"Get Your Ass To The Gun!"

I'll be the first to say that my last effort wasn't one to be remembered. Sure, it had the basics, but nothing jumped out in your face to grab the attention. That's going to change in this one as I have a lot of things to talk about. With 2007 winding down, I could do a Best Of type post and give a recap, maybe hitting up some of the stories of the year, best dirties we found, videos, etc, but nah. I'm going to ramble on like I usually do. In this last post of 2007, we're going to hit up topics such of Christmas of course, the Christmas Eve happenings the night before, several movie reviews, a lot of new CDs, Japanese trip with the crew, and MUCH more. We're not about to let the end of the year stop us, we have a big one in the works, a royal flush if you will.



I'll get started with Christmas Eve. At our house, it's always the setting for the family to get our eats on and just have an overall good time. We packed the house in and that always is a cause for some rowdiness. In attendance for those taking notes? Me, Dad, Mom, Spank, Cork, Aunt Linda, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Susie, Uncle Bill, Cousin Ozzie, Maria, Cousin Kari, Matty Cakes, Cousin Angie, Will, Cousin Jill, Gayle, Big Ashton, Ashley, Uncle Butch, Jimmy, Rick, Linda, another Rick, Steph, and I think that may be it. Can I take a breath now? That's pretty good off of memory, so hopefully I got everyone in there. The tone is set, so how did the night go?

There is too much food to mention, so I won't go there in depth. As usual though, it was top notch, can't ever go wrong with homemade Italian action. My favorite things if I had to pick? Sausage and peppers, ziti and meatballs, or two creations of my Aunt Linda's, fettuccini and some amazing cheesecake. TV of the night was switched between watching the brutal Broncos/Chargers NFL game and of course A Christmas Story featuring none other than Ralphie. Then the drinks started flowing, so you're all wondering, who won "The Award", a recurring theme with either a road trip or hanging out with the family. Props always go to Gayle for creating that name. Readers of the blog know of past happening with this fun event.



Basically, the deal is whoever ends up as making the biggest scene gets "The Award". This year, we had a tight battle going on between former winner Kari and Angie. They were going neck and neck. If either are reading, I'm not going to embarrass anyone, don't worry, hah. Angie wanted to set the dance scene on the proper note. She had this bright idea for me to put Rappers Delight in to jam to for some old school feel. As they were bouncing around and everyone was taking pics and whatnot, I thought either the Christmas tree or the shelves in that room were going to come tumbling over, but they managed to stay up. Dad was like, "Just let em fall! It can't hurt that room!"

After a while, I could tell it was gonna be a rough night for the girls. Then I see Big Ashton running around and I knew Angie and Will were hanging outside. I didn't think anything of it. Ashton, who is about 2½ or so, busts out this classic, "Angie pruked!" That's kid speak for puke, he's a funny one to be around. Normally kids that age are screaming and whining 24/7 and I can't handle that stuff, but Ashton is like a "little human" (inside family joke there). That usually is cause for "The Award" to to be given, so I guess I'll give Ashton the assist on this one. Angie takes the title and is the current champ. We need to start making trophies or something, well done for sure.



So we move onto Christmas Day itself. I don't care how old I am, it still never gets old to get pumped up for the big day. This year, there wasn't one big thing I was after, but loaded up on some good items. For the first time in a while, I didn't get a crazy amount of Celtics stuff. I think by this time I have so much that it's tough to shop for that. The theme this year was Notre Dame gear. I gotta support em, even after the roughest season they've ever been through. They also have a longer winning streak than each of the current teams playing for the National Title, so that's always good times. Video game wise, I went for Contra 4 on DS. One awesome game. If you're into Contra of old, you'd dig this for sure. It's way hard, believe it or not, but it's a near perfect game. Other than that, I could name a lot of clothes, books, movie DVDs, gift certificates and that type of thing, but I won't. A random good get was a funnel cake kit. My crew that hangs with me knows I'm a huge fan of funnel cakes. A's, a restaurant in Shinnston (the best pizza and hoagies anywhere on the planet) would have regular orders of funnel cakes in just for me. How's that for some service? Can't beat it with a stick.

The traditional Christmas Night movie. The crew for this bonanza would be Cork, Cork's chick Kristen, Spank, and myself. We went to a 9:45 showing and for some reason, it wasn't packed at all. Maybe because no big time movies were out, but I couldn't figure this one. Last year it was jammed packed for Rocky, but only about 15 in the theater we hit up. Me and Spank were really wanting to see The Great Debaters starring Denzel, but since my area is a bunch of whitey redneck racists, we don't get that movie, imagine that. That fires me up, but I can't win that argument around here, so no point of getting worked up. If Denzel is in it, it has to be a good movie in my opinion. Name a bad one he's been in. What we decided to roll with was Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. This isn't a movie to take the family to by any means, but it's downright hilarious. If you like crude comedy that'll have ya laughing the entire time, hit this bad boy up. My score for this one? 7.6 out of 10.



A DVD pickup to mention now that I'm on the topic of movies. My favorite type of movies have to be the over the top comedies with not much seriousness to it. This one falls into line and I'm not sure why I didn't go see this in theaters. SuperBad. For those who are behind in their movie watching, it's one of the funnier movies I've seen in a while. Like with Walk Hard, this isn't a family movie. It's rude and crude, but that's what makes a funny movie like this anyways, right? The plotline has you following along as well and keeping with it. You have these two high school seniors who are ready to move away to college the following year. Their goal, and the movie takes place late in the school year, is to each hook up with some chick on the way out. A lot comes in their way of this adventure that is worth seeing. If you're not a fan of the McLovin character by the time you see this, I'll be surprised.

Let's fast forward to Saturday night. Yep, we're due for another Japanese trip. The setting as usual, Shogun. Me and Kari (great grammar again) were talking on Christmas Eve how we needed to round up the troops to get another eating festival going. I'm always in for the crew going out to eat, we need to do it more often. Kari brought about a quote that we've been using all week to get them to hit up Japanese, "Get your ass to The Gun!" It can't be said any simpler than that, straight and to the point. There was a whopping 12 of us on this trip, 4 couples and 4 singles. Who was involved? The Fortneys, Kari and Matty Cakes, Ozzie and Maria, Swiger and his wifey, Spank, Sponge, Sweet Pea, and myself. This was probably the most I've ate up there in a while. Usually Fortney and Spank can't wait to eat there with me since I end up giving a lot of my food away, but not this trip. I turned into a fat boy and tore that stuff up. I ordered my usual, filet (medium rare of course) and scallops as the main meal and then you get the traditional soup, ginger salad, and some noodles. I stand by that you can't get a better piece of steak than here. If you order a filet at a rich boy restaurant, you're paying an arm and a leg. The prices here are real good for what you get in my opinion.



It's time to branch off the Japanese trip and give an interesting tale. First off, a quick plug, if you're out on the road and need a sports score, what do you do? Well, you can call a buddy, listen to sports radio until you hear the score, or get online with your phone, something I know absolutely nothing about. The locals know this as it's a big hit, but call 1-800-555-TELL. It's a voice activated free phone system that you can get up to date scores on any game going on. Try it out, it's handy. There's other things in there besides sports too, but I haven't tried those things. A quick reminder, sometimes it won't pick up your voice or noises around you can affect what they think you're saying. The best is when Ozzie is trying to call and has to repeat himself a few times. You can see the anger build up with each repeat and then if you're lucky, he'll flip out on that phone number and give some good entertainment. Trust me, if you haven't seen it before, you're missing out.

But oh no, Saturday night's fun isn't quite over yet. After filling myself up with food, me and Spank came home to flip between the Pats/Giants game as well as whatever college bowl game was on. For me, I'm footballed out at this time of the year and have been for a while. It's all you see on SportsCenter and good luck to you finding info on other sports at this time of the season. I realize that most sports fans worship the ground of anything football related, but not me. Sure, I'm a big fan, but it's not nearly the level that basketball or baseball are for me. That takes us to 10:00 and the setting would be the Posey Household, high atop Tank Hill in scenic Shinnston, West Virginia.



For this, it was pay per view night and it was UFC 79: Nemesis. In attendance for this action? Posey, his wife Scherri, Spank, Cork, AJ, Ashley, the Posey kids, and their Taco Bell dog that didn't bark as much as normal and myself. I've become a huge MMA (mixed martial arts) fan and was pumped for this card. I won't bore you too much since most of the MMA fans of my crew I've already talked to, but I'll mention a few tidbits. Two matches were marketed hard for this show. We had Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell going up against Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva. First off, I was talking with our crew, we need wacky nicknames like that. I don't care what you look like, if you have a nickname of The Axe Murderer, you've arrived. I figured Silva would crush Liddell, but I was proven wrong. Liddell's reach and devastating punch power proved to be enough to win in decision. I still have no clue how Silva stood up through all of that, dude's head is a rock. Then in the main event we had Georges St. Pierre showing Matt Hughes how it's done. GSP may be the baddest 170-pounder out there today. He can do it all. He takes top of the line wrestlers down to the ground and owns them like nothing, he has great stamina, good standing, etc. He had Hughes screaming for the ref to stop the match, total domination.

What's going down with the latest Real World episode? Cohutta hasn't been to the doctor in 10 years, but has to get his ankle checked up on. 10 years, seriously? He thought he broke it, but turns out it was a bad sprain. He doesn't get to go do the Sydney tour with his team, but shows up anyways on crutches to help. KellyAnne doesn't remember any facts on the tour and the tourists call her out on it. She then gets sent home one night for drinking on the job and making a fool of herself. Dunbar and KellyAnne argue in front of their tourist group the next day. Isaac's group dominates the tour battle and they win the trip to Europe.

I haven't given a CD update in a long time. I guess now is as good as any since I got some new ones over the past few days. As it almost normally is, we delve into the rap and R&B realm.



Beanie Sigel: The Solution. Most of these CDs this time around turned out to be quality. Beanie brings the grimey type rap and just tells it like it is. If you're into songs featuring other people, he loads us up with names such as R. Kelly, Puff, Scarface, Jay-Z, Ghostface, Styles P, and Ozzy Osbourne out of nowhere. I put R. Kelly in the Nate Dogg class, if they're on your CD, it's legit.

Birdman: 5 * Stunna. We go 22 tracks strong in this one. You know you're going to get tons of Lil Wayne, Weezy is featured on 7 of these. You also get Fat Joe, Rick Ross, and Young Jeezy just to name a few. As I type this, out of the new batch, this is one of two I haven't listened to yet, so no review will be made. I'm probably a bigger Birdman/Lil Wayne fan than most, but I'm sure it'll deliver, he won't put out junk.

Bow Wow & Omarion: Face Off. The theme on this CD is that both of these guys feel they aren't getting their respect due from the media. They work good together, flows nice. You get Bow Wow trying to do the mean/laid back combo thing with his raps and Omarion bringing the pimpin. Something about Like Mike acting all mean cracks me up, but I think the kid is talented and it weirdly works.

Chingy: Hate It Or Love It. Where's he been hiding at? Chingy is catchy and has charisma to him. I have all of his stuff regardless, but he's too much of a club/mainstream type rapper for my tastes. I still like him, but I won't crown him as king or anything. This, like Birdman's, I've yet to sample all the way though, but I soon will, don't worry. Check My Swag is interesting because he tries to go with the Slick Rick/Snoop Dogg style of rapping.

Jaheim: The Makings Of A Man. We're going for some true R&B right here. A very underrated guy, Jaheim can pimp with the best of them. This thing in one word? Smooth. If you're someone in a cave and listen to R&B and have yet to go with Jaheim, you're missing out.

Scarface: MADE. Words from a legend right here. A rapper that has stayed true to his roots for 20 years now. You want some pure ghetto roughness? Scarface is your man. Great rhymes, they have a meaning, and you know what you're going to get. Excellent CD here. Recommendations? Big Dog Status, Boy Meets Girl, and Git Out My Face.

Styles P: Super Gangster - Extraordinary Gentleman. Yet another solid CD. We're hitting a trend here because this has been a good batch. As with Scarface, you know what you're getting here. Styles doesn't switch it up. He brings that mean gangsta rap style if you're into that. Some songs to check out on this would be Blow Your Mind with Swizz Beatz, Alone In The Street, and U Ain't Ready 4 Me with Beanie Sigel.

Wu Tang Clan: The 8 Diagrams. The Wu is back! If you're a Wu fan, you need to pick this one up. These guys are pushing 40, some of them over that, but they still bring it as only they can. Thumbs up here, it has you wanting more. Some to download? Take It Back, Unpredictable, and Weak Spot.



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

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Charlie bit me! http://youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

3 Quick Thangs:

1. Let's start the year off right by celebrating the birthdays of Tuesday, January 1st. Rapper Grandmaster Flash will be our oldest that is worthy to make the blog, he's now 49. Model Carol Alt, she's strutting around at 47. Another model, who once made her name on the internet, Cindy Margolis, 42. RIP to Derrick Thomas, former NFL baller of the Chiefs, he would've been 40. Actor Morris Chestnut of Boyz N The Hood fame, 38. American Idol loser Bo Bice, 32. Mine is on next Sunday for my 29th, buy me presents. :)

2. It's time for another free plug into the blog. This one is hyping up some local hot mustard. Mustard is the #1 condiment, I won't argue that one. Anyways, hit up this site and order some of the "Hot Honey Mustard" in the 10 ounce jar. I wouldn't steer ya in the wrong direction, some of the best mustard you'll ever taste. Will, this is the mustard you wanted me to give you the website to, so I'm knocking out two things at once here: http://www.thistledewfarm.com

3. 2008 New Years Resolutions? I don't have any off the top of my head. But I'm glad we're through another year here at the blog, we've been rocking it out. Thanks for reading and telling me whether it's any good or if it's brutal. Either way, it keeps you interested. Here's to having a great 2008!