Narwhals, Wedding Bells, & Best Day Evarrrr

Ok, we're back to deliver something for everyone to read. In this edition we get Ozzie's wedding, preparation for my favorite day of the entire year, bashing Donte Stallworth, dog groomers, when not to leave your sunroof open, a big Philly/New York trip planned for the weekend, and who knows what else. It's time to relax for a bit, put your day at ease and read some of my latest ramblings. Whether they appeal to you or not, I guess we'll find out soon enough. If you've fallen asleep on me, I guess that's my answer.



This past weekend, Ozzie and Maria decided to tie the knot. Usually guys would care less about going to weddings and it's mostly all for the girls. I was excited for this one and I'd be honest enough to let people know if I wasn't. The reason might've been that this is the first time ever I've both been in a tux and in a wedding. I know what you're thinking, I didn't do the prom thing in high school and all of that? Heck no, dances weren't my thing. I can remember being on the court for some dances and one in particular was on Opening Night of the NBA season. That's major conflict. Luckily, they did the court things within the first half hour of the dance. I did my escorting, played the part, and once the voting was over, me and my crew were out in record time. Come on, I had a Celtics game to watch, the first one of the year and I'm going to miss that? So here I am, finally in a wedding and we did it up big. We rocked out the red, white, and black as the colors for the guys. I felt snazzy in them, but they were ridiculously hot. I felt like I'd ran all day long, we were dripping sweat nonstop and couldn't wait to start shredding layers off at the reception.

I'll back up to Friday. This was a big wedding crew, 9 dudes on one side, 9 chicks on the other, more on that in a bit. During rehearsals, the girls seemed to be on the ball of course since the wedding thing is right up their alley, while us guys were beyond clueless. We went over things twice, but figured we'd find some way to screw it all up when it was go time on Saturday afternoon. After that, we got the crew, family, buddies, and whoever else to hit up some catered food that rocked from Big Frank's. Good get on that one Maria, the food that night, thumbs up. How can you go wrong with zitis and meatballs? You can't. After that, to even top things, it was cornhole action! I've written about cornhole before in here, so I don't have to go over that, but if you haven't tried it before, you're definitely missing out. We battled until it was dark and couldn't go anymore. My game that night, not up to usual par, a bad performance, but fun nonetheless. Mudcat and myself also might have set a sweet tea record as we went wild on that on Friday and Saturday both. Yeah, we're rebels let me tell you. An open bar at the reception for people to go nuts on and we're the guys who get sweet tea. Whatever works, right?



Wedding day comes and the guys get together in the mean streets of Glen Elk to get some pictures taken. Ozzie or the camera chick, one of two, wanted us to wear sunglasses during this. Funny thing is, Cork, Mudcat, and myself didn't even own a pair of shades. Seriously, that's how often I wear shades, never basically. I know, that's hard to believe, not many others could believe us three either on that. Me and Cork got a cheap pair of what we called cop shades, the bigger cheesy ones. Not the cheesy bumblebee glasses the chicks like to wear that cover their entire face, but you what I'm getting at. I can't wait to see some copies of these. Dad was joking that in 20-30 years when we look back on those pics that we'll be dying laughing because they were so cheesy. I'm all about being cheesy, I think that's the fun part of it. Picture a group of 10 guys (10 when you include the groom himself) in random settings throughout that area. We're doing the mafia looks, the Reservoir Dogs walking scenes, shots near the train tracks, and the whole works. I wanted to get some pics with the characters in town on the way in, that would've been a treat. After we did the morning pics, we were all starving and no way could we go through a wedding and then wait till reception time to get food in us. The plan? We rolled to a nearby Wendy's. Seeing the look on people's faces when we rolled up in there wearing tuxes was worth it to me. I went with the Baconator to clog up my arteries.

Off to the wedding itself and things went very smooth. The church Ozzie and Maria had it in, a pure old school Catholic setting, so I was down for that. I was impressed with the setup and all for sure. I was even more impressed that the nine guys didn't screw up anything out of the ordinary while out there, that's a feat in and of itself. Of the wedding bunch, only Big Wes and myself had never been in one before. Mudcat counted up that he'd been in 6 or 7 over his career, dang. Get at it Mud, nice work. The question some are already asking, how were the chicks at the wedding? The bridesmaids alone, and I'll go on record on saying this, might be the best collection I've ever seen in person as far as quality goes. I haven't been to many weddings, but I'm confident to put this group up against what you have to offer. Most weren't single of course, but I'm still allowed my opinion. Maybe I'm crazy, but there wasn't one girl on that side who someone would consider ugly, not even close. Ugly might be harsh to call someone as, but even if you don't say that and hopefully you don't out loud, you at least have thought it on some girl or guy, whatever your preference. It's just how it is, the reality of it. No I'm not going to give any rankings, but I think a lot that were in or at the wedding would agree with my assessment.



I'm near ending on the wedding talk, but I enjoyed myself. I also got to experience being in the wedding party and when that happens, you're the first to be served food. I didn't even have to go get it is the better part to it. I know when you're not in the party and you're waiting for ages at the reception, it's brutal. We've all been there, just something you have to do. No waiting for me during this though, I can't complain about that. Ozzie even threw up a group shot of the EDDFL fantasy basketball league for all to see on the PowerPoint presentation, that had me pumped. It took me 30 years to get in a wedding and in November I'll be in yet another one, the madness around here. This time, we'll get to celebrate Cork and Kristin rocking it out, that's big news indeed. Anyways, they've already been told, but I'm sending the congrats out once again to Ozzie and Maria for now being officially labeled as an old married couple, even if they're not old. I'm now the last of my first cousins (6 of us older ones) to tie the knot. I keep joking that people can wait a while for that one. I guess once they have all tried the wedding deal before me, I really have no pressure to do it anytime soon. From the wise words of my Aunt Juanita at the reception, one of the funniest people I know, she says to never get married and got all mean when she said it. That had me cracking up. And also to my aunts and uncles who helped set things up, you can go ahead and chalk up a success to both the wedding and reception in my book for whatever that is concerned, good times.

Thursday marks my favorite day of the entire year. Best day evarrrrr. Yes, evar, look it up. I've been saying that for years and people can look at me as weird as they want. What's so big about Thursday? It's the NBA Draft, what else? This is a tradition of mine to get so jacked up for this night that I zone into a completely different level. It's a night I want no phone calls so don't even try because I'm not answering and to let me get all ate up with this. I'm still old school in the fact that I like to write the draft down by pencil and paper even though you can get the results online instantly. I like this night so much that I'm taking my first game off in softball for the first time in three years, the last of the bunch to take a game off. Maybe I'm the Cal Ripken of softball, who knows. I still have papers from when I was at a basketball camp when I was 7 years old. In those days, the draft was held during the day and there were many more rounds than they have now. Mom took the time to write down all of my stuff so I'd have it when I returned, even at that age I liked having the guy's name, the team who drafted them, the height and weight, as well as the college or country they came from. This continues to today and is probably one example of me having some signs of obsessive compulsive disorder, nothing wrong with having a passion, and mine is the NBA.



If all goes right, I should have a pretty big road trip blog next week sometime. After the greatest day of the year, it's time for another road trip, this one to Philadelphia. I've been to Philly a lot and love it there actually. In fact, that setting ranks as my #1 road trip of all time, taken in 2000 for ECW Cyberslam 2000. Yes, at the time, that was a big internet wrestling convention that we stayed all weekend for with people from all over the world showing up for. I could write on stuff just from that, but I won't bore everyone too much this time with wrestling. In other words, and I've probably told those stories countless times, but that was when we got to hang with almost the entire ECW roster. They are as down to earth as you can get, would eat with us, hang in our hotel rooms, and the whole works. It's a weird little cult following family and they're at it again. Saturday, they bring to us Legends of the Arena. This is getting just about all of the old ECW roster back again for one more time at the historic and legendary ECW Arena. If you're a true wrestling fan and haven't been to the ECW Arena before, make sure you put that on your list to do soon, trust me on this. I'll save storylines on this for the next blog, but my boy Spank will again be in tow for this trip, just as he was in 2000. We have special tickets that gives us the chance to be one of few who get to hang out with the wrestlers all day, eat with them, get pics and autographs, a Q&A session, a Hall of Fame induction ceremony, front row seats, and even get to take our chair home that will be signed by everyone. I know what you're thinking. Yes, I'm a total dork, but I'm not about to pass up the opportunity to be part of this event.

If that's not enough, Friday we'll have wide open for the most part to gear up for Saturday's excitement. We looked to see if the Phillies would be home that night since we're staying at a hotel right next to the stadium, but no luck there. We're going with Plan B. What's that? New York City. I've been on the Buffalo side of New York, but not this side where the action happens. I realize I'm years behind the times compared to everyone else since. Everyone reading this has been to NYC before but me, I know, but I'm testing it out for the first time on Friday. As an added bonus, I get to see my Yankees in action. I've seen them before, but never for a home game. This one won't be a home game either, but who cares. It'll add another baseball stadium to my list, this time as the Yanks visit the Mets at Citi Field, aka the new Shea Stadium. Too much excitement in one weekend for a dude in my bum town, but I'll take what I can get. Philly and NYC, get ready for the hicks to invade for a few days.



It's time for a rant. For those who don't follow football, you might not know the Donte Stallworth story. In March of this year, he was driving in Miami with a blood alcohol level of 0.12 when the legal limit there is 0.08. In his path was a pedestrian. Apparently Stallworth says that he flashed his lights before he hit him. No excuse. In the end, he kills the guy and gets busted with a DUI. First off, I'm a huge advocate against anything DUI related, yet it happens way too much. People I know have had them and I've told them the same thing, they know my thoughts on that. Anyways, what kind of sentence does Stallworth get? 20 years? 30 years? Life? Nope, guess again. 30 days! What? You freakin' kidding me? Seriously, dude gets 30 days jail time, 1000 hours community service, 2 years of house arrest, 8 years of probation, and a life-time suspension of his license. A lot of those other things are significant, but he killed a person. Yet he gets a slap on the wrist? Pure garbage if you ask me. I could keep going on this for a long time, but I might as well get onto something that will get me in a good mood instead.

I'll end with a story to make fun of myself, but might teach a valuable lesson. I don't mind making fun of myself by any means, so here's a story from earlier last week. We had a big storm last Wednesday night. I woke up early on Thursday since I was a nice enough guy to teach a day of summer school for someone who had to take a day off. I go out to my car and it's soaked with water. Yep, on the inside. What happened? Me being the idiot that I am, I accidentally left the sunroof open all night. Luckily since I'm a neat freak, I rarely ever have anything on the floors or seats of my ride. That night I didn't, but there was so much water inside when I got in, that it was a disaster area. Somehow, nothing got ruined at least, but it was a few days of cleaning it out until it was back to normal in a way. The moral of the day? Have more common sense than I do.



Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: I try not to go the model route too often since regular people are more fun in this section, but we can switch it up. This chick isn't really what I'd call dirty though. Apparently she calls herself The Girl Next Door. Hmm.. who's door would that be? She doesn't have a ton of pics of herself, but enough to get the job done for a look. Also, not too revealing, but once again, enough to get the job done. And for added bonus, she has a pic in there with a fake Rambo that is pretty good if I must say so, the cheesy level again. We needed that guy in Glen Elk. http://www.myspace.com/misskristinmarie

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Narwhals! The YouTube junkies have already seen this, but it's a good one. Sent in by Arizona Jas, we get this from the creators of Badger Badger Badger.. It might not look like much at first, but I bet the song sticks in your head and you watch it a few times.





3 Quick Thangs:

1. I'm sure the girls and dog lovers will be all over this show, but I've never heard of it until I saw a commercial. Animal Planet has a reality show called Groomer Has It. I'm not even sure of the whole basis, but it's some kind of competition between people that are grooming dogs. Dad was all amped up and wondered if people really watched this show. He was asking if it was really a show of people just cutting dog hair. Then he was saying that unless someone accidentally jammed a pair of scissors into a dog and causes problems, then he can't see any other reason to watch that would get people excited. And he's a guy that somewhat likes dogs. I don't get the fascination of this show either, guess I'm missing out.

2. Speaking of reality TV that isn't that much "reality", for anyone who cares.. Wednesday night, get ready! Real World: Cancun! The 22nd season and it's on at 10:00 PM EST on MTV. Be there.

3. Today's fact machine? In Kentucky, 50% of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers. Another? In 1980, there was only one country in the world with no telephones, Bhutan. I'll be honest. My undergrad was in Social Studies and I had no clue where Bhutan was until I just looked it up.

Malaysian Babies, Death of T-Pain, & Pittsburgh!

A quick preview for this edition: Pittsburgh road trip, Waffle House, Gabe Morency, hockey madness, a Twilight update, Jay-Z putting the notice out on T-Pain and his bums, and what Malaysian babies bath in. It's go time!



It's time for yet another road trip. This one is the first baseball trip of the year, a little late in the year for it to be my first, but that's how it goes. Friday was the lucky day and we had 5 in attendance: Cork, Kristin, Spank, Alicia, and myself. I played the role of the wingman as the other two are couples, something I've been very good at over the years. I again did the driving for another road trip, taking the passengers' lives in my hand. At this point, I guess they're willing to take that chance for something different happens everytime. That's my strategy at work and why I like my building so much. I have some characters in my building, but it keeps my day going and you never know what's going to go down. I could write entire blogs just on those kids, stuff that would blow your mind, but I'd feel a little weird exposing that, so I've always stayed away from writing about work happenings. Speaking of work, I've now been on bum time for the past week which means sleeping in till deep in the afternoon, fun times.

Ok, back to the trip. Luckily on this one, as compared to the LeBron trip recently, there were no malfunctions with Sirius. It pretty much stayed on five channels, none of which I'm sure the girls liked one bit. Usually I try not to rap people out too much since I'm one of few of my bunch who likes it, but Spank and Cork are also fans, so this trip I needed some to help my sanity. A road trip without rap for me is tough to handle. I let Spank handle DJ duties and we'd either have the channels of Hip Hop Nation and Shade 45 as newer rap, Backspin for old school jams, ESPN Radio, and Hardcore Sports 98. If you've never heard Gabe Morency and his Sports Rage show on Hardcore Sports, you're missing out. When he goes on a rant, it's like no other. He easily sets the f-bomb record for sports radio and will crack you up. I highly recommend it, the guy is a total nutcase, but he's so entertaining.



Our lone stop on the way up was off the Waynesburg, Pensylvania exit. Spank was craving some Dairy Queen. I wasn't that hungry, but how can you pass up DQ? They only have the best burgers known to man. Their DQ is big time and my town has one register. This place, uh oh, they have two! I hyped that up to the workers up there like it was a big deal and they got a kick out of it. More on Waynesburg in a bit. So we get into town and remember this is the same night of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, as Pittsburgh was at Detroit for the festivities. Ironically, Pittsburgh and Detroit were playing baseball on the same night in Pittsburgh. What's the chances? We ended up getting my favorite seats in PNC Park, the leftfield homer seats. I've sat just about everywhere in that place, but I'd take those seats anytime over the others. Besides, they're dirt cheap too.

I was surprised how many Tigers fans were at the game. The attendance was so rough that they didn't even give a number out while we were there like they normally do. We all guessed around 15,000 if that and this was a weekend night, interleague game, with it being free hat night. You serious? You really can't pack the house for that? Terrible. I know the Bucs are the equivalent of a minor league team, but you'd think the attendance would be a lot better considering it is an awesome stadium, the best I've been to anyways and I've been to a decent bit. We were saying though, look at that roster. They don't have one true power hitter and not a single go-to player. It's true, I'm not exaggerating. Being right on the wall in the outfield though, it gets no better. You're right on top of the action and get to yell at the opposing players and mess with the home guys. We were right behind Nyjer Morgan who seems to have a blast out there. He'll chat it up with the fans and goof off, something you don't see many do. On the other side, for the Tigers in leftfield was Donnie Kelly. This guy took a major verbal beating from the Leftfield Loonies, it was worthy of the seats just for that.



As the Bucs game was going on, so was the hockey game as mentioned. I'm not a hockey guy. I know what's going on, but it's not a sport I'm hardcore about like I am the others. Being in Pittsburgh that night, you couldn't help to feel the atmosphere. The Bucs crowd was quiet for most of the game, but if the Pens would score a goal, the baseball crowd would blow up and go bonkers when they found out. Nyjer was even getting into it by yelling at our section for score updates when he could. The Bucs ended up losing the game, but as usual with all trips, you get your moneys worth and then some. When the game ended, and it was one of the quicker games we've been to (it flew by), it was in the 2nd period of the hockey game.

Before I go into the hockey maniacs, I'll give a side story on our trip. We always joke around and come up with a percentage that we'll see someone we know at the game. Usually it happens, even though we're not that close to home. Spank set this trip at 33% to which I said I'd agree with that if not a good bit higher. We're in the Pirates team shop and loading up on shirts and things and the percentage gets broken fairly quick, before the first pitch. This is where I get back to Waynesburg. Out of nowhere in the hat section, I run into a Felisha, a long time internet buddy of mine from Waynesburg who is also one of the biggest Pirate fans I know and one that is legit with the rap game. There's not many in my circle that I can have some good rap chats with and knows the history and the whole works. She was with Big Vince, the Greg Maddux/John Cena look-a-like and I got to chat it up with both of them. For as many Bucs games as we've been to at the same time, for some reason we've never ran into each other. That and we're both in Morgantown a good bit around some of the same people and paths never cross. I figured that was story worthy for something different to add to the PNC Park trip. I'm only an hour south of Waynesburg and still sound like a big hick to those people, it's crazy. Felisha I'm the hick, but you're still a midget, hah.



We decided to stay in town until the game was over to see what madness was about to ensue. We bounced around between a few bars near the stadium and you could barely get in due to the hockey uproar. The streets were jammed packed and the crowd was getting rowdy. Cops were out like no other. The hardcore hockey fans, that's a totally different breed of fans. These fans are borderline psycho and definitely get my respect for how much they support their teams, it's off the charts. In town, there were a lot of Red Wings fans around too and it made for a good mix. Once the final buzzer hit, it was pandemonium. I've been lucky lately to have been part of some really good sporting events live. We decided we were hungry and got out of town fairly quick. I guess we missed the cars being flipped over and fires starting for the riots, but that's how it goes. I can remember being in Philly during hockey playoff time and it's just another world during that time of year with hockey fans. I couldn't even imagine what it'd be like in a Canadian city, that'd be fun just to be part of to see what would go down.

So we get back on I-79 South and need something to get our appetite crushed. There's only one answer for that on the way home. You guessed it.. Waffle House! I think they should start giving out free passes to us as much as we hit them up on road trips. That and they're getting free plugs in the blog, that has to count for something, come on now. Anyways, as Cleveland was the very first time Matty Cakes hit up a WH, it was time for another person to break their WH virginity. Alicia had never been before and this shocked the rest of the clan on the ride. I explained that I enjoy the dirty and filthy Waffle House places much more than the newer versions. It's like a baseball glove, you need to break it in. Mix in some of that grease, don't clean it so much and you're guaranteed for good food. I've said that for years in here. I dropped a piece of bacon on the floor there this time and it was on the ground for probably 10 seconds or a bit more. Now, WH has the best bacon there is, of course I'm not going to let that go to waste. It can't hurt, so I pick it up and eat it. I said that probably half of that piece of bacon wasn't even touching the floor, not like most of you haven't tried that one, no big deal. This time I loaded up on a ham and cheese omelette, 2 orders of bacon, hash browns covered and chunked (ham and cheese), the best sweet tea, and some toast that I wasn't able to touch. Yum yum yum! We didn't get hardly any pics on this trip though, boo.



It was time to get back to the big town. We ended up getting home around 1:30 in the morning. A quick update on the sleep pattern and this one wasn't safe at all, but I survived. When I went to bed at that night at 2:30, I had been up for 39 of the past 40 hours. I drove 2 hours to Pittsburgh and back on 1 hour of sleep the night before. I went to bed at 12:45 PM and woke up at 1:45, stupid. I rocked it out like a champ, but when I got home, I was done for. Nothing I'd recommend doing, but as usual, I never learn.

For the book fans, it's time for a movie review. After getting sucked into the Twilight series, I figured I might as well watch the movie after I finished the first book. As everyone knows, the movie never lives up to the book, that's almost a proven fact. Going in, I had to take that for what it was worth. I tried not to get mad at details left out of the movie that I thought should have been in, but they did what they could to fill 2 hours. I know I'm behind the times on reading this stuff or watching the movie, but I'm at least getting around to it. Time to rate this bad boy. Despite it not living up to the book, I'm going to give the movie 8.1 vampire bites out of 10, which is pretty good. I'm already a good bit into the second book, New Moon. It started out slow, but now it's picking up a good deal and I'm still hooked. The waitress at Waffle House we had was reading that on her shift, so I had to hype that up. Plus, it's always fun to get my buddies all worked up when they know I actually read this stuff. Cork, it's time to start reading. You know you can't wait.



Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: Hey Ash, I took your advice and went on Richard's page to find this week's girl. You're right, he has some to pick through in there. This week's winner comes straight outta Wyoming. For as much as I'm ate up online, I don't think I've ever talked to someone from Wyoming and that's saying a lot. This one has me impressed as she's not one we're going to make fun of or all of that, she seems quality to me. I could be wrong though. Everyone does a good enough job of commenting on this section, so if I'm wrong, let me know about it. Danielle, step up and accept your award: http://www.myspace.com/413811316

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Maybe it's just me, but that's funny..





3 Quick Thangs:

1. A new video game in the house. After eating myself up with Call of Duty, it was time to switch it up. I got UFC Unleashed last week for 360 and it's worth the purchase. The game is so realistic and the graphics are top notch. Just about every fighter you can think of on the roster is there, you can make your own guy for the career mode which is great, and even battle online. Prepared to get absolutely dominated online though, you see some straight up studs on there, it's nuts.

2. Finally! Yep, finally someone is here to shut up the T-Pain synthesizer garbage that everyone and their brother likes to use these days on songs, also known as autotune. You've all heard it, rap fans or not. I guess the mainstream club rap type of fans think this junk is good, but not in my book. I'm normally not a huge Jay-Z guy one way or the other, but he's upped his status with me after releasing this song. Here he is with D.O.A., Death of Autotune, lyrics included if you click the link too. If not, just check the song:



3. A few facts to end up with.. Did you know that Malaysians protect their babies from disease by bathing them in beer? Did you know that the world’s longest street is in Canada? Toronto’s Yonge Street runs 1,190 miles. Now you know.

Joel "The Vanilla Guerilla" Przybilla

Here we go! We're back in action for another edition. You were waiting all week to see what was going on around town and now it's time. Well, that just sounded good, you probably weren't that pumped to read the latest, but it is a good time killer you have to admit. What do we have in store? We have Posey's birthday bash, reading something that will surely drop me a level on the manhood scale, a Sandlot kid beating up his chick, a sleep schedule that has been a mess, a few new CDs, and a lot more as usual.



Thursday night it was big action in the mean streets of Shinnston. How so? It was a celebration for Posey's 31st birthday. The setting? None other than The SportsCenter, not to be confused with the ESPN version. Scherri had planned the big bash for a while now and told me the time to show up and all of that. Everyone knows that I'm not a bar guy whatsoever. Normally it's not my crowd at all and I feel real uncomfortable most of the time in one. Usually I just hate being 2 feet away from someone and having to scream and yell for them to hear you, standing on top of other people, being around drunks when I'm one of few not drinking, or having smoke blown in your face. This night however, and I'd admit if I didn't have a good time, it was actually way better than expected and I enjoyed myself. You're probably wondering why I had fun in a bar, but I'll explain myself..

First off, when I walked in and my crew was there, they didn't know what to think of me actually showing up in the first place. I told Posey he's a good buddy and I wouldn't do that for too many people. I was glad that my buddies were excited I showed up rather than me feeling out of place. I know, for those who know me I can ramble on and talk to just about anyone in most settings. A bar never was one of those places, but I manned up and went to the bash. Not that I'm too good to walk into a bar, but most know that's not my environment. The SportsCenter was totally different. For the locals, I hadn't been in there in probably 20 years when Patsy was running the show and I was a little tyke and it was totally changed. There's a ton of room in there and you don't have music blaring to where it stops you from having a conversation. This was more of a pool hall, old school style, taking you back in time. Ward was running the show and he was quite the host. Yep, the same legendary Ward from the old East Shinnston Gang way back when, a good guy indeed.



We were saying my town needs a reality show and this place would be a good scene for it. In our little hole, this place had guys showing up from 45 minutes away or farther just to shoot pool at Ward's. I still never quite understood while they migrated here of all places, but that's the irony. I had fun just seeing some total characters and I could write a book just on those guys alone. There were some legit pool sharks though and it cracks me up that people pay $15 a month to lock their pool sticks up here. Apparently I also learn that people can pay $2000 for a stick. I'm also the only West Virginian that hasn't played pool before, imagine that. A big plus for me is that the place wasn't packed, wasn't loud one bit, and I didn't have to put up with babysitting any drunks, it didn't get out of hand. Just a quick guide, some characters we had in the house was a strung out old school druggie, a group of serious pool sharks that wouldn't say a word to each other as they played (I found that strange), a legitimate Mexican in Shinnston of all places that randomly fits into our crew, and even an Italian (Clinten) that was thought to be of Mexican descent by the Mexican himself. Confused yet? You should be.

So I'm laying it on the line. Aside from coming home and having to shower again after smelling like a dirty smoke factory, the birthday bash was a successful trip. If you're driving through our town out of nowhere, feel free to stop in and see the characters that Ward has to offer at The SportsCenter. When a guy that almost always hates a bar scene is recommending a certain bar, it must be pretty unique and worth at least one trip if not more. I joked with Scherri that we needed to set up a Monopoly game at The SportsCenter and I'd be a regular. We did bust out the checkers and chess boards though, I didn't expect that. Even if I don't drink, I'm not above making myself a dork by drinking Coke and Mountain Dew while eating birthday cake in a bar. Posey, good times you old man, hope you enjoyed the birthday!



Ok, it's time to admit something. This will take the manliness level down in half, but I'm not afraid to say it. If I worried much about what other people thought, I'd turn into someone so miserable like a lot of people do, but that's not my style. I took heat for getting into the Harry Potter saga late in the game. I was wondering what all the hype was and then once I started reading the series, I couldn't put it down. Now enter Twilight. Yes, I know what you're thinking already. You can't wait to bust my balls on how I've given into what is thought of as a girly book series. I'll admit, when it was first out and people were all about it, I didn't think I'd like it one bit based on the storyline, the same thing I said about Harry Potter. Now? I picked this thing up on Friday and haven't been able to put it down. I've heard some other guys who have actually ventured into reading it say the same thing. I say if you're into reading, give it a try. I haven't seen the movie yet, but the book is top notch thus far. Normally it's sports and wrestling books for me exclusively, but I can branch out if needed.

Who all has been keeping up with The Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Duel 2? If you have, you've been getting drama week in and week out. It never stops, you get some high quality entertainment. This week coming up is the finale and it can go a lot of different ways. I won't bore anyone too much with this, but if I had to pick a winner? I'm going to put my money down on Evan. I also want the percentage of these guys that are juicing. I think MTV makes it a must that they need to be oozing of roids before getting on this show. Some of these guys are animals, I just wish my boy CT would've lasted a few more shows. That leads me into saying that you better gear up for June 24th or else. Why? New season of Real World and this one is based in Cancun. I'll be sure to bore you with my opinions of the cast once the season starts.



If you've read along in this spot for a while, you'll know my favorite all time movie is The Sandlot. After a while, you begin to wonder every so often if any of those kids made it big. Most didn't when you search around. A few had some ok roles through the years, but nothing major. They've been keeping low key for the most part. That is until we get to recent news from the character known as Yeah-Yeah, Marty York. This happened on Easter Sunday, so a lot of you may have already heard about it. I haven't though and was sent this link from Chrissy in Webster County. Sure, the girlfriend hit him with her shoe, but that's still no excuse. When that happened, he wanted to play Chris Brown and bust up his chick. Get out of here Yeah-Yeah, go do some more roids so you can be a tough guy and punch out chicks. I can't have much remorse at all for a guy who does that, but figured I'd pass along the story: http://www.tmz.com/2009/04/20/sandlot-kid-arrested-for-smacking-gf

As I write this part, I have two days left of work. The kiddies have been finished for a few days, but I have a couple left to tough out. No biggie, it should be easy days and then shut down shop for the summer. Then I'll be pumped to sleep in and have too much time on my hands. The sleep schedule is still whacked out, but I'm used to that. Thursday night with work in the morning, I go to bed at 3:00 to start things off and wake up at 6:00. I passed on a nap after work and just laid around, figuring I'd get one later in the evening. That didn't happen. If reading Twilight wasn't making myself weird enough, how about the fact that I finally went to bed on Saturday afternoon at 1:00. Yes, you read that right, I never learn. I had been awake for 31 hours before I went to bed and had been without sleep for 52 of the past 55 hours. That's not healthy. That's something a person strung out on meth would be capable of. It wasn't like I was doing anything major. Between watching some games on TV, reading, and being online for that stretch, that's about it. Although I was doing other things at the time, I was still at my computer chair for the whole ride. From around 7:00 on Friday night until 1:00 on Saturday afternoon, I was online. 16 straight hours. That has to be up there with one of my all time records, although nothing to brag about at all, there's not much else happening in my town. The moral of this story, I'm online entirely too much, but there's always something to get into.



Not that many care, but some are into the exercise gig like I am and so I'll mention a new supplement purchase. As usual, if you could care less about this, just go to the next section. It was time for a trip to GNC and I wanted to switch some things up. I was off for about a month or a little less of taking anything and now we'll cycle some new in. I'm talking like I'm on the juice, Yeah-Yeah style, but that's another thing that I'd never touch, so I stay with the basic supplements. I got some fish oil gel tabs that is more of a vitamin as opposed to strength gains. It helps with fatty acids, a chance to reduce heart disease, healthy cholesterol and blood pressure, supports joint, brain, and skin health. The next I got was L-Glutamine. I've been wanting to get this for a while, but never have for some reason. It's a balancing amino acid that helps with alertness, retaining energy and muscle production after a workout, and immune system help. Lastly, I got a huge jug of amino acids. These are by far the biggest pills I've seen, they're monsters. I have to crush them up to take them. Even if you cut them in half and take them that way, they are still too big. With the older stuff I've mentioned in the past month or two, I'm still on Taraxatone which I love and finishing up Aplodan, while using chocolate Pro-NOS as my protein.

Time for another visit from Corndog (that's your boy Ashley) as he sets an internet law:

Corndog: When referring to your own myspace page, should you refer to it as "my myspace" or can you just say "my space"
Bird33: I wondered the same..
Bird33: I think we'll just go one my.
Corndog: when i just said "there are pictures on my space"
Corndog: you knew what i was talking about didnt you?
Bird33: You got it, there's your answer.
Corndog: Sweet. we just made up an internet law!
Corndog: Internet Law 3,334,694,231: When speaking of your own Myspace page, it is totally acceptable to refer to it as "my space". 05/30/09 submitted by Corndog and Bird33

Just a few CDs to mention this time..

Eminem: Relapse. For me, there's both good and bad about Eminem's latest after not having anything out for 4 years. The good is that for the most part, lyrically he can still bring it. Being away that long in the rap game, for a lot of people, they wouldn't be relevant anymore. Some say Em isn't relevant now, but he's still a big name and people are interested in his stuff. Another good is that Dr. Dre is involved and when he's around, it bumps things up to a completely different level. The weird part to me is that just about every song on this CD talks about how Em used to be a big druggie messed up on pills and doesn't seem to rap about much else. If you like the dark and demented raps, it's still here. You also get Em calling people out and for some reason he still bashes Christopher Reeve as much as ever, even when he's dead. Some of my favorite songs of this setup? Insane (lyrically the best on the album in my mind), Bagpipes From Baghdad (the Mariah Carey diss in where he trashes her and Nick Cannon something awful), and Old Time's Sake that even has Dre rapping some in it.

Freeway: Philadelphia Freeway 2. Three years since his last CD and I can't be anymore happy. For those who know me, I'm a huge Freeway fan and feel he's never got his respect due. I'd put the first Philadelphia Freeway CD in my top 10 ever, possibly top 5, it's that good. How does this one stack up? He stays true to his style and I'm giving it a thumbs up. If you've never given Freeway a time of your day, now is the chance, don't miss out. I'll even steer you in the right direction. Crack Rap is the best on this CD and you can also try to find Gotz 2 Be Tha Bomb and Streets Won't Miss Em.



Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: We go to Arizona Jas again for another. What's she have to say on this one? "this is my vote for dirty thug ho. She isn't the dirtiest, and she's mildly attractive.. but she's got some skank in her, fo sho". Here is our girl this time around: http://www.myspace.com/omgwilder

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: This one comes to us from Jodine in the mean streets of Jersey. She sends us a Dating Fail video that is worth the watch. Apparently this dude is very romantic, wants to tie his chicks up, and designs video games. Enjoy.





3 Quick Thangs:

1. Birthdays for Monday, June 8th. We start with Joan Rivers, who might be walking dead for all I know at 76 with plastic surgery gone bad. Nancy Sinatra, the first child of Frank, she's now 69. Boz Skaggs, known for being in the Steve Miller Band apparently, he's 65. Keenan Ivory Wayans, the second of ten Wayans kids and oldest of the famous ones we know, he's celebrating his 51st, dang. Baskeball ogre, Big Country Bryant Reeves, 36. Tennis chick Lindsay Davenport, 33. Rapper Kanye West, 32. Hottie Maria Menounos, 31.

2. Today's fact? "Two-thirds of all the men and women who have ever lived past 65 in the entire history of the world are alive today. On a sidenote, Florida, Montana, and a few New England states seem to have more of this group of people."

3. Another fact? "In late-1600s Puritan society, a child over 16 convicted of cursing at a parent was sentenced to death. Being a stubborn or rebellious child also earned you a death sentence."