Blackwater Weekend, EDDFL, & S'mores!

What does this blog feature? I'll be able to ramble on a good bit here, for it was a huge weekend for my standards. Saturday was spent hitting up Blackwater Falls with Shawna and Sunday was one of my favorite days of the entire year with my boys, the EDDFL Draft. I'll get into more here in just a few if you're lost, so stick with me and don't give up. While you're buying the Halloween costumes for next week as you go either with the funny style or if it makes you feel better to be all slutty, have at it. I'll leave that choice for you, but until then, just grab the cup of hot chocolate and dive into some reading material to keep you busy for a few. That's about all I have to offer. And away we go..



October is about over and Saturday it was time for a trip to get out of town. You know I'm all about road trips. This one wasn't far away, but it was still far enough to get out of town that it felt like I was away. Confused yet? I went about 2 hours away to Blackwater Falls in Davis, West Virginia. I know West Virginia gets a bad rep for all of the stereotypes (some true), but as far as scenery goes, we have some high quality spots to check out. I figured it'd be much colder than it was that day. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't warm, but I liked how it was. Later in the night, it got to be pretty chilly in the mountains, but a trip I enjoyed. There was probably the most people I've ever seen up there. I assume people were like us and wanted to get there as the leaves were changing and all of that. Yes, we're going to state parks, we should be 65 years old by now it seems. The way I look at it, we could be going to a lot worse places. Also, it served a purpose to get some pics that everyone has been bugging us to get for a while now. I have more on the MySpace page for anyone bored to see, but a few will get thrown up here.

To go along with us feeling like we're 65 years old, we hit up a few shops along the way. I'm a sucker for buying homemade products from around the area. I like buying random things, especially on a little getaway. I ended up getting a bottle of wine from Lambert's for the parents, gotta hook them up. Lambert's is in the rough streets of Weston, West Virginia. At Hiawatha's in Elkins, I loaded up on a jar of homemade strawberry jam from Gap Mills and a WV History activity book to use at school with my kids since I have a class of that. Before going to Sirianni's (more on that in a second), we rolled into Nanny's, a small bakery/deli. If I see a deli, I'm in, you have to at least check one out. We walk in and smell fresh bread cooking, not a good idea since we're doing this before eating a big meal. There I get a thing of pepperoni rolls and a bag of fresh wheat hoagie buns. I'm not even going to explain either of those for anyone that doesn't know. And no, the "hoagies" in your area are not the same from the ones in our area, you have no idea, but I won't argue that.



Part of the trip was a stop to Sirianni's Cafe. This is a place I've written about before that I hit up a decent bit when we're up there for trout fishing season. If you're ever in that area, it's a spot you need to drop in on just to say you've been. It doesn't look like much, but has an old school traditional feel when you walk in that makes the atmosphere. I always say it's like getting my haircut. I don't pay for the haircut with my barber, I pay for the experience and wise words of wisdom that one can get. You never know what to expect. The only downfall to Sirianni's is that normally you have to wait. This time, we only had to wait about 20 minutes, so I'll take that. They tried to split groups up and sit us at a table with about 10 other people, but they didn't need to be all up in our business. I could've rambled on to these bums with no problem, but it wouldn't be the same, so we wanted a table just for us. Hey, I'm a hopeless romantic, deal with it. As far as the food goes, I loaded up on a dish called Sal's, which is a pasta dish with spinach, cheese, pinenuts, garlic, and tomatoes. I'm telling you, that thing rocked big time and it's one of my favorites on their list.

Sunday! Yes, the day that me and my boys have been waiting for. With NBA right around the corner, that means it's fantasy basketball time and we are consumed with that to which words can't even describe. I listed the guys in the league last week, but it can't hurt to recognize the E-Town Diaper Dandies Fantasy League (EDDFL) members for your enjoyment in the order we drafted: Spank, myself, Fortney, Riley, TJ, Cork, Posey, Mudcat, ManDingo, Sidell, Fleece, and Ozzie. The setting? That'd be the Fairmont Sports Garden, filled with machines for the gamblers to blow their money on as well as enough smoke to burn our eyes for days. Everyone knows my thoughts on smoke anyways, so I won't bore you to death with that. I still always love the Ozzie quote from an Atlanta road trip a few years back of how he wants to get someone's cigarette and burn it on their eyeballs. That's pretty brutal, although I do like the way Ozzie thinks, but the moral of this story? Put the smokes down or your eyeballs might get sizzled in fire. Anyways, enough of the educational advice, it's time to jump into the heart of what makes our year go by so smoothly, NBA!



The place we draft at is perfect for us. It's nothing fancy by any means. We have to bring our own food in and all of that, but it adds to the excitement. We do have a big TV that Fortney is a king of operating the remote on as we flipped between endless NFL games all afternoon. Also, since it's somewhat of a bar setup, the chick tells us that our pop (soda for you weirdos) is free. She didn't know what she was getting herself into is what Dingo was laughing about. We did tip her real good and some of the crew bought beer, so it wasn't a lost cause on the establishment, but we tore those pops up. As an added flavor, the hit of the day as far as food goes was thanks to Mom making sausage and peppers for the bunch. I credit Spank with that idea and convincing her to make it, which she didn't mind at all, gotta love her. On a sidenote, this is my 2nd favorite meal at home, next to manicotti. Then we had Posey doing his Lay's thing and dropping in some free stuff as well as Ozzie and Cork getting sugar cookies that got wiped out in no time.

If anyone is in our league to win money, that's just a bonus if you ask me. From October through April, we're all over it. The best thing I like about our crew is that even if you're getting mangled and in dead last, you're still keeping up with your team and turning in lineups at record paces. It's a huge hobby to me, so I like putting money into the league since I know the fun that returns from it can't be priced. We have a new addition to the league. Not a person, but this idea is in trophy form. We presented the trophy this year to TJ who won the league last year and has bragging rights till the end of time for being an EDDFL Champion. He gets to hold the trophy for a year and present this year's winner with the trophy. Just something extra to play for other than the usual cash they'll get. The draft board is a must for our league as well. I'll be getting this for a long time I hope and it's very handy in person. If you've never had a draft board for your live drafts, you seriously are missing out, it adds so much.



I could write and write about NBA stuff, but I'll try not to force a ton on you. You'll get enough through the year, but I might as well at least break down my team to open the season with. I had the #2 pick overall and went with The Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant. Also, for those who don't know how our league is setup, rookies are a big factor. We start 6 players per week at any position. One spot must be a rookie no matter what. Ladies and gentlemennnnn, here is yourrrr E-Town Junkies:

1. Kobe Bryant: Los Angeles Lakers
2. OJ Mayo (R): Memphis
3. Rudy Gay: Memphis
4. Zach Randolph: New York
5. Devin Harris: New Jersey
6. Andrew Bogut: Milwaukee
7. Ty Chander: New Orleans
8. Randy Foye: Minnesota
9. Joakim Noah: Chicago
10. Marreese Speights (R): Philadelphia
11. Marcus Camby: Los Angeles Clippers
12. Boris Diaw: Phoenix
13. Ramon Sessions: Milwaukee
14. DeShawn Stevenson: Washington
15. Antonio Daniels: Washington



I'm happy with my team. I always say if you leave a draft unhappy, that's bad news and can't ever end well. Being a Celtics guy, you'd think I'd hate Kobe, but he's actually one of my favorite players in the game. I'm sure this year will add to that, praying that he doesn't get hurt like a little girl. In Mayo, it's like we raised the guy, being in West Virginia. We've heard about this kid since his early middle school days and now he's on our fantasy rosters, that makes me feel old. For the #3 pick, I was debating between Rudy Gay and David West. West starts out the season with 5 straight weeks of 3 games and that's a tough hole, so I go with the Gay man in that situation, no homo. I joked that I wouldn't have any Bulls or Knicks and I end up with one on each team. Z-Bo Randolph is going to be a knucklehead for sure, but I'm hoping I can get some games out of him that'll be productive. Ok, I'll slow my roll and stop analyzing every player. As much as it hurts me to move away from this topic, I'll do it for the sake of the readers out there.

Sometimes I review brand new theater movies. Other times I switch the game on you. This time, I'm going to review one that isn't brand new, but it was new enough to me that I haven't seen it. What's that one? Shawna brought over The Heartbreak Kid the other day. No, for the wrestling fans, Shawn Michaels wasn't hanging in my room. That'd be a story in and of itself as I might have gotten some Sweet Chin Music down a flight of stairs. This one features Ben Stiller, Jerry Stiller (hilarious), Carlos Mencia, and Michelle Monaghan of the recently reviewed Eagle Eye just to name a few. It's a comedy/romance, so it's a good date movie. I won't get all sappy, but just giving a recommendation if you're into that. On the scale, we'll go with 6.5 out of 10. It's worth watching and is a fine movie. Nothing that is going to amaze you, but it's worth giving a few hours time to and I thought it was pretty funny. IMDB gave it a 5.9 for whatever that's worth to you readers.



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

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: I actually got a few user requests this week for videos. Corndog, your vid was decent, but didn't keep my attention the whole way as did Matty Cakes'. I feel fine in saying that because I know normally Corndog brings out the goodies as far as blog contributions, but no harm done. This week's winner instead comes to us from Matty Cakes. Even if you're not a sports fan, you probably know or recognize Chris Berman. I actually haven't seen this one before, but it's of Berman flipping out and going on a cussing tirade, good stuff:





3 Quick Thangs:

1. I'm going to try Wednesday, October 22nd for our birthdays to celebrate upon. Howard Stern's mother Ray, she's 81 if she's still living, which I assume she is. Bad News Brown, a wrestler who passed away in 2007, would have been 65. Actor Jeff Goldblum, 56. Ichiro of baseball fame, 35. Hockey player Miroslav Satan, 34, and only because he has a cool name. Zac Hanson of the dorky Hanson band kids, he's 23. Not much of a list there unfortunately, but I don't assign the birthdays. I only tell you what's up.

2. Here's another quick road rage pet peeve. I'm driving over to the Westside to get my workout in. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. I pull into a road and here comes this old woman out of an alley. I'm on the main street and have the right-away. She then just pulls out without even looking and acts like she owns the place. Now come on woman, get out of here. Pay attention at least. I know I'm not good at paying attention when I drive, but at least I'd own up to the mistake. She was just in her own little world, in a coma. I held it in though and didn't have to take a ball bat to her windshield or whatever those psycho people do, hah.

3. Right now as I type this section, I'm tearing into some ice cream. What is it exactly? I knew inquiring minds want to know, so I'll give in and tell you what to buy at the store the next time. That'd be Ben & Jerry's S'mores. It's similar to rocky road if you're into that. Yum yum yummy!