Lil Smokies & Cotton Candy

This will be the last post of September. Time is flying by. Christmas trees are already in stores and we haven't even made it to Halloween yet. You serious? That's showing no respect at all to candy corn, one of the most underrated candies ever. And it's way cheap, can't go wrong with it. We got a slew of topics to get through in this one. For a quick preview, what are we going to chat about? Wedding festivities, my messed up sleep schedule, more Harry Potter, new DVD pickups, and of course an update on Kid Nation and Real World. I won't steer you in the wrong direction here, jump along for the ride of all rides.

Last Saturday was probably the most expensive wedding I've been to. Not that I'm a regular wedding goer, but I can still offer an opinion. It was a pretty good time and a real big turnout for Clinten tying the knot. Cork's girl Kristin wasn't able to go, so Cork had me tag along for his "date". I guess I got to play the role of wedding crasher, even though everyone there was some of my buddies anyways. Confused yet? The appetizer stuff was enough to make me impressed. The regular food was awesome and then they brought a 10-piece band in from Baltimore if I'm right on that. Backup singers and the whole nine yards. For as good as the food was here, Posey still holds the title for greatest wedding food ever and that might not be topped. Southern home cookin' and Lil Smokies done up in BBQ sauce, that's what I'm talking about.

After the wedding, it was off to Posey's to watch UFC 76: Knockout on pay per view on the 56 incher. In attendance for the action was Posey himself, Cork, AJ, Toothman, and myself. It doesn't get too much better than a pay per view night. I wish my crew would get back into wrestling so we could get those pay per views on a regular basis again, but it's pretty much just me who is the weirdo who is a diehard wrestling fan. However, UFC action usually delivers for the money in most cases.



Episode 2 of Kid Nation? The drama was solid again and Episode 1 wasn't a fluke. This week's adventure featured everyone staying at the end of the show. Nobody tapped out like a little punk. The big story this week was of them deciding whether or not to kill their live chickens to get some good meat to eat. The majority ruled and they began to chop chicken heads off with a small ax. Seeing some of the kids freak out at this was good times. Michael gets the $20,000 gold star. While watching the past two weeks, me and The_Freak have given running commentary while online. You wouldn't think it's much, but it's a good time killer. The_Freak came up with a few nicknames for several of the kiddies: MIT Kid, Jaretarded, Larry Bahd, and Chicken Loving McFat Pants. Jared (Jaretarded) is my favorite of the bunch, he's a character for sure. You also get a lot of hicks on this too, something that always comes across as good TV entertainment.

How did the sleep schedule treat me this week? Once again, I never learn, but I was able to do pretty well with it. On Sunday morning, I ended up rolling to bed at 8:45 AM. I go to bed that night at 2:30 and have to wake up for work at 6:00. Wednesday night, I roll to bed at 2:00 and wake up at 6:00 as usual. The earliest I hit the bed this past week was 12:30 on a work night, not too great there, but I was able to rock it out for the most part. That can't be too healthy, but I could be doing worse things I'm sure.



Ready some junk food advice? Who can pass that up? One you need to load up on, I'm about to tell you about. Any ice cream fans out there? For anyone that knows me, they'll tell ya that I can put that away like no other. For being a little dude, I know how to tear up some ice cream. Anyways, go buy the Cotton Candy Blizzard at Dairy Queen. Let me know what you think, it's that good or I wouldn't be recommending it.

A quick update on the sports scene. My Irish go down once again. 0-4 and it'll be much worse as the year goes by. This weekend they get to be whipped by Purdue. Also in football, on Sunday, my Bears (yeah, I can call em my even if some think that's weird) face off against the Lions. To start the year, they're 1-2 with losses to the Chargers and Cowboys. Now Grossman is finally put out to pasture as Brian Griese comes to save the day. Something is majorly wrong with that sentence when Griese is there to rescue the team. This can't go well. Other than that, it's prime time for baseball and not many seem to care. That's a shame too. I like baseball MUCH more than football personally. Playoffs start next week and my (there I go again) Yanks are doing their thing with a very solid second half. The pitching is also starting to come around, I'm pretty confident going into the postseason. My MVP? AL would be A-Rod and NL is Fat Boy Prince Fielder.



I'll start to end up by throwing in some Real World talk in. This week was fairly boring. They get their job duties and it's basically to help plan things for people to do when they come to Sydney. Drama is getting intense though, so that's always a fun watch. Dunbar and Trish are going at each other for talking behind backs. They both are saying the other is telling lies. Parisa doesn't know who to trust of the two and just wants to be buddies with everyone. I'm ready for someone to snap.

Time to wipe this thing out with a double dose of Harry Potter and new (used?) DVDs. We're through four books of Harry Potter and now get to tackle Order of the Phoenix. This is the biggest book of the bunch, a whopping 870 pages. That's hardcore indeed and it'll take me a while, but we'll get through it. To tie in with that in this same paragraph, I figured I was due to load up on some DVDs. I was at Blockbuster and was baited into one of those 4 used DVD deals for $20. I ended up getting Blood Diamond, Eragon (not usually my type of movie, but it has the Potter feel, so I'll pay $5 for it), Gridiron Gang and Rocky VI (it's not Rocky Balboa to me).



Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: http://www.myspace.com/YoungJack05

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Kasher keeps us busy around here, he's got the video scene on lock. This one, really funny stuff. Hopefully it's not just me that thinks it's funny. "I don't want sex. I'm just waiting for the bus." http://youtube.com/watch?v=8X07J2I9D48

3 Quick Thangs:

1. What's up for birthdays on Saturday, September 29th? We don't have a lot of action going on here, but we can't let that stop us. We start out with Bryant Gumbel who is doing his 59th birthday dance. Comedian Andrew Dice Clay, the big 5-0. Former Playboy Playmate Erika Eleniak, 38. Wrestler Yoshihiro Tajiri who acted like he couldn't speak English when I met him before but really could, now 37. #2 NBA pick this season, Kevin Durant, 19.

2. New hottie celeb update. Yvonne Strzechowski on the new show called Chuck. I've never seen the show, but I see her in all of the ads. Guys (and a fair bit of chicks) will enjoy this one, she has potential. As we like to say around here, high quality. Go check her out.

3. Today's pointless fact? Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming one tenth of a calorie.

Kid Nation + Bloody Violence = Drama

It's been an uneventful week, but that never puts the brakes on the blog. We're still coming at it in full force and as usual, we'll figure out something to chat about. In this edition we get talk on a new TV show that has hit written all over it, OJ doing his thing, Notre Dame getting progressively worse, Real World, and a slew of other items.



So what's the TV show that is a must watch? It's on Wednesday nights at 8:00 PM EST, CBS. It's called Kid Nation. If you missed the premiere this week, you missed out on some hilarity. I'll lay the storyline out in a nutshell. 40 total kids are part of Bonanza City. They range from the ages of 8 up to 15. They need to turn this deserted town into something productive. The trick is, no adults are part of this. They are broken up into groups, have jobs, can earn fake money, and every week, someone is given this gold star for being the best that week, which is worth $20,000 in real money. Then, the real drama is these little kiddies crying their eyes out over little things, fighting with each other like they are tough guys (hey, that sounds like my middle school punks who think they can whip the world), and disorganization. How can you go wrong with that? My favorite one so far is this Jared kid on the red team, I don't think he's quite right, but he'll crack ya up good. After one week, only one kid dropped out, one of the 8 year old youngsters. Yes, it's a cheezy reality show, but I'm going to be hooked to this one.

Time to go to national thoughts. Good ol' OJ Simpson. What's my take on America's most known celebrity? For some reason, I think he gets off from all of these charges. Something has come up each of the past few days to show it's not as violent as made be. Now we see that OJ didn't have possession of a gun. Are the items in question really his or not? The thing that gets me is how people cry about how they don't want to see this story. They've had enough of OJ, blah blah. True, we have, but most would be lying if they said they weren't interested in how this all plays out. That's true reality TV right there. I remember being at the beach with the family in 1994 during the original OJ Trial. Most of that trip, me and Dad were ate up with the trial and watched all of that mess and stayed in the hotel. Yeah, I admit it, it was good. Remember Marcia Clark the prosecuting attorney against OJ in those days? She's now a blonde and looks horrendous. She is 54 now, but you'd think someone would tell her straight up that it's brutal. More people need to be honest, not mean, but some people get scared to speak their mind.



I'll keep the trend of TV life going. Wednesday night's Real World? This season isn't blowing anyone away, but I still think it's going well enough. Then again, this is a guy that watches every single season no matter what. This week's edition? Since we didn't get our token gay dude on this cast of characters, we get our week of gayness in this episode. Imagine MTV shoving that down our throats. How so? It was Gay Mardi Gras in Sydney. I'm sure it has a technical name, but the entire show was based around that. The ones that took part in it had a lot of fun, but a few stayed behind. Trish broke down and freaked that she would be sinning if she went and supported the cause. Then we had Cohutta who didn't want to go for another reason. He said he didn't want to be around 750,000 people at once, especially since they'd be drunks, well said. He's a small town guy and didn't want any part of that action. Sounds like someone else I know.

Can my Notre Dame boys go 0-8 before getting a win? It's highly possible, but I hope I'm wrong. Right now they're 0-3 and have a total of 13 points for the entire season. They're a total mess and things can't possibly get any worse. Here's some stats to blow your mind. THE worst in the nation in points per game and also rushing yards. How about this? Rushing total for the entire year? -14 yards. No, that's not a typo, they're that bad. Passing yards? 112th in the nation. Total yards per game? Dead last. This week, Michigan State. Even though it's at South Bend, that doesn't mean a thing, chalk up the loss. After that, two road games, Purdue and UCLA, both probable losses. Then after those two? It'll be time to get murdered by Boston College and USC, not fun times. 9th game of the year is against Navy. That's not even a given, but that's the easier part of our schedule, doesn't come till November. Navy, Air Force, Duke, and Stanford is our last 4 games. It should be interesting for sure.



I'm not a big wedding fan in most cases. I'm a guy, so I have that right to feel that way. I know girls think they're the greatest things ever made, but to us guys, eh. We go to tear up some food basically and roll on out of there. This Saturday, I'll be rolling along with Big Cork to Clinten's wedding. Again, the food should be quality, so it'll be worth it. That and most of our buddies will be there. I'm sure someone will have some story worthy drama to mention. After that, some of us head back to the mean streets and gear up for pay per view time.

Yep, it'll be UFC 76: Knockout. This one features Chuck Liddell facing off against Keith Jardine. Also we get Mauricio Rua (one of PRIDE's studs before that promotion died and was bought out by UFC) going against Forrest Griffin. Another top match has Diego Sanchez coming off his first loss ever taking on Jon Fitch. Wednesday featured another live Fight Night for free and that was followed by the premiere of Ultimate Fighter 6. Reality TV mixed in with UFC? Yep, I'm a sucker for that. So Wednesday of this week I went from watching little kiddies be wusses in Kid Nation to watching UFC guys crush skulls and go to pure bloody violence immediately after. I'm versatile like that.



Remember the CDs from last week? Nothing new this time, but I've had the chance to listen to them all. I'll give a quick report card on each without taking too much of your day.

50 Cent: Curtis. Pretty good. Out of his and Kanye's "rivalry", 50 smoked him as far as quality of their albums. I'm not sure who ended up selling more though, but this CD is good. (B)

Benzino: The Antidote: Not a bad listen. It's not amazing, yet it's not horrible either. If you're a Benzino fan already, you'd like it. If you've never heard him before, try some of his older stuff. (C)

Kanye West: Graduation. I was let down by this one. To begin with, I'm not a huge Kanye guy. Second, he tries to do too many funky and weird futuristic type beats. That doesn't do much for me personally. I didn't care for this, you can find better. (D+)

Talib Kweli: Ear Drum. Excellent. As I wrote in the last blog, I had already listened to this one. Again, some true hip hop right here, very well done. (A-)

Miller Boyz: Hip Hop History. I'm probably more of a Master P fan than the rest, so take my grade on this one lightly. It worked I feel as Romeo is coming into his own too. They work together and it's a nice mix. No hard gangsta stuff that you'd get from old P tracks, but don't let that stop ya. (B-)



Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: http://www.myspace.com/norcalchika

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Barbaric! 178-year old West Virginia Senator, Robert Byrd. Maybe it's just me, but I'm watching this over and over and laughing just as much each time. It's him talking about the Michael Vick saga, you'll love it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=uYgXRU8gCls

3 Quick Thangs:

1. Let's try some birthdays. How does Saturday, September 22nd sound to you guys? It works for me. We start with David Stern, NBA Commish and a legend, 65. Actress Meryl Streep, she's now 57. Scott Baio, Single and 45, he's 47. Rocker Joan Jett is also 47. Soccer dude Ronaldo, 31. It's a few days early, but I'd like to send one out to the mean streets of Australia for Jordee. Have a great one parting it up big on Tuesday the 25th. :)

2. Want a weird fact? Here you go: Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

3. This is strange. I'm reading one now that says this: An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. You kidding me? I only report it, so we'll assume it's true until one of you people try it out and let us know.

The Antidote

We're charged up with full power and ready to go in this edition. There is a lot of little things to mention, so I shouldn't have a problem in hitting up the usual randomness. What goes down in this post? We got a long overdue trip for some Japanese hibachi action, my crazy sleep schedule, Notre Dame football being a mess, Britney Spears, Celtics gear, new CDs, and whatever else we find to dive into.



I don't think I'm in the minority on this one, but what was up with Britney Spears at last week's MTV Video Music Awards? You've all seen it by now, so I don't have to describe it, but she was a total mess. She totally lost her dance skills and looked way out of shape and fat, simply put. You'd think if she was out of shape she wouldn't wear some skank outfit with her jiggling around, but nope, we got flab everywhere and the crowd not knowing what to think. Dad had a quote the other day on the situation that had me cracking up: "You see Britney Spears last night? Why'd they let that fat girl get out there? Someone didn't tell her she was a mess?" In related news, I have a kid at work that is distant cousins with Britney, poor guy.

Two different sleep schedules for me in the past week. Last Friday, I was about to crash after not much sleep from work all week. I come home and decide against a nap. Then I'm watching TV around 10:30 at night and go to bed to just lay down for a few and get my second wind. Next thing I know, I look up and it's 1:00 in the morning and my neck is all stiff. I go downstairs to brush my teeth and all of that fun stuff and get back into bed. That's when I read Harry for about 20 minutes (right now I'm about on Page 600 of Book 4) and crashed. I didn't wake up till 10:30 the next morning, so technically I got about 12 hours of quality sleep. Tuesday night of this week it was the opposite. Of course I had to wake up for work on Wednesday at 6:00. You'd think I'd learn, but I ended up going to bed at 3:00 after being a bum online. I wasn't tired at all through the day, but a coma later at night. 3 hours sleep, we've all been there, just gotta man up and tough it out. Wednesday night, I went to bed at 1:30, so that's 4½ hours. No naps for some reason either, I'm a mess. I figure this weekend, I'll catch up as usual. That's the plan. It doesn't help that I'm playing on two computers at once right now, some real multitasking right there. One on my lap, the other on the desktop. Don't ask.



Last Friday it was a trip with the crew to Shogun for some Japanese. Yeah, I realize I'm bouncing around from the days in here, but it keeps you on your toes. We had six of us along for the festivities this time: Ozzie, Fortney, Abbey, Sweet Pea, Aubrey, and me. The best filet you can get (gotta get it medium rare, I won't argue that) and scallops, you can't top that too often at all. Fortney busts out this great quote: "I'm not sure what heaven is like, but I bet it'd be one big scallop." Well said, they're that good. I'm always in for a trip to hit up some good eats, just let me know ahead of time.

It's a dark time to be a Notre Dame fan. The first two games are in the books and they were beyond brutal. The first, my boys were lucky to score 3 on Georgia Tech. Last week, they got slapped around by Penn State and surprisingly it wasn't much worse than the actual score of 31-10. A quick few stats is that my crew is 117th in offensive production and dead last in points per game. In the entire country! I'm talking worse than the North Texas Mean Green. More pathetic than the Buffalo Bulls. And yes, even notches much lower than the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks. This Saturday, someone has to win (both teams may forfeit) as the Irish head to the Big House to face Michigan who are also on hard times. At least Michigan's offense can do things instead of looking like a bunch of drunks. Me and Fortney joked that it worked out that Clark moved to North Carolina because we were supposed to go to that game. It would've been miserable with how they've both started out so far. Unfortunately, I don't think my guys can win on Saturday, but at least Kid Prodigy Jimmy Clausen has already been thrown into the fire.



Basketball season is a good month and a half away, but if you know me, it's always NBA mode in my own little world. This season is going to be different for my Celtics though. For the first time in a long while, they're actually relevant in the national sports news. That's due to bringing in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to the squad to help take the burden that Paul Pierce has been weighing down on his shoulders. I'm not going to get into the media hype and think they're going to easily win the conference and all of that. Do I think they'll be good? Yes I do, perhaps very good. But, there's always the chance that Pierce and Allen could get mangled as they've been beat up the past few years. However, even if, they should be able to be respectable in the East regardless. I figured it was time to load up on a Garnett jersey. I ended up getting the green and black road version and to its credit, I got a Red Auerbach shirt to go along its side. My moral? I can't ever have enough Celtics gear.

I know that CDs are almost becoming extinct, but we still add them to the collection. They can always be added to the iPod, so no biggie, I just like having things all organized. What'd we load up on this week?



50 Cent: Curtis. Yep, this is the week that 50 might end up quitting the rap game. How's that? Well, he says that he'll quit if his album doesn't sell more than Kanye's, also in this blog. This story is totally built up for the media as they act like they hate each other, but that's a load of garbage. Anyways, this should be a good CD you'd think. On this one you get Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Eminem, Robin Thicke (dang, lots of whiteys on this CD), Young Buck, Tony Yayo, and Mary J.

Benzino: The Antidote. Benzino takes a lot of crap, but I think he's worth checking out because of the idea you never know what he'll say. I'll still never live down him sending his boys out to stab Paul Pierce, but I can still listen to the music. On this CD we have Ja Rule as the lone mainsteam name that people would know, but it's loaded up with others. As I type this up, I haven't listened to it yet to give any kind of review.

Kanye West: Graduation. Me personally, I think Kanye is a bit overrated and he thinks he's a tough guy, but regardless, this thing will sell hotcakes. I'd be lying to say I wasn't interested. I've heard good reviews from it, so we'll see what goes down. I like that Kanye didn't load up every single song with someone with him. The ones he chose to be part of this are worthy indeed. Weezy F. Baby himself, Lil Wayne is featured on the track Barry Bonds. Yes, he has a song called that. If Lil Wayne is on the album, I'm in. Also, we get Mos Def and T-Pain.

Talib Kweli: Ear Drum. If you're a true hip hop fan and have been lost in some cave and don't know Talib, go get this CD. This is what rap is all about right here, he's one of the best out there. On this beast you get UGK, Kanye, Lyfe Jennings, Will i.am, KRS-One (look hip hop up in the dictionary and KRS will be shown), Musiq, Justin Timberlake, and much more. Recommendations? Country Cousins with UGK and The Perfect Beat with KRS. This entire CD is solid.

Miller Boyz: Hip Hop History. This is a father/son combo. We get Master P and Lil Romeo teaming up on an album together. I'm a fan of both and really liked this one. You get a nice mixture of a few mean songs with P's classic style (although he's done away with negative raps), then you get them vibing together, then a song with the kiddies. Trick Daddy would be happy indeed at that one, Trick luvs da kids. I don't think I'd steer ya wrong in getting this one. It doesn't happen often, but pretty much everything added to the collection this week has big potential.



Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: http://www.myspace.com/brooke_lynn

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Another vid courtesy of Kasher. This one features a dude going to a Yankees game. Nothing major yet, right? Well, his buddy and the guy's chick are also there, but in other seats. One sets up the jumbotron to put a marriage propsal on the screen. It ends up bad, but it's great entertainment: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1774718



3 Quick Thangs:

1. Let's go with some birthdays for Friday, September 14th: NBA coach Larry Brown, he's 67, wow. C list star Dan Cortese from MTV and Melrose Place fame, Happy 39th, go figure. A big name to the international wrestling fans, Satoshi Kojimi of New Japan Wrestling, he's 37 on this day. That's pretty slim indeed, but we can't win them all. In random news, a day before on the 13th, my #basketball boys Uncle Wilbur (35) and Trig Daddy (33) are both getting up there. Have a great one Wilbur!

2. Fun Fact #1: Your skeleton keeps growing until you are about 35, then you start to shrink.

3. Fun Fact #2: In one of those strange law facts, here's a great one. In Atlanta, it's illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp. Imagine that.

Youngin' On His Grind

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