive into a parking garage with a low ceiling - I'm sure your car gets lower when you do this, so as long as you duck down, you won't hit the roof.
2) Purposely set your alarm clock 10 minutes fast - Hey jackass, you set it, so you know you have an extra 10 minutes!
1) Spend anywhere from 1/2 hour to an hour writing posts on a blog that only 15 people read.