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.