Turkey Week

Whew, finally on Thanksgiving break. I love my job, but who can complain with 9 days off in a row when you count weekends? I'll sit around all break, stay up late, sleep all day, and get paid for it. No road trips during this break, but that's all fine and dandy. During the break, I'll be having some things going on at least though. Saturday was Cork's bachelor party, Sunday is the usual basketball day, Thursday speaks for itself, Saturday I'll be in Cork's wedding, and the list keeps going. Somewhere in the mix is a bunch of Call of Duty, being online, working out, and running. My schedule rarely changes, but that's how I like it. There's never a dull moment in Shinnston. Well, there's a lot of dull moments in Shinnston, but I have to build towards something, right? In this update you'll get my Christmas card tradition, Corndog's words of wisdom as he brings in Randy Moss, 5K, Call of Duty, road trip to Memphis, and a lot of other things..



Last week I talked about how soon some people near me have been doing the Christmas decorations. At least wait till the week of Thanksgiving, if not the night of or after a few days. Now? Nutter Fort in our area had their Christmas parade this past Friday. You serious? What does that actually accomplish? I like getting into the spirit as much as the next person, but that's just not necessary. However, I'm going to turn the wheels on this one. If everyone else is being early, I might as well do the same. And here's why..

As most know, I'm big into the Christmas card tradition. I've been doing this for years, especially for the people that aren't in my area, aka the internet crew. We go worldwide and last year we sent to places such as Yellowknife, Canada (way way way up there), Germany, Toronto, California, and even Maine. This year I'm back to do that up again. For anyone who hasn't been part of the Christmas card tradition with me, you don't get your average pile of garbage card. I'm not even going to bother sending a card out if I'm just going to sign my name and write Merry Christmas. Sorry, but that's taking the lame way out, you're a lazy bum. I'm going to make things original, write up a little something in there and make it all personalized. Anyone can sign their name on a card and send it out, but what meaning does that have, honestly? If you're a regular, you're still on the list, we have you accounted for. If you want to be added to the list, fire off a comment here, find me on one of he chat programs, hit me with a Facebook message, or whatever else means you can think of. It's time to start getting things organized. It's a lot of work, but I enjoy doing it. I must have too much time on my hands. Get at me if you want to be part of that.



Speaking of lazy bums, it's time to get off the couch and do a little exercise. It bugs me how so few people in my area give no care to get into at least halfway decent shape. I mean, I love to be a bum and lay around as much as the next person, but come on. I'm working out, running, and playing ball steady, something just about everyday. I'd literally hate myself if I missed working out for a few days. It's just engraved into to my head now after all of these years. I do that mainly since I feel great afterwards when I do it. Another reason is that I can eat basically whatever and just kill it during the workouts to keep the same form. It works for Ocho Cinco, although I'm not going to eat McDonald's everyday like he does. There's a method to my madness here, let me finish. Before you gorge yourself on a Thanksgiving feast (believe me, I can't wait either), the locals might as well get get in on the First Annual Turkey Trot 5K Run/Walk. It will start on Thanksgiving morning at the rail trail in Shinnston. Registration is at 8:30 at the trail head across from Rite Aid and start time is 9:00. Entry fee is $10 and all proceeds go to benefit Zeke Lane. All props go out to Stacia who is setting this up. I'm not telling you to do a marathon as Stacia has, but at least do something physical. I try not to preach on too many things, but just feel people in general, especially West Virginians, need to get at it on the exercise scale. You don't have to be a freak of nature, but a little bit of something is going to make you feel a lot better, just my two cents for whatever that's worth. Anyways, hit up the Turkey Trot!

How's Call of Duty treating me? I got it last Tuesday and within a week I had over a full day played in real time. Now I can give a more formal review of this beast. First off, it's one awesome game. During the first few games I played, I wasn't sure since some things were new, but you pick right up where things left off in the last version of Modern Warfare. I'm glad the quality guns are back as opposed to some of the older guns in World at War. The only thing I'm not a fan of in this version is that it doesn't keep your wins separate from each game style, nor does it give you a world rank in each. I play nothing but Free-For-All, I mean nothing. That's where you'll find me on the battlefield, I'm ate up on it and most of my buddies are the same way. I do find this year's version a bit harder online for some reason. Last year I was rocking out Free-For-All and would go into zones, this year not so much. Now that I have the break off, Corndog has called it the 1st Official Bird33 Modern Warfare 2 Week. That means lots and lots of hours will be spent shooting heads up. Yes, I have nothing better to do. I did say above I enjoy being a bum when I can.



As a dude, I'm an admitted person who has read all of the Twilight series books. I even watched the first movie, although online and not in a theater. This past week's opening for New Moon though, that's just insane stuff. People having tickets a month ahead of time and the whole works. I figure I'll see it eventually, but the movies are never better than the books, so I'm in no huge rush. Besides, I'm not sure how well I could've handled a theater full of whiny middle school kiddies. If I go to the theater for it, it'll at least be when things aren't as crowded. Yeah, I know I'm a dork for reading these books, but I've said that before and to each their own. For everyone I've talked to who has already went, I haven't heard one bad report on it. We'll see.

How was UFC 106 on Saturday night? A bunch of us watched this as part of Cork's pre-wedding celebration at Buffalo Wild Wings for one of our stops. I've seen wrestling pay per views at a big place before, but never UFC. We always get UFC shows at Posey's, but this was a little different atmosphere. The big screens are great of course, but as far as hearing the sound, you can all but forget the live analysis. Still, I can't complain for free. I personally thought the Ortiz/Griffin match was a nice one. It wasn't a 5-star match or anything, but it delivered. Tito showed more than I expected for how long he's been out of the game. On my scorecard, I had it as a 28-28 draw. I gave Tito the first 2 rounds 10-9 and then Forrest a 10-8 for the final round as he dominated that. The Koscheck/Johnson fight was another fun one. It got dirty with some eye pokes, but local boy Kos, straight out of Waynesburg and buddies with Felisha, gets the win with a rear naked choke in Round 2. Kos was made out to be a punk on the Ultimate Fighter season, but I still like the guy, he's a great fighter. As a sidenote, I still pick Big Country Roy Nelson to take this season, he's legit. I had it wrong earlier, so time to change. Thiago snaps Volkmann's undefeated streak by decision. Little Nog has arrived in a major way. That would be Antonio Roderio Nogueira as his older bro fights in UFC as well. This guy is the spitting image of a fighter. He looks 70 years old and mean. He was mean on Saturday as he punished Luiz Cane in the 1st Round. One last I'll ramble about was New York boy Phil Baroni getting worked for 3 rounds, losing in decision to Ultimate Fighter member Amir Sadollah. Baroni is a punk, but he puts on a show, so they put him on the show. He came out in his shades and the whole getup and seemed to be on some pretty good roids. Not a bad show at all.



Speaking of UFC, I'll be getting on a plane for the first time in my life in a few weeks. Every single person reading this blog has been on a plane, that shows how backward I am I guess. I've just never had a huge desire one way or another to do it. I'm not opposed to it, but just never got with it. Even when I was with Shawna, for some dumb reason, I never took the opportunity to fly. This time though our plan is to fly out of Pittsburgh (I wanted Bridgeport, but it's a lot more expensive) and head to dirty Memphis. I've been to Tennessee before, but not on that side that borders Arkansas. The reason we're going? UFC 107. That card is a quality one as it's led by BJ Penn taking on Diego Sanchez. Under that we get Frank Mir taking on Cheick Kongo, Jon Fitch versus Mike Pierce, and Kenny "Ken-Flo" Florian against Clay Guida to name the top fights. Posey will be along for this trip and I'm pumped up. We'll have low level seats and instead of driving nearly 12 hours, why not fly? You can get there in less than an hour and we'd have a lot more time to do our thing in town. It'd be similar prices anyways when we broke everything out, so you can't really put a price on time. Maybe this will start my world travel tour, or maybe I won't like flying at all. More on that in a few weeks of course.

It's time now for Corndog's words of wisdom. He's getting a guest spot and makes the best of it. In this, he will give his argument to why he thinks Randy Moss is the greatest receiver of all time. Corndog, take it away!

First things first, I'd like to thank the Birdman for letting me appear in his blog. When he sent a message asking if I'd like a little section of the blog I couldn't pass it up. The Corndog's thoughts going out to millions on the internet is a chance of a lifetime.

I decided I would like to start up an argument that I always seem to get alot of people going with. "Randy Moss is the best receiver of all time!".

Most would argue that Jerry Rice is the best ever, So I'll use him to compare Moss to. Through the first 12 years of Rice's career (which is what this year is for Moss) he had 168 TD's and 13,277 yards. For Moss in his 12 seasons, he has 142 TD's and 14,092 yards.

I know some of you, if you are still reading this are saying "but Corndog, you just proved your point. Rice has more touchdowns". To you I say, No. That's not my point, this is....

Jerry Rice has more touchdowns and people always assume he is the best ever, but he had 2 HOF qb's throwing to him his whole career in San Fran. Moss has had qb's like Cunningham (late in RC's career), an old Jeff George, Culpepper (for whom I made up the term Pepperceptions), Brad Johnson, etc... My theory...If you could go back in time and plug Moss into Rice's slot with the 49'ers would he do as good and have the numbers Rice did? Absolutely, if not more. If you put Rice with all of the qb's Moss has been with would he put up the same numbers he did in San Fran? Probably not. So basically, it all comes down to this...in my opinion, Randy Moss is the best ever. Does he have the best attitude ever? No. Has he done stupid things? Yes, but who hasn't!

Anyway..I guess that's enough about that. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Corndog, and I like to argue sometimes, and I like to take the side of the argument that most people don't just to keep it going.

If you guys don't have Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox you need to get it ASAP. I know Bird will agree with me on that. Just thought I'd throw a plug in for the game. I'm out...

I'm slacking lately on getting full albums, CDs, or whatever you want to call that stuff nowadays. Instead, I might as well give a few more music recommendations. As usual, it'll be a rap related paragraph, so 95% of you can feel free to skip through this. I'd rather you not, but you have that option if nothing else. This week's things you need to check out will start with Tech N9ne. For those who aren't familiar with his stuff, he's been around for a good while, but his raps are a little demented. He's 38 now (I was surprised by that) and hails out of Kansas City, Missouri. The song to go after is Leave Me Alone, which strays away from his usual style you know. Want another suggestion? This time we'll go more towards the mainstream side. Crime Wave Remix with 50 Cent and Gucci Mane. Can you really go wrong with the legendary Dr. Dre doing your beats? That can't hurt. Gucci brings it with his verse.



Bird's Dirty of the Week: We're going out to Las Vegas for this one, 27 years old. The main profile pic directed me to at least have a look to see what was inside. I do like that one a lot, I'll give her that. You get your Halloween pics, the bar pics, and other random things. Isn't that what the common criteria seems to be more often than not? It's not original, but we're going to use this girl anyways. Some pics are eh, some pics she looks real good in. Hey, I'm honest. As usual, send in your suggestions, I'll consider anything. http://www.myspace.com/179144707

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: We'll go a different route for this week's vid. A good buddy of mine was proposed to the other day and the footage was thrown onto YouTube. Andy, I'll send props out to you for being creative on this one. Plus your version of some Bon Jovi action was pretty well done, even if you said you were sick at the time. Also if you get bored, check out some of Andy's jams, he's talented. Jenn, this is getting posted whether you like it or not. Not that I think you'll mind though, but congrats to the both of you. As I said before, you'll now officially be considered an old married woman even if you are younger than me, you know how it goes. :) Known ya far too long to stop picking on ya.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. It's birthday time. We'll go with Tuesday, November 24th. We start off with basketball legend Oscar Robertson, he's now 71. Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, 69. Pete Best, known as the original drummer for The Beatles before Ringo, 68. Serial killer Ted Bundy would've been 63 if not executed in 1989. One of my favorites, Rev Run of Run DMC fame, 43. He's also the man on Twitter, RevRunWisdom is his link. Katherine Heigl, who I've recently become a bigger fan of as far as her looks, 31. There you have it. Not an amazing list, but not too shabby either. We'll take it.

2. People are always asking how the fantasy teams are doing. Fantasy football, eh. I never was big into that one bit. I play in leagues and keep up, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't hold my interest as much as basketball or baseball would since they're daily leagues. In the EDDFL, our local money league, I'm currently 7th out of 12, not anywhere near where I need to be, but I won't make excuses. That's how it goes and it's early. In my other league, A#BA, the best internet league there is, hands down, I'm on a tear so far. It's the 20-man keeper league and right now I'm 2nd right behind Walz. I'll keep everyone posted.

3. Some facts to end up with.. Cats have over 100 vocal sounds, dogs only have about 10. I'm not sure exactly what that means though.. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.