Gimme More Biscuits!

I had some of the worst restaurant service ever on Saturday. A nice way to begin a blog, right? Our crew was due for a night out to eat, so of course I was in for that. We decided to go to Red Lobster in Morgantown. That turned out to be a huge thumbs down. The food was good, we at least had that part right, but outside of that, ouch. I'm the type that gives servers the benefit of the doubt, but the ones we had that night, pathetic and I'm being nice about that. I'm still the type of person that I'm going to leave a good tip regardless, but at least put some effort into the night, show me you're not hating life. First off, who all was in for this run? We had Ozzie, Maria, Spank, Alicia, Mudcat, Sally, his chick, his chick's buddy, and myself. We get there and knew we'd have a long wait ahead. I was in no hurry, but still wasn't wanting to wait and wait. The wait time they gave us? 1 hour and 20 minutes, great. Luckily, we got in at about the 45 minute mark.



As we got our orders in, which took forever, the waiting game began. We were already in our seats, so you'd figure it'd be time to rock, but nope. They brought our salads out, but no biscuits. What? The main reason to hit up Red Lobster to me is the biscuits. You can't go wrong with that. I could make a meal just on those things. I started to get restless. I'm the type that can't stay still for too long and I was in serious need of biscuits. We ask what's up with the biscuits and finally they bring some. There's a problem though. You can't just bring one per person. As soon as they sit them down, we wipe them out. Then it takes 20 minutes for them to bring another thing of them. I'm not into griping a lot, but I'm fairly easy to please when I go out to eat. However..

Most of the guys ordered the endless shrimp. I'll get on that tangent here in a few, but I went a different route and went with the steak and lobster oscar, the first time trying that. It was really good as you get a New York strip (gotta be medium/rare, closer to rare as I want it red) with lobster bits over top and shrimp all around it. I'm not the type that is going to eat 150 shrimp, so the endless for me isn't a great buy in my opinion. With Spank, Ozzie, and Mudcat part of the mix, these guys were on the prowl to attack this food to epic proportions. One problem is that when you order the endless, they bring you two little orders of whatever kind of shrimp you want at a time. That's fine and dandy, but as soon as they bring these out, just like with biscuits, they're wiped out. A solution? Just bring a table full of shrimp and let them really go wild on them. They're going to eat a ton anyways, it's not like they will go to waste. I know they don't want people going there and seeing how much they can eat at once, but why even advertise the endless if they're going to be stingy with it? To me, it's not really "endless".



Ok, one more food topic and I'll get onto other things. Between nine of us, we had two servers, so what's the hard part with that? I know I'd be a horrible waiter, so that's why I usually tip decent for the benefit of the doubt. You have to be able to do the basics at least though. Get some refills when necessary, check up on us, it's nothing major we're asking and we didn't give them a hard time. They finally learned later in the night to bring a pitcher of tea and water for us to devour because it'd take them an half hour to get back to us. Our guy waiter reminded us of Chris Bosh of basketball fame, looked a lot like him, I should've taken a pic. Due to that comparison Ozzie gave, he then started dropping Bosh off his fantasy NBA radar list this season for the bad service. In the grand total of things, we left Shinnston at 6:00 and by the time we were done eating, we didn't get home till 10:30. Morgantown Red Lobster, that might be my last trip to that place for a long long time. Uniontown or Parkersburg for the next one definitely and the rest of the crew agrees.

I'm usually up on just about all the new technology things except for one. I've always had a junk cell phone that I rarely ever used. It sat in the car and collected dust and was rarely ever turned on, seriously. This past week I figured why not get something that is with the times. 20 years late on the cell phone scene I know I am, but I'm finally in the mix with an iPhone. I'm loving this thing too. Not that I really needed it that bad, but it'll just be a new toy for me to play with. My buddies are joking that I go from nothing and then make that my first actual real cell phone, why not. Plus, I get 15% off each monthly bill for being a teacher, so I had to cash in on that.



I won't waste much time on the phone thing since nobody cares, but I'll go one more paragraph on it at least. I can see a wreck coming one day using this thing while I drive. I know it's not smart to do, but everyone else apparently does it and I've already found myself goofing off on it while behind the wheel. I did already realize I get messed up bad if I play with my phone when riding in the back seat, I got car sick fairly good after the food trip on Saturday, but live and learn. I'm not huge on talking on the phone too much, but all the other things on this beast have made it worth it for me so far. The apps alone are fun to play with and you can find ones that do just about anything you can think of. Plus, I'm already overly addicted to being online anyways, now I have an excuse to be online when I'm away from my computer, just what I need. Send me to internet rehab already. The internet connection is really smooth on it and it works anywhere you are at, so that's good times. Now I can mess around with MySpace and Facebook at work, when otherwise I wasn't able to through our blockages. I'm crazy busy at work, but you can't expect me to go all day without finding some good free time can you? Of course not. And one last thing that has had confused me for a long time. Whether it be an iPod or iPhone, I don't understand one bit why people pay for songs on there? You seriously can't find that somewhere else online? Or is it just the principle that you don't want it for free? That's a total rip off in my opinion I guess, maybe I'm just a dirty pirate. Thumbs down to iTunes cards as I'd never have one, which gets the same finger of shame that Morgantown Red Lobster gets.

Speaking of the technology game, one I haven't jumped into yet but may is Twitter. I have fun reading a lot of athlete pages as some are really good. These include Shaq, Ocho Cinco, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Love to name a few who have some worth your time. I'm on Facebook a lot, but never update my status a ton like some people do, although I enjoy reading status labels just to be nosy. Out of my crew, my favorite status messages that crack me up include in no particular order: Bart, Sidelli, TheAnswer, Wilbur, and Cork's brother-in-law Dale. It's a good time killer and we're all bored and nosy anyways, that's the point of the whole deal if you ask me. I'm not sure why either, I just never did the every 5 minute update to let people know what's up. Then again, most people that I talk to online hit me up through AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, or MSN Messenger as I always have all three connected 24/7 with away messages, even when I'm not home. I guess Facebook would just be another one that I'd be updating too much. I feel Twitter is the same, but you are only given 40 characters per tweet to get it out there. I may get tired of it very quick, but I'm going to give it a whirl for nothing else. If you're already on there, hit me up with your page too. Visit mine at www.twitter.com/Bird33WV



It's that time of year for high school football action. My old school hasn't been good in ages, but still nothing much else goes on in town. Last year I went to pretty much every game, even some long road trips such as Lewis County where they got their brains pounded in. Friday night I hit up the mighty Cougs game and yes, they lost again. I predicted them to get this win as I thought they'd be able to get a few this year, but it looks to be a crazy long season. I'll still be along for the ride though. I've never seen as many penalties in my life against Braxton County. Half of the fun of going is seeing the local characters and the fact that everyone in town thinks they could coach the team. They all have the answers, yet have no clue about football.

Rob Dyrdek is back and on to giving us some quality TV entertainment. Last week started a new season of Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory on MTV. If you haven't seen before, you're missing out and then some. Rob is 35, but lives his life as basically a little kid. That reminds me of someone else I know. Hey, taht's me. That's my strategy too, might as well have some fun with it. Rob gets to goof off all day and do whatever and gets a TV show based on that, crazy. Yet a lot of us are hooked on the show, I know I am anyways. DJ Drama makes that show in my mind. He's Rob's cousin and is there to more or less get picked on and be the comedy side of things. In the opener this year, Rob's plan is to be a horse jockey. You have to watch how Rob's quest on this turns out, some funny stuff. Somehow, he gets in a legit horse race and ends up winning the thing. One episode down and it's off to a great start. Thursday nights at 9:00 Eastern, be there.



What does this upcoming week hold? The usual work grind, but that's nothing to write about really. Later in the week could have some things to do though in the area. Stickball is on the menu in Nutter Fort as we hope to get a game going sometime this week. Wednesday night fellas if the weather holds up, that's the plan, get at me. Then the weekend could be packed. I'm deciding if I want to make the trek to scenic Philippi to watch the Cougs go and battle the Philip Barbour Colts. Not that it'll be a good game one way or the other, it's just something to do. Plus, with the weather getting cooler, even better. I've had enough of running in this heat, bring on the cold stuff. Also on tap for the area is the Jackson's Mill Jubilee and Tally Rally. I'm a regular at both of these as I've written about before. I should just copy and paste the past few years' worth as I'm sure nothing will change, but it's just the thing to do. The Jubilee is way underrated and the food there rocks. At the Rally, I eat that stuff all the time anyways, but you see some characters and can never go wrong with the food selection. You might even see a few good fights on the bocce court or in the middle of a morra game, it's known to happen on a regular basis. This is the 31st year of the Italian Festival for my area. If you've been to one, you know what you're getting, but it's still worth a trip to be part of. Next Monday is also another fantasy football draft, but more on that when the time comes.



Bird's Dirty of the Week: Arizona Jas is back in her regular spot with a dirty. I need to go back and count up how many times she's ran this section as it's getting up to fairly high levels. But first, her thoughts on this girl: http://www.myspace.com/but_why

Jasmine says: take a look ^.^
Jasmine says: shes got.. some.. interesting pics
Jasmine says: a shit ton of them
Jasmine says: her on a car.. a fucking toyota thats "irresistable"
Jasmine says: kissing her "best friend"
Jasmine says: things of that nature

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: This week's video submission comes to us from The_Freak. It's a good baseball clip from a few weeks ago. Even if you've already seen it, it's great. The quick story here is that it was late in a game in Baltimore. This guy was hammered and his buddy told him he'd give him $1000 if he would run on the field, touch a particular sign and run back to his buddy and touch his hand. If he did that, he'd get the money. Now you definitely want to know how it ended. Hilarious stuff and what makes it for me is the fans that were all into it and cheering this guy. The downer is that the original vid taken by his buddy has been taken down. This is a shortened version to where you don't see him touching the sign and making it back before the cops get to him. This also stops short to where they escorted him all the way off the field and each section would be cheering the guy. Either way, here ya go:



3 Quick Thangs:

1. We all know I watch entirely too much TV, so why not another TV topic? If you're like me, you're a big fan of Al Bundy. He's one of those guys, regardless of what role he plays, he's still known as Al Bundy to me and not Ed O'Neill. It's kind of like how Seann William Scott is never that to me, he's Stifler regardless. Or even Neil Patrick Harris, he's still Doogie Howser. Or Corndog never being Jared. You get the point. Anyways, Al Bundy has a new show starting up this fall and it's called Modern Family. I might give it a few tries just because he's in it.

2. I don't know too much on cars. I can change a tire if need be and probably change the oil, but not a lot else. Edmunds has a new thing out that shows the 10 most expensive cars to own and drive. #1 this year would be the Mercedes L65 AMG Black Series which has a starting price of $301,750 and apparently costs $4.86 per mile. 670 horsepower? What's the point of that? Anyways, I doubt I see any of these cars ever rolling through the streets of Shinnston, but stranger things have happened. Four of the ten cars on this list are Merdedes for whatever that's worth.

3. Want some facts to end the day on? Did you know that a man's skin ages 10 years slower than a woman's? 72% of the people in Mali earn less than $1 a day. 40% of McDonald's profits supposedly come from the sales of Happy Meals. Who knew?

The Infamous Dola Dairy Mart

It's hard to believe I've been dishing these blogs out for what now amounts to 400 different posts. I'm still going strong after over 5 years worth of madness on this page. I must have nothing better to do as I like to say, but I do like rambling about anything and everything after all of this time. This leads into the last week of August and I've more than had enough of this summer junk. You people that love sweating in the heat, you can keep it. I'm ready to bring on the snow. And no, I'm not one of these people who whine like a baby when it's hot out and then when it's cold, more whining. You can't have it both ways, so that's why I like my cold or at least halfway cool if nothing else. What are we going to provide you in this 400th edition? A run-in with the cops, more softball, more fantasy football, back to work, guacamole on corn on the cob, new CD reviews, and several other underrated things.



Saturday it was softball action. No, not for the league we play in at Morgantown. That league for anyone keeping track, the playoffs finish up this coming week and we're still alive. Word has it that the flag football season is starting up soon, more on that for another time. The setting for Saturday was in the mean streets of Wallace, West Virginia. It's a tradition each August for Cork's fam to have a reunion that goes along with great food and as an added bonus, the softball games. I've been going now for probably ten years or so I'd say, I might as well be part of the family, close enough. Before we get to the game, we have some action that went down on our way there.

I was doing the driving and we roll out of Shinnston around 3:00. As we get onto Route 20, nothing out of the ordinary is going on, we're pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Then I notice lights flashing and the sirens a blasting. He was right behind me after a bit, so I assumed he was coming to bust me. Maybe he was just going to fly past me and go on a mission to track down a car full of meth. Hey, it can happen, we're in West Virginia. Nope, he was after me as I'm such a criminal. Dude comes up to me and asks what I think I've done wrong. Come on buddy, really? Just tell me, it's not like we didn't already know. He got me for going 39 in a 25 zone. Luckily, the dude wasn't a punk and cut me a little bit of a break. He lowered it to a 29 in a 25 so I wouldn't lose any points on my license, just pay the fine.



I always wondered, how do they determine that? Do they look at your records and see that you have nothing on it to begin with and start with that? Or do they randomly decide who they are going to cut a break on with tickets? He asked where I was going and I gave him the small talk and told him about softball. My license was in the back of the car in my softball bag, so he had me get out and find that. I call this week to see how much it is, but it happens to the best of us. I'm surprised it's never happened before to me, especially on back roads. I'm not a speed demon, but I probably push it on back roads. On the interstates, I'm usually decent. However, I can't get mad about it because after 14 years of driving or whatever, that's my first ticket. Not too shabby. Now watch me get like 5 in the next month. Hey Kristen, too bad I wasn't a Marine or I could've gave the cop that line I told you about and acted big and bad. That would've got me out of it for sure, right? :) That topic isn't for now though, I'll jump on that some other day for the fun of it. To show my age as the younger generation didn't get much of this, this part of my day reminded me of some good ol' Beavis and Butt-Head, my favorite show of all time. How so? I'll just put up 10 second clip just for my own amusement:



We hit up the Wallace softball field and do it up big. I didn't make the normal stop at the infamous Dola Dairy Mart, but instead went to the store near the field. Sidell, our Dola jerseys are still hanging inside Dola Dairy Mart for all the fans to see as they come in and buy their snuff. We didn't get as big of a turnout as we normally do, but we still made it work. The field condition was as good as it has ever been probably and we chalked up the field to have it all nice. We keep book, the whole works. We only had enough show up this year for 7-on-7. What we did though was to have the team batting provide both the pitcher and catcher, thus we'd have the field positions locked up. We usually play two games, but this year we were only able to play one as a few people left after the first. Cork and I were on the losing side this year, a bummer, but it's still a blast. I played mostly center as I'm comfortable with and towards the last few innings, I wanted to give shortstop a try. I got web gem of the day possibly with a weird play that turned out for the better. Our third baseman had a ball come his way and it hit off his glove. I happened to be near enough that I went to back him up just because and as the ball fires off his glove, I go for it and get it before it hits the ground. Perfect timing. Again, not too shabby for an old man. Big props go out to Cork's fam for doing it up big with the food and making it another fun reunion.



Last Wednesday was the first day I rocked it out back to work. I was there on Tuesday getting a head start on everyone as I like those first few days to be fairly easy while everyone else is in a panic. As most who know me, if I'm not organized, I'll freak out. Thus I make it a point to always be organized, probably too much for most people's standards, but oh well. I'll never learn on going to bed at a decent hour I'm sure, so the first few weeks of work I'll be in a coma. I do like the job a lot, outside of waking up at 6:00 everyday. If that's the only thing I'm complaining about, then I should be in good shape. I've said before, I could write interesting blogs just on the characters I am in contact with in my classes. I'd feel weird doing that though and I'm not the type to ramble on about work. Nobody wants to hear that. Some stuff you wouldn't even believe, but that's what keeps me going and makes it fun to watch the drama go down. I get along great with the kiddies there as well as people I work with and just do my thing, gotta be laid back with it or you'll drive yourself crazy. They start back Wednesday, should be a good ride.

Speaking of ball, the next few things are going to be sports related. A few of them though, even if you're not a sports fan at all, you can relate. One such relation would be the Little League World Series. I love this stuff when it's on TV, it's good entertainment. For the most part, it's a pure game all about the fun. Sure, you're going to have kids every year that some coach is going to try to push through when he's really 16 years old and claim he is 13. Take California's team for example. They have this kid that is 6'2" and 200 pounds. Come on. This kid was probably bigger than me when he was 7, although that's not saying a lot. When I was 12, I wasn't even 100 pounds. Besides him, this year's games have been fun and it's only heating up.



To my crew, let's take a road trip to Williamsport, Pennsylvania one year to watch this. I'm being serious on that. It couldn't be that bad of a time. In other news with this, both Canada and Saudi Arabia have a girl on the team, the only two teams that can say that this year, you rarely see that. These kids aren't playing for the money, they just go all out and have a good time. You'll see some crying, but when it all comes down to it, they're out there just bringing the enthusiasm. No worries in life, that's the best way to be and it shows on TV. Even if you're not a fan of sports, you can at least tune into the LLWS and watch a bit and enjoy it to watch America's past time, even if some people say that is football now. It's funny to me to see the height and weights of these kids and what their hobbies, etc are when they put it on the screen. LLWS, so underrated.

It's time to hit up fantasy football again. This is something you'll have to deal with at this time of year, so bear me out. I said last week that I'd update the happenings of the college fantasy league I've been a part of for a while. The great ManDingo had been the commissioner for a while, but this year he's passed the reigns on to Duce in Philly. I'm sure Duce will keep the spirit going that Dingo started. This is a smaller league as far as members, but I'll tell you who is involved because that's what I do, plus it's pretty competitive. We have ManDingo and Duce who we've already mentioned, plus TheAnswer in Las Vegas, The_Freak, Kasher of Montreal fame, DerekHood in Arkansas which is just a more western/southernly version of West Virginia, Walz, and myself. It's a keeper league and part of that goes with guys who graduate and guys you want to cut off your squad. The team theme name for this league is that you have to use a former Heisman Trophy Winner as your standby. I used to call it the Dingo Heisman League, but now I'll have to refer to it as Duce Heisman League. I feel like I am really strong at the quarterback ("Dat's my quatabaaccck!"- TO) and kicker positions. I had a bad season last year, but I'm a former champ of this league, I need to bring some of that glory back to not let Tim Brown down. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemennnnn.. here is yourrrr Team Tim Brown roster!



QB: Andy Schmitt, Eastern .Michigan (Senior)
QB: Rusty Smith, Florida Atlantic (Senior)
QB: Juice Williams, Illinois (Senior)
QB: Andy Dalton, TCU (Junior)
QB: Colin Kaepernick, Nevada (Junior)
QB: Christian Ponder, Florida State (Junior)
RB: Andre Anderson, Tulane (Senior)
RB: Reggie Arnold, Arkansas State (Senior)
RB: Anthony Dixon, Mississippi State (Senior)
RB: Brandon West, Western Michigan (Senior)
RB: John Clay, Wisconsin (Sophomore)
RB: Montell Harris, Boston College (Sophomore)
WR: Freddie Barnes, Bowling Green (Senior)
WR: Jacoby Ford, Clemson (Senior)
WR: Mardy Gilyard, Cincinnati (Senior)
WR: Ryan Wolfe, UNLV (Senior)
WR: Michael Floyd, Notre Dame (Sophomore)
WR: Phil Payne, UNLV (Sophomore)
K: Thomas Weber, Arizona St (Junior)
K: Matt Eller, Illinois (Sophomore)



Ok, one more little "fantasy" section. Anyone out there wanting in on some of the Yahoo NFL or NCAA Pick Em leagues? It's simple and you know you want in. Our crew has been doing these for ages. Basically you make your picks each week and we use spreads, but no confidence points. It's free and quick and easy to do. Invite anyone you want, it's time to get it going. Also for the locals, Dynamite Danny starts this week in the Clarksburg paper! Cougs open the season on Friday night, hit me up if ya wanna go. Here is the info if you'd like to join up for Pick Ems:

NCAA (Lobstah Mania) http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/college
ID: 9422
Password: lobstah

NFL (Lobstah Mania NFL Style) http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/pickem
ID: 25642
Password: lobstah

Now it's time for some words of wisdom from The_Freak:

The_Freak (11:21:37 PM): This motherfu**er on the TV just put guacamole on corn on the cob.

The_Freak (11:23:38 PM): That is almost as bad as my sister's husband putting mayo on a hot dog.

The_Freak (11:23:48 PM): And my dad was pissed off and wanted to kick his ass.

The_Freak (11:23:53 PM): and told him to never let him see it again

More CDs to update people on that are into some rap. If not, and that's probably most of you, then stay tuned after these and I'll get you back to your regularly schedule program.



Dorrough: Dorrough Music. This guy is from Dallas for anyone who doesn't know him. He's been around for several years, but this is his first thing to hit the mainstream. This is good I think and a nice start for the 22-year old. It's similar to Houston rap if that gives anything to it, but no chopped and screwed junk. Walk That Walk was the first single off this album. The jam you may know that is getting pretty big now is called Ice Cream Paint Job. He doesn't have a ton of guys on here with him which is good, but has Lil Flip and Slim Thug on to name a few to give him some cred. Some others to get? This Time You Was Wrong, What's My Ringtone, and She Ain't Got It All with Lil Flip.

Fabolous: Loso's Way. If it weren't for another I'm about to review next, this would be the best of the bunch, definitely worth giving a chance to. If you're a Fab fan, you know what you're getting. It's not as good as Ghetto Fabolous of course, but that was 8 years ago and it has tough expectations. For the most part over the years, Fab has done his thing and knows how to lay it down. You know you want some recommendations so here we go. You need to find My Time with Jeremih, Throw It In The Bag with Jay-Z and The Dream, and Salute with Lil Wayne. There wasn't a track in this bunch that I didn't think was good.

Mos Def: The Ecstatic. Quite possibly the best CD of 2009 so far in my mind on the rap scene, I'll give it that much respect, no joke. This is some straight legit true New York hip hop. I've had a subscription to XXL magazine for a long time, so if you're familiar with that, they gave it a XL rating, which doesn't come often. They broke down all tracks on their ranks for Mos and rated three of his tracks a XXL. Two of their XXL rankings are my favorites. The first is Auditorium featuring Slick Rick the Ruler. Slick Rick is one of the greatest rap storytellers of all time and he straight kills it with his verse, something that is definitely missing in today's raps. Then we go to History with Talib Kweli, one of the best lyricists out there if you ask me and tie that in with a collabo with Mos and it's money. How can you compete with a CD that has both Slick Rick and Talib on the tracks? You can't. Get this CD as quick as you can, trust me on this, it's THAT good.



Bird's Dirty of the Week: Arizona Jas with one of her submissions here. We hit up Louisiana this week. What does Jas say on this one? "220 pictures, kind of trampy, lots of the same pic,... not too hard on the eyes though." Hey pimpin', you get credit for another submission, racking them in. As usual, if anyone wants to send one in, it'll always be considered. Check it out if you want: http://www.myspace.com/sam_baby_love

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: If you're ate up online like the rest of us, you've already seen this vid. During the past week, this 13 year old kid is becoming a YouTube sensation apparently. Kid doesn't have a webcam or anything fancy at home, so he hit up an Apple Store and used their stuff. The people behind him are what makes it funny to me, but the kid does a good job. I thought it was funny anyways, who knows.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. I don't get into the NCIS type of shows. I know they're huge and I'd probably like them if I gave them any chance, but on Monday nights before WWE RAW, the lead-in is NCIS. I catch the last 5 minutes or so just waiting on my wrestling fix. I notice the chick on there though, Pauley Perrette who plays the character Abby. She's fairly hot in a dirty/different type of way in my opinion. I look up her age and was blown away. I'm terrible at guessing ages anyways, but that chick is 40! "I'm 40, I'm a man!" Maybe it's the pigtails that have me predicting a lot lower. I would've guessed 20s for sure, but that shows what I know.

2. According to Men's Health Magazine, the worst food of 2009 would be what? A large chocolate Oreo shake from Baskin Robbins. That bad boy has 2,6000 calories, 135 grams of fat, 263 grams of sugar, and 1,700 mg of sodium. The worst appetizer? UNO Chicago Grill pizza skins. Now these are crazy. 2,400 calories, 155 grams of fat, and a whopping 3,600 mg of sodium.

3. Here's some facts to end on. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

Don't Feed Da Animals

Saturday was fairly eventful. Nothing too out of the ordinary happened over the week until that day. I set the alarm for 6:06 exactly. On a Saturday morning?! Yes, I know how shocked you are, but it's just a true fact that sets everything up. 606 happened to be a lucky number for Clark, Fleece, and myself when we were kids for some odd reason, so that will tie in to the day itself. On that day, I was off to Parkersburg, an hour and a half away as I left the house at 6:30. Even the neighbors weren't up by that time and here I am on the road, ready to rock. Call it another road trip if you will, if nothing else.



Clark called the other night and asked for my assistance to help him and Carey move to the mean streets of Williamstown, just a few minutes away from their old place. Luckily, I was a nice enough guy that I didn't have anything else to do, so I drive the 90 minutes to go help a crew of us move stuff into a big U-Haul, call me crazy. I must be insane, but I actually didn't mind too bad. I got there at 8:00 with the best directions ever as it was pinpoint accuracy. I was telling Clark when he gave the directions that I'm easily confused, so they may not be as easy as he expected. If I can get there with no problems, anyone can. I'm getting to be a journeyman on these road trips, even if this one wasn't too far away, I'm still counting it as one.

We had most of the Riley fam there helping out (Big Bobby who is a machine and a work-a-holic, Ann, Chad, and Abby), plus the added entertainment of having Fleece in the mix which you can never go wrong with. Along with that bunch, we had Kovalck, Jared Bryant and a few of his boys as they live close to that area anyways. Before I make it that far down south, I'd first like to tell a Burger King story. I was craving food and usually when I wake up in the mornings, I get some breakfast in me at the house and chill around. That day, I basically got out of bed, cleaned up, and out the door I went. I grabbed a cup of coffee at the local Go Mart. I'm not even a coffee dude to begin with, but when I wake up early, I like to get one cup in me to have me ready to bounce off the walls. I had some kind of Columbian mix (all coffee is the same to me) loaded up with sugar and a packet of creamer. Also bought for the morning was Airheads and M&M's, quite the combo.



I still haven't even got to the Burger King part yet. Ok, sometimes I get sidetracked, but with that, you get some extra stories involved, so it works out for the better every now and then. I was starving, so I go up to the drive-thru and place the order. I told them I wanted 2 of the ham, egg, and cheese breakfast shots along with some hash browns and a sweet tea. As I'm ordering, the chick is asking if I wanted 2 or 4 shots and I told her again that I wanted two. Four shots come on the screen, so I didn't argue. Then she asks if I wanted cherry or Coke. I'm thinking, what? I didn't have a clue what she was asking, so I just said cherry, it sounded good for that time. I pull to the window to pay and the girl hands me a cherry Icee. I guess that's not a bad mistake, it sounds close enough to tea. Then another lady asks if I wanted 4 breakfast shots or 2. The drive-in girl told her it was four and started to get mad at one of the other ladies. I could see where this was going, cat fight! I wanted to watch, but I just said four anyways and the other lady looked at me weird, but in the end, it saved the headset chick (Xbox 360 style) from getting into trouble. Four came up on the screen and that's what I paid for, so why not. On the ride, I open up the food and start to tear in. Weird thing is that on these shots, two are hooked together. I'm not sure if that's normal or if they were in a hurry, but one side would have most of the ham and the other would be plain. Come on now, separate those things and put an even amount on each, I'm not asking a lot there. It filled the appetite, but I didn't eat one and left half of my hash browns. In the end, as usual with greasy fast food, it's ok for the first few bites and then you feel like a fat boy afterwards knowing that stuff is going inside you, corrupting the arteries, but we all do it from time to time.

Finally, I make my way into the city of Parkersburg. We had a ton of stuff to do, but had a lot of help in doing so. At least I didn't have to get in a workout that day, this was replacing it and then some. Later that night, I ended up getting a 2½ hour nap, probably not the best idea, but that's how it goes. Between the first truckload and on our way to Williamstown, Fleece and I decided to make a trusty pitstop for 10 minutes or so. We were near Parkersburg High and knew there was a scrimmage going on in the morning. Here's how big this school is and what football means to the area. They had a school 2 hours north (Morgantown High) come down for not a game, but a scrimmage! As Allen Iverson famously says, "I mean listen, we’re sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we’re talking about practice!" My thoughts exactly. We go check it out and there's actually a decent amount of fans there. This is big time stuff. I'm sure most of you reading are in areas like this where you have huge high schools that are like small campuses, but this doesn't happen often in the big WV. This is probably the best field I've ever seen as far as that level goes with the turf, great track around it, and big open old school seating. They also have season tickets for the regular season games that the fans eat up in no time, it's a different world down there, but it was fun to see in person. Now if only the Cougs could get the excitement going. I am excited though for Cougs season to begin. Last year I even went to most of the away games, must not be anything else to do in my area.



After we loaded up the first truckload to the new house in Williamstown, I had to tap out a bit early to get home for a fantasy football draft. I'd guess 85% of the other house was already loaded up and delivered, so with the rest of the gang still at it, it worked out great. For those wondering about locations, I was a few blocks from the Ohio River at this point. Now? It was time for the journey back north, another solo road trip. Not to stray off the path, but another road trip is already scheduled for Wednesday, September 2nd to Youngstown, Ohio? What for? Some quality mixed martial arts action, this one for a big time show, World Extreme Cagefighting's Cerrone versus Henderson for the Interim Lightweight Title. For those out of the loop, WEC is a sister promotion to UFC whom they are financially ran by and they get their shows aired on the Versus TV network. These shows are almost always incredible as it's basically a show with smaller weight class fighters, thus giving nonstop action. I'm getting amped up writing about it, so I'll stop for now and save that for the blog it will appear in. Along for that trip is none other than Posey as we ponied up for floor seats for this bad boy. On the way home, it was time for a Dairy Queen stop, who has the best burgers you can get. It's worth waiting a few minutes for them to cook it up. This time I got a double cheeseburger and Snickers Blizzard. 90 degrees out and I'm driving around eating a burger and Blizzard. My driving skills aren't the greatest anyways as you all know, but I did well multitasking here. The Blizzard was gone before it melted, so I was a beast to that thing, it didn't want any. I crushed that thing just like Brian Bowles did at the last WEC show against uberstud Miguel Angel Torres. If you didn't get to see that fight, search the internet for it, Bowles flipped a switch and messed Torres up something awful with that knockout, it's worth finding. Ok, sorry, I said I wouldn't talk anymore about MMA stuff for a bit, but there's a cheap plug for ya.

I did forget to mention that on the way home, I almost ran out of gas. I'm really picky when it comes to gas. Usually I fill it up with about a fourth of a tank left and rarely let it drip down to it's final breath. On road trips though, I will let the gas light come on just for the fun of it. I was in the middle of nowhere when this happened and was getting close. My screen said 7 miles from empty and that was after the light had come on a while back. There was no gas in sight for a while and I was beginning to wonder if this would be the first time ever I'd run out of gas. Wooo, looky there, I spotted a gas station. It didn't go without excitement though. As I was paying, pardon my description for some of my state's finest, but I saw some good white trash in action. This car load of people had a few chicks that weren't wearing many clothes and had homemade tattoos. I don't mind tats, but when they're filthy, ugh. Not much clothes is usually good times too, but not with this bunch, it was rough. On top of that, they had other people in the car screaming and yelling at each other with major drama and I was just laughing to myself as I pumped gas. These are the type of people that need put in these reality shows, but you rarely see it.



Fantasy football time! I used my place as Draft Central as we called it. This was for the A#FL league ran by Uncle Wilbur, a dude that I give a lot of respect to, who is also a real good guy. To set things up, this is an 18-man keeper league with guys from all over. Where from you ask? I'll give a roll call, not that anyone cares, but I get into that. We go to Montreal for Kasher, an old school #basketball legend, a Toronto trio of Neon, TMac, and the one and only Don-G. Then we go to Maine for Blahah the Great, Philly for Duce, Las Vegas for TheAnswer and MrsAnswer, and Maryland for The_Freak. If that's not enough, how about Washington State for Commish Wilbur, Arkansas for the legendary DerekHood, and Houston for Bono. Then we end up things with the WV bunch of Corndog, Cork, Posey, Trev Daddy Dollars, Walz, and myself. One third of the league from West Virginia and one sixth from our northerly friends in Canada, not bad.

More on the rosters in a bit, but we had the ultimate war room setup at my place. Yes, I realize we're major dorks for doing this, but it's a passion we all have, you can't go wrong with fantasy sports. Plus, I always say, I'll put our #basketball leagues up against anyone as far as pure competition and people who keep up with their teams are concerned. You don't get none of this junk you see in other leagues where people give up after a few weeks like little girls and quit setting rosters and not even using the message board. That gets me like no other. Either way, our war room was rockin'. We had four laptops online as well as a desktop if needed, plus some HD baseball on TV as we drafted. That's right, you can't beat that with a stick. This is a Yahoo league, so it was an online draft. With Trev at work, he still manned up and did his draft over the phone, so we had accounted for 4 of the 18 members in our war room as far as the picks go with Cork and Posey coming over with their computers. Now onto how my draft skills went, whether good or bad, you can decide. Here is yourrrrrr 2009 Cincinnati Celts!



1. Tom Brady - New England (QB) *KEEPER*
2. Matt Forte - Chicago (RB) *KEEPER*
3. Greg Jennings - Green Bay (WR) *KEEPER*
4. Beanie Wells - Arizona (RB)
5. Lee Evans - Buffalo (WR)
6. Greg Olsen - Chicago (TE)
7. Mark Bradley - Kansas City (WR)
8. Trent Edwards - Buffalo (QB)
9. Huggy Bear Fargas - Oakland (RB)
10. Nate Washington - Tennessee (WR)
11. Jason Elam - Atlanta (K)
12. Bo Scaife - Tennessee (TE)
13. San Francisco (D)
14. Greg Camarillo - Miami (WR)
15. Derek Anderson - Cleveland (QB)

I won't break down my players as a lot reading don't care, but I'm still pumped up. Football falls way behind of basketball and baseball in my mind, but that doesn't mean I'm not hardcore into it. I'll post my college fantasy football team next week as it's ran by Duce from Philly, it's a great league to be in. Then on September 7th, we have the Shinnston Fantasy Football League ran by Commish P where 10 will be in attendance for the live draft. What other leagues am I in? I won't list every single one such as the pick ems and that nature of leagues, but I try to concentrate on two leagues per sport. I know some people get their kicks by joining 12 different leagues, but what's the point? They don't keep up with them all, I like to focus. Fantasy basketball is where it's at for me as I've been running the EDDFL money league since I was 10, with 12 members involved. Aside from that, it's the epic A#BA, the league of leagues as far as I'm concerned with the #basketball crew. This is the 20-man deep keeper league ran by TyLaw. Baseball? I go with the #basketball style of A#BL where I'm currently 5th out of 18 teams, it's also a keeper league, ran by Kasher. Then we go to Chin Music, a 30-man league that is insanely detailed, not for the weak at heart. The baseball knowledge this entire group has is great to be part of, you don't get bums just pitching in money as I seem to do in P's league each year, I can't get any luck in fantasy football, but the others I seem to do well in. You have a 55-man roster spanning from the majors all the way down to low minors. You budget your cap and this is also a keeper league. This is a great way to keep in touch with the upcoming minor league baseball guys that you can get a feel of on a radar before everyone else. For the locals, I have Levi Maxwell signed to a 3-year contract on my team, paying him $550,000 per season. Yes, we're ate up that bad. Then there's fantasy golf, so so underrated. Ok, I'm done on the fantasy rant for the week, I could go for days on that. Hit me up if you'd ever wanna talk fantasy ball, I'm always down for some chatter on that.



Now it's time for Corndog's wise words of wisdom. This story comes from his encounter with flies and a mouse.

Corndog: this is one of those i thought i probably shouldnt tell, but its too funny not to.
Corndog: lemme set it up....
Corndog: i had some little flys in the kitchen and i couldnt remember what you were supposed to put out in a little bowl to attract them
Corndog: i think i later found out its some kind of apple vinegar, but i was thinking it was honey
Corndog: well...the closest thing i could find was pancake syrup
Corndog: so i put some out, and it actually did work. i collected some of the little boogers in the bowl so i just kept it setting out to finish its work
Corndog: well, the other night i heard something in the house, and realized i have a mouse
Corndog: i still havent got a trap, because i keep forgetting
Corndog: well..i went in the kitchen yesterday to fix a pop and happen to glance at the fly syrup bowl
Corndog: and right in the middle of the bowl sat that little mouse
Corndog: still alive and stuck
Corndog: just looking at me
Corndog: i felt really bad about it
corndogtaylor: and i didnt know if i should just throw the bowl outside or stomp on it or what
Corndog: but i was feeling pretty bad for the little guy
Corndog: what does a nice guy like the corndog do?
Corndog: took him outside, sprayed him off with the water hose and let him go
Corndog: funny thing is....
Corndog: he ran off before he could get all the way clean
Corndog: so somewhere on the mean streets of whitman there is a mouse w/ syrup and dirt stuck all over him
Corndog: or there is a snake somewhere that got a fancy dinner
Corndog: ah man, it was sad and funny at the same time

It's time for another CD update for those in the know.

Busta Rhymes: Back On My B.S. Oh Busta, where have you gone? I know you're not washed up, but this CD has me very disappointed. The good is that this one features one of my favorite songs of the year so far in Respect My Conglomerate with Jadakiss and Lil Wayne. That's some pure Busta with that fire. A great beat and flow to that. Another to get would be Decision with John Legend, Common, Mary J, and Jamie Foxx. Too many people on this CD. Unfortunately, that's about all the good I can say. As it has one of my favorite songs, it also has one of the worst songs of the year in my opinion, Arab Money with Ron Browz. This one is just beyond brutal. Rap fans will know this song for sure, but it's one that has you wanting to bash in your speakers when it comes on. Busta, come stronger next time, not this commercial garbage.

Gorilla Zoe: Don't Feed Da Animals. Since Busta couldn't save the day, we go to the ATL to see what's up. I did like this one, however as with Busta, what's up with these guys using the T-Pain autotune? Ugh. I thought Jay-Z chopped that off and left it for dead? We need another track bashing these guys Jay, get on it. Lost is the track most will know from this CD, but I'll throw out a few others worth finding. Those would be Untamed Gorilla, Man I, and So Sick. A pretty good one here, it won't leave you hating things like Busta's does.

Method Man & Redman: Blackout 2. Now we're talking. If you like either of these guys, you're going to fall in love with this. These guys together, they make each other better. It has a solid 90s feel to it and you know what you're getting from these guys. You get great chemistry as well as some nice storytelling, something that lacks in today's rap game. I want to recommend this entire CD, but if you're just wanting a few tracks, that's what I'm here for to load up your iPod with. Go find A-Yo with Saukrates, Mrs. International with the great Erick Sermon, and Four Minutes To Lock Down that has Ghostface Killah and Raekwon involved. Raekwon is so underrated. Put him on a song with you and it's money.



Bird's Dirty of the Week: Arizona Jas is back with a submission for us to check out. There's a little back story with this one. This chick is on her man's top buddies list. So basically, a good friend of a boyfriend. We go to Carbondale, Illinois for this one. She apparently has a kid, yet if you scroll down under her details, she says she wants kids someday? Hasn't that someday already happened? Call me crazy on that observation. http://www.myspace.com/246214538

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: I'm going to double up this week. You get your bang for you buck this time around as you not only get one to check out, but why not two. The first is Gangster Fight 1. There's a lot of these out and they're cheesy, but that's what makes me crack up for some reason. If you watch enough of them, OGLoc35 is my favorite character of the bunch. Then again, you could not even see the comedy in this and absolutely hate it, that's fine too.. And our second vid? Since I'm in MMA mode this week, last night we had the Gina Carano/Cris Cyborg fight for the 145 pound Strikeforce Women's Title. Even if you're not a MMA fan, you at least know of Carano. She's pretty good, but gets by mainly more on a rep of being hot as compared to a fighter in my mind. The question I always have, is she hot because she's a celebrity figher or would she just be a regular average girl without that backing? I think she looks good though, but what a fight. Cris Cyborg is no joke either, a straight animal with the jiu jitsu, putting Carano out for the first time in her career. Good match though, a lot of intensity. The end scene, Cyborg turned it up a notch. I'll post it and hope that YouTube doesn't delete it from whoever uploaded the thing.

Gangster Fight 1:

Carano vs Cyborg:

3 Quick Thangs:

1. So now it comes out that Billy Mays was a cokehead? Who knew? Maybe that's why he was always so amped up. I'll be nice and refrain from going off on the dude since he's dead, but disappointing here. I heard about this from Nate Dogg's Facebook post he put up earlier last week, so credit goes to him. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,538220,00.html

2. On the infamous Lobstah message board, my boys brought up the weird Lady Gaga stuff in a thread. This has TheAnswer, DerekHood, and Kasher all weighing in. Here they are, uncensored.

TheAnswer: why is this not a bigger story?

DerekHood: Because, even if it's true, it's about as shocking as Clay Aiken loving the cock.

Kasher: She has both a penis and a vagina. That doesn't necessarily make her a man.

TheAnswer: sure as hell doesnt make her a woman... you go tap that azz then

3. Today's fact to leave you with? Every day, 20 banks are robbed. The average take? $2,500.

Hangin' With Mr. Belding

Action packed. That's what this blog is going to be all about. I have some pressure thrown at me from all sides with requests, so we'll see if we can deliver. We do what we can around here though to please the readers. That's what makes it fun when I get some opinions brewing around, letting me know what is happening or ideas to put in the blog. What are you getting in this batch of goodness? Hanging out with Mr. Belding (yes, that one), Corndog and I take control of Charleston, fired up rednecks at McDonald's, a big softball update from Dyno Nobel, Cornhole, moonshine, and much more planned to be featured. It's time to take a deep breath and get ready to read up because we have a detailed blog for you all to consume..



About a month ago, we had a big crew lined up to attend a minor league baseball game in Charleston, WV to see the West Virginia Power do battle. They're an affiliate of the Pirates, who technically are an affliate of the Yankees and Red Sox. Why so? Pirates keep guys a few years, they start to become decent and then they sell them to the Yanks and Sox for a penny on the dollar. Yanks are my boys, so that doesn't bother me too much, but the Bucs are local and they need to put money into the team to compete instead of being stingy. As Friday rolls around, the "crew" was chopped down to just two of us. The original plan was the get some of the #basketball chat room guys (from Undernet's mIRC) together for a little reunion, or "union" since it's a first meeting with Corndog. Corndog is a regular in the blog, but it's time to set the record straight on some questions I might get. I started going to #basketball in 1995 and most of the old school original crew is still around from that time period. We've basically had the same chat crew and fantasy sports league members for well over a decade and then some. I take being ate up on the internet to a completely different level, but I probably wouldn't have it any other way. These other guys are the same, but I guess it's tough to explain if you weren't in the mix, we're a tight bunch that ranges worldwide.

Enough of that, I'll tell those stories another time. I don't want to lose you this early in the blog. Corndog is about 3 hours south of my mean streets and like I said, some of us were going to make the trek down to Charleston. This was an hour away from Corndog, 2 for myself. I've been to a zillion pro baseball games, but never to a minor league game for some reason. Until Friday that is. As an added bonus, since minor league teams are awesome at having promotions, that night they had Mr. Belding of Bayside High fame (Saved by the Bell) as the night's guest. The legendary Jesco White was honored with a Jesco Bobblefoot Night a few nights earlier for anyone keeping track at home. We figured, with baseball being the prime reason and just a little get-together, mIRC style, Belding's cheesiness could only add to the excitement. Seriously, how many times are you going to get a chance to hang with Belding? More on him in a bit of course.



I gassed up the car and it was exactly the same amount that I put in it the week before, crazy. That's a sign that a good road trip was just beginning. Solo road trip on this one as far as the driving goes, with my passenger being the ever trusty Sirius satellite radio. I've preached on it before, but if you're ever considering a purchase of Sirius for your car, you won't ever regret it. It's that good and then some. I get there about a half hour earlier than expected, so I had some time to chill. Corndog arrives before time too. Anyone who is on time (meaning be there before the time) is good in my book. My buddies know how bad that bugs me when people are late, just totally unacceptable. Thanks for the grape by the way Corndog, you can't go wrong with that.

We get there and had two options of seats. General admission or box seats and there was only a $2 difference in price. How can ya beat sitting right behind home plate for only $8? You get your money's worth at these games, I figured that out within minutes. Also, they have The Toastman in attendance. He's fairly annoying, but he's behind the plate and brings an actual toaster with him in the stands and plugs it in. When the opposing team strikes out, he has toast popping out, launches toast all over to the fans and then everyone chants to the batter, "You are toast!" It's cheesy, but he's the #1 fan there and even in their Hall of Fame of sorts. On top of that, he knows everything about every player that comes in, has signs for just about anything, and it's pretty impressive. The kids eat this up. People there either love or hate him though, there's no in between. His main rule, don't eat the toast.



We couldn't have picked better seats than we did. Luckily, we were behind a group of rowdy fans who had us in tears laughing the entire night. They got some fans so mad that it made them actually leave their seats. They would cuss every 2.3 seconds, tell the umps how it is and even would cuss out other fans. They were all juiced up out of their minds. Usually I'm not a fan of being around drunks as most know, but when you don't have to babysit them and they're actually funny at times, I'm in for short periods. The stuff these people were saying were shocking most in our seating area. I should post some of the quotes they were saying, but I'll keep it non-X rated for the time being. I liked that if they had something to say to someone, they wouldn't hold it back. You knew what you were getting from these dudes and they even had some good trash talking going back and forth with their own group.

Another paragraph on the fans as it gets fun. Back to the drunks in a bit, but we had Cry Tit Cubby sit by us for a few. This dude was a trip, but not in an exciting way. He's a diehard Chicago Cubs fan and that's all he wanted to talk about. He'd go in detail of mentioning their minor league players, how he has so much passion, and can't wait to get to Wrigley Field. Also, he looked like he was about to cry the entire night, so thus the nickname. He went into a spiel about Ron Santo and how much he basically worships him that he almost professed his love for him to us on the spot. Luckily he moved from his original seat which was right beside me onto the other side a few seats down next to Corndog. I didn't have to hear his crying any longer. Another fan was this creepy older dude who apparently came alone, as did Cubby. This guy would try to talk to everyone and he had this really raspy voice and you'd hear him rasping about "Dallas Cowboys!" nonstop. It sounded like a monster telling us about the Cowboys. Later in the game, he comes behind this MILF and her two young sons and sits down. You can tell she's really uncomfortable at him doing this, but seems too nice to tell him to beat the trail. I'm guessing the chick was around 40 or so and the dude was early to mid 50s. She's taking pics of the field and Dallas Cowboys Guy is over her shoulder looking at the pics, talking about them. Due to that, the drunks figured they'd pick on him since they thought what we did in how weird he was being. They all just started waving at him and he didn't know how to take that. Then they got some peanuts and would keep launching them at him and cussing him like a dog. These guys were about 35-40 years old if that sets up a picture for you. With his raspy voice, he reminded us of My New Haircut Guy, so we just kept doing the "Jagerbomb!" quotes to egg things on. "Where's the protein mom?!" That became a running joke all night as we would randomly throw in ramblings talking like Cowboys Guy.



A lot are wanting to know the Mr. Belding situation. Hey, I made you wait a bit for that, I had to build it up somehow. As soon as we got there, they have a pretty nice restaurant/bar setup that most people eat at before the game. We were watching TV and eating, and out of nowhere here comes Belding walking around by himself. He's just like a normal dude. He looks basically the same, but packed on some pounds. ManDingo says that age has not been kind to Belding. The deal was that he was going to do a meet and greet during the game, also throwing out the first pich. He'd sign autographs and take pics. At first the line wasn't big, but during the game it got way long, it'd surprise you. We didn't want to miss any game action, so our dibs for getting a pic with him were running out. In the line though in one of the pics I posted, you see Cubby and the Laguna Beach fake dirty girls who couldn't tell you one thing about baseball other than to see how many guys left on the team they haven't went home with. It's August, so they probably have their checklist complete. And I've said it before, high heels don't do much for me. It's kind of funny to see some girls walk so awkwardly in these things that they look like they are crippled. I just don't get it, but then again, I'm not like most guys. Red lipstick, high heels, short hair, thumbs down. Some girls can pull it off, but that's just my own personal opinion. Anyways, back to Belding..

Word had it that Belding was going to do karaoke after the game. I'm not much of a karaoke dude, but I'm not above making a fool of myself. Corndog and I planned to hit up a duet with Belding as that would've been our ultimate pic. Come to find out, Belding only did one song and was about to leave after the fireworks spectacular was over. By the way, the fireworks here rocked big time if you're into that thing. As Belding was leaving, we made our move to go talk to the guy. We were the last people in the place to talk to him and he couldn't have been a nicer dude. It really seemed like he wanted to be there that night and enjoyed himself. He had his "handler" take the pic for us and even if it was a little shaky, it still turned out fine. Then Corndog asked him to be put in a headlock for a pic. Belding loved the idea, was all about Corn's suggestion, but changed it up to where he was grabbing Corn's ear and playing the principal role to a tee. Even as he's packed on the pounds and age has caught up to him, the chicks at this game were all about him. He could've walked out with just about any of them, no joke. I know you think I'm making that up, but I'm definitely not. Also, Belding has a karaoke DVD coming out in September. He's so bad at singing that it's good.



Corndog is like me in that we are all about the randomness. Anyone can take normal pictures, that's fun and all, but you have to spice it up a bit. I'm never shy to walk up to some random bum and ask them to get in a pic with me or find a weird background or prop to get in front of. I'm still hating myself for not getting a pic with the drunks or Cowboys Guy. Corndog buttered up the Zul's Lemonade Lady and she was pumped to be in a pic with him. Corn had me run behind a bar and act like I was working the taps, just stupid things like that. It's probably pointless to most, but it's something to try out, why not. But to end the baseball story, if you're near the area, you must make a trip down to Appalachian Power Park. It's a total blast. As the drunks were leaving, we told them they made the game for us and they were all excited that someone got a kick out of them when most were fired up and had no sense of humor. They came up from Huntington, so if you're there, hit up Aaron's rental shop and pay these guys a visit. I promise they'll be filled with stories to tell. Good dudes, so I give props to them.

One last story of the road trip before I move onto other topics. I had a little drive ahead of me and it was getting late, so we just rolled out after the game. There weren't a lot of late night options still open in Charleston that we wanted, plus we didn't know the city well enough to drive around and get lost at anyways. I'm not much of a McDonald's guy, but on my drive back, it was about the only place left open. I stopped at this McD's in the middle of nowhere, I even forget the exit, but nothing was there. Have you ever waited 20 minutes at a McD's? Well I can now say that I have been a part of that. This place was unlike anything I've seen. It wasn't like they were short staffed or crazy busy. The manager was busting his butt and doing a nice job, but wasn't getting any help, imagine that. He was doing the register as well as making food, dude was nuts. This redneck couple ahead of me were starting to get all worked up that their order wasn't done. They started cussing, so of course to only entertain myself late at night, I egg it on just to see what these people will say next. Then as I was waiting forever on my food, some of their buddies come in. I tell them I had been waiting around for about 15 minutes so far. I was fairly patient, but I acted like it was bothering me to these guys to get them mad at the workers. What do they do? Of course they started ranting and raving to the McD's people too. I just kind of sat in the background and ate up the drama I was watching. If I was going to wait, I might as well have some fun with it. They only had cherry pies in stock that night and one redneck wanted apple and told the manager how it was. I got my fat boy grease food after eating pretty healthy the past few weeks, so I figure it won't hurt me too bad. All in all, a big thumbs up for Trip Corndog as I will title it.



Last Saturday it was time for a big family cookout, always a good time when that gets set up. The occasion was for Cousin Ashton's 4th birthday party. I heard roughly 40 people were invited and there was every bit of that I'd say. The good thing about it, I only had to walk a block away to go to it, so that's extra handy. The food spread was outstanding. Gayle dominated the grill, not to mention his homemade chili and spicy mac n cheese. Then if that wasn't enough, we had the cousins and aunts do the rest of the food, which included Angie's birthday cake which she decorated like a champ. Of course I had a few pieces of that, not to mention a few cupcakes to go with it, bouncing me off the walls.

My cousins had some buddies in from the ATL that stayed there over the weekend. They had been hearing about some West Virginia moonshine, so why not make that a piece of the party. Outside of the presents and whatever else we brought, my parents were asked to bring the shine with them. Someone then said, "You might be a redneck if you're asking your aunt and uncle to bring moonshine to a 4-year old's birthday party." Apparently this stuff was a hit with the out of towners. A bonus that the ATL couple even paid for all of our lunch the day before at Colasessano's. I loaded up on a pepperoni roll with hot peppers and an antipasta to go with it. We didn't want them to pay, but they snuck behind all of us and paid before we even knew about it. I have to give props where it's due though, really good people, so the thanks goes out. Wilbur, I should have them send you some Huskies gear, I know how much you'd appreciate wearing that.



Later in the night, it was all about the games. Thanks to Matty Cakes, we busted out the cornhole boards and some ladder golf. I'll go on record to say that I'm one of the worst ladder golf players ever if you know of that game. I haven't played it all that much, so maybe that's part of it, but still, I'm terrible. Cornhole though, now that's where it is at. Most of the guys were playing and we had some quality battles. Some wild scores on this night too. One game, my Uncle Jeff and myself got a huge win, 21-2, a score like that doesn't happen often. Of course we gotta do some trash talking after that, but it came back to bite us in the very next game as I fell apart. If 21-2 didn't impress you, how about losing the next game to Matty Cakes and Ozzie to the tune of 21-1! Ouch! That's never fun getting rocked that bad, but it happens and I admit defeat when necessary. After about 6½ hours at the bash, I finally made the trek back home, but a good time to be had for all. I'm always in for stuff like that if it's organized. So when's the next family bash? I'm in.

It's now time for a softball update from your Dyno Nobel athletes. We had a whopping three games this past week and after the melee, we're getting closer to playoff time. We have two games this coming week and then the seedings will be official to see what happens in the playoffs. We should be in that mix, but over half of our league won't make the playoffs. As I type this, we're now 9-8, which isn't as good as we'd want obviously, but we'll make due with what we have. Due to some guys being on vacation and not available this week, we had to pick up some replacements which turned out pretty well. It'll be nice to have our gold glove left fielder Posey back this coming week though. Replacements we had were Pill who seems to be locked in to our roster now at third base, same with Nuzum, and one game we had Stire and Big Wes. Big Wes has the best arm I've ever seen in my life. He had a ball he got from the centerfield fence and threw it to to home plate on a straight line with no effort. We're all still talking about that throw today, it was that good. Even Vito who is our catcher was stone faced as the ball came in.



Wednesday night was the loss night. Even with Wes on our side, we couldn't do much against the #1 team in the league, they were just ridiculous. These guys were your typical "Softball Guy" as Jim Rome says. These are the guys who have no sense of humor, are always acting all tough and bad and can't take a joke. Plus, a lot of them were juiced on some good roids, so that's a good mix for softball wins I guess. We ended up getting beat 26-4 I believe, just an embarrassment, but we still had fun. It was late in the game, it was already out of hand when the pitcher made a step off the mound. In slow pitch softball, that doesn't matter at all, but Spank was at bat and figured he'd at least have fun with these meatheads. He jokingly called a balk on the pitcher and the pitcher was all whiny over that and was saying, "There's no balks in slow pitch softball!" He took it literally and we just stood looking at him like he was an idiot at how mad it actually got him. At least that made our game. Monday and Thursday, we rocked those out. Thursday was as good as we've played in a while. Not sure why it took us years to do it, but we finally took some team photos too. Most of you have already seen those, but I'm all about getting pics, especially random things. Dev, I was going to crown you Wednesday's MVP, but your bro wouldn't have that, he wanted it to be a team MVP that night, so I was overruled, hah. But you're right, we're some pimps in those team photos. In fact, in the two wins, it seems like we all played awesome. Trev is Roy Halladay out there, pitching complete games on the mound like it's his job.

Ok, one more softball note and I'll be done. Once I start, I can't quit I guess. On Thursday, we watched the game before us. It was an open league game and this is where they have the juiced up $500 bats and balls that are a notch better than our league uses. We can only use single walled bats in our league. You wouldn't think the bat makes a big deal, but it does. These guys are all "Softball Guy" though and needed some humor in their life. We saw four homers that game and this is a field we play on that is really big too, just some mammoth shots. We played some scrimmages with the big times bats and they're fun. I'm not a power hitter at all, but it still can change up your game.



Bird's Dirty of the Week: We hit up Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for this week's winner. In her own words, "My name is Jami, sometimes spelled B-I-T-C-H. I try to be nice most of the time but some people make it utterly impossible. I am a "professional telemarketer"...LOL. I've been working in call centers for 7 years now where I've done pretty much everything including executive status.. I have the best boyfriend EVER! He can make me genuinely smile which is a major improvement from the last ten years of my social-sex life. So there you have it folks, me in a nutshell! Anything else...JUST ASK!" There ya have it folks, just ask her I guess. Again, I can't make this stuff up, I just post on it. And how many best boyfriends EVER are there? Everyone says that, think of something more creative. Doesn't look too bad, but some of the picture taglines are entertaining. http://www.myspace.com/thejamisongotu

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: This sent to us by Corndog since he was featured in the main section of this week's blog. Here is a 5-year old rapper doing his thing to some classic 2Pac. I think it's really good, but what do I know.





3 Quick Thangs:

1. Today's fact you might not know? The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world. I guess that's true? I'll take their word on it.

2. MMA fans, go way out of your way to find the video of the Spider Silva/Forrest Griffin fight if you haven't already seen. Forrest gets absolutely embarrassed like no other. After the fight, he ran like a little girl back to the locker room. I like Forrest, but dude, man up after the fight and take it like a big guy. Don't run away with your panties in a bunch. I did hear a reason he ran was that he got his jaw broken and lost hearing in one ear, but either way.

3. You know what is terrible that someone thought was a great invention? Automatic sinks. Those things work for like 2 seconds and they turn off. Then you gotta crank yours hands under them for a while to get them on again and you barely get water. The same for automatic soap dispensers. Also, thumbs down to bathrooms that have the hand dryers. Paper towels work so much better. I like fancy things, but not in the bathroom, keep that old school. Or at least have things that work.

DJ Mingle Mixx, Guinea Pigs, & Stickball Heroes

Here we are, a bit over a week since we last met up. What do we have in store for you this time around? We get a few movie reviews, stickball domination, gas prices, some new CDs, a visit from The Ol' Cowboy, DJ Mingle Mixx, and a lot a more. August is here, football is around the corner, and by the time the next blog is up, I may have a story on meeting Mr. Belding. Yep, it's as cheeesy as it sounds. Stay tuned. Before that though, we have business to take care of..



Why not make this three weeks in a row that I'm starting things out with a movie review? If that's not crazy enough for you, I'm going to give you two movie reviews to have you feast on. Yeah, I know, you can barely contain yourself over that information I just gave. Try to stay calm through that big announcement. The movies in question this time around are G-Force and The Proposal. You're probably asking why I'm even seeing those movies. I figure I'd give it a try, nothing else to lose. Also, we hit up the local drive-in for this action, one of few drive-in theaters left in the state, so we're going old school. It's only a few miles from the house, yet the last time I've been was in way back when I was in high school, no lie. Playing that night? In my book, it was heaven since it was Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (their TV show is still my favorite of all time) and Private Parts starring the great Howard Stern, easily a Top 10 all time movie for me personally.

I'll start out with G-Force. You know what it is even if you haven't seen. It's the Disney movie with the guinea pigs. The talent for some of the voices, brought in some pretty big names. Who is involved? Nicolas Cage, Jon Favreau, Penelope Cruz, Steve Buscemi, and Tracy Morgan to name a few. I could've listened to Tracy Morgan do his character's talking the entire movie and that would've been had me laughing the entire time. That was probably my favorite part of the movie was the character he played. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie didn't live up to Disney standards in my mind. Granted, it's not bad, but I was led to believe it was going to be a lot better. It's also a shame when we just have Penelope Cruz's voice in the movie and not herself if that makes sense. The kids and girls in particular are really going to like this movie I think though. In my ranks and I may be a little generous here, I'm going with 6.1 talking guinea pigs out of 10. IMDB only has it at a terrible 4.5 right now, so that gives you an idea.



We'll take a short break before we talk about The Proposal. We were all craving food that night and I had my mind set on some A's. It was a Friday night and I wasn't down there hanging out as usual like our crew does since we have nothing else better to do. We call Big Cork up and see if he can get a delivery to us. He's down for that and then comes to the drive-in. He calls us when he's there and apparently the drive-in ticket booth person wouldn't let Cork pull in since we weren't ordering food from them. You serious? So then I tell Cork just to stay parked in front of the restaurant and I'd walk down, pay him and walk back to our car. Nope, that wasn't going to work either. Nor were they going to let us pay Cork's $6 to get in, back him, and then let him drive right back out. Back in the day it used to be $5 for an entire carload of people, how many you could fit in. Now it's $6 per person. That's fine and dandy, but we paid them $24 to get in first of all and even got some things at their concession stand. And we can't get a delivery to pull in? Well, we had another plan and I just told Cork to drive up a back road to one of my aunt's houses nearby. Spank and I take off through the dark in sandals, wet grass is getting all over our feet, we're stepping through all kinds of holes, but we made the trek and met Cork. The stuff people do around here for some quality hoagies and pizza, but always well worth it. So good that I ordered more food the next night. Gotta love Shinnston food, can't go wrong with our options here. We might not have much else, but come here and eat if nothing else.

Back to the movies and the next one we all watched was The Proposal. You know this one too. It has Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock. Reynolds is 32 as I type this and he was hooked up with Bullock who is 45 at the moment. Age is just a number to me anyways, but you rarely see a chick that much older than a dude together, even in the movies. That shows that Bullock still gets it done in a major way in my book, but what do I know. This is a chick flick, but it's not watered down and sappy like some if that is what may scare you away from this movie. It has a good bit of humor involved. The first half of the movie wasn't that special to me. After that, it picked up quite a bit. I liked it, but it didn't amaze me by any means. Much better than G-Force in my ranks. Not a lot of other huge stars are in this, but you do get Coach, Craig T. Nelson as well as Betty White. She was born in 1922 and still does movies, insanity. You gotta respect that though. It's time for the drumroll for my rank. We'll give this chick flick 6.9 dysfunctional families out of 10. IMDB, if you're wanting to know, they have it at a 7.2.



A new (old) craze has hit Harrison County. That would be none other than the sport of stickball. We're going old school NYC and Philly style on this one. My parents say it was pretty big in our area when they were kids, but hardly anyone even knows what it is nowadays unfortunately. For those out of the loop, you basically have a broomstick and a bouncy ball. People laugh, but I actually bought an official Spalding "stick" and the old style Spalding high-bounce balls, also known as Spaldeens. There's a ton of variations to play, but we went with fast pitch. Most have already seen the pics we put up of it, but we played on the Nutter Fort tennis courts. I brought along a board the size of a strike zone and we ratcheted it onto the fence. We stood 40 feet away and just zinged it.

We had the perfect setup in Nutter Fort until it was too dark to continue. We had 2-on-2 as it was Cork and myself as The Bash Brothers taking on Matty Cakes and Spank. As Cork would say, we're stickball heroes. At least on that night we were, maybe not the next. We ended up winning with a shutout. Not only was it a shutout, but it was a combined no-hitter! We switched off pitching every inning and I cranked two homers while Cork was able to hit a house in "leftfield". We're scouting the area out for other venues to play at. You can play it anywhere, but it's much better to be inside an enclosed area so you won't lose the balls. It might not sound like much of a game, but it's way addicting. It's all about contact hitting which I love with fast pitch, but we may try slow pitch one day where the pitcher bounces it once before you swing. Jodine in the mean streets of Jersey was saying that I'm such a kid in that I get pumped up to play stickball. I wouldn't have it any other way, I'm always down for sports competition. A quote that had me laughing was an exchange at the end of the night. "That was good times."- Me. "Yeah, it was good times, but it also sucked."- Matty Cakes. Even when you lose, this game is great.



I love having everything organized as most know about me. Probably to a point that I have a bit of OCD in me, some would argue a lot. I've had my ride now for about a year exactly now. I got it last July and since then, I started keeping track of the gas I put into it. I was just curious, no other reason. Gas is just something that people take for granted. You can complain all you want about gas prices, it's not like you're going to rebel. It won't prove a thing. I guess you could get a bike or walk, but realistically, you're not going to. At least in West Virginia, exercise barely exists sadly. We're not always at the top of the nation lists for heart disease, obesity, and tons of other negative things. Back to the gas, over that time, I've spent exactly $1730.25 on gas, which breaks down to $144 a month. Just on gas? Doh. I've never looked at it that way before. I have no clue if that's a bunch or not, but just found it interesting.

You know what is totally impossible for a single guy? Or maybe any guy in general, but I'm sure it gets easier once you have kids. Car seats. What do I mean? I had my little cousin Max in the ride the other day after we all ate and putting that car seat together, I had no luck. Gayle asked if I've ever had babies in my car riding and I'm sure he didn't feel safe, but I did make it home with no injuries, so that's always a plus. I couldn't get the seat unhooked, but was glad to know that my Uncle Bill struggled mightily with this as well. Before that, it was some good family time, you can't go wrong with that. A big crew of us hit up Colasessano's in Fairmont, a legendary stop. If you're in the area, you know all about Colasessano's pepperoni rolls and pizza, yum. Colasessano's and A's in the same week, the madness around here, let me tell ya. Two places where legends are made that I talk about a lot in here. I'm spoiled with good food around here. Between those places and Mom's homemade Italian cooking that is the best as it gets, there's no reason to complain.



Time for another CD update. I have a ton to go through coming up, so I'll just throw a few at you every so often. As usual, if you're not a rap fan, you probably want to just skip this section. I figured I'd give a heads up on that front. For those who are interested though, just soak up the recommendations, free of charge as we do around here.

Gucci Mane: Bird Money. Out of the CDs I'm reviewing today, this is my least favorite. I do like the title of it at least. It just didn't jump out at me. As me and my buddies would say, I would classify this as happy rap. They're just having a good time, goofing off, that type of deal. That is ok and all, but that route didn't have me excited either. Ones that I'm going to tell you to get are Rain Mane, I'm A Dog, and Do The Math.

Mobb Deep: The Safe Is Cracked. There may not be a bad track on this entire thing. If you want some true New York style hip hop, then load up on this. Prodigy was locked up for a while and is now on protective custody, but they still got this out to the fans. Anything you pick on this one is going to deliver.

Twista: Category F5. The fastest spitter in the game is at it again. This CD is a tale of two stories. The first half of this is great, the second gets a thumbs down from me. When Twista is good, he's on and does his thing. The tracks he does that on are Wetter with Erika Shevon, Talk To Me, Yellow Light featuring the pimp R. Kelly, and Yo Body with Do Or Die. DOD is one of my all time faves, check out some of their stuff if you never have. As far as the bad, I was greatly disappointed in Billionaire with Busta Rhymes. On Top with Akon, avoid that one as well. The whole thing I'm not impressed with, but it's getting nice reviews online. Either way though, the songs I mentioned are nice at least if nothing else.

Paul Wall: Fast Life. This is Paul's first big CD in 2 years. He's still been hitting the mixtape scene strong, so he hasn't went anywhere. People on this worth mentioning include Young Joc, Gorilla Zoe, Lil Webbie, Baby Bash, Too $hort, The Federation, Lil Keke, Trae, Z-Ro, and Tech N9ne. I've always been a fan of his stuff and he has some pretty good flow in my mind. Songs for you to get? I Need Mo (the CD's intro which sets the tone), Daddy Wasn't Home with a big message, and I'm Clean with Z-Ro.



Bird's Dirty of the Week: A bit of a strange one, but sometimes that goes perfect for this section. We got to Maineville, Ohio for this 21 year old. Tons of pics, check. Some funny taglines for her pics, check. She also pulls off the look that she could probably beat up quite a few dudes, but likes showing her body off at the same time. It's an interesting combo, so check her out: www.myspace.com/itsrayningtonite

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: The Lobstah crew already knows about this, but we'll get his name out to the masses. As the great DerekHood says, "Ol' Cowboy may be one of my five favorite people on the planet. He's a real straight shooter, and ain't much stands between him and his cold beer." You never know what this guy is going to talk about or what sets him off, so that's what makes it fun. He's an internet sensation, it's the Ol' Cowboy from Tennessee. This is the latest from Ol' Cowboy, he's just rambling on as he does best:





3 Quick Thangs:

1. It's the end of the DJ Mingle Mixx Era of Big Brother. Two of my favorites on the show, Casey and Jordan were both up this week and one had to go home. Yep, Mixx is now at home like the rest of us. We're down to 10 and business is about to pick up with more lying and backstabbing drama. It makes for good entertainment as we like to say.

2. 11-10-09. That's the date the video game fans all know far too well at this point. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be in stores! I might hyperventilate. I took about a month and a half off of Call of Duty 5 recently to play some other games, but now I'm all energized up and hooked like no other. It's like riding a bike, you don't lose a step.

3. From the latest Game Informer, "35 is the age of the average gamer, according to the new ESA study. Additionally, 43% of online gamers are now female, and 68% of all US households play some type of computer or video game."