Bloggerated

The Record Store

2012-02-11T03:05:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago, I had the itch to go to the record store. That hadn't really happened in a while, because going to the record store requires having money to spend, something I really can't justify doing with bills and a child to take care of. But on that day, I just felt like going. So I grabbed a few old CDs to trade in and headed down to Grimey's.

I brought seven CDs with me but they would only accept three of them for trade in, which netted me a cool $9.50 in store credit. I used the money to buy Balance and Composure's CD, Separation. I ended up only paying like, a buck sixty out of my pocket for a brand new CD. This was the second new CD I have bought in at least 13 months. I just don't buy (new) CDs anymore. That's why I brought in some old discs to trade in, because I have so many CDs laying around, and a computer to hold all the songs on in iTunes, I don't need the physical copy of N.E.R.D's album Fly or Die anymore. Might as well turn it into something I actually want, if they're willing to take it, right?

Anyway, what brought me here to Bloggerated today was not to tell you the story of selling off my CD collection, but to talk about a lie I spewed to the nice people working at Grimey's. I remember the last time I went to Grimey's. I went there with my brother when he visited us back in May. When I walked in, I talked to Josh, a guy who works there, and I was happy to see he remembered me. Anyway, I had little baby Evie with me, and of course, he asked about her. I said to him, "yeah, I haven't been in for so long because of this little one."

Not true.

I hadn't been into Grimey's for 8 months because of Spotify. I hadn't bought much music from anywhere because of Spotify. Now I know that I've written at length before about the plight of the music industry and my desire to single-handedly keep it afloat as the way we know it. Album sales create revenue for artists and bands to create more great albums and sustain a living. It is no fault of these artists that people have decided to devalue their work by stealing it off of the internet, which drove album sales to the floor. Sometimes I get frustrated when a musician is fatalistic about album sales, saying it doesn't matter because they don't make money off sales, they make money from touring and merchandise sales. If no one buys your music, what's the point? You need proper albums out so people can come to your show. Without it, no one knows who you are or what you're singing about. Make a great record, and people will be there at the shows. So when it comes to not caring if people buy your music, no one is gonna hear it if you don't make it. If no one buys it, no one will want to make it.

Anyway, I told Josh at Grimey's that I hadn't been in because I had a kid, which wasn't true. All the great albums that came out last year were conveniently streaming on Spotify, that's really why I hadn't been in. I didn't need to drop ten bucks on a CD at their store anymore. It makes me feel guilty because these guys at Grimey's have one of the best places in the world right there, and they stay afloat when people go in and buy stuff. If no one buys records, they go away. Thankfully, people in the area have realized this without my help, because they were on the news a few weeks ago saying that 2011 was a banner year for them. Okay, good. Phew. Don't need to worry about that then.

I'm conflicted about Spotify. It's the only way I can listen to a lot of music I otherwise would just wonder if it was any good or not. Now I know. There are so many good albums, and they're all right here for my listening pleasure. But when I think about owning some of it, I just think, "why bother anymore?" I don't need the physical copy taking up space in my life. But there is that collector in my bones that tells me that I need to own it. I need to feel it and look at the real artwork on the cover. I need to support these bands, financially, and I really can't go to the shows anymore, not with a kid at home. Sure, Spotify pays artists on a per play basis, but from what I know, it's like, pennies. Okay, so Spotify is better than stealing, but it's also damn near stealing.

Do I wish I could own every single one of these great albums in my Spotify bookmarks? You bet. How many have I actually went out and bought, whether physical or digital? Three. Only three. And total actual dollars spent on them totals less than $10. (One was a 3 song EP, one was the CD I mentioned above, and one was on sale or dirt cheap from AmazonMP3)

So I lied. I hadn't not been into Grimey's because of the kid, I hadn't been in because of Spotify. And part of me says that's okay, you spend money on more important things like food and clothes. The other part of me misses the process of going in and buying stuff. Spotify is great because it has allowed me to fall in love with some great music. I hate Spotify because it has taken that great experience away from me. I control my own actions here, but I can't say no to listening to something for free. I'd rather listen to it and feel a little guilty afterwards. In 2012, I'm going to try to find a balance. If I truly love something, musically, I'm going to go buy it at Grimey's. Because I enjoy it.

Also, #firstworldproblems

The Movie Groundhog Day Was A Really Good Idea

2012-02-02T08:48:00.002-06:00

This is probably the worst bit of writers block I've experienced as a blogger. Well, this I guess this would be the worst bit of writers block I've ever had then, because I've never really written before the blog. Well anyway, I don't know what to write. I haven't known what to write for a while. I feel like now that people are paying attention, this has to be good, and I just don't have any good ideas. I could probably pound one out, like I'm currentlly doing, but I just don't have anything new or interesting to write about.

I figure now that it's February, I should get it together. So that's why I came here, just to say that I'm sorry that I don't know how to write, I guess. One thing I'll say, you need to ask yourself, January is over now, how was it? You'll need to remember how it was at the end of the year when you ask yourself how 2012 went. Remember the big things and write them down. For me, January was marked by visitors. We had people in the apartment for like, a total of a week and a half, which is always nice. I'd chalk up January as a win.

Hey, here's a topic! It's groundhog day! Don't you think it's brilliant that the makers of the movie Groundhog day made their movie the way they did? I mean, every year, we're talking about this movie. It was funny, but there were a lot of funny movies throughout the years. It's great! The Groundhog saw his shadow this morning so there's six more weeks of winter, which if it's like it's been, weather-wise, that's okay with me. It's been super nice this winter, and I'll take more of it.

So yeah, that's all for today. I'm happy I wrote something. I hope you're happy having read it.

Get Rich Quick Scheme

2012-01-21T00:30:00.000-06:00

I've come up with a great idea. Okay, so you know how it's nearly impossible to win the lottery? I know it because my mom has bought a ticket for the lottery for every drawing for years and hasn't won anything yet. I know that it only takes one time to be a winner, but the odds are pretty steep. You can't win if you don't play, but playing can get discouraging.

So I've come up with a plan. You see, I actually live on the same street as Tennessee's lottery office here in Nashville. So this idea makes sense to me because the travel is minimal. Anyway, here it is.

Okay, someone won a bunch of money by winning the lottery, they have to go to the lottery office in their state's capitol. (at least that's where the lottery office was in Michigan and that's where it is in Tennessee.) What's one thing you would do if you won the lottery? Buy stuff, sure. But I'm sure you would be generous in giving some of it away, don't you think? You win the lottery, you go to the office, they give you your money and you couldn't be happier! You want to do something good with your new found fortune. As you exit the lottery office building, you see a homeless man, looking sad and disheveled, perhaps even holding a cute little baby. He's just asking for some spare change from passers-by. Well hey, you just won millions of dollars in the lottery, let's give this poor homeless man a fresh new start. Here's a pile of dough, young man. Spend it wisely.

Bam.

You need to increase your likelihood of actually coming across a fresh new multimillionaire and convince them to give you money without actually asking. That's why you have to hang around the lottery office. Everyone that wins the lottery in Tennessee has to go through those doors. If you look sad enough, I'm sure those happy new rich folks will throw you a bone, right?

So that's my scheme to get rich quick. Don't just beg from the regular folks on the street or your family members. Beg from the lottery winners. Duh! You might not have the millions you would have if you actually won the lottery, but you will have something. And people win the lottery all the time! There are millions of people in Tennessee. Someone is going to win some sort of lottery on a regular basis. And as I said above, every single one of them has to walk through those doors.

Something tells me this isn't going to work, but if you need me, Evie and I are going off to rub some dirt on our clothes.

Freshly Grated Parmesan

2012-01-12T18:08:00.003-06:00

Tell me when

Ever eat at an Italian restaurant? I mean, c'mon, who hasn't? Italian restaurants are great, in my opinion. I love Italian food for it's butter and garlic and bread and pasta and all of that. I'm sure I've been eating a rather Americanized Italian food experience most of my life, but I can't say for sure, I've never been to Italy. Well anyway, one thing I've noticed at Italian restaurants that I've eaten at, is their offering of freshly grated Parmesan and that awkward moment of them doing the act for you.

Okay here's the situation, you've downed your appetizer, you drank a glass of wine or beer, perhaps you ate a salad, and now you got your delicious main course set in front of you. The server turns to you and asks if you want freshly grated Parmesan on your food. "Why, yes, that sounds great!" you exclaim. So they whip out the white grater thingy and start a-turnin' the handle with the instruction "tell me when to stop." They start and it throws down a little on top, and you feel like you should say "okay, that's enough." But I don't want them to stop. Heck, I'm paying for this meal, I want my moneys worth. Keep going, Parmesan grinder. After a few twists, I think they expect you to say stop so they sort of slow down, but you didn't tell them to, so they keep going on, wondering if it will ever end. Is there a stopping point? What amount of Parmesan is too much? I love Parmesan cheese, I want a lot. If you put the can of it in front of me, I'm going to use the hell out of it. But when someone else is in control, you feel that you have to say "when" even when that's not as much as you would like. Although, I must admit, I've never gone longer than just slightly longer than what you would consider normal, I always want to just let them keep on grinding just to see if they will pull the plug on the operation themselves. They say they want you to tell them to stop, but everyone knows there is an unwritten amount you're supposed to accept, even if it's not enough. I want my free cheese.

Know what I mean?

Taco Bell. I Approve.

2012-01-08T09:16:00.001-06:00

I held off writing this post for 24 hours because I didn't want to type this up on my iPhone. Well, I need to do something to keep me awake right now, so here I am, pounding away at the touchscreen.

Let's talk about Taco Bell. Man, I don't care what anyone says about that place, I love it. I know it's not the best quality food you can buy, I think everyone know that, but I really like it. Heck, even I refer to it as "Toxic Hell" most of the time. But I think it's delicious. One thing that makes it appealing to me is the variety of foods I can choose from, being vegetarian. Most places have very limited meatless options, but not Taco Bell. You can pretty much substitute the meat with beans or rice or both on the majority of the menu for no extra charge. And it's dirt cheap. You can get stuffed on a couple bucks. It's great.

When you order your food, they often ask of you want any sauce. Taco Bell offers three sauce packets to choose from: mild, hot and fire sauce. I like the heat of fire sauce but I prefer the hot sauce because it has a better flavor than the fire. My question is, who requests mild sauce anyway? I mean, sometimes they'll throw in all three, and you're like, "okay, I got this mild sauce, I guess I'll use it." But what's the point? It just tastes like cumin (even though cumin is not listed as an ingredient, which makes you wonder a bit.) I mean, it's okay, but with the other sauce choices, why mild? I guess that not everyone likes hot spicy stuff, and sometime you wanna add a little extra flavor to stuff without all the heat, but it doesn't taste very good. And if you don't like hot, spicy food, maybe you shouldn't be eating "Mexican" food to begin with? I try the mild sauce on my food every time I get a packet, and I am consistently disappointed. But at the same time, I don't want the mild sauce to go away, because it has this mystique about it to me. The weird mild sauce. If the mild sauce went away, I'd be as disappointed as I am in it's flavor.

I should utilize the fact that I live right around the corner from a Taco Bell more often. Then when I get my food, hope they throw a mild sauce in the bag, which I will use on my burrito, and then be disappointed for the 40th time. Taco Bell. I approve. So good.

(they a little mad at them right now though because they took my favorite item off the menu, the cheesy bean and rice burrito, but whatever. Still good stuff)

Vloggerated! The Trip Home!

2012-01-03T21:51:00.001-06:00

2011 and on into 2012

2012-01-01T04:11:00.000-06:00

I decided not to do a big series of posts talking about my favorite albums of 2011 this year, mainly because I didn't feel like there were many that qualified. That's not to say that I didn't listen to some outstanding tunes last year, but I just didn't feel like going into detail how much I loved them here in this space. I think it's because 2011 was such a different year in general, listening to music, while always a major part of my life, just sort of took a back seat in importance for the first time ever.

Obviously, 2011 will always be remembered as the year my daughter was born. Nothing tops that, not only in 2011, but in my entire life. But on top of that, there were a few other highlights throughout the year that stand out to me, clearer than ever before.

I want to give a lot of the credit to the Project 365 app for my iPhone. With that app, I was able to write up a summary of every single day of this past year. I believe I wrote about that before, but it's something that really helped me mentally chronicle what was 2011. After going through the app (or apps, as I bought the pro version in mid April), reading up what I wrote everyday and looking at the picture I posted with it, I get the sense of what was important to me on a day to day basis. Looking through it, what I learned is that I must have really liked it when Evie took a nap, since I pretty much mentioned it at least five times a week. I also really enjoyed hanging out with my friend Sean. He's pretty much the only real friend I have here, so it's always nice when he comes around, even if it's only for a few hours a couple times a month, and we really don't do anything special. It's just nice to have a friend sometimes, even if you don't do anything.

Another obvious big event of 2011 was going home twice. Once in February and once just last week. I think going home the second time didn't have the same wallop effect on my brain and conscious that the first one had. I mean, the first trip home was the first time I had been back to the place that was all I had ever known in two years. The second time, it was only 10 months after the first visit, but it meant more in different ways. My family got to meet/see Evie. I mean, all of our families got to see her and spend time with her. Both trips home were truly special in their own ways.

I'll forever look back on 2011 as that year where everything in my life changed, just like in 2009. But I also hope I never forget just how much NHL 11 I played and how much time I spent emotionally invested in the Nashville Predators. I think that's something, that mindset, would have been lost if it not for reviewing my Project365.

If you want to look through my year (at least since mid-late April) you can go there and check it out. Some of the notes I left are really only meant to be understood by me, to jog my memory of the certain events. The comments might not make much sense to you. In fact, I bet somewhere in there, there will be some things written that you will interpret to mean something totally incorrect. But, nonetheless, if you want to check it out, go here. I also hope I didn't write mean things about people... If so, I was just being honest, alright?

I think I should also mention what a big impact Spotify and Google+ had on my daily life. Spotify allowed me to discover so much new music, and all free and legal. Well, legal, but perhaps not "fair." That's a whole different blog post, however. Also with Google+, the Hangout feature allowed me to see my friends and family a lot more often via video chat, which is a wonderful thing.

Oh, and as far as that top music/albums of 2011? I guess I could list a few. These are the best albums I heard this year, in no particular order.

The Swellers - Good For Me
Manchester Orchestra - Simple Math
Balance and Composure - Separation
Aficionado - s/t
blink-182 - Neighborhoods
City and Colour - Little Hell
Childish Gambino - Camp

And lastly, this blog. During 2011, I transformed from bradperala.blogspot to bloggerated.com. I tripled my views on my posts by embracing sharing what I wrote to my friends and family. I used to want this to just be a place where I wrote stuff down and maybe 10 people would read it. I wrote a post a few weeks ago that got 250 views in one day. I'm actually getting paid to do this, albeit a very small amount, and I haven't even received a dime yet but it's accumulating.

Yes 2011 was a great year here at Bloggerated, but I want this space to grow even bigger in 2012. I just have to really focus on doing that this year. I hope to provide entertainment to everyone within this space, and I'm planning on working hard in the next 12 months to achieve that. All I want is to share what I like and what I think about, and I hope you can dig that and come back for more. If so, bookmark me, man. I try not to overwhelm people with stuff, but I'd like to remain on your radar, if you know what I mean.

And lastly, but not leastly, I want to thank my lovely wife for always being there for me. Without you, I am nothing but a walking sack. I would be lost, and I would be a totally different person if it wasn't for you, and not in a good way. You are the best person, and I'm thankful I get to spend everyday with you. If there was ever a blessing, it's you.

But seriously, go listen to those albums, everybody. At least the first six I listed there. It's good stuff, I promise. I wouldn't steer you wrong, my friends. Here's to 2011, and hopefully a wonderful 2012 as well.

-Brad

Trip Home Update!

2011-12-27T22:18:00.001-06:00

Just wanted to share a few pictures with you. I'm remembering to take a lot of pics and videos while I'm back home. So far this trip has been excellent and we're really having a good time.

Okay, anyway, here ya go!

Yoo-Hoo and 88 Fingers Louie

2011-12-24T22:39:00.003-06:00

Well, I was about half way through a Midnight Shift Security Officer's Night Before Christmas poem post, but I decided that it was turning out to be decidedly unfunny, so I deleted it. Mostly, the problem I had was trying to rhyme the word "Caremark," which wasn't working out to well, and that was in the first line of the thing. Well anyway, it's Christmas eve, and I'm at work. I'll make no bones about being at work and blogging right now, because, well, there's nothing going on and I don't have anything to do right now anyway. But how about a story?

About 9 years ago, I was smack dab in the middle of a Yoo-Hoo kick, where all I wanted to drink all day was Yoo-Hoo. I was a total addict for a month or so in there. So I remember that year having a couple Yoo-Hoo's in tow as we went to all the houses of relatives around the area on Christmas eve. Also, instead of listening to boring old Christmas music while we drove to all the houses, we listened to 88 Fingers Louie's album Back On The Streets. Well, somehow, the events of that Christmas 2002 ended up being repeated every Christmas eve until we moved to Nashville. Now, whenever I hear this album, or drink a Yoo-Hoo, it reminds me of Christmas. It's my little tradition, and I always forget to buy Yoo-Hoo until it's too late and all the stores are closed. At least I have half of the tradition going on as I'm jamming Back On The Streets here at the desk tonight.

Okay, well that's all for now. I'm going to play some air drums and wait for Santa to land his sleigh on the roof of Caremark. Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas.

Vloggerated!!!

2011-12-22T16:49:00.002-06:00

The Crying Baby Flight Fright

2011-12-22T13:03:00.000-06:00

There are a few questions that I have that are involved in heading home this coming weekend(!). Some of which are the mundane, like, should we take this laptop? And even if we do, will there be WiFi? I'm sure that is something I can look up or make a quick phone call to find out, but I just don't know. But the bigger question involves the travel day itself. First off, we're going to take the bus to the airport. It's the cheapest way we can get there, because parking the car is too expensive and Taxis are very much too expensive around these parts. I'm not looking forward to riding the bus with a baby and luggage, but we'll save a buck or two in the process, and my lovely wife, who is experienced with the MTA bus system thinks it will be okay, so I'll trust her judgement. But what time do we have to catch the bus? How long is our bus ride going to take? Again, these are questions I can look up the answers to. The bigger question is, how will baby handle buses? The whole trip, from getting on the bus to getting off the plane, it's going to be a long day. Baby takes pretty scheduled naps, these days. I hope she can catch some Z's on one of our shoulders. I mean, she'll have to.

But speaking of how will baby handle stuff, my second big concern I have is the actual plane ride. I had the same anxiety about having a baby in the car for a 10 hour car ride, and that turned out to be just fine, because she is an awesome baby. But babies don't know how to cope with the changing pressure of takeoffs and landings of airplanes. It can be uncomfortable, and when babies are not happy/uncomfortable, they cry. Now, I've heard of a lot of people that have complained about having to be stuck on a plane with a crying baby. I feel really bad that I'm going to be that guy (not the annoyed guy, the guy with the crying baby). It's most likely going to happen, and I feel the urge to stand up and address the problem with my fellow passengers before we takeoff.

"Hey guys, I know it's sucks to be stuck on an airplane with a crying baby, and I'm sorry you all have to go through this, but honestly, who doesn't have noise-canceling headphones these days? I mean, c'mon. Slap em on and let's get to where we're going, already."

We're probably going to annoy some traveler, but you know what? That sort of comes with the territory of flying with other humans, dude. I can't help that my baby is crying, okay? You're gonna have to get over it, because there is nothing you or I can do about it.

Look at how defensive I've already gotten about this? The plane doesn't even take off until Sunday afternoon and I'm already defending our right to cry on airplanes. Besides, your anguish of having to deal with a crying baby is nothing compared to the thrill we have of traveling home for Christmas. So suck it, irritated traveler. You are no better than anyone, and your problem with crying babies is just a reflection of our own misery that you don't have a family, or anyone that loves you. I mean...I'm assuming.

I'm so excited to go home. It's going to be great. Maybe baby will live up to her reputation of being an awesome baby and just be chill the whole time. It would make the day a lot easier if she does.

See you all next week, folks. (literary)

Vloggerated 12-20-11

2011-12-20T22:43:00.001-06:00

The Mystery Note

2011-12-18T05:26:00.001-06:00

For a few months, I've been collecting music project name ideas in a note on my iPhone. If a cool-sounding name for a project/band would strike me, I'd jot it down so I wouldn't forget it. Within that note, at some point, I had written "Scott Walker- The Drift." I don't remember writing this, but I know me, and I like to do that sort of thing so I can go check it out later when I have more time. So every time I open that note I see that written there but never looked into what it was and I forgot why I wrote it. So today I went to find out what needed to be saved for later.

As I said, I don't remember what made it so special that I had to write it down, but it must been something musical that I wanted to ripoff with my music project. I have done that before with other songs that struck a chord with me. So I assumed that "The Drift" was a song whose melody or structure I wanted to subtly steal.

I copy and pasted the words and headed over to the iTunes app. I chucked on my headphones and pasted those words into the search bar. It came up with not a song, but an album, released in 2006. I hit the ol preview play button on track one.

What is this? This is terrible. What on earth is this?

So I skipped to the next song, which just played some noise before the song kicked in and again, more weird. Track three was more of the same. Why did I write this down? Is this a prank on my future/present self? Did I feel inspiration by this because if this exists, I can have confidence to make my own music, because it can't worse than this?

As I listened on to more previews, it became apparent this was the weirdest, creepiest shit I had ever heard. It's just absolutely strange.

I don't remember why I wrote that down, but I now know this, Scott Walker made some terrible yet strange "music." I mean, at least it's something different, but this is way beyond me. Check it out sometime. I hope this wasn't someone's favorite music ever and I'm ripping it, but seriously, what the hell? It sounds like a high-pitched Elvis singing shoegaze.

Editors note: here's a pic showing that I apparently don't know shit about what's "good music"

Supervised Friday Musings

2011-12-16T15:54:00.002-06:00

man, this kid kinda looks like me

You know how hard it is to write with someone looking over your shoulder? That's happening right now. It's like, a deeper level of scrutiny than normal. It's like, I know when I'm writing a post that someone will eventually read it. Hopefully, a lot of people will read it. But when someone is right on, literally, on your shoulder watching you as you type, it's even harder.

So I flipped my sleep schedule a bit so I can attend a Christmas party today. I stayed up all night long last night, and it was pretty difficult to do. It was a real struggle not to just lay down on the couch and fall asleep, but I knew that would be a really bad idea. Normally, I stay up late on Thursday nights and get very little sleep, so I can take a nap Friday evening before going into work. Well, this evening we have to go to a Christmas party, so I couldn't be napping at that time. So instead, I stayed up until 6 a.m. this morning.

I did it by just messing around on the computer. It's amazing how much time I can waste doing pretty much nothing at all. I did nothing creative. I did nothing to advance myself or my personal wealth or health. I did absolutely nothing useful, I mean in the grand scheme of life. It was useful to me that I removed a bunch of crap music from the iPod. Okay, that needed to be done, but not needed to be done. I spent 6 hours in the middle of the night doing nothing at all.

So now I'm awake, and I'll be awake for the next 23 hours or so. My lovely wife supervised this post from begining to end. She just told me my second paragraph of this post is "crap." I would normally change it, but for the purpose of this particular post, I'm just going to leave it. It really is crap, now that I've read it. This is why I have a wife. To read what I write and tell me it's not so good, so I can improve.

Have a fantastic day.

Green Christmas

2011-12-15T10:49:00.000-06:00

I have to say, it's pretty hard to get into the Christmas mood when it's 70 degrees. Last night as I was walking the dog in shorts and a t-shirt, I had to stop and remind myself that it's the Christmas season. It felt more like spring or early fall to me. Now this isn't some kind of bragging, you know, like, "ha ha it's warm here be jealous you northerners." It's just a fact that it's still weird to have a "green Christmas" every year.

Technically, if I remember correctly, last year we actually had a white Christmas here in middle Tennessee, but it's not like home's white Christmas. There was a dusting on the ground, and so it was technically white, it's just not the same as trudging through ankle-deep fresh snow going into a relative's house. It's just hard to remember that it's Christmas when it's 70 degrees outside. That's all I'm saying.

Right now, my lovely wife is wrapping little baby Evie's Christmas presents. It's rainy and warm today, and even though it's not a beautiful spring day like yesterday, it's still sort of feels like it. It does not feel like December here. So to make sure it felt like Christmas here in our little apartment, I've hooked up this computer I'm typing on to the stereo and have Pandora playing Christmas music. I also turned the tree lights on. Everything helps, but's I have to make a real effort to stay in the Christmas mindset.

Another thing that was a reminder yesterday that it is indeed the middle of December, it was 70 degrees, but the sun was going down at 4:30 p.m. That sort of thing just doesn't happen on the days it's supposed to be warm.

So I'm trying to be in the Christmas spirit, but it's just hard when there's
no snow and when you don't need a jacket and stuff.

Shredder thinks he's presents

Taylor University's Silent Night Tradition

2011-12-12T12:00:00.000-06:00

College Sports have many great traditions throughout out all sports, but there is one, a tradition from Taylor University that has to be one of the coolest ones I've ever seen.

On the Friday before finals week, everyone gets all dressed up in pajamas and heads out the the Taylor U basketball game. At the game, they stay dead silent, no cheering, or whatever. But once the 10th point is scored for the home team, the crown explodes. It's amazing to see. Here's a video!

How cool is that, eh? Man, that looks like a blast. Plus afterwards they go to a Christmas party and the President reads a Christmas Story, and they eat cookies and Santa is there, and all that jazz. It seems like a nice thing for the students to break the ice and the tension before finals week. I thought this was one of the neatest things I've seen. Hope you enjoy it.

Vloggerated 12-11-11, A Week in "Review"

2011-12-11T23:33:00.001-06:00

So I threw together a video tonight of crap that I collected this past few days, both pictures and videos. I threw this together while drinking some adult beverages and a bit sleep deprived, as I have been awake for over 24 hours at this point. Well, without further ado, here's my latest video, Vloggerated.

A Dad Who Cloth Diapers

2011-12-06T11:53:00.001-06:00

What was my mindset when it came to cloth diapering before our daughter was born? That it was an outdated form of child care. I felt that with all the advances in diapers made by Pampers and Huggies and all the rest, why would you cloth diaper? What is this, 1947? Why would you do that?

Before the baby was born, I had absolutely zero experience putting a diaper on a baby. I had never done it. In fact, I had to have the nurse at the hospital show me how to do it. I had no idea. So when my wife said we were going to use cloth diapers, I was pretty hesitant. I can't even put this disposable on her, how can I put a flippin' cloth diaper on her, with all it's folding, and pinning and all of that? Why did we have to make it so difficult?

Let's take a look at an image form Hollywood for a minute. In the movie Back to the Future 3, Marty McFly goes back in time to 1885. Shortly after arriving there, he coincidentally runs into his distant relative, Seamus McFly. After sleeping off getting his head hit on a fence and being knocked out, he awakens to meet William McFly, his Great-Grandfather as an infant. When Marty meets him, he holds him up and says "So you're my Great-Grandfather. The first McFly born in America...and you peed on me."

You see, baby William McFly was wearing a cloth diaper and it only took about 10 seconds to get peed on with that cloth diaper. This is the only visual of cloth diapers I had ever had. But after learning about it, I learned that that scene in this modern day is a total misconception. I mentioned above how I was aware of the advances in diapers that the major corporations had come up with for disposable diapers, but what I didn't know (because there were no TV commercials telling me so) was that the advances in cloth diapering were just as impressive.

I spend the majority of the time home with baby, because my lovely wife, who has the college degree, goes off and makes the real money. I work part time on the weekends to help make ends meet. What this means is that I'm the one who's home with baby most of the time. I have gotten a whole lot of practice in it over the past 7 months. But that doesn't mean that I'm a master of cloth diapering. Without the guidance of my wife, I would be lost. She did all the research and decided that cloth diapering is the way to go. So as far as me being the one trying to convince someone that you should cloth diaper your kid, I'm not going to be all that effective. I can't "own" someone in the cloth v.s. disposable debate. I really don't know enough about disposables to have that debate. What I can say is I know how it has been beneficial to us and our particular situation.

First off, if you don't own a washer and dryer, you probably won't want to do this. You will be doing diaper laundry often. With our stock, we do diapers about every other day. We have a stack of prefolds (a type of cloth diaper) that we use, and I don't even know exactly how many. But if you don't own a washer and dryer or have one withing a short walking distance, you will find cloth diapering very difficult, I believe. There are several different kinds of diapers, all with their own names. There are flats, prefolds, pockets, all-in-ones, all-in-twos, and probably even more that I've never heard of. We have all of these types listed above except flats, but our good friends in Lansing swear by them. Anyway, most of the time she gets a prefold, which is basically just a sheet of cotton with a thick part in the middle. Once you learn how to put it on, it's pretty simple, really. They stay attached with a thing called a snappy, which is like a elastic band with three ends and plastic teeth that hold into the cotton. You cover the actual diaper with a waterproof cover that snaps or Velcros together. The cover is formed into the shape of a diaper, and as long as you have the cover on right, there should be no leaks. No pins, nothing like that. Super easy. It's just like putting on a disposable, only you have to attach the snappy, and you have to do a bit of folding under the butt to make it form into a diaper shape. What is to be afraid of there? I don't really want to get into the different types of cloth diapers here, because this is running long, and you can find that information very easily across the world wide web.

Weather you use cloth diapers or disposable diapers, you will eventually get poo on you. That's one thing I've learned from all moms and dads. Before our daughter was born, I was pretty grossed out by the thought of getting poo on me, but I think that because little baby poo is such a different consistency than adult poo, it makes it not so bad. Just don't go eat any hummus after changing a poop diaper. Some people have an issue with having a bag or bucket of cotton covered with human poop sitting around the house. Yeah, I can't blame you there, but it's better than filling landfills with disposable diapers. Those never go away, I mean in the grand scheme of the Earth. But poo diapers are really easy when they're little. It just washes out. You don't have to deal with it until they start eating solids, because when you eat solid, you poo solid. So you just swish it around in the toilet, big deal. (actually, the swishing is my least favorite part, but when you take a step back and think about it, it's not that big of a deal, really. Get over it.) Sure, you have to use a special laundry detergent when washing cloth diapers, but you use such a small amount, it's really not that bad of an expense. I figured our water bill and electric bill would go up when we started doing laundry every other day, but to be honest, I havent' noticed. Now, I don't manage the bills, because if I did, we wouldn't have lights or internet due to lack of payment, but from what I've gathered, there really hasn't been much of a difference. Our shopping bill hasn't risen due to buying packs of diapers all the time, that's for sure. One less thing to worry about at the store.

All in all, putting on a cloth diaper is absolutely not more difficult to master than putting on a disposable. There is a price to pay up front to get all the supplies you'll need to get started, but it eventually evens out, and while I don't have the numbers, it has got to be cheaper than buying diapers all the time. Another thing to consider, have you ever experienced a baby with diaper rash? I have, once. Once. She has only gotten diaper rash one time, and it was horrible. From what I've learned, babies who are in disposable diapers get diaper rash all the time, and they hate it. As a parent, the last thing you want is a screaming, unhappy baby on you hands. That's what you get when you have a diaper rash baby. Cloth diapered baby = no diaper rash = happy baby. That's a big deal, in my opinion. I highly recommend you give this a serious thought, because it's probably not what you think it is. I hope I could clear some misconceptions about the whole thing here. I'm not an expert, I'm just a dad. I can only say that my experience with cloth diapering has been very positive. If you're a dad, or expecting to be a dad and you're wife of girlfriend wants to do this, give it a shot. It's just a better way of taking care of your kid. Isn't that what we all want?

Spare Change?

2011-11-30T15:31:00.001-06:00

Sometimes a little change can go a long way. I found that out back in 2006 when I saved change in a piggy bank for a year. After a year of dropping my pocket change into the piggy bank, I ended up cashing it all in for around $250. I was able to finance most of a trip to Milwaukee to see my beloved Atlanta Braves play. It's amazing how it can add up and you don't even notice it.

But these days, I don't ever have any change, because I don't use cash anymore. I know there are banks that will round up your purchases to the nearest dollar and put it in your savings account, which would be amazing, but I don't think our bank does that. I should ask.

Anyway, in the age of plastic, there are things that are definitely out of the question as far as purchases are concerned until new technology comes along. I've always wondered why they don't have card swipe things on vending machines. I mean, I can go the corner store and buy a coke for a buck and a half and use a debt card, why can't I use a vending machine the same way? I mean, there are just some things where you need cash, but I don't ever, ever have any. They have card swipe things on gas pumps, don't you think they could use similar technology? Perhaps it's not worth the cost to implement it? But I digress, per usual...

Like for instance, I always feel weird paying for something with a card at the Farmers Market. I mean, they're out there selling vegetables in a tent, and you want to swipe plastic? It just feels strange. Like, I should have cash in that situation. Also, things like parking meters and whatnot, you need change for it. So I have a bit of small change in my car in case I'm in a situation where I need meter fare. Boom, taken care of. But basically, I never have cash amounting to over a dollar.

I guess they have ways to pay for donations to the Salvation Army and their red buckets at this time of year, but I haven't seen it yet. I think I saw on the Thanksgiving day football games, during the halftime show with Enrique Inglesias, they had Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys dropping a bit of change into the bucket, and then they showed someone swiping a card along one of those iPhone/iPad card swipe thingies they have. I was like, "okay, first off, Jerry Jones is a billionaire, he can afford to drop in more than a handful of change, and secondly, I doubt that the dude waving the bell down the street at our Kroger has an iPad with a card swipe thing. Granted, I didn't look, but somehow I doubt it. So if I'm gonna donate, I gotta get some cash, which never happens.

So I hope that card swipe thing works out, I mean for the Salvation Army. I think people would use it. I would be a bit paranoid about it, but that's just me. Cash is simpler. I just don't have any. I really hope they put card swipe thingers all over the place. I would spend more money, which is bad, but it's just easier.

Vloggerated: 2010 Clip Montage

2011-11-29T14:16:00.001-06:00

Now, don't expect this video blog stuff to continue everyday like this, but right now, while I figure out all the things I can do with Windows Live Movie Maker, I'm going to be doing this often. I really like that I can make these things, because I've never been able to do this sort of thing before. So it's not going to continue everyday, but I think I'll be doing this often.

While today's video is finishing up it's upload, I decided to actually write words here today, which is a nice change for a minute until the video is ready.

I was going through the videos we have stocked up on this computer and I noticed we have a lot of footage of us hanging out with our old friends Dave and Erin. Now for one reason or another, we're not really friends anymore, but while making this video I was thinking back to the good times we had, and I miss it terribly. You'll see some of that in the video, I suppose. So, without further ado, (didn't I say that the other day, too?) here's today's video. It's got cameos from all kinds of people. I think it's pretty good for about 45 minutes of work.

MOM IS YOU WATCH THIS VIDEO, DO IT ON MUTE.

Vloggerated: The Shopping Cart Escalator

2011-11-28T17:39:00.001-06:00

Bloggerated Presents... Vloggerated!!!

2011-11-27T21:56:00.001-06:00

Yeah, that's right, I've unintentionally ventured into the world of video blogging, or vlogging. This is the first installment of... oh, who the heck knows if I'll actually do more than one of these. This damn thing took 2 minutes to record and 5 hours to upload. That's just precious internet bandwidth I can't afford to be giving up all the time. But hey, I'll try. I also hate vlogs, so there's that.. But without further ado, here it is. Enjoy.

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 4: Going Home

2011-11-26T01:37:00.001-06:00

So the Thanksgiving trip has come to an official conclusion with us returning to Nashville earlier this evening. Technically as of this writing, it was yesterday, but we all know what I mean by "earlier this evening." The final day of the trip consisted of us waking up far too early and packing up all our things. After the goodbyes were said, and a few tears from grandma, we set off for Nashville at around 8 a.m. Eastern time. We got on the road and things were going smoothly, and then...they continued to go smoothly until we got home. There was no trouble on the ride home at all. Little baby Evie slept just about the entire 11 hour trip, after sleeping a solid 7 or so hours during the night before. Can you imagine sleeping for 18 hours? That's what my little baby did today. I didn't think she would sleep the whole time and I figured she would get fed up with the car after a short while, but that never happened. About an hour outside of Nashville she woke up and was starting to get fussy, but it was time for her to eat, so that solved that. I can't believe how well she did.

As I said, the drive home took a little longer than Google maps says it should take. That's because we stopped a few times and took our time getting back into the car when we were finally ready to continue on. We had to stretch out the legs, both canine, infant, and adult alike. Somewhere in northern Indiana, we stopped at a Burger King to eat. After letting the dog go pee, we put him back in the car by himself, which I have never really done before, and if I have done it, it's been years since I did. I was worried he was just going to freak out and bark at everyone that walked past, so we sat at a booth where I had a clear view of the car and the dog. If he was going to misbehave, I would be able to see it. I was surprised to see that he just laid down, at least I couldn't see him, anyway.

So inside the BK Lounge, we needed to change the baby's diaper, but there was no changing table in either bathroom. This is odd, as every restaurant and store these days has a changing table, at least in the ladies room. We asked about it, and someone said the manager or whatever didn't want to have a changing table in their place of business because of the "liability." Are you serious, bro? That's ridiculous. So, like any good parent we just changed her right there on the booth. Screw you, hick Burger King, in your hick town.

One pretty cool thing about this Burger King was that they had this Coke machine for your fountain drinks that would dispense not only Coke products, but also flavor mix-ins, whatever you wanted. I got a cherry, vanilla Coke Zero. It was pretty cool. It said there was over 100 drink combinations you could make out of the thing. I hope that they get this machine at every Burger King. I though that was a really good idea.

As we were eating, we put a crown on Evie's head and took pictures. It was around this moment that I realized that Bowser was being such a good boy in the car, he must be getting into something he shouldn't. This is also when I remember that left a bag full of Thanksgiving leftovers on the floor of the front seat, right where he is sitting. Suddenly, visions of mashed potatoes and stuffing and gravy strewn about the floor of the passenger seat of our car started flashing across my thoughts, and I figured we better hurry up and go check on him. Thankfully, he truly was a good boy and just laid on his bed on the passenger seat and waited. If nothing else this trip helped me understand that our dog has matured and is actually a pretty good dog. Bowser of 2007 would have been a nightmare on this road trip. He basically handled everything well, and that's more than I expected.

As we drove through Kentucky, both Bethany and I were so sick of being in the car, but obviously there was nothing we could do about that. We just trucked on, and made it home with enough time for me to take a nap so I could come into work and be slightly refreshed. While on the drive I watched the sun rise and then set again. That's always weird to notice. I mean, the sun rises and sets everyday, but you usually don't notice it if you're indoors. This was the first time that I can remember that I actually drove through Kentucky in the daylight, at least most of the way. We stopped at a Dairy Queen for a diaper change and a snack. It got dark out while we were in there, so the rest of the trip was in darkness. It was odd to stop when we were only about 100 miles away from home, but I needed a break. We all did.

It's funny because I remember thinking at about the time we were crossing into Tennessee, that this whole thing sucked so bad and I was miserable in the car that long. But now as I sit here thinking about it, I think to myself "it wasn't that bad." Overall, the trip went extremely well. It gave me confidence that we can travel with this family and everything will be fine. There was some uncharted waters that we had to just endure, and everything went smoothly. Will it always go smoothly, traveling with this family? I doubt it, but at least this gives me hope that it won't be such a nightmare, and don't avoid traveling altogether in the future out of fear of hell in a Ford Focus. It was a wonderful trip, and I can't wait to do it again.

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 3

2011-11-24T11:07:00.001-06:00

There is just something about the comfort of being at my parents house on a fall/winter holiday. Now, my moms house is not necessarily home, as I didn't grow up here and she only moved to Big Rapids, MI in 2008, it's still my moms house. When I'm here, I sleep better than anywhere else on earth, that I've found so far at least. It smells like cinnamon and spices and stuff, just like our house home did while growing up, so that helps, I think. My dog like it here because it's a bit more open than our little apartment back home. There are four pairs of hands to hold a increasingly heavy baby, which is nice. The refrigerator and pantry are filled with food, unlike my house.

It's not like it's a super nice, new bed that we sleep on when we're here. It's an old bed, and it's really not that comfortable, actually, but I sleep so hard every time we're here. Another thing that's neat about being here is she lives in an area where there is no neighbors. I mean, they are around, down the street a little ways, but you can't see them and they can't see us. When I was walking the dog last night, I couldn't help but notice how dark and quiet it was out there. Living in the city, I never see stars, except for the very bright ones. As I walked the dog last night and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed the stars beginning to appear, peaking through the partly cloudy skies. You forget how many stars there are if you never see them anymore.

Another thing about being outside here in Big Rapids is that it's actually cold outside. 22 degrees is way to cold for my new southern blood. I had to borrow a jacket, which is a fantastic 90's Columbia jacket that actually used to belong to my brother. It's pretty ugly, but when there is no neighbors and no traffic, no one will see me, so I really don't care. Here's a picture of me wearing that jacket.

So, now the gross turkey is in the oven, (well, I'm sure it's tasty if you eat that sort of thing) but I would have to admit, it smells pretty good. There are a lot of things cooking right now that smell great. Some chick just sang the national anthem for the Packers Lions game, and I couldn't be happier right now. I have to go enjoy this day now. See ya later.

Thanksgiving Trip pt. 2.5...Pictures

2011-11-22T08:51:00.001-06:00

I think it would be okay to post pictures here every so often, don't you think? Here's some pictures of Evie and Vada that I took yesterday.

Thanksgiving Trip pt.2

2011-11-21T11:59:00.001-06:00

Let me drop by and say that everything is great. We left Nashville at around 11 central last night and arrived in Lansing at about 8 eastern. So we did the supposed 9 hour drive in 8. Pretty good if you ask me. It was totally uncharted waters, and we pulled it off without a hitch.

Baby fell asleep right away after we left the house and slept for just about the whole time, except for when she got hungry.

There was definitely a moment in Indiana, somewhere in the middle of it, where I lost interest in watching the road. I was just sort of bored with the whole thing. I know I shouldn't admit to such things with such precious cargo in tow, but I was just over with the whole paying attention to the road thing. I started to fist pump to keep the blood flowing and keep me awake, which surprisingly worked very well. Also, there was a convenient free preview of Sirius satellite radio going on right now, so I had a very wide assortment of tunes to choose from, which made the drive very, very tolerable

Overall, it was a very easy drive. Even though it was in the dark, I never missed seeing scenery. It was just a little boring, but not the worst drive of my life, by any means.

So now we're here in Lansing, hanging out with our good friends and comparing babies. Theirs is a bit older, but they're still cute little babies.

Here's Evie eating a bowl

Thanksgiving Trip Pt. 1

2011-11-20T03:14:00.001-06:00

24 hours from the time I am writing this, I will be out of the state of Tennessee. This will be baby Evie's first trip away from home, and it's a doozy. I think the farthest she has traveled away from our tiny apartment has been Cool Springs, which is less than 20 miles outside of Nashville. We are going to my moms in Michigan for thanksgiving. Thanks to my schedule, I am able to take five days off and travel without using any vacation time, so that's excellent.

We are going to drive overnight because I'll be coming off midnights, where I stay awake anyway, so
It makes sense to travel this way. Plus the added benefit of light traffic on the roads because it's the middle of
The freakin' night was a deciding factor. Also, its possible that we might get to travel with a sleeping baby for the majority of the trip. I've never driven through the night before though, so I don't know how my body and brain are going to react or with any certainty how baby Evie will fair. I've got a good feeling though, that I know myself well enough and my happy baby well enough that we'll be just fine.

Another issue with our thanksgiving itself is my vegetarianism. There is an amazing company out there called Quorn, and they make meat replacement foods like chick'n nuggets and meatless balls and things like that. Well, they also make a turkey roast that I've eaten on thanksgiving the past two years. Only problem is I haven't had a chance to go pick one up before we go. Their website says it's not sold in any stores near my moms house, so we have to bring one if I want one. I'm not sure it's going to happen, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I know one thing, I'm sure as hell not eating turkey.

So a week in Michigan. I hope to keep regular updates while there, maybe even while on the road? That would be fun. Of course I won't type while driving. Do you really think I'm that reckless?

(any huge autocorrect typos in here, I apologize for. I didn't see any in my quick read through, but I probably missed at least one. Sorry about that.)

Here's a picture of baby Evie holding a pizza crust like a cigar.

Take Pills

2011-11-15T14:15:00.001-06:00

This is a buspar

After reading an article about drug abuse problems in rural areas of the country, it recalled an incident that happened to me sometime around my freshman year of high school. There was this dirtball kid around town, let's call him "Jimbob" for the sake of anonymity. I think he probably was a nice guy, but he had a reputation of being a troublemaker. Anyway, one day, I was hanging out, minding my own business when I saw him and a friend walking around as well. We both knew that both of us smoked cigarettes, so we had a bit of a connection because of it, therefore I guess we were acquaintances, I suppose. So, while we were talking and probably smoking cigarettes, he tells me he has this drug that he or someone he knows takes to correct a lazy eye, and if I take one, it will make me feel amazing. He said the pill was called a "Bushpar." In the days before Google, I just had to trust him that that was what this drug really was. But, I couldn't confirm it, because it was just a little white pill. He said "Are you going home after this?" I said I was, so he suggested that I don't take the pill right now because he figured if I went home, I'd be all messed up on this drug and he didn't want me to get caught by my parents. So he suggested I shove in in my pocket and take it the next time I had a few hours to kill.

I did just that. I stuck the pill in my pocket and walked home. I never told anyone, not even my closest friends that I had this pill. I couldn't shake the feeling that he was playing a joke on me or something and if I took this drug, something terrible would happen to me, like going into a coma or something. I carried that pill around in my jeans pocket for about a week, fiddling with in in my pocket, thinking about what ill effects or what sweet effects it would have on me if I took it. I kept in the back of my mind something that my dad had always told me, that my dad had pills in his medicine cabinet that if I took trying to get high, would stop my heart. He had pills that would drop my blood pressure so low that it would put me in a coma. He had all of these to make him better, yet I had this unknown pill in my pocket that was supposed to make me feel great. What if Jimbob was wrong? What if this killed me?

I threw the pill in the trash, because I was afraid to take it. I had never heard of a "bushpar" so I didn't know if he was just making up a name for some pill that I shouldn't really be taking. (turns out after searching for it years later it's actually a buspar, and it's an anti-anxiety medication) I was tempted to take pills, I was given it out of the courtesy of an acquaintance but I said no to drugs, mainly because I was to scared of the unknown. I guess my dad taught me something.

An App For That

2011-11-13T03:09:00.001-06:00

Jesus Christ there's an app for blogging? Sorry, didn't mean to take the lords name in vain there, for those of you that get offended by such things. But remember before how I said I could blog from my phone and I thought it was the most badass thing that humankind had come up with this far? Well now there's an actual app that I can type this nonsense up with. Pretty damn handy if you ask me.

I've attempted to insert a picture to this post here, but I'm not sure where it's going to put it. Well anyway, that's a picture of my activity for the past 24 hours. A dead computer and a good book from the library. I want to thank my good friend Tagan for the suggestion. It's actually a pretty good book, even though the thing started with a bunch of nonsensical explanations of characters that I wasn't entirely sure I needed to know about. At any rate, the book picked up a bit, even if it's still not clear what the plot is or what the purpose of this books existence is just yet. I'm nearly done with it, by the way.

I want to give a shutout to spellcheck, more specifically autocorrect. From the looks of things, I'm a perfect typer on this touchscreen, when in reality I'm pretty much just mashing my fat little fingers on the screen and somehow, this bastard knows what I mean. It's pretty incredible.

So, that's whats up. It's 3 in the morning and I'm blogging on my iPhone. I did not expect this to be my life at 28. Honestly, I've pounded this thing out faster than I wrote some posts on a traditional keyboard. Guess I am pretty good at this iPhone typing thing.

266 Hits and Counting...

2011-11-10T15:20:00.000-06:00

I feel as though I did the World Wide Web a serious injustice by writing a post a few months back titled "Instant Netflix v.s. Hulu Plus." I felt that if I wrote this piece, and then titled it something that I knew people were eventually going to Google, I was probably going to get some page hits. Little did I know that I was very right. I got page hits alright.

A typical post of mine, depending on how hard I promote it, gets about five and thirty views. Not this Netflix post. To date, it has gotten 266 page views. I'm sure that's a very small number to other sites and stuff, but for me, someone who wants readers and wants people come keep coming back, that's a big number.

The problem is that the post itself was so non-informative, I feel embarrassed about it. I didn't go through the pros and cons of each service as clearly as I could have, and thus, making it a real hard read. I know that people came to that post for a reason, they wanted a clear cut answer to the question, what is the pros and cons of these services. Now, I did answer that in the blog post, but the post was so full of opinion and other diatribe and meanderings that it made it useless to a reader. If I happened upon that page when looking for answers, I would have closed it after the first paragraph.

So I didn't expect people to actually read what I wrote, but they did. It makes me realize that when I go fishing for hits by titling a blog post something that I know will be Googled, I need to make sure the post is actually relevant to what people will be searching for...or, it should at least be entertaining and funny...that would help, I suppose?

Who am I kidding, I've never really been funny on these virtual pages, have I?

A Shameless Plea

2011-11-09T12:56:00.001-06:00

Do you see that up there? Right at the top of this post, right above what you're reading right now? That's my feeble attempt at begging. Yes, why not beg? You see, just because none of you have ever tried it, as neither have I tried it before just a few days ago, doesn't mean it's not going to work and it doesn't make it wrong. What it makes me is shameless. I know that all of you readers desperately want to support the blog without having to buy all that stupid merchandise I am selling on my side bar. Who really want's any of that anyway. But what you really want to do is support me and the things I say and whatnot.

This is a donate button. Yes, you give me money, I give you my presence, both physically and on this here blog. The less donations, the less content, got that?

Here's why that button exists. On Sunday night, I was just hanging out by myself here at the apartment, and I got to thinking about just how expensive it might be to fly home for Christmas. You see, the family has plans to go to the great northern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, our place we call home, for the holiday season. At one time, the tickets were actually moderately priced. Damn near cheap, actually. We failed to lock up tickets at that time, and as the date has grown closer, the cost of a couple round trip plane tickets have skyrocketed. Now, it's not that we we're necessarily paying for these tickets out of our pockets anyway, as some of you may be thinking. Parents were planning on giving a gift of flying home for Christmas as a Christmas gift itself. But as the cost is so high, I thought it would be a good idea to chip in ourselves, and this is where you all come in, and donate.

I always feel that if I ever announce that I'm doing something, like going to a hockey game next week, then beg for you to give me money to fly home, it all seems a bit like I'm doing something wrong. I know, it really doesn't look good on my part. But the truth is, no discounted hockey ticket will make a dent in the cost of these plane tickets. I also seriously doubt that begging for donations is going to help either. But do you know just how much effort went into creating that PayPal donate button up there? Next to none. So I can ask, it doesn't mean I expect anything.

However, if you want more quality posts, unlike this one, you better start donating, jack. I mean it. That's the only way I can afford to do research for the posts I write, or something.

So that's the fact. I want you to donate money to me and my family so my little girl can meet her family then donate if you have the heart. If you don't donate, you don't have one.

Daylight Savings Time

2011-11-06T08:45:00.001-06:00

This is this guy's only job.

I think it's only fitting to talk about daylight savings time for a minute. I wasted a perfectly good story about my personal experience this morning with daylight savings time by posting it as a Facebook status. Honestly, it was such a brief encounter, a Facebook status makes sense instead of an entire blog post. Also, I think that it was way funnier to me than it actually was as a story to tell your friends. Anyway, if you don't like to read Facebook very often, as I don't like to do, basically, someone showed up to work an hour early this morning and couldn't get in the doors. For the people that work here, there is a section of time where their access is restricted (I think it's 12:30 a.m. until about 5:15 a.m.) So when I told her she couldn't get in because it was to early, I found it hilarious, even though it's really not all that funny.

I think I find if funny because I have always been afraid that I will also make that same mistake. One of these days, I'm going to forget to set my clocks back or forward and I won't realize it. It only happens twice a year, so I mean, what, I've only seen it happen 56 times in my whole life. That's not a whole lot of times. I've checked into the Kroger down the street from my apartment on Foursquare in the past 6 months more often than daylight savings time has occurred in my entire life.

But daylight savings time, oh what a weird thing we do. Set the clocks back an hour in the fall, because we couldn't possibly stand to have all that sunlight in the evenings for four months? Daylight savings time was put into place in the 70's during the oil crisis to save fuel. If you don't have to turn your lamps on in your house until 9 o'clock instead of 8 o'clock, you will have your lights on for a shorter period of time before you go to bed, thus saving the amount of energy your house is sucking up. Also, I'm pretty sure that the plan is that if there is more daylight in the evening, that equals you most likely to staying out shopping instead of heading home when the sun goes down. Arizona doesn't observe DST, for the logical reason that it's hot as all Hell, and the last thing they need is more sunlight and heat late into the night. That makes sense to me, because people sleep better when it's cool. If the sun goes down sooner, the sooner it gets cool in your house. But why oh why did Indiana opt out for all those years? Just to be dicks?

My problem with DST is that in 2007, they extended it an entire month longer, making it from early to mid March until the first Sunday in November (today). Okay, that's 237 out of the 365 days in a year that we are on a "special" daylight savings time. A mere 127 days we're on "standard" time. Why not just shift the whole thing to always be on "daylight savings time?" I mean, now that it's switched, it's going to be getting dark here in Tennessee at around 5:30, I think. That's ridiculous. And by Christmas, it's more like 4:30, and it's pitch black outside. There is no reason for that, in my opinion. Especially after extending it back in 07, it's a blink of an eye that were on this so-called "standard time." It's not a special thing if DST last two thirds of the whole year. Might as well make it all of the time. I think it would help everyone out. There would be more business activity later into the day and there would be less seasonal depression due to lack of sunlight.

Another problem I have with "daylight savings time" is that we're not saving any daylight, there is no such thing. It's just darker in the morning. There is still the same amount of daylight, it's just not out when it's convenient for you people. Extended evening daylight time would be the appropriate title for this event. Who are we saving this dreaded daylight from, anyway? But hey, we saved some daylight for a while, and it was fun, but now it's time for daylight wasting time! That's what they should call it. Daylight wasting time.

Feeding Baby

2011-11-04T10:34:00.000-05:00

om nom nom

When it comes to having a baby, as she gets older, I realize that she is a human being. I mean to say that I always knew she was a person, just the baby version, but I mean certain things change as she gets older. For instance, she is getting old enough to eat solid foods, instead of just jamming a bottle into her mouth and filling her up. The thought that when I make food for myself, pretty soon I'm going to have to cook something for her, too. I've been a bit resistant to giving her solids lately because she means she's getting older. I'm pretty sure I've written before my fear of her getting older, but all the while knowing that that's how life works. So many people have told me that they grow up fast and you need to cherish the days of when they're little and sweet. I know that this won't, no can't, last forever, no matter how little solid food I give her.

When I give her food, it's this strange feeling of providing nourishment. She needs me to do that for her. I feel powerful, like I'm important. When I give her a bottle, It's just, you know, fill 'er up so she stops crying. No, not that extreme, but there isn't a connection as I get when I'm shoveling rice cereal into her mouth, or when she's munching on a stick of root vegetable. Basically, it's just different. As hard as I want her to say as a little baby forever, for a number of reasons, I can't change it.

So the little girl is graduating to solid foods at a rapid pace and it's a little scary. If I'm scared about her eating food, how am I going to react when she goes to preschool, or kindergarten, or even a daycare sometime. It's enough to drive a loving dad crazy. The reality is that if I want to make more money with a better job, she'll probably need to be in daycare. So, I'm not getting a new job so I can be a daddy more. I'll eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so she can have the best, and have her daddy holding her.

Alright, so that's it. She's starting to wake up now, she's happily cooing into the monitor right now, so I gotta go get her. What a cutie.

The Basics of Ice Hockey For A New Fan

2011-10-23T12:39:00.001-05:00

I have been tasked with a very intriguing predicament. I guess I never thought about it, but how does one explain the game of hockey to someone who has very little knowledge of the game? How do you explain it? Here, I will try to explain hockey as best as I can, from the basics to the more intermediate level. I can't go too deep because I'm afraid I don't even know all that much. Again, this is a post about the the game of hockey, in general. If you don't want to read this, you don't have to, I won't take offense. (ed. It's also going to end up being really long)

First, the really basic stuff. A hockey game consists of three, 20 minute periods. They are not quarters or halves, obviously, but still because other sports use quarters and halves, people sometimes don't think and call it quarters. There are five skaters on the ice per side, and one goalie per side. The skaters consist of three forwards (who try to score) and two defensemen (D-men, blue-liners) (who can also score, but are more focused on not letting the other team score, as the name defensemen would indicate.) If you commit a penalty, and there are a variety penalties to commit, you get sent to the penalty box for either two minutes, four minutes or five minutes, depending on the type and/or severity and/or discretion of the referee. When a player gets sent to the penalty box (the box) the team on which he plays for must play with only four skaters until the penalty time runs out. This is called a Power Play (PP) for the team with the man advantage, and a Penalty Kill (PK) for the team with the man in the box. A goal is scored when the puck passes completely across the goal line into the net. The net is a 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide and some other measurement deep. The start of play (both the start of a game or period, or also after any stoppage of play) is done with what's called a faceoff, where the referee drops the puck between two opposing players, who fight with their sticks to gain possession for their team. yada yada yada. The team with the most goals after 60 minutes of play wins. In the NHL, if there is a tie after three periods (regulation) there is a 5 minute overtime period, where each team plays with only 4 skaters (4 on 4) and the first team to score wins the game (sudden death overtime). If after the 5 minute overtime, there is no goal scored, it goes to a "shootout" where each team takes a turn having one skater attempt to beat the goalie one-on-one. In general, hockey purists hate the shootout, even though it's pretty exciting to watch as a fan. They say that a hockey game should not be ultimately decided by a glorified skills competition. Anyway, I digress...

This is going to be long, isn't it?

Offsides. There are three zones to a hockey surface. The attacking zone, the neutral zone and the defensive zone. Your teams goalie is in the defensive zone, and you wanna score on the attacking zone. When the team in possession of the puck skates down to attempt to score (on offense), the puck must cross the blue line into the attacking zone before any player of the attacking team does. So basically, you can't have a guy go down and stand next to the other teams goalie and wait for a huge, end to end pass and score. This is one of the more confusing rules, I've found, to new hockey fans. Also, icing.

Icing is when the puck gets shot (cleared) by a player in his own defensive zone all the way down the beyond the red, extended goal line on what would be his attacking zone. Does that make sense? Also, a player on what was on the attack has to go back and touch it for it to be icing. If a player who was on the defensive goes down and touches it first it negates the icing. The more I talk about icing, the more confusing it makes it sound. Basically, you can't fling the puck down to the other end of the ice when you're on defense. If you do, the faceoff comes back to your defensive zone and you can't execute a line change (change players on the ice). Any questions on this just ask me. That's really hard to explain.

Speaking of line changes, an entire hockey team usually consists of about 20 skaters and one starting goalie and one backup goalie. Typically, one goalie plays an entire game (unless he gets hurt or pulled (replaced) because he sucks). Players change on the fly, meaning there doesn't have to be a stoppage in play to change personnel on the ice. Teams usually consist of "lines" or groups of three forwards that are accustomed to being on the ice together (sort of a mini team). Also separate from the forward lines, there are usually pairs of defensemen that are on the ice together, but don't necessarily change when the forwards change. Linemates can get mixed up, it's okay, but a good strategy is to have the three guys on one line out there together, as they are used to playing together, and would have better chemistry, but it's not against any rule to just have any player out there along with any other player. Your first line would typically be your best players, but not always. The skill level of the players on each line decreases as you go from line one being your best and the fourth line being usually the guys who are lower skilled (plugs, grinders, muckers), but are needed to give the good players a break. When a line is out on the ice, it's called a shift. Shifts are usually short, and line changes happen frequently, so there is always fresh players on the ice (as often as possible.) The fourth line is where they stick the guys who fight, as well.

Fighting is accepted, in the way that if two guys engage in a fight, the refs won't break it up until one guy falls or if it's clear the fight is over. There an automatic five minute penalty (major penalty) for fighting, but since both teams get penalized, they just continue playing the game at five aside with they fighters in the box. This season there has been debate in whether fighting still has it's place in the game, since three different active players who are considered fighters died this past offseason. Anyway, everyone generally likes a good hockey fight. There is a great site dedicated to fighting called Hockeyfights.com.

Um...other tidbits: Between periods, the ice is "cleaned" by a machine called the Zamboni. Ice gets pretty chopped up by all the skating during the period, so the Zamboni comes out and lays down a fresh layer of hot water, which freezes, making a nice, new smooth surface. Um, the "original 6" teams are the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers. The Canadiens have won 24 Stanley Cup championships (the league championship trophy) which is far and away the most. Hockey is traditionally a Canadian sport, people in Canada go crazy for it, where as it's not the most popular sport in America. Let's see, what else...? That's really the basics. If you want to know more about strategy, you can look up different strategies like the Neutral Zone Trap, which most fans hate because it's kind of boring to watch, even though a lot teams have been very successful using it. I think after reading this, you would have a pretty clear understanding of the basics, but I really don't even know for sure. I've never had it explained to me, I guess, so I don't know how to explain it to someone ele. I hope this is helpful! I also hope this isn't something you could have just gotten from Wikipedia...

Brad Has A Library Card, Now What?

2011-10-22T13:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my wife, baby and I ventured out to our friendly local library for the first time. We went there because there was a puppet show for the kids that was free, and there was supposed to be a few of the local Nashville moms there that my wife has been networking with for the past few months, and she wanted to go and have a bit of a meet-up with them. Well, as it turned out, only one other mom was there, and we only chatted with her for a few minutes after the puppet show was over, so it turned out to be kind of a bust on that front. On the positive side of the trip to the library was the fact that I went to a damn library, where the books that you can read are located. You see, books are good for reading and they make you smarter, or so I've been told. I should read more books.

The puppet show was actually pretty good. I was a Duke Ellington themed puppet show, talking about jazz and how cool jazz is. It's good for the kids to learn about that sort of thing. Well, Evie is only 6 months old, so she didn't really get anything out of it, but hey, I enjoyed it. After the show was over, the other mom we met just sort of went on her way and we went on our way. I realized that since we were there, we should get library cards so that we can check out books and read them. Every so often I'll hear about a book that seems interesting and want to check out, but I don't really do libraries. Why? I can't say for sure, but maybe because our little library back in Michigan was so inadequate that I just sort of forgot about the whole idea of libraries as a place to get entertainment. And now especially after I cancelled the newspaper, having something to read seems like a good idea.

I have a book that I am half way through called Brain Rules for Babies. It's like a psychology book for raising a smart kid. I got halfway through the thing and just sort of stopped reading. It's very interesting, but for some reason, I just don't pick it up. This makes me leery about picking up a novel and reading it, because I'm usually pretty bad at finishing them. But, hey, it's never too late to try again. So as we walked around the library, I couldn't decide what book to check out, because I haven't the slightest clue as to what's a good book, or what's a good author. I don't even know where to begin. It's pretty overwhelming to be in the huge Nashville Main Branch library, with their thousands upon thousands of books to read.

So here I sit, with my fresh, new library card and no idea where to begin. I think I'm going to read Slaughterhouse 5. I don't know much about Kurt Vonnegut but I think he's someone I would enjoy reading. I've heard that fans of his are crazy, so that's a start. The only author I've read regularly is Chuck Palahniuk, and that's mainly based off the fact that Fight Club is an amazing movie. I don't want to read and author because a kick-ass movie was made out of his book. I want an author that is well-respected, but not like, stereotypical novel n00b material, you know what I mean? I just want a good book by a respectable author that I can dig into and enjoy. Since I don't know where to begin, I'm just going to take a shot in the dark with Kurt Vonnegut. I hope it works out.

And please, by all means, recommend me some damn books. What type? I don't care, probably not romance novels or anything right wing political would be great.

2 out of 5 Stars

2011-10-20T08:11:00.002-05:00

Okay, sorry I've been gone so long. I took a creative vacation, which is sort of ridiculous because I'm not that creative in this space. Anyway, sorry about that.

wanna go to dinner? These are good.

I want to talk about online reviews. Online reviews can really hold a lot of weight in peoples decisions on everything, from restaurants to apartment homes, from car dealerships to colleges and universities.

A lot of times, when you are trying to make an educated decision about something, you hit up the internet to find out what others have had to say about it. Sometimes it's a big decision, and sometimes it's a small decision, but a negative review or two can really affect someones decision. For example, my sister-in-law is a high school senior who is going to be headed to college next fall. When exploring her options, we suggested she looking an art school that is very close to our apartment here in Nashville. She could go to that school and live with us, living very close to her school. But when she looked online to what other had said, she found less than desirable reviews, and now that school is out of the running altogether. Really? Not going to even consider it now after a few online reviews? I'm biased because I want her to move here, but you know, that seems like quite a sweeping decision based not on information you found out yourself, but what someone else had to say.

I was at the car dealership a few weeks ago, and while I was there, I got what I perceived as less-than-excellent service from them. The first thing I thought about doing was going online and telling people not to buy their car from them. I would have to say from experience that someone somewhere would look online for what I, or anyone, had to say about the place and think twice about going there. Boom, internet review hurting their business. Happens all the time. My step-dad lives on the review sections of sites researching what is good and what isn't before he makes a purchase.

It made think that we should all be doing these reviews. Unfortunately, most of the time when someone feels compelled to go online to review something, it's very often negative. So a place could be the greatest thing since sliced bread, (especially if you're reviewing a bread slicing place) but two or three people go online and say "IT'S TERRIBLE" when in reality, it wasn't that bad, it can really deter someone from going there. So I need to remember, that when I have an experience out there in the world at a business, I should go online and tell people what's good, as well as what's bad. It's only fair. Just one negative review on an independent site can really do damage. That's all it takes.

Whoops

2011-10-17T09:32:00.001-05:00

Holy shit, I need to write something. Alright, later today or tomorrow, I'm on it.

C ya later, hommies.

Heading to the Park

2011-10-06T09:06:00.003-05:00

This week has been preparations for a visitor from way up north, my Mother-in-Law. This means actually doing the items on the chore chart. I think I had mentioned that I had slacked off to the max on the chore chart, and that it was making the hard-working, full-time-employed mom/wife upset with me. So I've actually been doing the damn thing this week, and I have to admit, it makes me feel real good about myself when I get things done. Makes me feel like a good dad.

Today, I think we're going to try something that I have been dreading trying. Putting the dog and the baby in the car at the same time. For those of you that don't know, our dog is a bit of a crazy guy. He likes to run and park and pull and be a bad dog in general. Well, this is espeiclly true when we take him out of the comfort of our apartment. When we take him to the park, he just pulls and chokes himself until he runs out of energy, which usually takes a while. Anyway, the lovely wife just suggested we try taking him to the park today, so we can see how he does in the car with baby. We will be taking them to Michigan for Thanksgiving this year, so I want to know what to expect once that day comes. So wish us luck as we attempt to go to the park with the crazy dog and the cute kid.

Have a good day.

***Ed. Note*** We didn't go to the park because little baby decided to take a nap and sleep all morning. So, instead I did a Google+ Hangout with my friends.

Win A Pair of Beats by Dr. Dre?

2011-10-02T03:18:00.000-05:00

Can I talk about internet some more? I mean in general and more specifically the people who use it. When we use the internet, we are faced with advertisements and other things that we have to use a mental filter to recognize what is legitimate and what isn't. Sometimes we go to websites that have ads that say in big, flashy writing that you have won something and you need to click to claim your prize. You know that it's total bullshit, right? You know you didn't really win anything, right? If you said maybe, I'll punch you in the face.

Anyway, I also dismiss anything that sounds too good to be true, especially on the internet. Sometimes in real life, there are real deals that sound too good to be true, but you can use common sense and a little research to figure out if it's legit or not. Yesterday morning I received an invitation from one of my Facebook friends, one in which I totally regret accepting the friend request, that said "First 100,000 participants will receive a new pair of headphones." This event was created by "Receive a brand new pair of Beats by Dr. Dre headphones for FREE." Okay, this is probably bullshit, I said. Oh, there are steps you must take to claim your free headphones? What are they? Oh, I'm getting excited! Here's the copy and paste of the "more info" section of this event.

The first 100,000 participants will receive a brand new pair of "Beats by Dr. Dre" headphones for FREE.

To participate, you MUST do the following:

STEP 1. Click the "I'm Attending" button.
......
STEP 2. Invite all of your friends, if you skip this step, the automated system will not register you. This is VERY important.

STEP 3. Write on this event wall "Attending" and the color of the pair of headphones you want.

Step 4. "Like" this pages: YOU MUST like the pages to get your FREE Beats!!

-->> http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-love-my-family/108153879284206

-->> http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Hate-Wake-Up-Early/117261995038684

This steps are required to get your shipping address.

** FAILURE TO NOT FOLLOW THE RULES WILL RESULT IN YOU NOT GETTING A FREE PAIR OF HEADPHONES. SINCE THIS IS FREE YOU MUST FOLLOW OUR STEPS!!! **

---------------------------------------------------------

Once we reach 100,000 they all will be shipped.

Event Sponsored by Monster Energy Drink® and Dr. Dre!

First thing I noticed was the double-negative in all caps hear the bottom of the instructions. FAILURE TO NOT FOLLOW THE RULES? So wait, if I follow the rules, I won't get headphones? Is that what you're telling me?

Okay, so it's a stupid event that no one in their right mind will fall for, because no one is that stupi...wait, what? 4,468 PEOPLE HAVE CLICKED ATTENDING? The comments section of this event is filled with people writing "attending bright pink" or "I'm attending, black" Also, looking deeper down the comments, someone wrote this gem:

"This has been going on for months has anyone actually gotten anything from this "Beats by Dr. Dre" or is this another scam to grab your info? I would be very greatful if the public can be assred by the promoters of the page thaat htis is in fact legit."

It's just so confusing to me. You really believe this? You even stopped believing for a half second to question it, but I can tell you're leaning towards believing it. Is this just another scam, this person asks? YES, YES IT IS. Not sure what they're scamming you out of, but I promise you it's not legit. I absolutely promise you. There is no way that the Monster company, who makes these headphones, are not going to be mailing out 100,000 headphones, valued at around at the very least $100, just because you asked for it. Not going happen no matter how many pages you "like." Not going happen no matter how many friends you invite. Simply not going to happen.

Also, fun to note at the very bottom, it says this event is sponsored by Monster energy drink. I think someone got confused when they were making this shit up. Totally different company, idiot. Monster is a company that makes audio equipment. Monster energy drink is made by Hansen Natural.

I don't even know what else to say. If you want to see the page in all of it's natural glory, here's a link to the actual Facebook event. Feel free to click "attending" but be warned: If we're currently friends on Facebook, we probably won't be shortly afterwards.

5 Months Old for Baby Evie

2011-09-28T12:20:00.000-05:00

Today is little baby Evelyn's 5-month anniversary of being born. It's not really a birthday, so I can't really use that term. But nonetheless, five whole months have passed since she entered the world. I'd say it doesn't seem like it, but it totally does. It feels like she's been here for ages, actually. I spend so much time with her, it feels like she's sort of always been here. I still don't remember what my life's mindset was before she was here.

Well, I sort of do, I mean there are things I wish I could still do, like sit around and play video games all day long. I can still play a bit, but not as much. It's more of "when I can fit it in." That's okay, as I've probably said before, she is a wonderful thing.

Anyway tonight we are taking her to her very first live sporting event! Yes we got free tickets to a Nashville Predators game tonight. We had free tickets to a preseason game last year but when we went to cash them in the game was sold out. Anyway, we went and got the tickets in advance this time, so we're definitely going to be there.

Another thing happening today, carried over form yesterday, is the fact that I cannot get full of food. It's not that I'm not eating enough food, it's just like, I am still starved after eating entirely too much food. I ate two pieces of toast, a big pile of hash browns, two eggs, and when that wasn't enough I heated up a good portion of spaghetti noodles and some sauce and ate all that along with some old, gross garlic bread. After downing that, I said to myself, "that should hold me over for a long time." NOPE. Hungry. Right now. I could eat all that again. Not sure what all this means, but it's really weird. Yesterday, after eating, I was still hungry so I took a shower to take my mind off the hunger pains. Maybe I have a tape worm? Maybe I'm burning a lot of calories in my sleep so I need more food like an athlete? Maybe...I have no idea? Maybe I'm just a fat kid?

So that's the update from around these parts. Happy 5 month anniversary of my daughters birth. She is fantastic and a great sleeper. I think I'm gonna go find something to eat. Dead serious.

Cancelling my Newspaper Subscription

2011-09-27T12:27:00.002-05:00

R.I.P my subscription to The Tennessean. Someday in the very near future, I will wake up and make coffee per usual. Then, I will open the front door to grab this mornings news paper and it wont' be there. This will be the first time in two and a half years that this will be so. I had been waiting for them to print some kind of stupid article that would make me cancel to prove a point or something, but it would be hard to find that article these days because I haven't really read it at all in the past few weeks. It's gotten progressively worse.

When I first moved to Nashville, we didn't have cable, or an antenna to pick up TV so I couldn't watch anything We didn't have Internet, so I couldn't go on a computer and do anything useful. We didn't have anything. We had a Wii, that's about it. One of my first days here I went to the convince store near our house and bought a newspaper, just to check it out. I found myself really wanting to have this every morning, because really, I had nothing else I didn't even have a job at that point. So, I subscribed, and that paper kept getting delivered everyday.

Slowly but surely, we kept adding things to our lives. First I got a job. Then, we bought a new, big TV and an antenna so we could watch the local channels. Then we got the Internet hooked up at our house. Then we got Netflix to bring movies to our house. Then we got a Playstation 3 to play video games. Then we got iPhones.

And then one day, my wife and I created a little baby girl. Through all this, I was still getting the paper delivered, but every time we added something new to our lives, the paper just fell further to the wayside. Once the little girl was here, it was nearly impossible to sit down and read the newspaper. Most of the stuff I read there I was getting from other sources anyway, so about 1/5 or is was actually informative at this point.

I feel bad because the newspaper industry is sinking fast, and I know it's "their fault" for not keeping up with the times, and sometimes you can see a headline and think "Wow they're really just trying to move units with that one, aren't they?" But sometimes, (and I'd go as far as to say very often) there is an article in there covering a story that needs to be covered, and they're the only ones who are covering that thing. Just today I learned exactly what banks are adding monthly fees for check card usage, which is my bank (Regions) and Suntrust. Now I know not to switch to Suntrust! Thanks Tennessean!

So you see, it's the first thing I had here when I moved to Tennessee so it has that special place in my heart, but it's now being axed from my daily routine. It's been fun, newspaper. I will still go to the store and pick one up when I feel like reading something, but for now, you have to go. We need that extra $18 right now. I support you, even though many hardcore Predator fans have boycotted you for your perceived negatively-slanted journalism towards the team, at times. I hope you don't sink into the Cumberland river.

Pineapple on Pizza

2011-09-22T15:36:00.000-05:00

So I'll say I'm in the resounding NO category as far as do you like pineapple on your pizza question. I used to totally hate pineapple in general, but really, it's grown on me. There are some flavors that just don't mix, whether it be because you are just not used to tasting that flavor in that environment. Like for example, I don't like mint and chocolate together. Mint is meant for gum, candies and things like that, not ice cream. Ice cream should either be sort of fruity or mainly chocolate/caramel/peanut butter/vanilla type flavors. The same thing goes for pizza. It should be cheese, meat (if you eat meat), peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives and such and such. As long as it's savory, it should go on there. I can see experimenting with weird stuff like apples and even pineapples, but to say that it rocks and belongs in a list of acceptable pizza toppings, it makes me wonder what kind of country we live in? I know America is the land of the free, but that doesn't mean you go off ruining everyone's pizza by putting pineapple on it. If I was an evil villain, I'd put pineapple on everyone's pizza just to ruin their day. Terrorists like pineapple on their pizza, I bet.

All this talk about pizza has made me exceptionally hungry, but it immediately kills my appetite when I think of pizza with pineapple on it. If that was my only option for food throughout life, I'd be a very skinny man, because I wouldn't eat it. I love pizza, my gamer tag on Call of Duty is ILikePizzaALot44, that's how much I love pizza.

Talking about pizza, isn't it weird that America's favorite pizza topping is "just cheese?" I mean, if you have to call it what is by saying it's "just" something, it must not be that special. Now I could tear into some 4 cheese, 5 cheese pizza right here, right now, but to order a cheese pizza? Feels like a waste of time to me. My toppings I like are mushroom onion green pepper. 4 years ago, I wouldn't have touched that pizza. As I've grown older my tastes have matured and I like mushrooms, and green peppers only on pizza. Green peppers on their own are rather gross, but on a pizza they are pretty good. It mixes well. Does all this taste maturing mean that someday I would come around on pineapple on pizza? I couldn't say no for sure, but I'm pretty sure that's one thing that won't be changing anytime soon. Pineapple on pizza can go straight to Hell. Do not pass GO, pineapple. Do not collect $200. Pineapple sucks on pizza.

Beautify, You and I

2011-09-21T12:33:00.001-05:00

Let's talk about embarrassing personal grooming things, eh? Hey, why try to hide it, right? I have to shave a unibrow. Yup, I would have a wonderfully thick unibrow if I didn't shave it at least weekly. I think it would be better if I, like, waxed it or tweezers it or whatever, but I don't do that because that hurts. No, I shave it off. You can't really see it if I don't shave it off, it's pretty thin, and when I do shave it off, it doesn't leave a stubble behind. If it did leave a stubble, I would probably do something else about it. But shaving it off works for me.

I have this problem that I cannot control. It's something I was born into, and there's nothing I can do about it except remove the hair. I wonder just how many other people have this same problem? Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm very, very not alone. I got these bushy eyebrows, and there's no easy way to change that. Like I said, if it left a noticeable stubble behind or something, then I would probably take further action.

What scares me is that my daughter could get this awful affliction. This would be a bigger problem for girls than boys. But I can just shave it off, grow my hair out a bit, and my eyebrows are hidden, sorta. It's weird to talk about this. Now everyone is gonna be looking at my forehead whenever they see me to see if I've kept up on my grooming. I took care of it today. so I'll be good for a few days, possibly a week.

So I just wanted to tell you all about my personal, physical malady. I still love me even though I have this problem, and really, it's not that big of a deal. I mean, it's just unwanted hair, right? I believe we all have a little problem that we all have to just "take care of." No biggie, just do it and carry on. Me and my bombass eyebrows are going to watch some more daytime TV now. Have a great Wednesday.

Instant Netflix v.s. Hulu Plus

2011-09-18T08:50:00.001-05:00

(Before reading this, please read this)

First off, forget about paying for cable. Hulu is a wonderful thing. They have a lot of content you get to watch for free, with limited commercial interruptions That's important. I don't get upset at the commercials while watching shows on Hulu because we have to watch commercials at home on regular TV anyway, so the fact that I get about half as many on Hulu is actually a huge improvement. Now on an unrelated issue, I do get upset if I have to watch a commercial before watching a YouTube video or video of similar style because often those videos didn't have the production and whatnot of an actual television show which needs to be paid for....anyway the point of all this is that with the upcoming fall TV show premiers (which I'm super excited about, as you read about last week) I want to be able to check these shows out.

Right now, this week, I'm excited about TV. Next week or maybe the week after, I won't be anymore. That's just how I do it. I go on "kicks" of things. I couldn't stop eating hummus every day for a few months, then got sick of it. I'm not a big TV guy so this TV kick is a new one for me. Anyway, I have a Playstation 3, which I use to stream Netflix instantly for a small fee. Hulu has a similar product called Hulu Plus which allows you to watch "premium" content on your computer, phone, gaming devices and internet-connected TVs and set top boxes like Roku. Man, I sorta want Hulu Plus. According to their website, there is thousands of TV shows available to stream for just $7.99 a month, the same price as Netflix. Part of the premium-ness of it is that you get to choose from every episode in a season, which includes the current season that is airing, as opposed to the free version where you only get the five newest episodes. Also with the free version you can't watch the stuff on your phone, ps3, set top box etc. With Netflix, you only get whatever is out on DVD, not stuff that aired, like, yesterday, as you can on Hulu.

But here's my catch, and they are rather significant. While I really, really want Hulu Plus to be great, there are many reasons why I think it's a lesser product than Netflix. Hulu has it's free option and Netflix does not, that's a win for Hulu, in general. However, with the premium Hulu Plus, you still get ads. Commercials placed right where commercials are supposed to be. That's stupid, why am I paying for this then? Also, I have downloaded the Hulu Plus PS3 app, which has a bunch of sample videos to try it out for free. It has a random episodes of shows like The Office or 30 Rock. The problem is every single time I have fired it up, it has not once worked. It just sits there loading. Is my internet speed too slow to handle the massive Hulu Plus video? I don't know but I've never, or very very rarely have had a problem with Netflix streaming. If I could just see how the thing would work without actually signing up for a free trial, I'd consider a free trial. But the thing just doesn't work.

(Additionally, how come there are commercials on cable TV, anyway? Wasn't/isn't that the point of cable? You pay for it instead of having advertisers pay for the content, or at the very least less commercials? Pay-Radio is commercial-free, why not TV?)

The third problem, and it's a biggie; about half of the content on Hulu is only available to stream on a PC through a web browser. The content is specifically licensed to only be streamed through a PC, and they don't have the license to offer it anywhere else (like my PS3.) Which shows are "blacked out?" I don't know, but that's a big problem to me. What if I pay for it and I can't watch anything I want on there? Pardon my language but fuck that shit. Also, I guess fourthly, word of mouth. I know exactly zero people that have told me how much Hulu Plus rocks their socks off and I need to get on there. The only thing I've heard someone say is "people actually pay for this shit?"

I'll just take my chances and watch Hulu for free on the computer when I have some time to kill. In the mean time, i'm sticking with Instant Netflix because it's what I already got, and the stuff on there is acceptable. In reality, most of the shows I want to watch are on networks, which I have for free in my living room, or are available at some point on Hulu anyway. Sometimes I have to wait 30 days for a new episode of whatever, and that's something I'm willing to do. TV just isn't that important. I just like to watch it sometimes, for as cheaply and easily as possible. And that answer is antenna and Netflix (which is all in HD, by the way.)

Stuff I Forget To Do

2011-09-17T02:49:00.000-05:00

So I realized today as I sat on the couch, I had been compiling raw video of my daughter and us and whatnot, in the hopes of compiling it all into a nice little edited and enjoyable video, a glimpse into our little boring life in Nashville, and I haven't even began to consider editing it together into a final product. Whoops. On top of that, I haven't taken any fresh video in at least two weeks, so the stuff I put together won't even be up to date stuff. At this stage of development with Evie, a few weeks is all it takes for her to develop a new thing that she does that is cute.

I also realized that my fresh, new idea had totally already been done by our friends in Lansing. Not sure why I didn't even think that that's what I was doing. Not to say that I can't do it because someone I know already did it, because that's stupid. No, it's the fact that I thought I was being cutting edge and innovative with the idea of "take video, edit it, post it." Really, Brad?

Anyway, I'm now conscious of the raw video that needs attention, and I will try to take a moment this week to do something with it, and most likely post it here.

I think part of the problem is that I don't think the content I captured is all that compelling. I guess it really doesn't have to be all that exciting. That wasn't the point. I just thought it would be nice to have a video, or series of videos that help the people that aren't here (like everyone) see what she's like. She's pretty special to me, so yeah...I just want to share.

Okay so here's another vow of stuff I want to accomplish but probably won't. Take care, folks.

Do' Chores Not Whores

2011-09-14T15:44:00.000-05:00

So a few weeks ago, well, I guess it's over a month ago now, it was decided that there should be some structure to our household chores. Sometimes, the wife and I tend to get a bit lax on cleaning our apartment. After getting totally sick of it, we do a massive cleaning day, and it totally sucks. So we decided to change that way of living, do a little bit of cleaning daily, so that we don't have those overwhelming days. Seems like a good idea, if you can teach old dogs new tricks.

I did great for like a week and a half, then realized that some chores just don't need to be done weekly, or at least that's what I convinced myself is true. So some stuff just didn't get done that week, and, well, most of it hasn't been done since. I slacked off to the extreme. I feel right back into my old habits of not doing shit. I say "I can do this today, I can do this tomorrow," but it's just so easy to not do anything.

Today I managed to vacuum the apartment, so that's done. I feel good that I got it done. But there is much more to be done. I also managed to grocery shop and bake cookies today. I've been a good little househusband today. And not to mention the cookies are amazingly delicious. I am trying to be better though, and tomorrow I will try really, really hard to do some kind of chore. Any chore.

Okay I'll keep this short because it's boring. C'ya tomorrow.

My Kinda Boring 9/11 Story

2011-09-11T08:22:00.000-05:00

Well this is it, friends. Today is 9/11/2011. The ten year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in NYC and Washington. Just under 3,000 people lost their lives that day. A lot of people will say "it feels like it was just yesterday," but I remember the day as if it was 10 years ago.

There was one month in my life that I went to college. That month was September 2001. After that month, I got sick of going to school, dropped out and never went back. I had a nine o'clock class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and that was my earliest class. I had trouble getting to that class, because I was working midnight shift at the casino at the time. I had split days off, Tuesday and Thursday, so I could go to class on those days. Anyway, I had fallen asleep early that Tuesday morning, and decided to skip that nine o'clock class because of my weird sleeping schedule. I got up and got dressed and ready to go to school because I had a class at noon. I didn't turn on a TV, I didn't listen to radio, I just put on a CD (Linkin Park) and headed off to class. It was my remedial math class that I resented, because I wasn't getting any credit for this stupid thing. I had this class every day at noon, and I guess I must have skipped that class the day before because I had to take a test I missed out in the hallway. As I sat down to take the test, I put the page in front of me and wrote the date. I remember thinking as I wrote 9-11-01, "man, I'll never remember this day. Nothing will happen today. When I think back in 3 months about what happened today, I won't be able to tell you." As I took the test I heard a TV blaring somewhere down the hallway, but I could only make out parts of what they were saying. More and more they kept talking about some event, some sort of tragedy. Some sort of attack. I finished the test and headed back into class. I said to the guy next to me, "Dude, I think we got attacked or something." He says "Yeah didn't you hear? Someone crashed planes into the World Trade Center or something. It's all over the news." I couldn't really hear what the teacher was saying, all I could think about was this huge even that was taking place, wondering what was going on. So I checked my Twitter to get the latest information....no that's not true, but I would have if it happened today. Anyway...

Soon after that someone poked their head into the class room and told us that all of the days renaming classes were canceled and the school was shutting down. We all left, and I drove quickly to my house so I could turn on the TV and finally find out what was going on. As I got home, I turned on the TV in the kitchen, and saw the magnitude of the days events. Four hours had passed, and four planes were hijacked and crashed, three of which were on target, while the other clearly didn't have a vengeance against open fields in Pennsylvania, so we can only speculate where that one was destined for. The twin towers had collapsed, thousands were dead, and all I could do was eat cereal and watch in awe. I headed upstairs to my room, where I used my computer to communicate with friends via AOL instant messenger about what had just transpired while watching the constant news coverage on my little 13 inch TV in the spare bedroom. I walked over to Bucks party store and bought a newspaper that I planned on keeping forever. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere. I just had this feeling of "I don't know what just happened and what's going to happen in the days ahead, but this is significant."

I was an 18 year old kid, just graduated from high school, just started college. I didn't know what to think, and I still don't know. I wasn't directly effected by the event, I mean in the sense that I didn't know anyone that died in the event or anything, but it still effected me just as it did everyone else. My mom was afraid that I was going to get drafted into the Army because of it.

So that's where I was on 9/11.

NBC News' Twitter hacked by The Script Kiddies

2011-09-10T04:02:00.001-05:00

On Friday, someone hacked into NBC News' Twitter account and started reporting that someone had crashed a plane into the 9/11 World Trade Center Ground Zero site. I don't follow NBC News, but I could only imagine my surprise if I was going through my timeline and read THAT. From what I understand, it's not that hard to break into someone's account on Twitter, which could have dangerous repercussions of sending out misinformation from a trusted news source. This act is pretty stupid, and it is only done to draw attention to yourself. Good job you jagoff, you caused someone's heart to skip a beat.

The people who claimed responsibility are a group called "the Script Kiddies" which is apparently slang for armature low-level, wannabe hackers. Cool name, bro. Anyway, they sent out tweets just before 6 P.M. saying "Breaking News! Ground Zero has just been attacked. Flight 5736 has crashed into the site, suspected hijacking. More as the story develops." After a few more tweets, including one that said "this is not a joke" (which never fails to convince someone to believe something that is unbelievable), they then said that they are the Script Kiddies and they had hacked NBC News' Twitter, and then presumably lol'd all the way to Taco Bell for some more Crunch Wrap Supremes. I imagine that the persons responsible will get caught and punished harshly, as this is a very sensitive time for such hijinks. I don't condone nor support the act, as there was no real harm done here, expect to nearly give a few folks a near heart attack. But also, it's not cool to make light of terrorist attacks, at least not outside of the comfort of your circle of friends. If then, tasteless jokes are hilarious. But on the eve of the weekend of the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it's just in poor taste. But flipping back to why I can't totally condemn the act is the fact that Twitter needs to shore up these accounts that are followed by millions of people, because like it or not, Twitter is a very viable form of news and information. We can't have any old schmuck hacking into these major news networks and spouting off whatever they please just to get a rise out of people. It's fun to them, and afterwards, It's fun to me, too. But if this is to be avoided, Twitter needs to make it harder, nay, impossible for this to happen again.

First World Problems: Pizza Delivery

2011-09-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

Da fuck too you so long?

Man, we complain about some of the most retarded shit, don't we? I mean, sometimes you just have to step back and realize that shit just isn't that bad, you know what I mean? Some things were put into perspective for me, I have to admit, by listening to a comedy CD by Louis C.K. on Spotify a few weeks ago. He was talking about how every cell phone is a amazing, no matter how shitty you think it is, and it's pretty stupid of you to get upset about something like your phone not doing exactly what you are asking it to do the second you ask it to do it. Just chill out, man. It's a pretty amazing thing you have in your hand, and because it's not doing exactly what you want it do you're going to get all upset about it? Just step back and think about that when your in that situation.

Well anyway, I'm reading on Facebook, one of my friends complained that it took Domino's Pizza an hour and a half to deliver two pizza's and some cheesy bread to his house. What's wrong with you, man? You picked up a phone, or maybe not even picked up a phone with a service that allows you to do ONLINE ORDERING. For Christ's sake, someone cooked dinner for you and brought it to your house. I know there is a certain expectation to pizza delivery now because these companies are trying to get it to you as fast as they can, and take pride in that and advertise that fact to you. But step back and think about it. You didn't have to do very much of anything, and some people made you diner and brought it to you. That's awesome of them. Yes you paid for it with your hard earned money, and that's how they earn their money and blah blah blah, but seriously, it's pretty cool that they BROUGHT YOU FOOD. Announcing your displeasure with this fact on Facebook is absolutely absurd to me. Just chill out, bro. Everything is gonna be alright. Eat a snack in the meantime if you're really hungry. Grab a cookie. Prepare for the fact that when you order pizza for delivery, something may go wrong in the process, as this order is being processed by human beings, and humans make mistakes. Since you decided to let someone else handle the duty of making you food, it's out of your hands if it doesn't make it to you in the time frame you expect it to get there.

I'm off to cook my own food now.

Fall TV Preview

2011-09-05T11:23:00.000-05:00

Oh man, you guys. I'm excited for FALL NETWORK TV SHOWS! As a 28-year-old father of an infant baby girl, one of the biggest things I got excited about with the changing of my work schedule is the opportunity to be home in the evening to watch primetime television. Up to this point in my life, there has never been a time in my life where a TV show was something I made an effort to sit down and watch every week that I maintained for more than like, a couple weeks in a row. Monday night wrestling doesn't count, either. Anyway, now that I'll be home in the evenings, and I'll have a lot of time to kill on the weekends with Hulu, I'm going to try out as many of these new shows as possible. I found the TV schedules for each network on each night on this cool website, and I'm planning my attack now to get ready for their premieres. I have found (and copy/pasted) tables of the lineups of shows from TVByTheNumbers, which were put together back in May, so I'm just trusting them that they're not outdated.

I'm not really all that excited about any of these new ABC shows, but I guess I'll probably end up watching them because of pure lack of competition. For example, I might watch Revenge because I really don't care about the other two shows on at the same time (CSI and SVU). Wednesday is the only night the wife and I are both home together and we both like ABC's current Wednesday comedies, so I imagine that we will watch those shows. The only problem is that The Middle, which comes on at 7 central, and is not necessarily one of my favorites, is at the same time as a new show on NBC I'd like to check out, called Up All Night. That show has Will Arnett, and he's great, so I'd like to check it out. Plus, I'm pretty sure I am the audience they're shooting for with that show, anyway. We'll also watch either Free Agents or Suburgatory at 7:30, whichever one we like better. So, here's a table of the Wednesday night's lineup on all the different channels.

Other nights are mostly non-conflicted, because there are only a handful of shows I'm excited to watch. Tuesday, I guess I'll watch that new Tim Allen show Last Man Standing, by process of elimination. All the other shows on Tuesday are shit, except maybe Biggest Loser, which I don't really want to watch. I won't watch NCIS or Glee. Here's Tuesday.

Monday is total shit, as well. I guess I'll watch the Sing-Off? Most likely, I'll just watch Netflix. Because I have no interest in these shows. Maybe I'll check out 2 Broke Girls because it's new. I've seen this one preview for Terra Nova and I figured it was a show to be aired on SyFy or some shit. The Playboy Club, nah, that just sounds desperate. None of the other shows are new, and none of the old shows are any good. I'll watch Ashton Kucher on Two and a Half Men, maybe? Probably not because that show is very not funny. Like, Jay Leno level unfunny. Anyway, here's Monday's table.

Thursday I'll be over on NBC, that is, until 9/8 central. That's where a CBS show has piqued my interest, the first time CBS has done that in forever. That would be Person of Interest, which has Ben Linus form Lost in it. Even though this is yet another CBS crime-solving, cop/dead body-type show which they already have about 17 of, this one feels different, guess. The problem here is that it's on the same time as what might just be my favorite network show, The Office. And that Whitney show looks funny. I'd also have no problem switching over to CBS to see that How To Be A Gentleman, because I don't really like Parks and Rec (I won't). Anyway, here's Thursday.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday don't matter to me because Friday I'll be sleeping, Saturday I'll be sleeping, and Sunday I'll be watching football, so I don't give a shit what's on. If someone says something is good on one of those nights, I'll fire up Hulu and check it out. So get excited! Let's all watch TV, shall we?

Orange Food

2011-09-04T02:18:00.001-05:00

I've been stewing on a question that came about during a conversation with my lovely wife this past Wednesday. It goes back to my post about colors and your favorites. I thought it was funny how the conversation played out, as our favorite colors created a bias towards our particular arguments.

an example of delicious food

You see, I realized that there is not a food that exists that is the color orange that isn't awesome. Is there an orange food that isn't amazingly delicious? That's what I've been stewing on. My wife insists that green is the best colored food, and there is no bad foods that are green. I can see where she is coming from personally, but my argument is on a general population taste test, I would say that there are a lot of people who can think of at least one food that is green that they don't like. I imagine there are people that don't particularly enjoy certain orange foods, but I believe these people are on the fringe, few and far between. These are the people with weird food dislikes. I met someone once that didn't like peanut butter or peanut butter cups. What the hell is wrong with you? But I'd say it's pretty common for someone to dislike, say, broccoli. I like broccoli, but I would say that if there is a joke about a food being fed to the dog instead of you eating it because it's gross, it's probably not widely enjoyed by every single person, right?

However, cheese is delicious. Hell, people put cheese on broccoli to make it taste better. Everyone likes cheese, except Sean. I'm saying this exception is only one person to the rule that cheese is awesome. I mean, there are people that are lactose intolerant, but that's a condition, not a taste preference. My mother-in-law doesn't eat broccoli because it gives her an upset stomach. Okay, there's one for "condition" where there is a reason you don't eat it. I'm talking strictly about taste here. All orange food is delicious.

Now, in terms of health standards, there are not a whole lot of orange foods that are actually that good for you. Orange peppers, carrots, and, well oranges are examples of fruits and vegetables that are orange, and because they're fruits and vegetables, they're good for you. But the vast majority of the orange foods I can think of are bad for you, which makes them taste good. (By the way, don't you think they probably named the orange before they named the carrot?) But again, I'm talking about taste here, not health. Green foods tend to be healthier, because a lot of green food is fruits and vegetables. It's science, dude. Even other green foods like Ecto Cooler is based off of a fruit's flavor. I'm not saying that green foods are not good, but there are some that are debatable, whereas there are very few exceptions with orange food. So orange food wins because I can't think of an orange food I don't like, nay, love, and I don't like peas. I could list a few more green foods I don't like, and no one else really likes either, but all I need is one.

Orange defeats Green 1-0 by Knock Out.

Untitled

2011-09-02T15:43:00.000-05:00

So, Blogger totally changed everything here, eh? Wow totally, completely different.

So anyway, today was baby doctor day, her 4 month check up, and all is well. She's in teh 50% - 65% area for height, weight and melon circumference. That's all good news. I want a normal baby.

I really thought I had enough time to come here and write a post, but I forgot we need to go to the store and get some coffee and shit. So, sorry for the tease of a post, but I gotta go.

It's Monday Night

2011-08-29T22:38:00.000-05:00

I just want to check in on this delightful Monday night. I was watching Hell's Kitchen earlier, and I got to thinking. You know, this show doesn't take a whole lot of work to make, except some editing, yet it's popular, in the same way that all reality shows are popular. Part of me wants to see real programming where someone gets paid to write a script while an actor gets paid to act out the scenes. Networks love reality TV because they don't have to hire people like they do on scripted shows. Well anyway, what I was thinking about was that even though these shoes are not helping the television industry, they're pretty entertaining, and I can't deny that I was really enjoying watching the show. Made me want to cook food. Too bad we don't have any around here. We need to grocery shop, but we have to wait until Wednesday when Bethany gets paid. Shit, man, I'm hungry. I been living off eggs the past three days.

I know this makes us sound broke, which we're not, but we just need to go grocery shopping and we need to wait until Wednesday, okay? Don't judge us. And when I go shopping, I'm going to buy all the stuff to make a delicious meal for the two of us. I don't know what I'll make, but it's gonna be rad, I promise. I'll talk about the details when I know the details.

Until then, I must go to bed now. I'm pretty tired. Baby is winding down, and so are we.

Goodnight, everyone.

Random Thoughts, Sort Of

2011-08-25T15:38:00.001-05:00

You see, this is the problem with not posting filler material on the weekends for the weekday posts. When it comes to Thursday, and there's nothing here all week, I decided to take advantage of a sleeping baby to write and I just don't have anything to say.

I have been watching last night's Braves games every day. It's fun because I get to watch my team, even if it's like, 18 hours after the game has been completed. I share an MLB.TV subscription with a few friends and I have the ability to stream the games through the PS3, so I do that. The Braves are the local covered team, so they're blacked out so I can't watch the games live. Totally sucks, but I'll just watch it a day later, especially if I don't know the outcome. It's still the latest game that occurred.

Sometimes when I type on real computer, I do the double-tap on the space bar, which automatically puts a period on an iPhone, but it doesn't do that here.

When I don't work during the week, I have a hard time drinking enough water. At work, I drink a lot of water, but at home, I just don't think about it. Then I feel all dehydrated all day. So I try to remember to drink water.

I dusted the tables around the living room today with Pledge. Our wood is shiny.

We went to the pool yesterday with Evie for the second time. She seemed to like it. I think I'll be more willing to go in the pool now after that experience because it didn't seem like such a "to-do" this time. After the pool, I wanted ice cream real bad, as it felt really good to be outside enjoying a nice summer day, so we went to this place called Bobbie's Dairy Dip. They had burgers and shakes and stuff. I had the Chubby Checker shake, which was like, chocolate, peanut butter, and whip cream all mixed together. It tasted like a liquid no-bake cookie. Very rich, and very sweet. Lastly, it wasn't very cold, so it was just like drinking pure chocolate sauce. It was alright, but a little too rich for me. It's like, when you want an album to be all full of rockin' fast songs, and the ballad makes you angry. Well when you get the album full of rockin' fast songs, you realize it's not that great because there was nothing to cut the thunder with. This shake needed a ballad. It was intense.

Okay, I'm going to go...do...something else. This game is into the bottom of the 7th and baby will probably be waking up soon. Piece out, hommie.

Pro Wrestling

2011-08-21T09:43:00.001-05:00

As a young man, I was a very serious professional wrestling fan. Very serious. I would spend most of my time waiting for Monday night to watch Raw and Nitro, and Tuesday through Sunday, I would spend most of my time watching tapes of old pay-per-views. My brother and I would collect them all, one way or another. One of the main ways we had our collection was by renting the tapes from the video store and my brother would hook up our VCR's together and make a copy. We had just about every pay-per-view either on a dubbed tape or the actual real copy. I wouldn't say we watched them together all that often, but we both had seen them all, for sure.

One day, I took an interest in girls and started dating one, and she took my attention away from wrestling. Also, I got a job that I worked evenings, and couldn't devote my Monday nights to the programming. WWF bought WCW, their only competition, and it just sort of changed a lot for everyone. It wasn't the same and I just wasn't that into it anymore, and it only got worse as I grew older.

Now, as I look at the WWE roster, I only recognize a few names, most of them being the holdovers from the days when I was a fan. It's changed, where people don't have gimmicks anymore, it's more just dudes with a certain personality and catchphrases. I really can't comment too much on the current state of affairs of the pro wrestling world, as I haven't watched any WWE programming in a while, and what I have watched in the past couple years has been short and usually low-quality illegal streams over the internet.

Part of what made wrestling so intriguing to me was that I knew it was "fake" or staged, and the wrestlers were basically acting, like dancing. I sought the truth behind how it worked. I wanted to know the secrets of pro wrestling, what was involved to make a match. How they did it, how they would work together to perform the moves. I wanted to know what went on backstage. I wanted to know wrestlers real names. Once all that stuff was revealed one way or another, the mystery of the whole thing sort of faded away for me. I found out how the wrestlers communicate in the ring to coordinate what moves were going to be done next. I found out how they make themselves bleed. I looked up everyone's real name on the internet. The veil of mystery was lifted with movies like Beyond the Mat and books like Mick Foley's Have a Nice Day. The quest for the truth was over. I lost interest because there was nothing new to learn.

I still appreciate a good wrestling match. I know a good wrestler when I see one, and I know a good match when I see one. And you would know that I know who's a good wrestler, as my favorite wrestler of all time is X-Pac. I still think the Undertaker is boring as all hell. I still think Randy Orton is probably the best in the business right now, although remember, I haven't seen a lot of these new guys do their thing. But from as long back as I can remember, the late 80's, until the summer of 2001, my life was professional wrestling. In high school my dream was going to wrestling school when I was an adult. Hell, I still would like to do it, maybe if I was more in shape, I guess. Sometimes I wish I was still in those simpler times, just me in my room watching wrestling, eating popcorn, drinking Faygo, getting fat and full of cavities. It was a great time, a happy time.

Live Blog: Veggie Corn Dogs with Dipping Sauces

2011-08-20T11:44:00.001-05:00

I'm fixin' to eat these

So here I am, way overtired, and I am about to eat my "lunch." What I have for lunch today is two Trader Joe's brand Meatless Corn Dogs. I have always loved Corn Dogs. And I will always love corn dogs. That's a rewrite on I Will Always Love You, by the way. So to make my corn dogs interesting, I have found four different dipping sauces in a bowl in the back here at work. McDonald's Sweet and Sour sauce, Arby's Sauce, Wendy's Heartland Ranch, and Hunt's Ketchup. The ketchup part is pretty normal, but the others are just crazy! So here's my thoughts on each sauce as I eat them on a corn dog.

First, Sweet and Sour sauce. Really sucks. It's like, a total clash of flavor.

Next, it's Ranch. That's actually not that bad, but still pretty weird. It takes a second for me to realize what I'm putting in my mouth. Not that great. But Ranch is pretty good on anything, so I would say it's acceptable. Just weird.

Next, Arby sauce. Meh, not too bad. The initial taste was awful, but subsequent bites get better and better. I don't normally like Arby sauce anyway, so I had low expectations going into it. I would choose the Ranch over this. Not the Sweet and Sour though.

There's something wrong with this microwaved corn dog. It's all hard and dried out. I went back to the Ranch to finnish it out because I don't need to know what corn dogs and ketchup taste like. I always eat my corn dogs with ketchup. After it's all said and done, the ranch is pretty damn good on there. And now I'm just eating Ranch Dressing off the stick of the corn dog. I can hear myself getting fatter. This has gone all down hill yet exactly the way I thought it would.

Okay, now I'm still hungry. Let me eat these mixed nuts. I wonder what a cashew would taste like dipped in ranch?

Posts About Posting

2011-08-19T09:49:00.000-05:00

I want to ask you, is it obvious when there is a bunch of posts out in a row that I wrote them all on the same day and had them post throughout the week? I try really hard not to make it obvious, but when there's weeks without any posts then suddenly there is posts every day for a week, I think it's obvious. I can't help myself. Usually I get in the mood to write on a Saturday or Sunday and write a bunch of different posts and have them come out all week long. I also hate when I don't feel like writing on the weekend, because then there will definitely won't be any posts that week. This is my post saying that I'm going to try to write posts on the day they happen instead of writing a bunch in one day and posting them all week. Sort of like this one. Was this written today or was this written on this past Sunday?

It's your guess, and I won't say. But I would say if it's longer, it was written on the weekend, and if it's shorter, it was written on the day it was posted. When I write at home, I don't feel like typing all that much, and when I'm at work on the weekend, I could go on and on and on and on for hours. I don't know, what the fuck. Have a nice day.

Thursday, Just Like Wednesday

2011-08-18T11:15:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I feel guilty having my daughter take naps all day. I mean, who want's to sleep the entire day away, anyway? But she needs naps to function and be happy. I just feel strange after she slept all night, then put her down for a nap like, 2-3 hours later. Well, whatever makes her happy, I suppose.

We drove by a house that is for rent yesterday, because our lease is up at the end of October in our current apartment. If we were going to move, now is the time to start looking. We are not in position to buy the house of our dreams at this time, but if we could rent a house for cheaper than what we're currently paying in rent in this tiny apartment, than we should look around and see what's available. Our time is a bit short, but we didn't want to look for apartments or houses way before our current lease was up. The thought of moving hadn't even crossed my mind, and the thought of it makes me feel all weird inside. What if we lived in a completely different part of the city? Would that totally change my perspective of this wonderful place?

Speaking of apartments, I tried something last night. You see, when it's getting late, my lovely wife goes to bed and I stay awake and play hockey on the PS3. Every night, she sets the thermostat to 73 when she goes to bed, and this makes the house very frigid. I usually have to put on warm pants and a hooded sweatshirt while she sleeps so I don't freeze my balls off. Last night, I turned down the thermostat, but I only put it to 74. It still got very cold in here, but I couldn't tell the difference. When we woke up this morning, my lovely wife asked "Did you turn the thermostat all the way down? It's hot in here." "Yes I did." I responded, amazed that she could tell the difference, which was one degree. Can't put anything past this one.

Posts About Babies: No More Posts About Babies

2011-08-17T09:15:00.000-05:00

I'm gonna go ahead and probably just cancel the Posts About Babies titles...I'll probably keep them categorized in the blog labels but the titles are probably going to go the way of the Atari 2600. Still cool and stuff, but outdated compared to the current landscape. You see, there is nothing much more to my life than the baby. So to say that I have to specialize posts into a category of a "Post about Babies" is sort of unnecessary.

That's not to say the content here won't be other stuff besides posts about babies, but I believe that this is where I will find the most amount of the interesting things to write about, no? And you thought when you read the title of this post that there would be no more posts about babies, didn't you? Haha, sucker!

I think I might try my hand at video recording and editing. We have Windows 7, which has all kinds of video editing stuff included into it, and I've messed with it before to try it out with a video I took of Cody Franson taking a slapshot at a Predators practice that was open to the public back in April. It seemed easy enough to use, so I'm going to try to remember to record stuff and edit it together to make a nice little thing on my life. As boring as my life is, there is some interesting and funny things that happen from time to time. I just hope I can channel my inner Big Brother producer and shine events in a light that make them seem more interesting than they probably really are. So in order to make this happen, I'm going to have to have the camera on my person nearly at all times, to capture video and then edit it down to the interesting stuff. And not just videos of baby, but cooking breakfast and driving to places. Things like that. So throughout this week I'm going to start trying to remember to get some video! Who knows, maybe I'll be really good at it?

I Need A Lawyer and a Degree, Apparently

2011-08-16T14:20:00.001-05:00

So baby and I are just chillin' at the house watching baseball, which I wish I would remember to do more often. Usually I just leave it on our local Fox station, WZTV channel 17, where they play a number of low quality programming that I just can't seem to pull myself away from. You see, when you have a baby, there really isn't a whole lot of adventure you can have, except getting puked on or crapped on. So, we watch TV. Well, I guess I watch TV, she doesn't usually care too much what's on TV just yet. I don't want her to be a slave to the television like her daddy is, but it's probably inevitable. I like to watch TV, because that's what I've always done.

Anyway, I turn on Jeopardy! at 11 a.m. and leave it on for the next four hours and it's a steady downhill of brainpower being broadcast. I wish there was a bar graph to illustrate, but just imagine it starting out high, and progressively declining throughout the day. But like I said, today is the exception to this, as I'm watching the Stupid Red Sox play the stupid Tampa Bay Rays. I really don't care too much about either team, but it's the only game on right now...so here I am. After Jeopardy! comes Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, which I initially didn't like, but when you watch the damn show every day for a few weeks, you learn to sort of tolerate the idiots that compete on the show. I get excited when there is actually someone smart on there that can answer the questions and do it without guessing. Usually I just yell at the TV at how stupid the contestants are. Then there's an hour block of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, which is more of me shaking my head at idiots. Then it's Family Feud, hosted by Steve Harvey, who really isn't very funny, but at least he's entertaining when he rips on the contestants dumb answers.

After the game shows are over it turns to talk shows. Steve Wilkos, who was the main bouncer on Jerry Springer has his own talk show, which is a lot like Springer, only more serious, I'd say. Then it's Springer himself, which always makes me laugh. Sometimes I forget how retarded human beings can be, even if some of the things on Springer might not be legit. Someone thought of that story line if it's not real, and that takes some talent. I think, however, that some of that shit is so crazy, you couldn't make that up. It has to have some level of truth to it. And finally it's the paternity test and lie-detector test show, I mean Maury. Maury is the best, I wish it was on earlier.

There are much better things I could be doing with my time than getting mad at bad TV, but I can't tear myself away from it. It's like watching a train wreck, I just can't turn away.

Also, all the while these shows are playing there are two, and strictly two types of commercials that play. Lawyers and Colleges. I guess the only people who are home watching these shows either have a shitty job, no job, or are injured and can't work. That's it. I believe I fall into the "shitty job" category they are marketing, but I'm watching a baby, damn it. That's a great job. I don't want a different job than that. I just think it would do me a favor to see a commercial for Sunny D or a car company mixed in. I'm about to call 615-4Lawyer just so find out what that feels like, because god knows it's been pounded into my skull enough. Yeah, today I needed a break from that bullshit. I'll watch the stupid Red Sox and the stupid Rays instead. Better than seeing another one of those commercials.

Posts About Babies: Routine

2011-08-15T10:59:00.001-05:00

Alright, so we have officially established the ever-important routine! Yes, things in our home life were put on shuffle a few weeks ago, and there was a bit of an adjusting period that needed to happen, for sure. I only work on the weekends, and I'm off all week long so I can stay home with baby while Mama is at work, making the real money. I took a cut in hours, but either way, someone had to watch the baby, and either I take the pay cut or we pay some stranger to watch our precious. I'd rather be the one in charge. I'm her dad and I should be the one to do it.

The pay cut thing hasn't effected us yet because I haven't received a "new normal" check as of this writing, so I don't even know what to expect once that "new normal" check arrives. I'll find out on Friday, I think. I don't remember when I worked overtime and when the pay period started and ended and all that, so I don't know. Like I said, I'll find out on Friday.

But as I started in the opening line, after all the changes, we have now established routine, which is very essential to keeping a happy baby. Babies are pretty easy if you listen to experts. Just make sure she eats, plays then naps. Some naps are long and deep and awesome for dad. Some are short, and I have to walk on eggshells (not literally, that's gross) to make sure she doesn't wake up. But when she gets her good nap in, oh man talk about happy baby. Nothing in the entire world beats a happy baby. So anything I can do to make a happy baby happen, I will do it. She likes to be held in front of the big mirror we have in her nursery, and we ask her different questions that she physically can't answer yet, because she is a baby. But she smiles and giggles, and I don't care what anyone says, that's the best thing in the entire world. I live for the baby giggle.

So Monday through Friday I am a stay at home dad and on the weekends I would categorize myself as "unavailable." My weekends from about 6 p.m. on Friday until 2 p.m. on Sunday I am sleep/work/sleep/work/tired. Then it's put baby to sleep, wake up, feed her, bring mama to work, feed her some more. Nap. Feed. Nap. Oh and diaper changes in between all of it. I can do this easy. I'm just glad I can find time to write here, too. That's why baby naps are so awesome. Also, when she naps I get to play NHL 11. This is important above most other things.

Death Cab for Cutie

2011-08-14T01:39:00.001-05:00

I don't want to so much "review" the Death Cab for Cutie concert I went to on Wednesday night, but more give a wrap-up on my observations and feelings before, during and after the show. First off, it's pretty well documented that I'm not really a fan of Death Cab, especially going into the show, but afterwards, I'm a bit more of a fan. My expectations going in were that it was going to be pretty laid-back because Death Cab's music comes across to me as being mellow and chill. Death Cab is more of a lyric-based type music, I feel, and the instrumentation is not that important to the fans of the band. This is where I have my problems with the band, because I don't listen to lyrics unless I specifically go look the lyrics up while listening to a song, generally. If you don't listen to Death Cab for the lyrics, like me, the songs are kind of boring. Sometimes that's not the case with some bands, and the lyrics do shine on top of the songs, but most of the time I'm just not listening to what the artist is saying. I listen to the vocal melody and the music and the rhythm and the drums and stuff like that. Basically, I hum and mumble along with most songs. I assumed that Ben Gibbard, (vocals, guitar, piano) was going to be very reserved and not have very much stage presence, and I was very wrong. The dude is a rock star, and he knows how to work a crowd, for sure. Before the show, I honestly wondered what pillow I should have taken to the show, to be more comfortable during my mid-set nap I was probably going to be taking, but to my surprise, the show was pretty energetic for a mellow, songwriting band.

Now, part of my problem with the show was that I don't know many songs by the band, as I'm not that big of a fan. That didn't matter, though, as they sounded great, whether I knew the songs or not.

Let's talk about during the show. The venue in which this concert took place is the Bridgestone Arena. The place had a lot of people in it, most of them being on the floor area. Every concert I've ever been too, I've been on the floor and this was my first experience sitting in the stands. (kind of an oxymoron, no? Sitting in the stands?) So I was able to have a good view of the crowd down below me. What surprised me was the lack of movement and general enthusiasm out of the people on the floor. They just stood there, staring at the band(s). What the hell? Every show I've been to, like I said, I was standing on the floor and the people moved and gyrated and danced and sang and pointed and participated. Not this crowd. THEY JUST STOOD THERE. It was very awkward. The band had absolutely nothing to feed of off.

There was a baby in the stands just down the row from us. Didn't expect that.

There were a few old people at the show, and I want to do a separate piece on old people in a bit, but we thought of a funny quandary about being old and staying hip.

Overall, I loved the show, and the songs they wrote are WAY better live than I expected. It was a huge-sounding show. Just over the top. I loved it, I really did. I am a bigger fan now than I was going in, because the band shattered so many expectations I had for them afterwards. I think I just like music that the crowd actually reacts to physically. That's all I'm saying.

Isn't Death Cab for Cutie the absolute worst band name of all time? I have the facts, and I'm voting yes.

A Lost Music Post Apparently From 11 Years Ago

2011-08-07T09:36:00.000-05:00

Something I noticed this morning, I was wondering who had won all the Grammy awards for Best Hard Rock Performance and as I read the Wikipedia page on the award, I noticed it said something near the end of the description that caught my eye. It says about the Grammy awards that awards "in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position." I put this last part in bold to highlight this fact because it's total bullshit.

As I glanced down the list of winners, I noticed that they all seemed worthy of their wins, as most of those songs are pretty good. Cult of Personality, Black Hole Sun, Give It Away, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Guerrilla Radio, All My Life, B.Y.O.B, songs like that that were very good hard rock songs. Judging music, as you know, is a matter of taste, so giving an award to musicians who someone says it the best can be hard to do, I would think. Some people like certain shit, some people don't. But most of these songs were major radio hits. Now, I also don't think ragging on the Grammy's is all that necessary. Everyone who knows anything knows the Grammy's are total bullshit, and only exist to boost album sales. But to go out and say you are going to honor artistic achievement and technical proficiency and overall excellence without regard to album sales or chart position and then nominate Kid Rock (in his rap/rock days) and Limp Bizkit for the award? You cannot tell me that Limp Bizkit's Nookie was in the top SIX best songs of the year 2000, as far as technical proficiency goes. There is no goddamn way. The song was popular as hell, that's for sure. But it's not good. It's not well done in the grand scheme of creating excellent music. It's bullshit!

Anyway, that's all I'm saying. They got better, and started actually awarding shit to artists that probably deserve it in later years, like awarding Best Hard Rock Performance in 2009 The Mars Volta for their song Wax Simulacra, because that song is the shit, and it's very technically proficient! Well done, Grammy's.

Anyway, I just thought I would share that thing I noticed. The other nominees in the year 2000 were Korn - Freak on a Leash, Kid Rock - Bawitdaba, Alice In Chains - Get Born Again, Buckcherry - Lit Up, and the winner was Metallica with their cover of Whiskey in the Jarro.

Also, they're reshuffling all the categories in 2012, so there will be no more award for this and a separate one for best metal performance. Lump em together. They should get super-specific with their categories, like, Best Alt-Country-with-Rootsy-Bluegrass-sort-of-stuff Performance or Best Post Hardcore Performance with Male and Female Singers Who Alternate Lead Vocal Duties. That would make it interesting, for sure.

Best Band No One Has Ever Heard Of Award goes to.......The Dogcatchers?

My Opinions on Every Major League Baseball Team

2011-08-06T11:04:00.002-05:00

Right off the top I want to let the reader know this post is about baseball. This post is going to be long and opinionated. This post is being completed out of request, but it's also something I would really, really like to write down. So if you don't want to read about my opinions on baseball teams, then you have my permission to close this tab out right now. If you want to skim it, that's fine, too. But don't say I didn't warn you.

There are 30 different teams in baseball, some of which I like, some of which, not so much for one reason or another. I do have an opinion on these teams and all the ones inbetween. These are my feelings.

I would also just like to say that I am an Atlanta Braves fan living in Nashville, TN by way of Negaunee, MI. This skews my perceptions of the other teams in the league dramatically. Here is my opinions on the 30 Major League Baseball teams, in no particular order.

Atlanta Braves: I have been a Braves fan since the 1991 world series, when as a 8 year old, I was enamored by the 50,000 people at Fulton County Stadium doing the Chop in unison. I had never seen anything like it, and I was hooked. Plus, it was the World Series, and a classic Series at that. Unlike other sports, I have never strayed from my fandom of the Braves, 20 years running now.

Baltimore Orioles: Baltimore is probably my favorite lesser-known American League team. Let me clear a few things up during my Baltimore section, I root for underdogs, I root for small market teams, I root for teams that have been around a long time and I generally have a National League bias. Baltimore falls into three out of four of these categories I don't care who is on the field, and I probably won't recognize 80% of the player they do have on the field, but Baltimore is like the forgotten AL east team. If I'm choosing who to watch on MLB.TV, I will chose the Orioles. Something about them is just "off the beaten path" of baseball teams.

Colorado Rockies: The Rockies are a team I cared absolutely nothing about until they made a deep playoff run in 2007, and now I see them as a legit team that could make noise in the playoffs every year. My preception of them has always been that they sold a lot of tickets, hit a lot of homeruns, and lost a lot of games. They also gave a terrible contract to Mike Hampton, and that makes them look stupid. But they made a World Series, so they're legit in my eyes. Todd Helton.

Seattle Mariners: Do-nothing, bad magagement team from Seattle, who used to play in a dome. Ken Griffey Jr. This team always sucks even when they won like, 110 games or whatever in 1998, or whatever. My current opinion of them, MEH. I'd watch them, but I just don't care about them one way or another.

Chicago White Sox: Let's see, the White Sox. Never liked them. Frank Thomas. Play in US Cellular field, which I don't think there exists a more boring stadium to watch a game on TV from. There or Turner Field. Stadium asthetics matter to me, especially if I have no other reason to watch because there is no rooting interest. I like them because they are old-timey, but that's about it. They do have one of the best hats in the baseball, though. Very iconic.

Pittsburgh Pirates: Now this is a team that fits into all four of my catagories of teams I root for. They've been around forever, have sucked for years, play in a great new stadium, are in the National League and are doing okay so far this year. I think he Pittsburgh Pirates is cute, unlike their football team.

Toronto Blue Jays: Fuck the Blue Jays. I've never liked them. They play in a stupid dome, they have astroturf, they have ugly uniforms. They play in the American League, they won stuff, and usually hang around in the standings, so their never too terrible for me to feel sorry for them. They are one of my least favorite teams by far. If I see the Jays are playing the Mariners or the Rays or something, I'll turn MLB.TV off and watch Maury.

Tampa Bay Rays: Used to be a cute lovable loser team, then they got successful and I loved every minute of it. I still think it's crazy that the Rays are any good, at all, ever. They were so unbelieveably bad for so long it's hard to believe they made a World Series. But they did and they are a perrenial contender now. But warm fuzzy feeling of their championship run is long wore off, and now I just think they're boring. MEH to the max.

Houston Astros: Never really liked them, but never hated them. I like their weird stadium, sort of, but I sort of hate they put that mound in center field, just for the sake of putting a mound in center field. I understand that they did it so I would include it in my blog post, and it has a sort of "hometown field" feeling to it, where the ground is imperfect and they just have to "make do with what we have to deal with." Buy you purposefully installed a hill into a wall...for a gimmick. Most old ballparks had odd deminsions because they were on a weird city block that had to account for fitting in somewhere, like the old Polo grounds in New York. It was super long, for reasons that I'm sure weren't a gimmick, but because they had to do it that way. It was fucking 500 feet to straight away center, which no one every hit a homerun to. No, the fucking Astros just built a mound out there to be assholes. Also, it used to be called Enron feild, so that's funny.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: When I see the red box on the on-screen scoreboard in the top corner of the screen with the letters LAA in them, I want to slit my own throat. Oh my fucking god am I sick of the Angels. They're like the west coast Yankees, and they get the coverage they deserve because they have been very successful for a number of years now, including a World Series championship in 2002. I was all about them then because they were the underdogs. Rally Monkey! Yes, now they are just a boring, bland, blah, fuck you baseball team. I would say the Angels are the very last team I would choose to watch. But it depends on who they're playing against. Disney.

Kansas City Royals: Now there's a team I can get behind. They're like the Orioles, only shittier. I like them because they haven't done shit for years. I think that's something I could root for. I think it's because I watched them a lot when I lived in Michigan watching them play the Tigers that I have a positive feeling towards them. Go Royals.

Texas Rangers: God I hate the Rangers. You would think since they haven't done shit in the entire existence of their franchise that I would like them, but I just don't. I hate their uniforms, and their logo, and Texas in general, arbitrarily I might add. There is just absolutely nothing that excites me about the Rangers.

Oakland Athletics: The Bash brothers of McGwire and Canseco were my heroes growing up. I loved those guys even though I wasn't a fan of the team. I hate the stadium they play in now, and even though they made a lot of noise with their moneyball techniques, I still feel sort of MEH on them. They are by far my favorite team in the AL West, however. But that doesn't take a whole lot. I don't mind the A's at all except their stupid football stadium they play in.

New York Yankees: I respect the Yankees for winning 27 world titles out of a possible 106, and have appeared in 40 of them. The Yankees have appeared in 38% of all World Series' played. That's insanely higher than any other team. The Giants and Dodgers are tied for second most appearances, and those combined appearances don't even equal half of what the Yankees have accomplished. The Yankees have been successful since the 1920's with an exception of the 1980's, I guess, but you get the idea. That's one missed decade out of nine, so far. What I respect the most is that they will do whatever it takes to win, something I think that gets lost on other teams owners and General Managers. Do what it takes to win. Forget about the finances. Just go win some championships. That's the goddamn reason that Major League Baseball, or any sport for that matter, is played. Just because they spend money and are successful does not make them evil.

Boston Red Sox: I didn't want to put the Sawx right after the Yanks, but I have to get it out. Fuck these clowns. The whole Massachusetts "we're family, we're great, we do this we do that" bullshit needs to stop right now. Like, everyone from Boston just has this "we're from Boston" attitude. Just like people from New Jersey do. When the Red Sox started making a run for a title in 2003-2004, everyone got enamored with the "Reverse the Curse" story, and the Curse of the Bambino. Hell, even I was on my couch screaming at the TV, cheering on the underdog Sox! What a great story, a ragtag group of highly paid losers take down the Yanks and go on the win the title, after 93 years of heartbreak. Then the massive bandwagon showed up, and suddenly everyone one you know who casually watched a few baseball games was a huge Red Sox fan. That bothered me more than anything. Also, right around that time of them winning a title of two, their payroll was just as big as the Yankees was, but no one said they were evil because of it. No, fuck that. The Yankees have won 27 world titles while you assholes were off being shitty for 90+ years. Go fuck yourselves and your bandwagon jumpers.

Chicago Cubs: These are some Lovable Losers I can get behind. I have a soft spot for the Cubs because the first MLB game I saw live was at Wrigley, which is an amazing place to see a game. It's like walking into a time capsule, where time stands still. Sure the Cubs suck, and someday they will win a championship, but not anytime soon. Over 100 years of futility. That goes against my Yankees arguement, but remember, before the Red Sox won some championships, I felt the same way about both teams. If the Cubs went on a run of championships and everyone jumped on their bandwagon, I'd probably hate them, too. But they haven't, so I still like them. Go Cubbies.

Detroit Tigers: I was a Tigers fan before I was any other type of fan. They will always be my second favorite team. I love the Tigers. I want them to do well. I follow them. I am a fan. They are old-timey, too, so that helps. All my friends are Tigers fans.

Cincinnati Reds: The Reds fall into the exact same category as the Pirates. Underdog team that hasn't done shit in years. National League team. Very rich history of success and failure. I like their little ballpark too, and that it doesn't have a corporate sponsored name. The Great American Ballpark, while a bit of pretentiousness because, you know, you just called yourself a Great American anything without really earning the title... But still, I get a feeling form the Reds of just some guys playing baseball on a Saturday afternoon. I feel like the Reds are what baseball is all about.

San Fransisco Giants: I've never liked them. I think the fact that they have the Cheveron car mascots applied permanently to their outfield wall is fucking stupid. Otherwise, I like their ballpark. It's a place I'd like to visit. The team has some good, exciting young talent to them, which I love. Posey, Sandoval, and Lincecum, for examples. Also, once they got rid of the image of "Barry Bonds and a bunch of other dudes," they became much more admirable in my eyes. Old-Timey!

Arizona Diamondbacks: Would this team just go away, already? They wore purple when they entered the league, if I'm mistaken, and if you notice, they don't anymore. They also went to wearing black, which every single team that enters a league as a new team does after they regret choosing purple or teal as their primary color. Think about it.

New York Mets: Fuck the Mets. Always and forever.

Florida Marlins: I used to hate the Marlins when they were good, now I just hate them because of the divisional rivalry with my Braves. They suck, though, so I don't worry about them. We're TEAL! Just kidding, we wear black now. We play in an 80,000 seat football stadium that we will never, ever be able to fill. They're getting a new stadium with a retractable roof, so we'll see if that helps my perception of the team and their empty fucking stadium

Philadelphia Phillies: Phuck the Phillies. I can't stand them because they have become the big money spenders of the National League. I know I said I respect the Yankees because they spend money to win, and winning is the point, but this is fucking with my favorite team. The Phillies are really good, and they're in the same division as my Braves, so I don't like them. It's a competitive thing.

Cleveland Indians: No problem with the Indians. They're like the Royals and the Orioles. Only difference is they've come close to reversing their misfortunes in the recent past with a few trips to the ALCS and even the World Series int eh 90's. They have the second longest Championship drought after the Cubs, so I'd like to see them win one. Cleveland sports suck in general, so you gotta feel for the fans of the city sometimes. I don't like them like I like the O's or the Royals, but I do see them in a positive light.

San Diego Padres: Take em or leave em. I have a Padres hat. They used to have Brian Giles and Jake Peavy. They play in a pitchers park. Tony Gwinn. I don't know, I just don't care at all about San Diego. I'd say right now they are the most irrelevant team in baseball.

St. Louis Cardinals: This is a team I didn't like much the past few years because they were good, but boring. I had no reason to root for the team, since they never really have been all that bad since I really started watching baseball as an adult. Pujols is the fucking man, one of the all-time greats, and he's not even done with his career. He's a true gem for baseball. I'd say the Cardinals are that really good team that always gets overlooked, sort of like the Spurs in the NBA. Yeah, yeah, the Cardinals are good again. No surprise there. We take advantage of in knowing the Cards are always good.

Milwaukee Brewers: I have seen the Brewers live more often than any other team, so there's that. I like them a lot. They're like, my third favorite team, just because I've spent so much time at Miller Park. The ultimate small market team, you just have to pull for them. There is no smaller small-market team in any sport, I'd say. Football has rules for revenue sharing and salary caps to prevent the big guy against the little guy, and it's an even playing field. In baseball, there is no such thing. The Yankees are the top, the Brewers are the bottom, in my opinion. Go Brewers.

Minnesota Twins: I've never really liked the Twins. I always hated the dome and the astroturf, but even now that they play outside, it hasn't changed my feelings towards them. There's just something about them that I don't like. The Twins should be an inspiration to all the other small market teams out there though, it proves you can be successful with a limited amount of resources. I'm just sick of seeing them,

Washington Nationals: I liked them better when they were the Expos. But they are the Nationals now, and even though they're in the same division as my Braves, I don't hate them because they are not a threat. I don't love them like I do most other small market teams, but I defiantly don't hate them like I do other division rivals. I hope they do well, I really do.

Los Angeles Dodgers: Lastly, we have the Los Angeles Dodgers. What can I say? I think it's a shame what their going through with the ownership thing and with the bankruptcy thing, but that's business. I like their tradition of being good. I think if the Dodgers are good, it's good for baseball. I like their blue, I think it's pretty. I love listening to Vin Scully call games while he still does, and I put Evie to sleep to his voice as often as I can. It's one of the true old-school elements of the game that still legitimately exists and isn't a reprint or fabrication of past traditions. There's something decidedly sixties about Dodger stadium, which is slowly becoming the third stadium behind Wrigley and Fenway in being one of those legendary places of baseball. I just don't like all the empty premium seats up front. It looks so goddamn cheap. No one sits there because no one wants to pay those ridiculous prices. It makes you look greedy. Let the damn kids sit in the front row, for gods sake. Isn't that why we play all these regular season games? So families can come out to the ballgame and have a good time?

So to summerize, I feel indifferent to mid-market teams with moderate success. I hate teams that have bandwagon jumping fans or are in the National League East that aren't named the Braves (or Nationals, I guess.) I love the small market teams that never win anything. I like the Tigers and Braves the most. If I have to choose five teams other than the Braves or Tigers to watch a game of, I will choose, again in no particular order: Reds, Pirates, Orioles, Royals, Dodgers. But if you know me, you know I'd absolutely love to watch a Padres Diamondbacks game or a Mariners Angels game if it's on. I just love baseball, no matter who's on.

Where's my LiveJournal?!?!

2011-08-02T12:41:00.001-05:00

The saddest thing just happened. My friend said she logged into her LiveJournal account and was reading what she had written back in the day, and that made me was to revisit the site, myself. It was sad because I can't remember my login password, and when I put in the email address I most likely used to sign up for the site back in 2005, that couldn't be found either. Where did my old blog go?!?!

There are some great memories on there that I'd like to relive. How can this be? I must dig deeper, because I need to see that, like, right now.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that it makes me sad that my thoughts are gone, if they are indeed gone. That's why I did the damn thing in the first place, so I could look back on it 5 years later and laugh at myself. I have to stop writting this righ tnow because the typos are getting rediciousl and my fingernails are too long to typw. c ya later, aI an nt correcting these fucking things.

***Editors Note: Found it. Carry on, lol. Wanna read it? I haven't even read it yet, so we could do it together. It can be found here.

A Return to Homesickness

2011-07-31T09:39:00.001-05:00

*** I read this over once before posting it and it's really jumpy and hard to read, so I apologize for that in advance.***

Two years ago today I wrote a post on this site about homesickness. How odd it is that I return to that subject two years to the day? It's like I've applied a layer of dirt to my brain. The dirt is me covering up the life I used to have back home. I've tried so hard to bury it underneath my new life here in Nashville. Every once in a while I dig into the dirt and find the little spot that used to be my life back home, and I sort of forget everything I've done to cover it up. I litterally forget where in the world I am sitting for a little while. I have to snap back into reality and realize that I'm in Nashville, not the U.P. All it takes is to read a news article, or a few facebook posts. It's really bad when I go to Google street view and look at all the images from home that you can access. I lived there for what, 26 years? It's home. I didn't really leave the area for more than a week, ever before I moved. It's the weirdest feeling to snap back to reality once I try to. I realize where I am, and it was like I was in some sort of trance. I cover those memories back up with the mental dirt, and carry on with what's real, the present. I dealt with crushing homesickness for a while after we first moved here, but it got better and better. When I went home for a few days in February, that helped a lot, seeing everyone and everything again. But every once in a while, I dig that dirt up, and realize how much I miss the comfort of home. Even if I went back, it's not the same for me anymore. I miss being ages 0-26 in Negaunee, not 28-death in Negaunee. You can't ever go back to that time, but you try to, and recreate things like how it used to be.

I try to remind myself that the past is the past. Don't dwell on the past and try to enjoy the present, because someday, I'm going to want to go back to this very moment as well. All you can do is try to have the best time possible in the current, and hope you remember these days with fond memories. The best ways to do that is to just cherish the moments as they come. As I grow old, I realize that life moves pretty quickly. If you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you might miss it.

Sorry to get all downer, but that's what's on my mind. Back to writing about stupider shit tomorrow!

Don't Get Bent Out Of Shape About Gas Prices

2011-07-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

Let's talk about gas prices, shall we? I currently need gas. My gas light is on, or as some people refer to it as the idiot light. First off, I'm not sure why people call it the idiot light. Isn't that a bit harsh? I mean, sometimes you get low on gas and the light comes on. You're not an idiot, you are just a person who uses a car which uses gas which eventually runs out. Anyway, gas prices tend to make people irritated because they go up, and that means more money out of your pocket. But how much does that little fulucuation in gas prices really affect you? Sure there's a big difference between say, $1.29 a gallon against, say, $4.50 a gallon, but 30 cents? Let's do some simple math here to figure out why you don't need to wait in line at the gas station for the cheapest price in town.

First off, most gas prices in your area will be close to the same, if not exactly the same. Gas stations need to keep the prices close to the other places that sell gas to stay competitive. 30 cents is a pretty big flucuation in price for one area, but I did see it last week. One station near my house had it the entire 30 cents cheaper than a station in a different part of town. But how much does that really effect the damage to your wallet? Let's say you have a 15 gallon tank in you vehicle. That's about average (smaller cars may be more like 12 gallons, bigger cars more like 16. SUV's will be 20 gallons or more.) Filling the empty tank at, say $3.47 a gallon rate will cost you $52.05. On the other side of town their selling gas for $3.77. That will cost you $56.55 for a difference of $4.50. Now, that's a pretty big difference in terms of gas price, but $4.50? That's a gallon of organic milk. That's a sandwich at a lunch spot. It's nothing to get bent out of shape about, but it's also something you would like to avoid if you can. You could totally save $4.50 just by knowing where to buy your gas. But what if the place selling gas at $3.47 is so busy you will have to wait 15 minutes just to fill up? I would imagine that somewhere nearby, has gas for a similar price. Like I said, gas stations in proximity of each other need to keep prices competitive so I would bet somewhere nearby has gas for a similar price. That 15 gallon tank filled up at $3.50 at the Exxon down the street will cost you $52.50. That's a difference of FORTY FIVE CENTS. You can't buy anything worth while for 45 cents. I imagine that there will be no wait at the place with the $3.50 gas either.

So unless the gas prices on one side of town is 30 cents more, just get gas wherever you are, because it really isnt' that big of a difference. 15 gallons at $1.29 a gallon is $19.35, at $4.50 a gallon it's $67.50, so that's something to bitch about, my friends. I cite these numbers because these are the cheapest and most expensive I've seen gas prices in my driving lifetime, which is just over 10 years of driving. But if you want to go out of your way and wait in line forever just to save 45 cents, you are frugal, but you are also stupid. Just think about it next time your getting gas.

Doom for Google+?

2011-07-29T10:09:00.010-05:00

I hate to be this way, but Google+ isn't gonna work out. I like it, I'll continue to use it as long as my friends do to, but it's not going to work like they said it would.

Facebook has it down, where you are friends with everyone you've ever met. Myspace was sort of that way too, where you had over one-hundred friends, most likely. When I signed up for Twitter iin 2009, when it was starting to blow up, I figured that was where everyone was going to gravitate towards next. But it never happened. There was a select few that did, a certain circle of friends not afraid to try out the new social networking service that limited your posts to only 140 characters. What I noticed is that after about six months, the new sign-ups of my extended circle of friends came to a sudden halt, and even some of the people that were my earliest friends just suddenly stopped tweeting. There has been about 3 people that I know personally that have signed up for Twitter since that initial six month signup frenzy.

Then came along Google+. It's supposed to challenge Facebook for users, but I'm sensing a trend here. A Trending Topic, if you will. The same 15 or 20 people that signed up for Twitter in that initial flurry are the same 15 or 20 or so people that are on Google+ with me. I think most people are comfortable with what they know, and what they know is Facebook. I really thought that since Google has all kinds of cool things you can do that their developers have come up with that people would like to have all their stuff wrapped up into one neat package. What they want is their Gmail and Facebook open at the same time in different tabs. Google+ probably won't fail miserably into a ball of fire, but it's going to be more like Twitter, where you have a select few friends that signed up for it, and no one new signing up for it for a long, long time.

But the thing is, I don't think we want to be friends with everyone we ever met again. I hate to say it, but Google+ is doomed to fail, at least in it's goal of taking down Facebook as the king of social media. I hope I'm wrong, in a way, I have no problem with Facebook, I just want something fresh. Google+ is pretty cool. But it's not going to win.

You Don't Need To Understand.

2011-07-29T09:36:00.004-05:00

Planking is like Apple Jacks cereal. Apple Jacks don't taste like apples, but the kids don't care, they just like it anyway and the people that don't get it try to figure out why the people that do like it, like it. It makes me feel equally smug and stupid to know that "planking" is nothing new, it's just new to the general public. Some people get it, some people don't. What's to get? Nothing. There is nothing to get from planking. Yet some people will try to figure it out, and when they don't get it, they will feel left out, and then say it's stupid. Yes, planking is fucking stupid. That's sort of the point, I believe.

I first heard of "planking" (this is where I feel smug) back in 2009, before it was cool, before everyone was doing it. Only when I heard of it, it was just called the "laying down game." From what I understood, you lay down face down in what would appear to be an uncomfortable position, or perhaps even a very unusual place to be laying face down, and then have someone take a picture of you doing it. That's it. Why? Why not? So when people are still doing it two years later, now it's "the stupidest thing ever," because you tried to figure out why these people, perhaps even friends of yours, are laying face down in pictures. There is no fucking reason. If someone gives you a reason, they're bullshitting you.

I knew that this would happen, maybe not with "planking" but in general. This is how it works, okay? The internet comes up with something stupid that makes a few people laugh, then it makes other people laugh because the original people that laughed at it shared the lulz with their friends. Eventually the idea gets shared around enough that it makes it into the general population, every day life, and someone will not understand what makes it so funny to everyone. Most people won't get it. They just don't get stuff. Is planking stupid? You bet. Is it funny? Absolutely. I think the people that rally against planking are just as stupid as the people doing it but the only difference is that the people doing it are doing it to make someone (even if it's themselves) laugh. The person that hates it does so because he or she doesn't get it. They say "but it's stupid!" Yes, that is the point. It's fucking stupid and weird and unusual to see someone laying inside of a jet propeller. End of story. End of blog post, too.

Growin' It Out

2011-07-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

This is what I used to look like

Now that I have officially changed my permanent shift to midnights, I will very rarely, if ever, see my supervisor anymore. I will maybe see my account manager once a month, perhaps less than that even. It depends on if he drops in on me to see how I'm doing. He does that every time and again, so I have to be prepared to look busy if he drops by. He's done it before. Well anyway, the only reason I was keeping my hair at the short length it's at was due to the job's policy on such things. Well, if I have no boss to tell me to cut my hair, so perhaps I'll bend the policy a bit, no? I think so. I like me better with longer hair. I think it covers up for some of my other serious aesthetic flaws I believe we all feel about ourselves. Maybe it doesn't? But it makes me more comfortable in my own skin, so it's what I choose to pursue, damn it.

Another thing I noticed about being on Midnights, I try to write interesting posts, and just fail miserably. I can't think straight at three in the fucking morning. It's the weirdest feeling, man. I have even less focus than I usually do, and I didn't think that was possible. So if some of those (these) weekend posts seem a bit jumbled, that's why. Thanks for sticking around. I'll try to come up with something more interesting.

Do The Doors Suck?

2011-07-26T08:47:00.035-05:00

Alright so I got a rise out of one of my more loyal readers the other day when I said that the Doors suck. No, I said the Doors "fucking suck." Well, this is a matter of taste, I suppose, but I decided to figure out exactly what it was that has made me feel this way for my entire adult life and some of my adolescent life as well.

First off, that fucking organ. Knock that shit off, man. So irritating. It literally has ruined every single song I have ever tried to listen to by the Doors. Secondly, Jim Morrison just comes across as a hack who wrote a bunch of stuff while fucked up beyond recognition on what ever was the drug de jour. When you're in high school, you try to find something that has meaning, something that has substance in a musical world full of fake bullshit. Kids gravitate towards stuff that was written long ago and has a lot of safe, well-documented positive popular opinion. So you either listen to the Doors, Led Zeppelin, or the Beatles. All three acts are innovators in their own rights. High school kids latch on to one or two or three of these bands and wear their Jim Morrison shirts to school because it makes them look cool because, well, drugs are cool. You get beat up wearing a Justin Bieber shirt. You probably don't get beat up wearing a Jim Morrison shit. The dude was a fuck up. By the way, I am writing this listening to the Doors, and I must say this organ is so unbelievably goddamn distracting...

The thing that most people may be unaware of is that he didn't write many of the Doors hit songs. Many people would be surprised to find out that many of their favorite Doors songs were written by Robbie Krieger. In fact, Krieger wrote Light My Fire, which was their only #1 hit. You can't give all the credit for the great song writing of the Doors without mentioning Robbie Krieger. But that just doesn't happen. Morrison gets the album cover, Morrison gets his face on the t-shirt.

If you were able to take inspiration from the poetry of Jim Morrison, I'm very proud of ya. Just know that when he wrote it, he probably had no clue what he was saying, due to the quantity and quality of drugs and alcohol in his system. I know a lot of great stuff was written by people who were fucked up on drugs, but just for the sake of argument here, this dude was exceptional in the fact that it wasn't good. Know what I mean?

Perhaps if Jim Morrison had lived he could have dispelled the bad poet bullshit he is saddled with to this day, like say "wasn't I a tool bag back then?" But he died, and he is forever remembered for that. He died and is a legend, a martyr for rock and roll, and is forever put on the same pedestal as Joplin, Hendrix and Cobain for the same reasons. The music of the Doors isn't terrible. It's not. But it's the goddamned organ, and if you get away from the hits, it's just boring and doesn't really do anything. Songs like Hello, I Love You are great. Riders of the Storm can suck my balls. Break on Through can suck my balls. Light My Fire would be alright if they turned down that GODDAMNED organ.

To answer the question posed in the title of this blog post, do the Doors suck? My answer is...not entirely. There is a lot of stuff out there that truly does suck (soulja boy) and I would choose the Doors over those shitty artists in a heartbeat. I respect the swagger of Jim Morrison, all the while wishing people didn't worship the ground he walked on just because he wrote things that made people feel cooler for having tried to interpret and then died before he could do anything uncool. Maybe I'm just missing something here, but every time I've listened to the Doors, I want to stab my ears out with a number two pencil. Sorry, that's just the way I feel. I shouldn't have to apologize, but I'm sure you could tear apart my favorite bands a lot easier than I can do to the Doors but I don't want you to go there. I know I am in the minority on this subject, but I know I'm not alone in feeling this way either. But I'm leaving this topic right here at this moment. I will accept responses but I might not reply.

Have a good day.

Spotify is Here

2011-07-25T08:32:00.001-05:00

Well, Spotify is here in the good ol' USofA and this is a good thing for music listeners. I think it's good for artists too, because they get paid for me listening, or so I'm told. My biggest thought upon signing up and getting into Spotify is how is this all that revolutionary? I guess it's revolutionary because it's a way to listen to a shit-ton of songs for free. You can currenly do that on Grooveshark, my former choice of music streaming on the internet. The only problem I have with Grooveshark is that it's all disorganized and I can't stand that. Finding complete albums is a real challenge. Spotify has all the songs and information available right there. There's even a "related artists" thing that helps you remember the bands you have been meaning to listen to but haven't gotten around to it. There is a paid version as well that allows you to avoid listening to the little ads they throw in there, which are not that annoying at this point to warrent me to be tempted to pay for this service. The only reason I would pay for this is that's the only way to get the music to stream to my iPhone. Do I really need that at this point for $10 a month? No, I don't. This is another reason I questioned it's revolutionaryness, because you could already do that with Rhapsody anyway. Rhapsody doesn't have a free, ad-supported version, as far as I know, so that's the difference.

I'll be listening to Spotify because I can listen and feel good knowing the artist is getting paid. That's important to me.

The 27 Club Sadly Gets a New Member

2011-07-24T02:27:00.005-05:00

First off, I figured out how to make a "Favicon!" So if you have my blog saved in your bookmarks, instead of having the regular old boring blogger logo, you can now see my specialized, custom, slapdash logo I created in about 48 seconds, and is based off the clever use of the letter B. Exciting times here at Bloggerated!

Let's talk current events, yeah? Amy Winehouse, the exceptionally talented singer has died at the age of 27. Personal feelings aside on how she lived her life are besides the point. The point here is that another person has died. She died at the remarkable age of 27, which has significance in the famous person/death arena. As you most likely heard, this is significant because there are several other famous people that have died at the age of 27. They've dubbed the 27 Club, and Ms. Winehouse is now a permanent member.

Members of Club 27 include:

Brian Jones who was a founder and guitarist/instrumentalist for the Rolling Stones. He was famously listed as having his death ruled "Death by Misadventure" after drowning in a swimming pool.

Janis Joplin, who died from a "probable heroin overdose." I think Joplin was overrated, but you know, she is legend now because we're all left to wonder what else she could have done had she not died.

Jimi Hendrix, who died from sleeping pills and wine combo, like so many other people have accidentally done in the past. I always wonder what it would have been like to have Hendrix still around. In case you didn't know, Hendrix and Carlos Santana were very similar for the era, and I would hate to see Hendrix go on to score a huge hit on a duet with fucking Rob Thomas from Matchbox Twenty, you know what I mean? Hendrix is a legend because of the relatively short period of time he was actually around as a popular musician. There's an entire blog post here about Jimi Hendrix, I imagine...Perhaps next year.

Jim Morrison, who fronted the Doors, who sucked. Yes I said it.

Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, committed suicide with a shotgun after doing heroin, or so they say.

And now, Amy Winehouse died in her London "flat" (or apartment as we Yanks call it) on Saturday July 23rd, 2011. Everyone pretty much said the same thing, that while it's tragic she died, we all saw this coming. I would be a liar if I said I wasn't shocked when I heard it. Wait, that sentence has too many negatives...I was surprised to hear the news. But when you stop to think about it, yeah, I'm not that surprised. Her problems with drugs and alcohol were well documented by the tabloids. It's still sad. She was a very talented singer, and it's sad whenever anyone dies young, famous or not. Hell it's sad when old people die, too. Either way, go listen to some of her music and get back to me. So rest in peace, Amy. And congratulations on forever being mentioned in the same breath as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain. That's good company, my friends.

The Middle of the Night

2011-07-23T02:45:00.001-05:00

Well, the massive change to my life and more specifically my working life has come. Right now, as I type this, I'm working. Yes, my job is very easy. I admit it. I don't really have to do a lot, especially on the weekends, and now, on a midnight shift on the weekend. My new life consists of me working two 16 hour shifts on the weekend. Right now as I type this it's 2:41 a.m. CDT. I'm not really used to being awake at this hour, as I haven't done this in a long, long time. I used to work mids all the time, but not since I left the Casino in 2009. So I'm a little worried that I have another 11+ hours to go and I'm starting to get dizzy. This is going to suck.

So yeah, I'm pretty damn tired, and I hope to get used to this, but right now, I don't know how well this is going to work out. Coffee is irrelevant at this current point. Pray for me. I'm going down.

I can't think of what else to say right now.

Whatever the Weather Be

2011-07-18T13:11:00.000-05:00

Everyone likes to complain about the weather. You can't control it, so why bother complaining about it? I talked before about people talking about the weather and how it's a conversation everyone can have because everyone experiences weather. But when you complain it's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, you're missing a great opportunity to enjoy the season you are currently experiencing instead of wishing it was just perfect for you taste. Sure there are days that are perfect, and you want it like that more often, but sometimes, you just have to enjoy what you are handed. If it's too hot, go out and just get sweaty. If it's too cold, bundle up and get some chills.

On super hot days, I don't want to go outside anymore because I feel like it's too hot for my little girl. So I just stay inside and watch Netflix. Actually, it really doesn't matter what the weather is anymore, all I do is sit inside and watch Netflix anyway. Ah, the life of a father of a new born.

Anyway, I urge you to enjoy the weather, whatever it is. Just know that complaining about it will do no good except be something you can talk about with people when you have nothing else to talk about, which is apparently very frequent.

The weather is also something you can blog about when you have nothing to blog about. hehe.

The Rental Problem

2011-07-17T08:59:00.001-05:00

I've talked in the very recent past about the lack of places to easily and affordably rent a video game in this town, and well, just about everywhere else as well. I thought for about 12 minutes this morning that I had heard the solution, which it very well may be in certain circumstances, I guess.

Without going into detail, just know that here where I work, we have Wii games that we sign out to people when requested. Anyway, someone came to me and asked if he could get the game that was rented from a Redbox so he could return it.

...eh?

Yes, apparently you can rent video games from Redbox. I was thrilled! This is great news! It totally solves my quandary of where to rent video games from. I have never used a Redbox for movies before, but I considered it. Rent video games from them? I might just have to try that out.

But then I looked up the details. It's $2 a day. But is one day enough time to fully enjoy a video game? Very rarely. If you only spend one day on a video game, it must not be very good. No you need a lot of time with a good game. Days at least. So at $2 a day, if you keep it for five days it'll cost you $10? Gamefly offers $10 a month, and you can keep that game out for that entire month. Yet I don't even really want to spend money on that plan. I guess if it's like, a sports game where the demo sucks and you want to play more than one period of hockey or 6 innings of a baseball game using only the Twins and the Yankees. Then this is a good idea. But let's say you rent, like, Halo or something? You're gonna need more time than one day. If you're like me, you're going to need more than five days.

Maybe I'm just not that committed to gaming, since it's too fucking expensive and I have a hard time finding the time to play anyway. I thought I had the answer with Redbox, since they rent you movies for a dollar a day, but after thinking about it, it's shitty. I can see it getting mighty expensive in a hurry. Forget it. I'll just play the couple games I got, I guess.

What Does Your Favorite Color Say About You?

2011-07-16T08:56:00.000-05:00

I believe a persons favorite color says a lot about who that person is, what they tend to think about, and what kind of person they view themselves in the fabric of society.

For instance, as you may notice by visiting this blog that my favorite color is orange. I don't know why, but I like orange. If there is an orange option for stuff, I choose the orange. And I'm only talking about real colors here, like the main six. None of these made-up colors Crayola came up with, like Razzmatazz or whatever. Also, United Nations Blue is an actual color. I'm talking about Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, Orange and Purple. Okay, pink, too. No one's favorite color is black or white, so those are out, too. Also, technically black isn't a color, it's a shade...Oh I'm not getting into it, goddamnit.

My favorite color is orange, as I stated above. I believe people like me choose to like orange because it's different. It's the underdog of favorite colors. No one picks orange unless you want to pick the unique color. That's me. I love the underdog. I will watch a Pirates v Nationals game before watching any Yankees v Red Sox game. That sort of thing. I believe everyone who likes orange falls into this category, just like me.

What about Red? Red is often associated with anger and charging bulls. Red is nice, it was probably my favorite color when I was 8, if I remember correctly. But I believe that people that like red are the sort of mainstay types, people who wouldn't ever change the color they prefer, but also know that what they like is bold. In a world of black and white and tan and beige and silver cars, the red car is still very popular color. It just pops out against the other cars around it. It's bold, but not too bold. Red is sort of sexy, in that red dress sort of way. Red is blood, so there's the violence aspect in there. It's beautiful and powerful.

What if you like Yellow? I think that sort of falls into the same category of orange. Not many people say that yellow is their favorite color, but I'm sure there are a few out there. It's an underdog color as well, but it's a bit more mainstream due to it being a primary color. Every time I think of yellow, I just think of how it doesn't show up well against white because they're both so light shaded. No one used yellow to color with as kids because you couldn't see it on the white paper. Yellow is the left out, yet very important piece of the color spectrum, just like the people who's favorite is yellow.

Blue is everyone favorite color. If you like blue, you drive a Toyota, eat boneless skinless chicken breast for dinner and go to bed early. You drink Folgers. You're favorite band is whatever is on the radio. You're favorite movie is Pirates of the Caribbean. You fucking _love_ time clocks.

Green is for envy, or so they say. M&M's have made a decent marketing campaign around the green ones being like an afrodisiac. Green is everywhere, and you don't every really notice how often it is used. It's also been used as a verb to say something doesn't cause pollutants. It's a quick way to say "environmentally friendly." If you like green, you like love and stuff. Green is for the people who would normally like yellow if you could have painted with it on white paper. You couldn't, so you used green instead.

Purple is for girls. I don't know. Grape Kook-Aid. Um, yeah I don't know what to say about purple. Nothing rhymes with it. I don't know, purple looks cool with other colors, so maybe if you like purple, you like the company of others? Let's go with that.

Pink is for girls and douchey guys who think it's manly to wear pink, like it's fucking 2006 over here. We got it back then, dude. Pink is stylish and hip and new and fresh. Now it's played out. If you wear a pink shirt, you're obviously just saying to everyone "Look, I can wear pink! I know it's not totally stupid looking on me because I don't care if pink is associated with girls. I can rock a pink shirt." No dude, you can't. You are an obvious toolbag. Take off that stupid shirt. You are a douche. Believe me, I'm not one to use a color as a gender stereotype, but when a dude wears a pink shirt, he's making a statement. I could wear a pink shirt because I know I like to have sex with girls, therefore I know I'm not a cross dresser wearing a pink shirt. I could do that, but I don't have to. Why bother making that statement. You look like an idiot who was dressed by your girlfriend. I could wear that, but I won't. Never did. You are not stylish, you are a douchebag.

So that's it, right? Is it over?

Bloggerated.com?

2011-07-11T09:45:00.000-05:00

So here's what I'm wrestling with right now. I don't really like the fact that my blogs domain name is my real name. Granted, I also have nothing to hide, but it's just sort of unremarkable. I go back to this subject every so often, the question of weather I want to market myself or not. Who the hell am I?

I want my blog to show up when people search for subject that I have written about. I also want more readers. But I can't control that. My only hope is that it would spread to the people I know and love and then out beyond that, to people I don't know.

Anyway, Bloggerated.com is available, but if I actually plop down the ten bucks to have it, that really puts the pressure on me to actually update this more often. What should I do?

I'm leaning towards doing it, even though I know it does not matter what the actual domain name is. I just think it'd be neat to have my own domain name. Is it worth $10 to feel neat? Maybe? So, I'm mulling it. Who knows. I'll probably do it in the next few weeks, I suppose. I enjoy doing this, so why not make a little bit "more professional?"

Bad Ass Dude

2011-07-10T11:39:00.000-05:00

Replace knife with a road sign

If you don't know, I have a very, very short drive to get to work. The other day, during that short drive, I saw something awesome.

I was stopped at the stoplight, the only stoplight I have to hit, when I saw this truck pull up across the intersection from me. It was an all-white truck, with some sort of seal on the side and a bunch of tools sticking out of a truck-tool-holder thingy in the back. I assume this truck and the worker inside of it worked for the city, or the county, or the state or whatever. Anyway, the dude pulls over on the side of the road, just past the intersection and immediately jumps out and crosses the street. The dude had a sleeveless shirt on, jeans and a bandanna wrapped around his head Rambo-style. He walked over to the road sign, which was one of these, and began yanking on it. Not "yanking" himself on it, but yanking on the sign. The sign was crooked, so this guy was straightening it out, I guess. I suppose that was his job for the day, go out and straighten road signs to make the city a nicer place to be.

It was awesome because of his attire. It was hot out that day, so these clothes were a necessity, I suppose. He needs to stay cool, while also looking cool straightening road signs. It was just the way he parked it, jumped out with his headband/bandanna, strutted over and straightened that bitch into place. He was well aware of all the traffic around, so he had to know he was being watched by the people stuck at the red lights. He had to look like he was tough, like he could bend that fucker in half if he really needed to, if that's what the job entailed. He did straighten the sign out, filled in the hole that was left behind with his badass boot or shoe, strutted back across the road and carried on to the next crooked, Nashville road sign. Boom. Done. Take that, crooked road sign. Eat it.

Posts About Babies: Babality

2011-07-06T08:20:00.000-05:00

Sub-Zero Wins

Call her what you want, weather it's Beauty, Cutie, Cutie with a booty, Chicken, Monkey, Little one, or The Littlest One, she's my daughter, and I love her dearly.

I realized that I had hardly even mentioned my beauty of a daughter in a blog post in months. Um, why? She's the most important thing to me ever. She is my life! She is so wonderful. Maybe I'm afraid it'll just turn into a gushfest, like it's currently doing? Yes. She is wonderful, but every parent says that about their child. Duh, dude. Of coarse I feel that way. She's my frickin' offspring. I created life! She is it! Wow!

So about all that miracle talk, it's true. It's unbelievable. How did I do that? Well, I know how I physically did it, but you know, little old me, creating life. What?

You hear all these things come out of mouths of parents all the time and they mean absolutely nothing until you are a parent yourself. I tried to imagine, and I could honestly understand where the person was coming from when they would say it, but you don't know what that actually feels like until you experience it for yourself.

I'm not going to make this any longer than this. Just know that I'm a happy father. She is outstanding! She is Superb. She is everything else Sho Khan says during a fight in Mortal Kombat.

Babality.

Casey Anthony: Why Do We Give a Fuck?

2011-07-05T19:07:00.000-05:00

While I don't have all the facts, I know enough to say that this Casey Anthony trial is a huge waste of public attention. Why the hell do we care? Let me say this before I go on to much of a tirade here, this story is, in fact, a tragedy. Someone, a child, lost their life. That's what's important here. It's also important to find the person who did it, put them on trial, find them guilty, and throw them in jail for a long, long time. Weather you believe Casey Anthony killed her daughter or not is absolutely irrelevant. Again, it's a tragedy, and not to get all desensitized here, but this sort of thing happens all the time. Doesn't make it right, but it also means this particular case is not special. The main reason it is getting the attention it's getting is the strange twists and turns that happened during all the investigations done by 24/7 news outlets with nothing better to do than find a story and blow it out of the water. Yes, this whole thing is an escape to your shitty life, a distraction to having to eat another frozen turkey dinner for lunch at your job. That's what entertainment is meant to do. The news isn't really supposed to be entertaining, but entertainment makes money. I am not saying anything new by saying that national news outlets are "infotainment," meant to entertain with news stories, but it's true. The news, when presented as just the facts, is boring. Interesting content creates viewers which creates advertising revenue, which creates dollars in pockets of people in charge.

As I said, people like to be entertained and taken away from their shitty lives. Casey Anthony probably killed her kid. Sad. Now we all get to watch as things unfold, twists and turns, just like a movie or a TV show. Outstanding. There is no fucking reason for you to drop your regularly scheduled programming on CBS at 1:15 in the afternoon to show the verdict being read. You can do that for O.J. You could do that for someone who is actually famous. You don't do that for Casey Anthony, who has no reason to be paid attention to. She is only famous because there was a slow news day back in 2008, where the producers of the 24/7 news outlets had nothing else to talk about, so they picked up this child missing, and eventually child murder story to fill air time. Not saying that the public shouldn't be told about these types of events, but this happens a lot, like, more than you probably even realize. And they just picked this one. And we all have to hear about it during the slow news periods like early July. The only reason I care is because it's sad. I don't care what happens to Casey Anthony. I don't really like the fact that I am aware who she is. It's a culture that is so full of itself and it's greed, it makes us all worse off. A lot of people got rich off this, I promise you.

It's all bullshit. Throw away your television.

The Digital Life

2011-07-02T11:10:00.001-05:00

It seems like human nature to want to choose sides. Good versus Evil. Axis or Allies. Chocolate or vanilla. Transformers or Go Bots. Superman or Batman or Spiderman or Aquaman...you get the idea. The world wide web is no different. There are conflicting companies who are competing for our hard earned dollars everyday, and I'm talking about the big boys here. Google, Facebook and Apple. These are the biggest, most involved companies I can think of. These companies effect my life hourly. The fact that they are all rivals makes one want to choose a side, but sometimes you need to use, and enjoy using, all three.

Yes, this is ridiculous that we are all tied to these major, major ass-fucking companies who will try to bend you over for each and every dollar you earn, just like every other company that has existed ever. Well, at least the successful ones will do this. That's why they're successful. They make money. They make you spend your money on their product. They make you want it as well as sometimes need it. A company's dream is for you to absolutely need the product they provide, because you can't live without it. See: Drug companies. Tech companies have spent years developing ways to intergrate themselves into ours lives so that we must have them to do the things they have made us want to do. Pretty damn clever if you ask me. Google I would say has done the best job of this, because if you do anything neat-o on the web, chances are it is through Google.

Facebook made it possible to connect with every person you ever had contact with. Ever. If I have a conversation with someone on the street and I catch their name, I could probably find them on Facebook and continute the conversation. They can be my friend forever if I so choose to have them. It's something that has become almost a necessity. I can share all the precious moments of my little two-month old daughter with all my family all across the country with the power of Facebook. I have to have a Facebook. I could share these things another way, but Facebook just makes it easier.

Apple has made the telephone so much more than a telephone. They have made the telephone into your handheld computer. Your connection to everything on the web when you're away from your computer. You don't have to be tied down to connect with everyone you've ever met, ever. You can do it while taking a dump at Target. You can do it on your road trip to Phoenix, while stopped somewhere in Utah. You can play games whenever, wherever (so long as it's a safe place, like not driving your car, or whatever.) You get the idea. Apple revolutionized the way we connect with friends and family. I can hold my iPhone in my hand and find something to do with it for hours and hours and hours on end. I say Apple did this because they did it first and they did it best. They are the industry leader in this aspect. Google followed suit with Android, but it's a pretender. Apple is responsible for this revolution, no matter how you slice it.

The point of all this, which I'm sure you're aware of all the facts I pointed out above, is that these are all rivals. These companies are all vying for your dollar. They need to come up with innovative ways to improve upon what their rivals come out with. They need to one-up each other. Sometimes it works (Mobile photo sharing via Facebook, Google's Blogger and other various add-ons and innovations, iTunes) and sometimes it doesn't (Google Buzz, Facebook chat, um...Apple has never failed, apparently. I can't think of one.) Apple has the music market cornered with iTunes. Facebook, I hear, is going to unveil their music division or service or whatever in the near future. Google will release (or has released, not sure if it's out or not yet) an cloud based music service, like Amazon already has. (DID I FORGET TO ADD AMAZON TO THE WEB GIANTS? YEP.)

Anyway, you get the idea. It all comes back to the consumers choice of which side they prefer. Some want no part of it, and choose to live in the woods like Bob Balbierz. Everyone else has their lives touched at least a little by these companies. But I don't want to choose. I have an iPhone, use iTunes regularly, yet strictly use Google for web surfing, blogging, emailing, translating, web reading, calendering, and using the internet in general by using Google Chrome. I am 90% a google guy, except for their phone software. That's where Apple is #1 for reasons I described above. Now, Apple doesn't offer ANY of the things Google does, so that's probably why I don't use them for all of this. If they rolled it any of it, would I use it? Probably not. Google does a great job and it's what I'm used to. And I'm not a Mac guy as far as the actual computer. I have used PC's my entire life and I like them! Yet I cannot, neigh WILL NOT use any other phone than the iPhone. I refuse to downgrade.

And then there's Facebook. I only use Facebook at this point because I feel I have to. Everyone is on there and I love everyone. My hope is that Facebook will go the way of the Myspace soon enough. And that's the hopes of Google when they unveiled their newest thingermabob the other day, Google+. Apparently Google+ is so badass, some industry experts expect it to do just that, put Facebook in a headlock. I'm not so sure. It took this long for mom, auntie Sue, Cousin Larry with one eye and your 11th grade english teacher to get on Facebook, what makes you think they're suddenly going to say, "hey, lets change everything I just got comfortable with." Ask Twitter how well that's going. (600 million v.s. 200 million, which is closer than I thought it would be, according to the latest data I found, which was in December of last year.) No, it's not going to happen overnight, but I think this Google+ thing, if it's really done correctly like the experts are saying it is, will make an impact. Only time will tell, and in the tech world, that time could be very very short. So I'll see you on Google+ as soon as we're all able to get on it. As for whose side I'm on? Leaning Google, just so you know. It's so slick!

What the Hell? Blogging?

2011-06-22T22:46:00.000-05:00

What happened?

I will have to admit that I completely forgot I have a blog. No shit. The idea of blogging didn't even cross my mind for the past week or so. Crazy what happens when things are actually going on, right?

I don't even have anything to say right now, I just saw the blogger tab on my bookmarks toolbar and realized I hadn't written anything in I don't even remember how long. Okay, so this is just me saying that I found the bookmark up there again and will try to come up with something to talk about for tomorrow or Friday or Saturday or Sunday or all of the above. But for now, I don't have anything to say.

Thanks for not deleting me.

The Green Lantern

2011-06-05T10:19:00.000-05:00

Fuck this shit

It only took a couple hours for my lovely wife to call me out on my post from yesterday. In the evening yesterday, I saw a preview for a new movie coming out based on the comic book the Green Lantern. I'm not going to lie, it looks fucking terrible. Like, the worst possible movie of all time. Great for the kids, perhaps? Great for the comic book nerds, perhaps? For me? God no.

First off, I hate movies based off comic books. The main reason is because all these movie studios just grabbed up any and all comic book and made them into massive blockbusters, and it's just such a rehashed idea to me. I understand there is a huge legion of comic book fans out there, one of which I am not, by any stretch of the imagination. I think I owned two comic books growing up. They were Batman. Batman is cool. Batman was on TV and shit. Who the fuck is the Green Lantern? I believe he was on some fighting game I had for the Sega Genises back in 94 or something, but he didn't have his own TV show. Not one that I ever saw anyway. So no, I don't give two fucks about the Green Lantern in the first place. Not that I have to give a fuck about what a movie is about to enjoy it, but it helps. It really helps.

So anyway, there was some CGI monster thing in the preview and Ryan Renolds looking all buff and what not. All I saw was a bunch of special effects thrown together, and cash registers cha-chinging in the background. The Green Lantern movie to me is the Backstreet Boys and New Kids On The Block tour. CA$H GRAB, Y'ALL.

The point here is that I tweeted about how terrible the movie looked, and my wife says "you're a hypocrite!" No, I clearly said this yesterday, which makes me not a hypocrite in this situation:

Not that Fast 5 is necessarily a bad movie, I just know already that that is not my type of movie. Neither is Thor, by the way. I generally like every movie I've ever seen, to be honest, but maybe that's because I'm picky when it comes to which movies I watch.

See? I didn't say I like every movie. I only like the movies I choose to watch. There are hundreds of movies (each year?) that I will never see because they look like a total fucking waste of time. This movie, The Green Lantern, is one of those movies.

So there. ::sticks tongue out::

(Something happend to my font up there and I can't fix it. So...sorry about that.)

Think Before You Speak

2011-06-04T08:54:00.000-05:00

Today, I was going to write an album review, but I thought about it, and realized that it just doesn't matter. People hold opinions about bands and music and albums and are not easily swayed from those opinions. There is no reason for me to tell you that I like this album or was surprised by this bands latest effort or disappointed by an album I'd waited for months to come out. No, it just doesn't matter what I think. Music is awesome and there is no reason to tell you why. You know why the music you like is good. It's good because you like it. Some people get paid to tell others what is good and what isn't. I do not. I read reviews because I trust the reviewers taste. If I don't like the reviewers taste from a certain place that reviews new music, then I don't read their review. If I know a friend has a different taste in music, if they say they hate something or like something, I take it with a grain of salt. I do that with movies as well. If I now that your favorite movie of 2011 so far was Fast 5, I will take the fact that you absolutely loved Thor in 3D with a grain of salt. Not that Fast 5 is necessarily a bad movie, I just know already that that is not my type of movie. Neither is Thor, by the way. I generally like every movie I've ever seen, to be honest, but maybe that's because I'm picky when it comes to which movies I watch. With music, however, I'll listen to anything, dude. Bring it on. Whatever you got.

That being said, there is no point in hating on any particular type of music. None. We get it, you're not that into it. This, by the way, is partly a letter to myself. If you have known me for any period of time, you would know that music is somewhat of a passion of mine. I have no problem telling my wife what music I hate and I wish would die, but that's in my own household. That's different. I have had bands that are forever listed as "shitty," no matter what else they put out or how much my friends and family like it. Saliva, being the main act here. Fuck that band. But if you love Saliva, then go for it, bro.

I know what (I'm) you're thinking, I've already written this piece before. It just bothers me when someone has an opinion about what other peoples opinions should be. I have been tried, convicted and sentenced to community service for this very violation throughout my life, so believe me, I'm included. What I'm trying to say is that if you like something, tell a friend to check it out. If you hate something, just move on. It does not make you look cooler or hipper because you hate something that someone else enjoys. In this digital age, you can seek out whatever music you like, so there's no reason to stand on your stump and tell everyone how much you wish a certain music would go away. I don't like Brokencyde, and you shouldn't listen to Brokencyde, but if you want to, who the Hell am I to say you're wrong to do so.

The internet is full of these types. Just go onto any music site and start reading comments on music. A lot of people seem to think there is a war on music they don't like, but you can't stop something from existing if others enjoy it. It's democracy. Just go with what you like and carry on. Life is too short to be wasting time hating on shit you can't control. It's like hating rain. It's gonna happen, buddy. Get over it. Just enjoy the sunshine when it's out and stop bitching about things you absolutely have no control over.

************************************************

It's funny, now that I go back and read this, here a few minutes after writing it and I realize something. What I'm trying to say is that I want to stop people from hating types of music they don't like, but that's never going to go away and I can't control that either. So it's essentially the same argument but backwards.... Eh, You get what I mean, right? Just shut up about music you don't like. No one wants to hear it.

**********************************************

And one more thing, I promise I will be hypercritical on this subject. This is me working it out, trying to be a better person. I'm trying to break myself of this behavior. If I go out on the internet and say that the new "Blowtards from Hell" album is a steaming pile of shit, you don't need to call me out. I already know. I'm just going for therapy though blogging. Thanks in advance.

Today, I Learn How To Spell "Unbelievable"

2011-05-27T12:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I was surfing on my iPhone in the App Store, looking for an app I thought probably should exist. I was disappointed to find out that it didn't exist, but I found something unbelievable in the process.

First off, My Coke Rewards is a thing that exists online where you enter the little stupid code on the cap of your coke product and you get points to use towards useless shit. Well, Ive been collecting points for a long time now, and I have over 900 currently. I spent about a hundred of them a months ago as well. Anyway, I figured there should probably be an iPhone app for My Coke Rewards. Not true. I can't believe the Coke company didn't think of this. How utterly stupid. If you want people to participate in your program, don't you think you would make it a cool iPhone app? People love iPhone apps, idiots. Get with the program.

Well, the point here, the unbelievable thing I found in the process of searching for this app was that for my search results for "Coke Rewards" came up with only one app. It was a game called Hot Farm.

Hot Farm is being sold in the App Store for $69.99

That's right, one stupid iPhone game that is being sold for seventy dollars. I figured, who the fuck would ever pay for this? Apparently, up to 610 people, because, that's how many people have rated this game. Now, I would assume that at one point this game was either 99 cents like most apps or maybe even as much as five to 10 dollars. People will pay for stupid shit, but I don't believe anyone would have paid this $70. If they did, they need to be shot in the face. Sorry, that's just ridiculous

The question begs to be asked, what kind of scam artist does it take to price an app at $70? First off, probably not a very good scam artist. If you wanted to scam people, make it $5 or something. You could probably convince at least a handful of people to pony up that dough. But $70? That is just insane. And what's funny was reading the comments and ratings by the users, they were mainly negative, or at least neutral. Basically they said this was just like some poor Facebook game. Unbelievable.

So check it out if you'd like. Hot Farm. Totally fucking stupid insane app developers!

Typos Courtesy of iPhone

2011-05-26T18:06:00.001-05:00

I'll give you a heads up right off the bat. I'm writing this from my iPhone. Why? Because I totally can. I wanted to say this because I wanted to explain the many, many typos that are about to occur.

What such a pressing matter that I must blog straight away? Nothing much really. It's not a pressing matter so much as me just wanting to get this post out there ASAP. What is it about pretzels that make for such a wonderful snack? I can't stop eating them whenever I start. The problem is, after a while, they make me exceptionally thirsty. I avoid them usually because I know what will happen. I'll get really dehydrated and pissed off, even A's I'm totally enjoying the snack in hand. Right now theres a bag of delicious salty pretzels staring me right in the face. I already gave in earlier, and drank two bottles of water to offset the salt. But now they're still there, unfinished. WAitig for me to crack the bag again. I know if I eat just one, well, I won't eat just one. I'd lose that bet. I'd get super thirsty again, and potentially ruin my night. So I'm resisting.

On a completely different subject, some friends of mine and I are making a Madonna tribute album and maybe even a tribute concert in her honor. I am doing a cover of cherish. Now yay my phone decided to totally frick up, I have to end this here. Stay tuned to the results. I hope it turns out alright (the compilation and my cover, I mean) goodbye everyone!

Would You Like A Shoe Shine?

2011-05-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

When I was a little kid, I was walking through the O'Hare airport on our way to catch our transfer flight on the way home from either Disney World or Disney Land, I don't remember which trip it was. Whilst walking around the place, I remember this was the first time I ever saw a shoe shiner shining someones shoes. I was, and still am to this day, just shocked by the whole idea.

How could you ever allow yourself to get your shoes shined? I mean, what kind of person says "Hey, shine my shoes, boy!" Now I know, I know...It's like strippers. They get paid by doing something a bit degrading in public for a few bucks. Probably make better money than I do. But with strippers, you have to go to a specific area of town with a specific set of rules and taboo of the whole thing to keep it a bit more legit and slightly less public. A shoeshiner is just out there, taking scuffs of your overpriced shoes, on his knees, in a very, very public area like an airport terminal.

To me, it's wrong. I could never, ever do it, even if someone else paid for it. I don't care how much the guy says he want's to do it because he likes the money. Hookers will do anything if the price is right, also. But it's affected me ever since I first saw that back in either 1989 or 1993, whichever trip it was. How could a dude just sit there while someone's rubbing their feet and read the Times, or whatever. It just makes me uncomfortable.

And it's shoeshiners that I think of every single time I think of O'Hare airport. Every time.

Cicada Invasion = Dog Snack

2011-05-24T09:20:00.001-05:00

Well, the cicadas are officially here. For those people that aren't here in Middle Tennessee, you may not have heard that the 13 year cicadas have come out this year, and boy are they loud. There is no missing it. I thought we might dodge a bullet because we live right in the city here, but I was wrong. According to my dog, I was deliciously wrong.

I had heard that dogs like to eat cicadas. I figured my dog was smarter than that. He doesn't care about bugs in general. I mean, my dog likes to eat grass and food scraps and paper products and pretty much everything else that's littered around the apartment complex. This is why I call him the Goat Dog. He'll eat anything, just like a goat. Well, to my surprise, I was walking him on Sunday, right when the Cicadas were flying around in their most abundance I had seen yet this year. One cicada was laying on the sidewalk, and my dog took an interest in it. He started pawing it, and then trying to eat it. I was amazed. My dog always ignores dumb bugs all over the place. Not this time. The people who warned that dogs can go crazy eating cicadas were absolutely correct. Soon, my dog didn't want to go outside to pee or poo, he wants to eat cicadas. In fact, as I'm typing this, he's asking to go out. He wants a snack.

So the cicadas are swarming the area, and it's pretty annoying. They're completely harmless, they don't bite, they don't sting, they don't do anything except sing. (hey that rhymed.) And according to the experts, you can eat them. They're safe for consumption. They're nontoxic to dogs as well, so when Bowser chows down on them he's really not doing any harm to himself. The only thing that can happen is dogs can eat so many of them that they make themselves sick and throw up. I won't let my dog eat that many, but I'll let him eat a few bugs. Not gonna hurt him, so might as well let him enjoy himself.

So I'm going to throw some earplugs and get the dog a cicada snack now.

Project365 v 2.0

2011-05-23T08:15:00.001-05:00

I mentioned a while back about a wonderful app for the iPhone called Project365. I talked before, in case you missed it, about how it was a wonderful way to never forget a day in my life again, and that's exactly what it has done for me, a year later.

Well, I was using the free version, not realizing a few things were to my disadvantage. First of all, the free version only allows you to have one calender year of pictures and memories saved to the app. Thankfully, I realized this with plenty of time to come up with a solution, which was to pay for the full version. The paid version allows for multiple years of entries, so there's no need to get another copy of the app or whatever. Also, should anything happen to my phone, there is a web backup feature. So all my Project365 entries are on a web site. In fact, you can view that website yourself, I believe. Let me try to link it HERE. Hope that works.

Anyway, I use that as a pretty personal journal, and some of the writing is in a bit of shorthand, so if it's hard to understand, just know that I know what it means. Also, I hope I didn't rip on anyone in one of the posts...and now you'll read it... Meh, que sara sara, I suppose. I don't think I did anyway.

So yes, all my memories are backed up. This is still probably the best app I got going on my phone. Sometimes I just really need to look back and know specifically what days things happened. What I found very weird is that I started using the free version on April 23rd, 2010, and used it for an entire year. Little did I know at the time that I was documenting the entire calender year, almost exactly to the day, of my final year as a non-parent. And with the new app, I have started documenting every day of being a dad. Weird how things like that work out, eh?

Foreign Oil Dependence

2011-05-22T09:19:00.000-05:00

As you can clearly see, America is way to dependent on foreign olive oil.

Yes, I totally stole this form someone else. That's why I'm not talking about it in too much detail. I found this great concept on another blog and I wanted to pass along the joke. To be honest though, if you read on the rest of the blog on which I found this, I'm not even certain this is meant to be a joke. I could be wrong, but none of the posts on the blog on which I found this were funny...But this is funny because it's ironic, right? I think it's funny.

Anyway, I got it from HERE, so you can see it in all it's glory if you'd like. Also, read the comments for perhaps the dullest commenting I've ever read in my life. Perhaps this whole thing is misconstrued...

I Failed the Test

2011-05-21T09:50:00.001-05:00

A few days ago I talked about driving and bad drivers and whatnot. TheloniousZen was kind enough to inquire about the time I failed a drivers test. It's something I often forget about untill I think about that subject. Yes, I failed a drivers test. It happened.

This was me, essentially

On that fatefull day in early 1999 ( I think) I arrived at the Econo Foods parking lot with my mother in her 1993 Honda Accord. I had pocketed my "lucky" quarter (not sure what made me believe it was lucky, but I was a teenager, the thought of a lucky item was appealing) and was all set to take my independent road test. First off, you had to do a series of parking maneuvers before you were going to hit the road with the tester. I was required to pull forward to a stop bar, then put it in reverse as if to back into a parking spot. Then, I had to pull forward and parallel park the car into another spot. These were things I had accomplished before in drivers training and as a practice driver with my mother, but on this fateful day, everything went horribly wrong.

First off, when I pulled forward to the stop bar, I apparently was about four feet back of the line instead of actually up to it. To this day, I can't believe I did that. I never, ever make that mistake anymore, when I tought myself that if you line up the bottom of the side rear view mirror with the extended stop bar, you'll be right on it. This works. Try it out, if that's not something you've done before. So anyway, I was like four feet too far back. To me, that's not that big of a deal, but apparently to this jackass administering the test, it was.

Next, I had to back into the parking spot that was surrounded by road cones. There were seven cones set up for me to fit the car in. the back five had big sixfoot polls sticking out of them, so naturally, I aimed for the one I could see. Turns out that the front two didn't have sticks in them, so since I couldn't see them, I totally ran the closest front one over. I was aiming for what turned out to be the middle cone. I guess it made it worse because I didn't notice that I ran the cone over and kept on driving into the spot. WHOOPS...

So yeah, then I had to parallel park, which I TOTALLY NAILED. First try, I parked that bitch right in there. Still to this day, I'm a pretty decent parallel parker. So the next part was to take the car to the road with the tester in the passenger seat so see how well I could handle the road. But we never got that far. The dude obviously had a hot date, because he said that I did so bad on the parking lot tests, that I have failed already, and I would have to reschedule the test and repay for the test. He said that running over that cone was the worst thing I could do, because what if that was some kid. My thought was "MAYBE DUMB KIDS SHOULDN'T PLAY UNDERNEATH THE TIRES OF MY CAR, EH?"

So that was that. I failed my drivers test. I didn't drive AT ALL for one entire year, until I decided to try taking the test again, this time with a different tester. With zero practice and zero hours driven for an entire year, I passed the test the second time...Which makes me really hate that asshole who administered my first test. There were no sticks in the cones closest to me, damn it! How could I see that? All the other cones had sticks in them, why not the front ones?

So much for that lucky quarter. I went home and chucked it against a wall. I probably then spent it on a bottle of Faygo, or something. Proved to me that there is no such thing as lucky quarters or whatever. It taught me to not rely on luck in those situations, and if you want to succeed, you have to just be good at it, not lucky.

The Promise

2011-05-17T21:24:00.001-05:00

I'm going to write a new post tomorrow. I came here to tell you that because I don't want to lie to you, so I'll actually write. I have no problem lieing to myself, which I do all the time. No, if I really want to write a new post, I have to come here and say I'M GOING TO WRITE A NEW POST TOMORROW.

I Can't Drive (at all)

2011-05-08T08:19:00.002-05:00

They say Tennessee drivers are some of the worst in the nation. According to the results of a test done by GMAC insurance in 2010, Tennessee is the 33rd worst state of drivers. Anyone who lives here will cry bullshit, as these morons are the worst drivers I've ever seen. It's common knowledge to everyone who drives here and have driven other places that these are top 5 worst drivers in the nation. It didn't really don on me exactly why until Friday night at dinner at P.F. Chang's.

Our waiter was originally from Michigan as I am. He was talking about how awful the drivers are here, and he knew why. You see, in Tennessee, you don't really have to do a whole lot to get a drivers license. All you have to do is go to the DMV and take a written test and an eye exam. Then, if you pass that, you get your learners permit. You must log 50 hours of driving time (10 of which have to be at night) with an adult over the age of 21 in the passenger seat, wait 180 days, be 16 years old, and BAM, your a legal driver in the state of Tennessee.

Now, according to my research, that's all it takes. I could be wrong, and anyone who lives here if free to correct me, but I'm pretty sure that's it. In Michigan, you had to take drivers training, log so many hours of on the road testing with the instructor, pass a written exam, and then you could get your level one permit. Then you had to log so many hours with an adult and you have that level one license for six months. Once you get passed that, you had to go to the level two classes, pass another test, and then you could get your level two license. Then, you had to go take a road test with an independent, third-party road testing organization (which I totally failed the first time at the age of 16). Then blah blah blah blah. You get the idea.

You have a lot more hoops to jump though in Michigan to get a license. This of coarse makes you learn how to drive better. While it's less of a hassle in Tennessee, the folks here didn't learn how to fucking drive, obviously. Not that I'm a better person for having gone through all that back in Michigan, it just makes me a better driver than you. So maybe the state needs to take a look at their system of getting a drivers license in the first place and perhaps do a bit of upgrading? After all, the road is a dangerous place, especially when everyone is just winging it. By the way, on the list I mentioned above, Michigan was the 37th worst drivers, so that's not all that much better than Tennessee, but it's still better. And like I said, anyone who drives here would agree these test results are total bullshit. Tennessee has the worst drivers, okay? I just told you why.

Drink More Water

2011-05-07T08:15:00.000-05:00

Okay, so even though my little one at home is the most important thing in my life, and that's all I really want to talk about sometimes, I'm not going to do that. No, I think that that would be alright, I guess, if I wanted to do that. But I want to shake it up still. This is not a single-subject blog. So, expect the occasional Posts About Babies, but I'd say they will be about as frequent as they were when she was in the womb.

That being said, I want to talk about water, and more specifically, your recommended daily intake of water. As I grew up, I learned the importance of getting that eight glasses of water every day for essential well-being, or whatever. I heard that stat over and over, and somewhere along the line I decided that I should probably follow that guideline. After all, they don't pound that sort of information into your brain for their health. It's for your health, ya turkey.

I recall my brother going on a diet where he cut out soda pop and some fast food, and started pounding bottles of water. He lost a good amount of weight just by doing that. Well, I started pounding that water like my brother did, but never got the dramatic results he achieved, although I did notice a marked increase in energy level and all that jazz. I fall in and out of love with water drinking, mainly because water is sort of, well, boring. Drinking water, while good for you, doesn't always satisify the pallet quite like a delicious coke (or diet coke, or whatever drink you choose for that matter.) I think it's because I was brought up drinking flavor instead of water that I get bored with water. But as an adult I know better than to just drink for pleasure. Water is pretty important for your body to function properly.

But what happens if you don't drink your recommended daily water amount? I knew a girl that I used to work with that never, EVER, drank water. It was pop or juice or coffee or milk or beer but never water. How can this be? I mean, they say that you must drink water to function, how did she not keel over and die? I mean, you get hydrated from other liquids, I guess, but it's ain't water. She couldn't stand the taste of water, as crazy as that sounds. Well she functions just fine with out H2O, so what's with this "you must drink eight glasses" business?

I am a proponent of drinking your daily 8ish glasses, because it makes me feel better. Hydration is the most important thing you can do for youself, mainly because if you don't get it, you will die. You can survive without food for much longer than water. You need water to live. Bottom line. So go fill that cup up right now with some nice, cold water and think about how good it makes you feel later. But I guess you can drink whatever you want and you won't explode from dehydration...So maybe get a glass of apple juice if you don't like the taste of water.

Posts About Babies: She's Here

2011-05-06T00:30:00.000-05:00

I have hesitated to jump back into this thing, because I know what I want to write will be lengthy as hell. I want to go through the entire story of how little baby Evelyn got born on Thursday, April 28th, but man, I just haven't found the time. I have a moment here to stop by and say that things are going great here, but it's been busy, like I said before.

They said you won't sleep when you have a newborn, but I'd have to say that hasn't totally been the case thus far. No, she sleeps pretty good, even if we have to wake up only twice during the night. Apparently, that's pretty good. I wouldn't know, this is the first time I've done this, obviously. Most of the things that have been going on have been tweeted, and I'm 99.9% sure that everyone that reads this thing also follows me there. If you don't, man, you really should.

So, basically she was born via C-section at 10:46 a.m. on last Thursday. She came out beautiful and stayed that way. Seriously, she is adorable. She is the cutest thing I've ever seen. When she was born, she started crying before I could see her, and my eyes were as big as saucers. I couldn't believe she was finally here. When the let me see here, I nearly fell over from the emotion of everything. I was scared, happy, nervous and excited in one ball of emotion, helped along by the fact that I hadn't slept in 27 hours, or whatever. None of my sleeplessness problems were evident when she looked in my general direction when they were cleaning her up on that table in the operating room. Nothing.

She sleeps. She eats. She craps. She cries. This is my life right now. Currently, at this late hour, mom is trying to make her stop crying as she puts her into her swing. Even though she is upset, and I want to make that crying stop, there is no sweeter sound to me than her crying voice. Nope, none.

So my new life has finally arrived. Having a little girl has been pretty damn cool, if I must say so. So with that, I gotta go make a crying baby stop doing just that.

Regret

2011-04-26T11:03:00.000-05:00

So I haven't written anything in a few days, mainly because I know I should not have written the post I did the other day. I feel really stupid for writing about kids names. I do. I should just stick to my opinions, but I realized that I'm just not the type of person who should be telling people what they should and shouldn't do. I really shouldn't. So in my feeling bad, I just stopped writing altogether. I wondered if I should just shut it down, because I keep making myself feel like a jackass for saying things like that. So after thinking about it some, I decided that the best course of action would to just keep doing what I have been doing, but just think twice before I decide to lambaste something that someone my feel very differently about.

I want to stress, I just am not the type of person to say someone else is stupid for doing something I wouldn't do. Everyone is different, and will do different things. There are other people out there that can write about the wrongs of society better than I can, so I'll just leave it to them. For now, I'll stick to what I am comfortable with.

I don't know if I actually offended someone I know specifically, because no one has actually said so to me. But the fact that that might happen made me realize what I could have done wrong here. Bottom line, I shouldn't have written that post the other day. I'm sorry if you took offense. Let's move on.

N is for Names

2011-04-18T08:29:00.002-05:00

Now that we have let Saturday's post sink in a little, I discovered a website that puts what I was trying to say in a much better, and funnier way. It's called Stupid Kid Names, and can be found here. Go there and laugh at stupid people who name their kids stupid names like Kenzyngtyn, for Christ's sake...

What I wanted to talk about is shortening of peoples names. People with normal names, and some with the unusual names as well, will often shorten them to make it easier to talk about them. Less syllables is just easier, generally accepted and preferred way to address people. Sometimes it's not even a shortening, it's more of a common nickname for people with that name, although that seems to not be as prevalent these days, it's still true a lot of the time.

For example, people named Robert are often called Bob, for some reason. People named Richard are called Dick. People named Charles are called Chuck. People named William are called Bill. Why? I honestly don't know. I'm sure there is a reason, as there is a reason for everything. I could look it up, but I'll just wonder aloud with you all reading along. But nearly everyone who has a multiple-syllable name has it shortened down to one. Hell, my given name is Bradley, but I've always been called Brad. Jeffery, David, Christopher, Steven (or Stephen), Thomas, Michael, Timothy, Andrew, Albert and Patrick are all very common names that are very often shortened to one syllable by just about everyone I've ever known with these names. Also, Bethany is often shortened to Beth. My wife's name is Bethany, and she goes by Bethany. Who the Hell is Beth?

Some people have a hard time accepting when someone wants to go by their full name. It's an interesting phenomenon. (I just spelled phenomenon correctly on the first try, +2 points to me) Some people catch on right away, when you see the name written down on someone you just met, and it says his name is Timothy, so you automatically call him Tim. He might correct you saying something polite like "I usually go by Timothy." Okay, enough said. No problem. I will call you Timothy. Sometimes you don't have the luxury of asking, so you just go by what others call that person. You pick up on the cues of others and learn what they go by. Someone always refers someone you work with as David, you call that person David until he says "just call me Dave or D.J." I always default to the accepted shortened name unless told otherwise.

But some people just have a hard time accepting that someone goes by their full name. I have friends, good friends, who will forever refer to my wife as Beth. "Is Beth coming too?" "...Yes, she is." I say in return. Because I understand how some people feel about it. They're so used to defaulting to the common shortened version that using the full version is just uncomfortable.

It's all about picking up on clues from the people around you. It's okay to call someone by their full name if they're not used to it. If they really hate it, they'll tell you. Some people at my current job (like my supervisor) call me Bradley all the time, because I never told them to call me anything else. It's strange, because I would have thought they would have defaulted to my common shortened name, but they didn't. It's the first time in my life I've been called Bradley more than Brad.

I don't know, just a thought.

Posts About Babies: Due Date

2011-04-17T06:48:00.000-05:00

It has finally arrived. It's April 17th, the date I have been telling people about for around seven months now is here. When I would say the date when I first learned of it's significance, it seemed like it was ages away. Well, it's here now, and there is no baby yet. I didn't think we'd make it this far. I figured she'd come early, as some first born kids tend to do. But no, she's comfortable in there, I guess.

My mom told me I was a month overdue. Maybe this is why she won't come out? She is obviously my child, as she doesn't want change to happen. I hate change. I like routine. I guess she does too. But just because I understand, doesn't mean I like it.

No, she needs to be born now. We're just sitting here, waiting. Our mothers are calling twice a day, checking in, seeing how my wife is doing. Any minute now...

The pregnancy went by so fast, I can only imagine how quickly she will grow up. I've heard of parents saying that before you know it, the kid is in High School, and you're wondering what happened to that little baby you had not all that long ago. Because I know this, I'm going to make sure I cherish every minute of when she's little. You can't get it back, so enjoy it while you can. Before I know what hit me, she'll be asking to borrow the car and shit. So, I'd like to get the memories started, damn it.

When she is born, this blog will fall silent for a minute, I imagine. I'll try to update, but what does it matter if I do? I'll be tweeting anyway. If something needs to be further explained, I'll come here. Until then, read on, my friends. Hopefully this is the last Post About Babies that is about my pregnant wife. Though you just never know just how stubborn she will be.

Baby Jaceyon? Holy Shit, People

2011-04-16T10:07:00.001-05:00

Here's how I do this. I think of ideas for posts, and sometimes I forget them. I realized this was a problem so I came up with a solution. Now, when I think of a good subject but don't have time to write it, I make a note on my iPhone. Now, I shouldn't forget as many posts in the future. Problem solved.

It must go along the lines of "great minds think alike," because our good friend over at Big Dave and Company wrote a post on Thursday about names, as part of his annual Alphabetic post series. Earlier this week, I put a note in my phone to write about peoples names. So it may look like I was inspired by Mr. Big Dave, but I was not. In case someone who reads this blog also reads his, this is the disclaimer, I guess.

Cute babies need good names

The title of this blog is apparently a new, and completely retarded way to spell Jason. Shoot me.

Names are a funny thing. Names used to be normal, or as normal as we could imagine. There were enough unique names in my graduating class that there were only a handful of repeats out of the class of 111 kids. But now, different story. If any kid has the same name in their class, they must feel a real shame. The way parents have been naming their kids lately, it's infuriating to me. Is it a desire to make their kids seem like a unique and individual snow flake in society. I think it makes you look like someone who, first of all, can't spell. Secondly, makes you look like an egotistical jackass. I will refraign from naming names of parents, but I guess a few examples off the top of my head include names like Austlynn, or Chord. Yes, Chord. What drives me crazy is when someone takes two respectable names and smashes them together to make one new, altogether stupid, made-up name. I can make up dumb names, too. Chauncley, Bronxtonly, uh...lemme think...Shrimpleigh...I don't know. People will name their kids anything now a days. There are no rules.

One of the biggest offenders of name bastardization is probably the name Kaylee. I tried to decide on what the standard spelling of that name could be, but it's hard because everyone seems to love to add all kinds of letters and subtract letters at will when choosing this name. My good friend T.J. (a rather normal take on a name, by the way) was doing some teaching a while back and had FOUR different girls named Kaylee in one class and ALL WERE SPELLED DIFFERENTLY. UGH. Come on, people.

Now, I know that criticizing someone for the name of their child is a touchy subject because it's their pride and joy. A name is stuck with the person for life, and no one really, honestly wants to screw that up. I wrestled with naming my own daughter Evelyn, because I didn't want to come across as some jackass, for whatever reason someone wants to perceive me as. It's in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but man, at least it's a classic name. To me, it screams elegance, plus it's her great-grandmother's name, so that's important. I would guess no ones grandma was named Carmenleigh. So knock it off, mothers and fathers. Just because she or he has a unique, creative name, it does not automatically make the kid a unique, creative person. That comes with solid parenting and perhaps a little luck and genetics.

Ha! Well, this isn't even the post I wanted to write, but it's so much better than what I was going to write anyway. I hate stupid names for kids and the snooty parents who give them to their kids. If there is a good reason for the name, I'll go with it. Let's say, there was a character in a movie in which you loved all your life, and the character name was what you decided you were going to eventually name your child, long before you can even have babies. That's awesome. No matter what, that's awesome. So kiss baby Mulan or baby Jasmine or baby Alex Mack or baby Punky Brewster or Baby Clarissa goodnight and don't worry about what some dumb Nashville resident who feels like telling people what they "did wrong" thinks about it.