Santino Marella Should Visit The Jersey Shore

All thanks to this week's blog title goes to TheAnswer, one of the blog's loyal readers and a good buddy of mine from Vegas. He's also a #basketball legend, so easy on rushing him for autographs.

Ok, here we go with some action. We're back for the latest words that you may think are good, but you also may think they're pointless. Either way, we hope you enjoy reading along because I know I have way too much time on my hands to be doing this. What is coming your way with this post? We get thoughts on pro cheerleaders, an array of random West Virginia criminals, Jersey Shore (amazing show), a 5K in the snow, bowl games, Seagal, a good buddy of mine dying at 21-years old, and much more! It's time to jump in and begin this thing..



I'm sure I've talked about this one before, but maybe not. After this long of rambling on, I never know what I touched base on at one time or another. The topic? Cheerleaders in pro sports. I watch way too many NBA games, but that's a passion of mine. I'm not bashing cheerleaders so to speak, but why are they necessary in front of a crowd of 20,000? I think they work on the small scale in a little high school gym and to get people pumped up. Half the time that doesn't work, but hear me out, I could be totally off base. I will give these girls credit for doing a lot of public relations work in the community and being part of that type of setup. I was watching a Bobcats game the other night and they were just getting their brains beat in, although that's no surprise. They were down 20 with a few minutes left and here are these girls trying to get the crowd into it. Come on, the fans there are lucky to go to games, let alone think they have a shot to win. I've come to the conclusion, that outside of the PR machine they do well with and some timeout promotions, their main purpose is to hang around the arena before the game and wait on dirty old men to get pics with them as they fall out of their tops. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Also, when I think of cheerleader, how come no pro cheer girls are flipping around and doing anything impressive? Give me the backflips and the whole works, not just standing there looking pretty.

After the Shinnston Turkey Trot 5K, it was time to jump into another just a week later. This one was the Bridgeport Jingle Jog that I talked about in the last blog. That morning, it was 30 degrees and snow was pouring down. You'd think not many would be in attendance, but it was the most they've had show up in seven years. It was a snowy mess and the course was fairly tough with the hills, some didn't expect the conditions. Despite that, I was happy with the performance and did well enough. My finishing time was 26:10 and I was 10th overall out of 70-some that ran. The conditions cut a few minutes off everyone's time, but that still made everyone have the same playing field. I also was able to win my age group in the 30-39 range. The most impressive thing to me was an old freak in the 70-79 age range ran a 30:00 5K. That's just insane if you ask me. Most people my age could barely run that, but 70-some, that's unheard of. You gotta give props to the old guy. The guy who ended up winning it had a time of 21:00 and he was in the 40-49 range, not bad at all. If you remember, McCollam ran Shinnston's in 16:00 or so, he would've dominated the competition here. Overall, I'd say there were a lot more people at Bridgeport that consistently run, but the top guys in Shinnston's 5K were better than Bridgeport's top. I finished in the same area in both though, so I'm cool with that.



In a bit of an ironic twist, remember how last week I talked about my near 21-year old cat? She had been rocking out and was in great health. During the weekend, things went for a turn downhill. She wasn't hardly walking at all and had no appetite. Her hip was mangled and you could tell she was in some major pain as she could barely get up to move. I'm a wuss when it comes to seeing people or animals in pain and even though she was old, it was still tough to see her in this shape. Hey, I'm a cat guy, I can't help it. Dogs, eh, I'll leave that for the rest of you. Some are cool, but in general give me a cat instead. On Monday, Yogi started getting worse. We decided that we would put her to sleep and went to get her checked out by the docs. The doc said that she had a renal failure, which basically shut down her kidneys and blocked everything up. Even if we cranked her full of medicine, the doc said we made the right choice in wanting to not have her suffer anymore. I'm glad she didn't have to suffer, forget putting her through that. A great cat indeed, gonna miss my buddy. Yeah, we bring emotion to the blog every now and then, you know how it goes. Barnes, you still hold the record, we'll see if your cat can still do its thing and make it to 30.

How's the TV watching been going? Two new shows opened up for me last week and I like them both, even if they are totally different. One I am going to be ate up with and that's Jersey Shore on MTV. This stuff is off the charts good in that it's so bad it's good type of thing. You get these goofball Italians with an insane amount of ego from New Jersey and New York, throw them into a house and just watch it implode. I've had a lot of my crew that first week say they really didn't want to watch, but just kept getting hooked by it. I'm not really sure there's a point to it, but if you like drama and people stirring up fights, sleeping around, and putting on a show, this is for you. My favorite "characters" and they're definitely that would be Snooki on the chicks side and probably Vinny on the guy side. Snooki on the first episode was just a filthy mess. The first day they were in the house wasn't a good impression for her. She was all bawling the next day and said she was packing up and leaving since she didn't get attention. Add in the fact that she has no common sense and it's a hit. That next day, she changed her mind and is going to stay around, but we know she'll be a lot of drama. You can't help but like this girl though and even though she's not way hot, something about her does it for me. Vinny, think of the stereotypical fist pump guy. For some reason, that cracks me up. I'm sure it'd get old living in that area and seeing these guys act like this, but on TV, it's excellent. I bet for the people in that area, they hate this show, but so be it. I could write a whole blog just on the first night, but I'll be tame for now. Thursday nights on MTV, 10:00 Eastern. With MTV though, you know you have a zillion chances to see reruns through the week though.



If I kept you from being too bored after that big paragraph, there's another show. That would be A&E's new one with the legendary Steven Seagal. It's titled Steven Seagal: Lawman. I know Seagal gets a bad reputation for being a C-level actor, but I've always liked his movies and what he brings to the table. Maybe that's not saying much, but I'm simple and give me a good head busting movie and I'm in. He's always compared with Van Damme and I wish they would've done a movie together. They each get a bad rep, but I'm on their side. As far as Lawman, it's a reality cop show. For anyone who hasn't seen the tons of ads for this show, Seagal is actually with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. You'd think it'd be dorky, but he comes across as a guy that really likes the job and does good with it. I couldn't see the concept of this show being good if he wasn't on though, he's why people watch, whether good or bad. He's intimidating, but with a sense of humor to go with it. He surprised me by being a marksman with the gun too. Don't knock this till you try it, you just may like it. Each episode is a half hour each and you get two per week, so they're quick to go through.

Here's one that has bugged me for quite some time. Let's take a guy who is losing his hair. It happens to most guys eventually, right? That's not the issue. Take a guy who is losing his hair or has very little left at all that it looks horrible. Why do they leave just a little patch on their head and the rest is balding? Don't they know that looks pathetic? I know if I start losing my hair, I'm just going to shave it off and go with the clean look. I keep mine way short anyways, so that won't bother me one bit. With the advent of HD, you can really tell with TV people and some look horrendous. Some are so bad that it's funny. To each their own I guess, but man up and shave that tiny bit you have left off. You'll look better for it. But what do I know about fashion? Probably not a ton. That's just my advice for whatever it's worth.



I'm easily entertained, but I check the local jail site a few times a day just because. As I've said before, I always run into mug shots of people I know, at least a few a day that gets booked. Sad, but true. Some people never learn. What I'm going to do today is throw a few random mug shots that have been book recently in a West Virginia jail. Yeah, it's going to make our state look worse, but how much lower can that look get? You might as well go along with the jokes. Apologies to anyone who is close to these people, it's just all in fun. Here are a few of the finest. This guy fell asleep during his mug shot: http://northcentralregionaljail.info/?BookingID=2773137, this guy has a great mullet: http://northcentralregionaljail.info/?BookingID=2771237, this one might be dead: http://northcentralregionaljail.info/?BookingID=2765698, he's been up for 6 days straight: http://northcentralregionaljail.info/?BookingID=2763637, he's on just about everything: http://northcentralregionaljail.info/?BookingID=2758537, and those that are pumped up to get a mug shot pic: http://wvjails.info/?BookingID=2773497.

The next blog I'll have a road trip writeup scheduled. That's the one to Memphis if you didn't follow along last week. Those are simple to write, but just take a while to get things how I want them. It'll be my first flight which hopefully I don't get all sick during. I'm not nervous or worried about the flight, but I could see plane sickness coming along. Hopefully I'm wrong. Then it'll be off to the UFC 107 weigh-ins, followed by the Thunder/Grizz game to see my boys Durant and Mayo go head-to-head. Saturday will be the UFC pay per view and we have pretty good seats or so it seems anyways. The way the flights are worked out, I'll be rolling back to Pittsburgh on Sunday night around midnight, drive a few hours back home, and get a couple of hours of sleep and then go to work like a champ. Should be interesting.



I've gotten a good bit of new CDs in the past week, so I'll throw a few in every so often for some quick reviews. This time we'll talk about two..

Clipse: Til The Casket Drops. For those who have been reading the blog for a while, you'll know I still say that Clipse is the best live rap performance I've seen. They did their thing and didn't have a million goofy posse members jumping around like puppets and screaming over the lyrics. They usually bring the goods on their albums too. This one has been a long awaited showing. It's a short CD, just 13 tracks, but it's good. There's several songs that if you're a rap fan, you've already heard from this. Those would be Popular Demand with Pharrell and Cam'Ron, Kinda Like a Big Deal with Kanye, and I'm Good with Pharrell. Outside of that I'll recommend Life Change and then Counseling featuring Nicole Hurst. Malice and Pusha-T, you need to check out these guys if you haven't been around.

Drake: Heartbreak Drake 2. This is a mixtape that made its movement around the internet and got nice reviews. If you like Drake's stuff, all of his main things are on this as well as a few others you might not be familiar with. If you already have So Far Gone, there's not a big reason to pick this one up too unless you're just a big fan and want to be have his entire collection of everything. As far as mixtapes go, it's not one that's going to annoy you with a DJ nonstop plugging his own name instead of the rapper himself. I liked it, but it's not something I'm going to play over and over.

College football huh? My Irish had enough wins to qualify for a bowl, but they straight up said they don't want that. I'd like to see a really good team turn down a bowl one year just to shake things up and make a statement, but it won't happen. I wish my boys would've taken a bowl though, just to at least give the seniors another game, even if they weren't any good. Now my boy Jimmy and cousin Golden Tate are heading to make the big bucks. Supposedly Jimmy is the #1 ranked QB at the moment in the draft and Tate is the #2 wideout. I'm sure those numbers will change a lot from now to spring. I wish they would've stayed, but you can't blame them in their situation with a lot of guaranteed money. WVU fans? Gator Bowl time against Florida State, Bobby Bowden's last game, and he's also a former WVU coach from the 70s, so that'll be interesting. This game sold out tickets like crazy. I can say what I want about WVU fans, a lot are knuckleheads, but I'll give them credit for traveling almost as well as any team in the country. One thing that cracks me up is how everyone here is bashing Coach Stewart and wanting him out of town, yet everyone and their brother is heading to the Gator Bowl for support of the team, go figure. Can't go wrong with road trips though. I don't mind that though, I think WVU can get the win here if my prediction means a thing. I'd give props to their fans if they won, but this is a trip I won't be making.



Bird's Dirty of the Week: I have a lot to throw at you for this week's post. We're going 43 folders of pics deep. Yes, I said 43. You literally get just about everything in these pics too with that many set aside. Her occupation is that she apparently sucks blood. She has so many different looks that it's tough to keep up with, but something about her I'll give the thumbs up to. There's definitely some weird pics in there too, you'll have that with 43 folders. Anyways, we go to a 26-year old from Cali: http://www.myspace.com/bossysarah.

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: This will show my age, but if you're a computer dork, you'll remember the MS-DOS days. Hard to believe we actually had to type out so many of those commands, but I remember about all of the DOS stuff till this day. Speaking of operating systems, if anyone has tried Windows 7 yet, let me know. Here's a vid from back in the day of DOS 5.0, which actually makes the original we all used look like a major upgrade. Check how cheesy this vid is and the reactions these people have.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. It's not too late for the internet crew to be part of the Christmas card tradition I've been doing for years if you already aren't. I don't do much locally, but worldwide we pump em out. My goal is to get them out no later than Friday the 18th. Of course, if you're farther away, I'll send them out earlier than that. I've already received some way early.

2. A few of the latest good tweets from RevRunWisdom: "Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have NO time to criticize others.." "When you go easy on yourself life's hard on u, when u go hard on ur self life's easy on u... real tlk" "Happiness is not chasing what u want,, but the realization of what you already have.."

3. I know, you want some useless facts to end the day with. How about the average bank teller loses about $250 each year.. Everytime Beethoven sat down to write music, he poured ice water over his head.. When snakes are born with two heads, they fight each other for food.. The most money ever paid for a cow in an auction was $1.3 million.