Touchdown Jesus to Ric Flair to Apps and 5K Races... & More!

Only one post in the whole month of November? It happens. Lazy? Busy? A little of both? Yep, but never fear, we're here to get the Christmas spirit going. As you look out your windows, you can see the trees lit, the houses decorated, and a buzz in the air as we all get pumped up. I probably should start the majority of my shopping soon, but it'll be finished quick enough, no worries there. We have a lot to talk about in this edition since I've last left you hanging. What is in this one for you to feast on? Hanging with Ric Flair, a trip to South Bend, another 5K, new apps to get, Call of Duty, and a surprise birthday party just to name a few to get you going.



I don't want to lose everyone right off the bat, so I'll hold off on the wrestling update. I'll start off with a road trip special. It was time for the Notre Dame trip to South Bend, Indiana. Last year was my first trip to the beautiful campus, not quite sure what took me so long to get out there. I hope to be there regularly from here on out. A big group of us had planned to go to the Michigan game earlier in the season, but after dragging our feet and ticket prices going higher and higher as it came closer to game time, we axed that plan. Instead, I rolled out with Whitney as it was just the two of us. It was her first trip out there, even in the state of Indiana if that counts for anyone keeping track at home.

We left town at 5:30 that morning and I like to get my road trips started as quick as possible. I don't want to screw around and ruin an entire day by leaving late. The drive out there isn't bad at all. It takes about 7 hours and 80% of the drive is flat cornfields with nothing else to see. We went up to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, cut off near Cranberry, north of Pittsburgh and then hopped onto the Ohio Turnpike. The drive featured nice scenery and luckily there was never any traffic problems, that part made things go even smoother. Between switching around to stations on Sirius, of course I had to bring along some DVDs for when Whitney would crash out in the passenger seat. On the way up for a bit, when I got closer to Indiana, I had to pop in Rudy just for good time's sake and to get me into the moment. I'm biased, but Rudy is a Top 10 all time movie in my ranks, maybe Top 5. On the way back, it was wrestling time with a shoot interview of Nikolai Volkoff which was good.



We stayed a few miles away from the stadium and had a great hotel setup. Not that we used it, but we had an entire kitchen, dishwasher, stove, full sized fridge, the works, all for a reasonable price. Friday night we hit up the pep rally, a tradition on ND football weekends. Rocket Ismail showed up unannounced and delivered an awesome motivational speech. I thought I had energy, but he was amped up like no other and the crowd responded. It was Senior Week, so that brought along some excitement to everything. 80,000 strong at the stadium and during the first half, it did nothing but pour the rain. Whitney was a trooper during this and sat through it all. I was out there getting my money and time worth, but luckily the 2nd half turned out a little sun for us. It was colder last year during September when I went as compared to November this year, strange. It was the leprechaun mascot's final home game and the fans really like this guy. At one point, he had a handstand contest with the Utah Ute ("Utes are a Native American tribe native to Utah. That is where Utah got its name, and what the University of Utah mascot is - a Ute." Thanks to Wiki Answers for that description) and when he won, the roof about came off the place, if there was a roof. It cracked me up, but guess you had to be there to appreciate how big the response was to something as silly as that.

At the time I got tickets, Utah was undefeated before losing to TCU the week before the Notre Dame game. TCU for those out in the dark, earlier this week decided to jump to the Big East for both football and basketball. The travel times will be interesting there, but I think it helps the football conference. TCU has the chance to bust some serious heads in the Big East, but you never know till games are played. I went into this game, not expecting anything to be close. I figured Utah would just crush my boys, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was shocked at the amount of Utah fans who came to South Bend for the game. That's a haul, but there was a fair bit of a sea of red in the stadium. They were classy fans too when we talked to them around campus, I liked that bunch.



Of course I can't do a long road trip without keeping track of the license plate game, I admit. By using the trusty Find Plate app on my phone, it's an easy way to mark off your states you find without having to write things down. This one, I was impressed with the number at the end of the trip. 42 total states out of 50, that was a solid get. We also saw a ton of Canadian plates too. Which eight were we missing? Kentucky, Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont, South Dakota, Nevada, Wyoming, and Delaware. I was a little surprised that we didn't get Kentucky since it borders West Virginia and I'm sure some people went through that state to get to Indiana. I figured I'd get South Dakota too once I had North Dakota, but nope. All in all, not too shabby.

Now to the more dorky side of things. I'm never above making myself appear as a dork with some of my interests in life, but that makes things fun. Enter Ric Flair. A while back, I had heard he was coming to our local Wal-Mart of all places to do an autograph signing that was sponsored by Coke. Wrestling fan or not, you know who The Nature Boy is without question I'd say. Stay with me, even if you don't like wrestling, I think you'll enjoy a few of these stories. I'm not much of an autograph buff, but Flair, next to my meeting with Larry Bird, was the next guy I wanted to cross off on my "must-meet" list. That list isn't big for anyone keeping track. I've also said it before, autographs aren't really my thing either, although I do have a decent bit, but I'm not the type to track someone down and go after them just to get a signature. Flair's though, I wanted that, but more on that in a second.



He was scheduled that night to sign from 6:00-8:00. The first 300 people were guaranteed a picture and autograph. I figured it'd be a crowd, but I was blown away by the turnout. I showed up at 4:30 and was already over 200+ in line at that point when I got my ticket, which was free. To say there were characters in line would be an understatement, but that goes without saying. Whitney joked that there were 3 teeth in line and I had them all. One of the funniest, yet strangest things we saw in line was this woman who literally locked the Figure Four Leglock on the floor of Wal-Mart on her kid, cranking on it. This was right behind me and people just stared. Another guy had his wife and parents along with their three kids. The kids were about 3, 5, and 8 if I had to guess. They were being impatient, of course you can't blame them for having to stand in line and not move for hours. The guy kept threatening them that he might have to make them leave with his parents and they'd lose out on the chance to see Flair. I'm sure they didn't even know who he was, but I guess he thought that was his sense of parenting skills to get them to behave.

The line was finally moving and I kept my patience, which is sometimes tough to do. To again show my sense of being an inner dork, I brought along my "Flair belt" as some know it as which I have in a bag. This is the big gold belt that replaced the NWA World Heavyweight Championship (which I also want in the collection some day) and is currently used today as one of the two WWE titles. I won't bore you with breaking down the history as much as I'd like to, so I'll spare you those details. I had it in the bag while I was in line and then someone noticed it shining as it was hanging out one end. To the people in line, this thing was a hit and it's one of my favorite memorabilia pieces. That might not say much for me though, but it is what it is. Anyways, people started asking to borrow it and wanted their pictures taken with it, which was cracking us up.



Now I finally waited out the line and made my way to the man's presence. For as many wrestling shows as I've been to over the years, I've never been to a show with Flair on it, so this was my first time seeing him in person. I don't get too starstruck, but I was with him, not afraid to say that. Hey, I'm a wrestling fan, what else do I have to lose by admitting that? I was surprised of how big of a dude he is in person. For 61 years old, his arms are still pretty big. Also, same age as my dad and Jerry "The King" Lawler who last Monday had his first WWE Title Match, another guy I've met this year. Flair seemed genuinely like he wanted to be there and gave people the time of day. Whitney got to talk to him for a few minutes as she waited near him to take the pictures. I brought along the belt to get signed as you saw in my Facebook pics and that's a deal I'll have to frame soon, would you expect anything different? All in all, it was an absolute madhouse up there, it even made the local news. Then again, not a lot happens around here, but still. The news guessed between 1000-1500 people, but that seemed like a bunch. Either way, it was worth the wait for me, dork and all.

A quick Call of Duty update now that we've all had the chance to play it for hours upon hours. I'm still big into Free-For-All as my favorite, mainly what I'm into most of the time. Last weekend, it seemed half of Shinnston was on till 6:00 in the morning doing it up big. We started out with FFA and then moved to Headquarters. I'm pretty good at FFA, no expert, but I do well enough. On the team stuff, which I rarely play, I'll be honest, I'm terrible. It'll take work though as it's a completely different strategy than FFA, but I somewhat liked Headquarters. I've yet to play any of campaign, which is weird to some I'm sure, but I'm strictly multiplayer and that's the reason you buy it in my opinion, simply put. Find me on Xbox Live under Bird33WV.



Last Saturday was another get-together of sorts. We had a surprise 25th birthday party for Southern at Via Veneto. This was our first time there and we came away impressed with the setup. The downstairs section is the banquet hall and it looked that night it was used for a wedding reception. It was funny how a lot of our crew walked in there first and people that were prim and proper looked at us like we were idiots and then directed us upstairs. The upstairs is all decked out, this place is fancy. As an added bonus, I got to watch the Notre Dame/USC game while up there and it turned out into a win somehow. The rain definitely helped in ND's side I think, it was an ugly game, but I'll take the win. Like with Call of Duty, half of Shinnston was at this surprise and party and it was a good time for everyone.

After that, we hit up The Ordinary in Clarksburg. What, hitting up two bars in one night? I know it's a rare happening, but I'll join the crowd and be social, I'm not above that. Plus these places didn't have smoke blowing in my face, thumbs up to that. You all know my thoughts on cigarettes, but I won't preach to the choir. I did my part in slamming down Coke after Coke on the night, but not Doc Gooden style of course. Chester, pint after pint, in your honor. It's always a funny reaction, especially when I'm hanging with people that I'm not around a lot and they see me ordering a Coke. Drinking was never my thing, nothing against it, just not me. At The Ordinary though, we got to jam out to Lincoln Class of 96 member and one of the purest jump shooters of our era, Daniel Jaggie. This was my first time seeing Jags and his crew perform live. Do yourself a favor if you're in the area and if he's doing a show, go see it. I'm not saying that because I've known him forever, but he's legit and does a very good job.



It's that time again to give some new recommendations on some recent apps I've put on the phone. It's not like I don't already have a zillion on there anyways, but I digress. The first is one that comes with high praises from Sims. I saw him trying it out at the surprise party and he's been trying to get me to download it for a while. What is it you ask? We Doodle. If you're a fan of Pictionary, or if you're in the Lobstah crew, Yahoo Graffiti. It's free and a ton of fun, go get this bad boy. I'm Bird33WV on there. The next is a game that is huge in Japan apparently, Mr. AahH!! It's rather addicting, although it doesn't look like much. It's a game if you just have a short time to fire up the phone, this is what you need. It's tough to put down though. Lastly, one that I'm not sure why I didn't a while back, but just heard it was actually an app. Tosh.0 and it's really good. A lot of videos, daily posts, etc. If you're a Tosh fan, this is a definite get.

Another 5K was rocked out on Thanksgiving Day. This was the Turkey Trot 5K that Stacia and Jason Talkington do such a great job of organizing. This is the second year of existing it and it was a really big turnout this time. The weather was actually pretty good for that time of year as to what it is going to be over the next few weeks. It was near 50 and you can't beat that. There was 125 people in this action, that was a ton more than the race not long before that when I was one of two people in. I was happy with my time. I didn't do nearly as well as I did last year, but going in, I wasn't quite training as hard as last year's either. I finished with a time of 24:30 in 24th Place and was glad I did that before tearing up two big turkey dinners later that afternoon that were awesome. It's always a good time at the Turkey Trot just to see people that you haven't talked to in a while, a nice get-together. Plus, I'm always down to ramble on with a good chat to just about anyone.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: This comes to us from Felisha. The title says it all. Flamboyant Salesman Video. He's getting the crowd interested if nothing else. Dude breaks it down in the last 20-30 seconds, hah. Good entertainment right there.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. This comes to us from Devon McIntyre. In a fact I did not know, but everyone else may? I'm putting it in regardless since I asked for some help to the Twitter gang on some quick facts down here for this section. "in every episode of Seinfeld. There is a superman somewhere.." You can follow Dev at http://twitter.com/DynoDev.

2. The next fact also came to use straight from Twitter. The one and only ManDingo had this gem about our local weather: "Well, winter's here. Not forecasted over 37 for the next 2 weeks. I guess it's time to get used to it, but I'm really hating it right now." I'm not hating it, but I'm weird when it comes to winter time. Want to follow Dingo? http://twitter.com/CouchPyro.

3. Last thing to end on. Straight from Sims, we have Barron finally in the Twitter mix. Time to get addicted man! "My boy @CooKeeZ11 is on twitter!! Let's go!!" Hit Sims up too at http://twitter.com/SiMZiLa13.

Sitch, COD, 5K, & Windshield Wipers! Let's Go!

Hola. Where have I been lately? I'm around, you know how it goes. Time to splurge a new blog on you for something to fill your days with to make it a little more exciting. Either that or you have nothing better to do as I always like to say in here. This is the first blog of November and we're getting closer and closer to Christmas time. Oh, there's Thanksgiving too? Apparently some people completely miss that holiday and skip straight to Christmas. As much as I love Christmas, we need to give Thanksgiving its due. Before that though, time to see what has been happening in the mean streets of my town, expect the unexpected.



It was time for yet another 5K race in town. This one was set up by the Super Strutters group where Alexis Huckles and Krissy (Anderson) McDougal, fellow class of 97 mates, meaning we're old. Only as old as you make yourself feel though and how you take care of yourself. The night before, I really wasn't sure if I was going to do this 5K. Then out of nowhere, I figured why not, wake up early and get this thing done. I go down there around 9:40 or so and there were flocks and flocks of people there. I wasn't sure I'd have enough time to register before things began at 10:00. Truthfully, I was the only one there at the time and wondered what was up. On the Facebook page, there were a good dozen or so people that said that yes, they would be there. That's how our town goes unfortunately. I'm the type of guy that likes to give my word to something. If I'm not going to be there, I'll let people know, but if I give a definite yes, count me in. Anyways, we had another runner show up and props to Sarah Cochran for coming out and supporting the cause. I know what you're thinking, only two people? Yep, but we both had to run that day anyways, so might as well get things done early and support a good cause. In the end, I can joke that I won my first ever 5K for whatever that's worth. Alexis and Krissy, keep everyone posted on the spring race and thanks for organizing everything. Also on Thanksgiving, gear up for the one and only Turkey Trot ran by Stacia and Jason Talkington. Word has it that there should be a really good turnout.

During the time I last wrote, Halloween was celebrated. I haven't dressed up in a while, but this was the year of the return. Before that, I did my yearly tradition of seeing my area of town become crazy populated on the streets for trick or treat. We had so many people show up at our place that you couldn't keep count, seriously. I know that seems hard to believe for out of area people when you think of my little town, but it's true and then some. After that, we had a big turnout at our house just to BS around, watch football, tell stories or whatever else went down. Pretty much our whole family was there along with Cork and Kristin. By the way, grape jelly meatballs are phenomenal.



After that action, it was late-nighting for a costume party. People gave us some ideas and Whitney and I decided we'd go as Snooki and The Situation. My "costume" was pretty easy to get dressed for. I already had a Situation shirt and the shades, plus I threw on a blinged out cross chain that Whitney had and it was go time. People say I look more like Vinny and I think so too, but my Aunt Linda and Kari had a classic thought on that. They said that if I went out as Vinny, since he's the most normal of the Jersey Shore guys if there is such a thing, then people wouldn't have a clue. So I went with the more exciting of the bunch and Kari had the running joke of calling me Sitch that night. Whitney had Snooki's stuff down to a tee, her side was more creative than mine. She put rinestones on her sunglasses, had the full Snooki wig even though she can pull off the Snooki look without it, the pink slippers, and a shirt we got at the beach, the I Love My Guido version. Surprisingly, where we went, we were the only ones that were Shore characters. I guess that shows the mentality we have watching that stuff, but you know I'm hooked to it like no other. A funny to us was that this girl from Jersey and her husband came up to us at the party and wanted to get pictures to show that we existed that night. I'm glad I can get people laughing a bit, we had a blast with our costumes.

Movie time. What will this review be on? Just Wright. We had wanted to see this one in the theaters, but never got around to it. Mix in Common, basketball, Queen Latifah, and it's a movie that was right up our alley. We both enjoyed this movie and I'd recommend it. The basketball scenes were fairly well done and featured a slew of actual NBA players such as my boy Rajon Rondo, Dwight Howard, Dwyane Wade, Rashard Lewis, Jalen Rose, Bobby Simmons and Elton Brand. You also had Marv Albert, Stu Scott, Mike Fratello, and Kenny "The Jet" Smith. On the actress side of things, notables were Phylicia Rashad and Pam Grier. It's somewhat predictable, but it still made for a good movie night in my books to go with popcorn and ice cream sundaes, yum. My final ranking is going to be 7.5 PCL injuries (what Common had in the movie) out of 10.



Here's one to make myself look like a goof, but I'm never above that for a good story in the blog. I left Whitney's on Monday night after watching wrestling, my usual schedule. Yes, RAW is my favorite thing to watch on TV all week, I kid you not, it's the dork in me I admit. I had planned to go for the midnight bash at GameStop and get Call of Duty that night. I was in such a coma that it didn't happen and I figured I'd be up the entire night before going to work in the morning. I was going to use Whitney's car to get the game since she needed gas anyways and it'd be easier that way. So I do the good deed of getting gas in her car and bring it back instead of heading up to the mall. I promise, this story will make sense here in a second, I'm getting into it..

Don't you hate waking up early in the morning before work and you have to either scrape your windows from all the ice or spray it down? Well, people that don't put their cars in a garage, you know what I mean. It's not a big deal to me, but it just saves a few minutes off your time so you can chill longer before work and not be crazy cold in the process. The option I have, and it's going to sound either primitive or stupid, is to get newspapers. Do what with those newspapers? Put them across your windshield before bed that night. When you wake up and go to work, take the newspapers off and like magic, no ice and you can just get your drive on. It's not for everyone, but it works. Well, as I was doing that to Whitney's car, I pull up her wipers to have it hold the paper. Bam, the wiper breaks off on me! Not good. Now what? Here I am at midnight trying to piece back a wiper blade where a bolt came off. Mix that in with me being one of the worst handy men as far as fixing things of that nature goes and it was a disaster. It's an easy task for most, but I admit that I can't even do a simple task of putting windshield wipers in the correct spot. The good thing? Whitney woke up the next morning and her windshield was as clear as can be. The wiper however, doh!



Fantasy basketball time! I've not commented on either of my drafts so far. I will now bore you into pieces on that and list my rosters for each bunch. First, I'll start out with the EDDFL that is going on 20+ years strong. Yes, you read that right. The 12-man cast of characters in this league are Riley, Spank, Cork, ManDingo, Sidelli, TJ, Mudcat, Fortney, Posey, Fleece, Ozzie, and myself. It is a straight style fantasy league with points, assists, and rebounds. We start 6 players per week, with one having to be a rookie. The next is A#BA, the league you hear me talk about a good bit that is our online keeper version. This one goes 20 deep and one of the most competitive leagues you will ever see. It's a 10-category league and is head-to-head.

E-Town Junkies (EDDFL)
1. Kevin Durant - Oklahoma City
2. Brook Lopez - New Jersey
3. Wes Johnson (Rookie) - Minnesota
4. Andrea Bargnani - Toronto
5. Andray Blatche - Washington
6. Joakim Noah - Chicago
7. JJ Hickson - Cleveland
8. Ty Thomas - Charlotte
9. Timofey Mozgov (Rookie) - New York
10. DJ Augustin - Charlotte
11. Marcus Camby - Portland
12. Andrei Kirilenko - Utah
13. Andris Biedrins - Golden State
14. Brendan Haywood - Dallas
15. Josh McRoberts - Indiana

Memphis Sounds (A#BA)
1. Carmelo Anthony - Denver
2. Dwyane Wade - Miami
3. Danny Granger - Indiana
4. Andre Iguodala - Philadelphia
5. Brandon Jennings - Milwaukee
6. Derrick Favors (Rookie) - New Jersey
7. Josh McRoberts - Indiana
8. Tiago Splitter (Rookie) - San Antonio
9. CJ Miles - Utah
10. Arron Afflalo - Denver
11. Jamario Moon - Cleveland
12. Nikola Pekovic (Rookie) - Minnesota



Busy week going down on my schedule, but one I'm excited for. Of course Call of Duty: Black Ops is released and I'll be sure to give reviews of that as I play it more. As of the first day of playing, I really like the graphics for one. The guns on this one, I'm a huge fan of so far and the gameplay, no issues on my end. It gets an early thumbs up on my side. There's only three days of work for me this week and I can't complain about my schedule with that ever. Thursday, Ric Flair is in the house! Not my house, but at our local Wal-Mart. I'll be there to fulfill one of my lifetime goals (yes, you can call it sad or whatever) in meeting him and hopefully getting my Flair belt signed. I'm not big on autographs as I've said before, but after meeting Larry Bird, Flair is definitely #2 on my "to-meet" list. Then Friday, it's off for the South Bend trip with Whitney to see my Irish take on Utah. Road trip! I can't see Notre Dame putting up a great fight, but I hope I'm proven wrong. Either way, I'm ecstatic for this week. Too much excitement in one week!

Time to talk about a few CDs I've recently listened to. The rap fans will want to know about this, the other 98% of the people reading this section, I'm probably talking to a wall anyways. I will entertain myself at least. Let's see what we have to talk about this time around, away we go..

Bun B: Trill O.G.: I'm a big fan of this one. Bun's style of rap has been one that you know what you're getting. He's kept his setup the exact same since he's started out. You won't get any mainstream club rap here or something that is just made to be catchy for a month only to die. If you're a rap enthusiast, this is for you. I can't just leave you hanging without telling you what songs are good on this bad boy. Trillionaire, Countin' Money, Ridin' Slow, and All A Dream are all worthy listens. Go get em.

Young Buck: Rehab. A former member of G-Unit, Buck is still around and doing his thing. I figured this album would be more bashings towards 50 Cent and the boys, but it doesn't feature any of that, which makes it even better because you get straight up rap minus the BS. The weird thing, through all of this "beef", he's still technically under their label, just not a main portion of it. What to get out of this one? This Is Mine, Ya Betta Know It, Hood Documentary, and When The Rain Stops. I liked Bun's album better, but enjoyed both.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. If you had November 3rd in the Christmas lights pool, you are this year's winner. I saw my first house decorated with the works, already lit up on that date. This was in Bridgeport on the hill near Go-Mart for the locals. Crazy.

2. Thursday is Veterans Day in the US and Remembrance Day in the land of "Canadia" as the Jersey Shore guys would say. Be sure to go out of your way and send a message to a veteran, it'll be greatly appreciated by them, I promise you that. I know I couldn't do what they do and they get my full respect.

3. A few weird law facts from TheAnswer (www.twitter.com/TheAnswer310): "In Tennessee, it is against the law to drive a car while sleeping. Imagine that!.. Today we travel to Iowa where one armed piano players must play for free.. in Colorado if u let ur cat outdoors it has to have a tail light."

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Man on Bench time..

"Crocodiles Gonna Eat Me Yeahhhhh!"

Fall is in the air. You know you can smell it. I'm glad since that means I won't have to mow grass except for maybe a few more times before I tap out on the year. It's not like I have a big yard, it's still the thought of having to do it on a regular basis. Oh yeah, basketball is soon too, but that goes without saying as one of the main benefits for fall kicking into gear. What does this edition behold? You get a big wedding with a few of our good friends, a review of Jackass 3D, pepperoni roll rankings, Japanese trip that was 14-deep, board game night, a music plug, a Twitter milestone, and you know that anything else is always possible. Suit up!



I've never been to a 3D movie before in my life. Yes, true story. Now that I've talked to people recently, some others have said the exact same thing. Enter Jackass 3D. You know I had to watch this joy of a movie, what else would you expect? Whitney and I went in on a Friday night. It was jammed packed at the theater. Movie night this time around was my choice and Whitney wasn't a fan of it, but I have to give her credit for toughing it out and sitting through it. My review? Excellent. I can't say enough about it. If you're into that lewd and rude comedy, this is right up your alley. For the youngsters, it's definitely not something you want to watch on family movie night with the whole clan together. However, just about everyone I've talked to has loved it.

The movie definitely has segments that are so over the top, but I'm the type that doesn't get offended by a whole lot, so I liked that aspect. When people in the theater are clapping on certain scenes, you know you have something worth checking out. The glasses aspect was better than I figured. I thought we'd get a pair of the 1980s style cheap bendy red and blue glasses. Nope, you get a pair that makes you look like Vinny of Jersey Shore when you put them on. The first few minutes, I thought I'd get car sick from this (movie sick?). That had me worried, but it wasn't a problem. I really enjoyed the 3D configuration. Not sure I'd want a ton of movies like that, but it was fun. These types of movies with no plot are hard to give a ranking to. Just to do it, I'm giving it 7.9 Wee-Man midgets out of 10 and I feel it has a good re-watchability factor. Go see it if you already haven't.



Wedding action in Fairmont. Abby and Pat's wedding was our latest one to hit up and pretty much half of our town was there. When your whole gang is there, it makes for a really good time. Who would've thought if you asked me years ago that I'd be saying that I don't mind going to some weddings? At least not in one like the setup they had, I thought it turned out very well. I know all girls love weddings regardless, but the guys here enjoyed things just as much. Abby, everyone loved your dress like we told you, even people who have no clue on that stuff like myself. Pat, nice touch with the fire department presentations.

One of my favorite things of the wedding and this goes to show my taste of junk food was the cake. They had a cake from Bonnie Belle's (a local shop that rules) that was out of this world. It wasn't your normal plain wedding cake, those to me are boring. This one had tons of chocolate drizzled all on top plus all the icing you could handle. My kind of cake! The Shinnston Flag Football League was highly represented as players from the Giants, Raiders, and Chargers were all in attendance. It was a game day and we were all joking how bad we wanted to be on the field that day, but we rocked it out wedding style on 10-10-10. A few other things I liked at the wedding was that one of the table munch food was kettlecorn. Now we're talking! Sign me up for some kettlecorn anytime. Then later in the night they ran karaoke and that was classic. Some really good performances out there namely from Pat, Jeremiah, and Garth as ones I enjoyed. My favorite karaoke guy in the area though goes without saying, Danny Stout for those who know him. He brought his A-game and only did one song, but delivered.



Round up the crew. We rocked it out, 14-deep and had a quality night out at Shogun recently. There's never a bad time to eat Japanese if you ask my opinion. Plus we had our favorite hibachi grill master at our table and he's a total riot. The Shogun regulars know the exact guy I'm talking about. We had him launching food at people we knew at another table and he just was goofing off and doing his thing. I eat sushi a good bit here (surprise to some, but it's awesome), but tonight I went with the hibachi style and rolled with filet and scallops as my main course. Scallops are very underrated in my book.

After the Shogun extravaganza, it was off to Kari and Matty Cakes' with 12 of the 14 that ate with us showing up. The first part of the night, the guys went to the man cave and chilled out with college football games and baseball. How can you go wrong with that? I'm a big fan of the setup of their house, it worked out great. Late into the night, the board games were busted out. Scattergories it was, as that's a big favorite of a lot of our crew on board game night. Cork is usually the man at this one, but luckily I escaped and ended up that night's champion by winning by one point. This game doesn't get enough love. It's been around a while, but one of my picks for sure. We're due for Monopoly though.



Pepperoni roll time. A West Virginia staple. As I've always mentioned over the years, if you're from out of the area and haven't tried, you're don't know the taste you're missing. I know it sounds simple, but there's an art to it and you get the best there is in my area. If you've never seen Bob Heffner's page, this could help you out: http://www.bobheffner.com/pepperoniroll/index.htm. Now it's time for me to unveil my personal rankings on which are truly the best. You really can't pick a bad one I don't think, but these are the elite of the elite. Here is the top 6 in my mind:

1. D'Annunzio's: North View's finest landmark. If you pick these bad boys up when they're fresh and hot, look out, yum! Great bread and they put big sticks of pepperoni in there. My favorites. http://www.dannunziosbread.com

2. Colasessano's: I wasn't sure how to put them into the rankings. These are the only ones of the bunch that aren't the basic style of roll and these come loaded up with cheese, peppers, sauce and are prepared hot. This place is legendary and they've branched out to have several shops now. http://www.colasessanos.com

3. Fairmont Country Club Bakery. The original, as stated by a lot of people around here. When I was in college at Fairmont State, I'd love to know the number of these I ate during my time there. I've talked to a lot of people who rank them #1 and I wouldn't have a problem with that argument one bit. These ranks are all so close that it can be switched around in a second. These are very very good, go get em. http://www.bobheffner.com/pepperoniroll/history.htm

4. Tomaro's: The pride of Glen Elk (Clarksburg suburb for the out of area crew). Numerous people are all about going here early in the morning to pick up some steaming fresh pepperoni rolls. They also make a mean loaf of Italian bread if that helps your decision making process.

5. Marty's: Originally in the mean streets of Meadowbrook, West Virginia, they've since moved to Clarksburg in the Quiet Dell region. They may have my favorite actual pepperoni inside of anyone on this list. They used to be located across from my grandpa and uncle's store, so I grew up on these. http://www.martysbakery.com

6. Abruzzino's: It's Shinnston time! Well, technically Gypsy (home of the Gypsy Hill Giants), but close enough. I go by this place every single day on my way to work. As far as a softness and freshness of bread, they may be at the top if we're ranking solely on that. I like their rolls a lot, but the thing that didn't put them higher in my book is that they don't use the stick pepperoni. They go with the sliced and thin style instead. Their cheese versions get a thumbs up. It's crazy how fast these things sell at the Shinnston Pool during the summer.



Since I have too much time on my hands, I hit a Twitter landmark on Wednesday night. If you aren't on there already, I hit 3,000 tweets. I'm not sure if that's worth mentioning, but apparently I made it to the Hall of Fame, Pete Rose style. Corndog (http://twitter.com/corndogtaylor) writes this one, "Congrats Tweet King!" I'm not sure about all of that, but I know I really enjoy it. I know when I first started, I was hesitant and didn't think it'd be too exciting. Now? I'm ate up like no other and at the moment, I like it much better than Facebook, even though they're two different types of animals. Maybe it wouldn't be as great if you didn't have a lot of your gang on there to go back and forth with, but between my buddies and the celebrities you can follow, it seems like almost everyone has been jumping on board, not to mention my Tuesday morning chats with Dick Vitale. That leads into a great time to give a few random Twitter plugs. Mine if you already didn't have it is http://twitter.com/Bird33WV.

4 Random Twitter Plugs:

1. http://twitter.com/mauroranallo One of the best MMA announcers on the planet and great wrestling knowledge as well.

2. http://twitter.com/CRnote33 Finally, we have Clark Riley on board. Add The Governor as one of your followers.

3. http://twitter.com/kliu82 Toronto's very own TMac. One of the original members of #basketball and an all around good dude.

4. http://twitter.com/StephenCurry30 If you didn't get a chance to see Steph Curry last season in his rookie year with the Golden State Warriors, you straight up missed out. This year you need to do yourself a favor and watch a star in the making, should be fun as he becomes one of the NBA's elite.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Most people probably won't care, but since last night was the finale of Jersey Shore, Season 2, why not honor it. By the way, January 6th (my birthday) will be the day that Season 3 starts up. This is from the Bingo Players with their Jersey Shore mix. "Crocodiles gonna eat me yeahhh!"



3 Quick Thangs:

1. A disappointing stat now that the Shinnston Flag Football League's regular season is over: Over the past two seasons, I've been on winless teams. Last year with The Green Machine and this year with the Gypsy Hill Giants. The weird thing is that we had pretty good talent each year and could never put it together for the big W. Regardless, I love being a big part of this league and it gets better each year. http://sites.google.com/site/shinnstonflagfootballleague. Also, we just put up the season awards polls today on the message board: http://shinnstonflagleague.proboards.com

2. Quick facts time! Each year there are more than 40,000 toilet injuries in the US.. 40% of women have hurled footwear at a man.. The inventor of the waffle iron didn't even like waffles.. Non-dairy creamer is flammable.

3. We're bringing this one for the readers. When people give suggestions, we like to at least consider all aspects. Long-time blog reader Jenn Raines wanted to know if I'd put in her fiance's music page. Andy is really talented and has started to make a pretty good name for himself. I'm impressed by his version of the covers from I Alone and his unique twist to Poker Face. Check it out in his widget here that I have pasted, it comes highly recommended:

"It's T-Shirttttt Timeeeeee!"

Today's blog title is sparked off by the recent Jersey Shore quote that you can't keep out of your head. You know you're saying that when you get dressed in the mornings, don't lie. Search for it if you haven't seen those scenes yet. Anyways, time to start moving with this project at hand..



Yes, the blog is still existing. Sometimes I have to blow dust off of it every few weeks, but I get it rockin' when you least expect it. That's what I'm about to do since the last time we talked. What will go down in this issue? You get the Shinnston Frontier Days bash, elimination dinner money, a bachelor party, celebrities tweeting to me, Neti Pot, NBA, weird facts, several other things, and something about how cookies can hurt. Some people have even been known to print off copies of this and take it to the bathroom with them for reading material. Whatever works, I'm glad that you're bored enough (or maybe even slightly entertained by the writings) that you keep coming back to crave more action. Here we go!

Surprise to some, or probably actually none, I've never been to an elimination dinner before in my life. There's always a first for everything, right? Well, hopefully a first for everything except for trying heroin, seeing Mo'Nique naked, or becoming a meth head, but you get the point. Whitney and I figured we'd try it out and hit up the Nutter Fort Fire Department's deal they had at the newly remodeled 4-H building. If anyone hasn't been there since they've spiffed it up, it's pretty impressive. On the money side of things, I lasted fairly long amongst our table, but close doesn't count. Whitney lasted a good while longer into the night with her number, but the only one on our table to win any money was Timmy. He was drawn as one of the 'every 25th number' gets $100. Once your number gets pulled, the night is basically over. It's fun to BS around with people and the food was good, but outside of that, you are there for one reason and one reason only, money. I guess the people that drink love that aspect of it, but all the alcohol you can drink doesn't pertain to me. Why can't they have an all you can eat lobster, all you can eat Skittles, or even all the Call of Duty you can play till your eyes bug out? Oooh, speaking of Call of Duty, 11-9-10 can't get here fast enough!



After the elimination dinner, later that night we head back to Shinnston for another bash. This was Pat's bachelor party at The Moose. It seemed like half of Shinnston was there and most of our crew, so that was an awesome time. I'm not a bar guy at all, but when your entire bunch is around, that makes things a lot better. Plus, when I got to mix in some table shuffleboard to go along with the action, of course I'm in. My defining victory was teaming up with Clark as we took down the legend of shuffleboard, Tosh (not Tosh.0 style) and A-Train. Those two held the table most of the night. After playing, I came to the realization that one day I'll need a shuffleboard table in my house. Everyone was having a great time, no knuckleheads around to cause any ruckus since we all know each other and we ended up leaving around 3:00 in the morning. I got to do my community duty as one of the DDs of the night (don't confuse this with Maryse of WWE fame) by driving some to them home safe and sound.

Another bonus was that we had a handful of the Shinnston Flag Football League members there that night. As I type this, the Giants playoff hopes were given a big blister against the North View Lions. We were up 28-12 for those who didn't see my Facebook post after the game and ended up blowing things in the second half. The North View boys always get my respect, some good dudes on that team, so I had to tip the hat in their direction for a great battle and nice comeback. Throughout the night, you could hear Clay Riley and Harmer shouting out for the glory calls of Raider Nation, since obviously they play for the Raiders. Clay with broken ribs and Harmer with a broken finger and they still play through it. I can't make this stuff up, they're animals. Tons of injuries in this league, but it doesn't stop these guys one bit. Also, to the Riley clan, some great words of wisdom you brought late into the wee hours of the night. It's always a blast and let's try to set up that big road trip we were talking about, I'm easy to plan around, you know I'm always good for a trip.



I've talked about this a while back in the blog before, but why not revisit an old topic, but it's a goody. My sinuses are beyond brutal. I get sinus infections left and right for those who know me, just something I've always had to deal with. The pressure I get in my eye and face region, not fun when they break out. I'm not a huge medicine guy unless it's really necessary, I try not to rely on loading up on that as a crutch, but I do have some of my favorite sinus medicine that I go to. It doesn't always work though. One option that isn't medicine is what is called a Neti Pot. Some have seen these before, some have maybe even tried one before, while others are asking, what in the world is this idiot talking about? I'm about to break it down for the confused folk.

Picture a miniature tea pot. You warm up some distilled water, throw in this sinus powder mix that comes with the kit and stir it up. Then you put the pot's end up one nostril while you open your mouth. Yes, stay with me. I know it sounds utterly wacky, but don't knock it till you've tried it. You then tilt your head and in a matter of time, water is going to be spouting out the other side of your nose. Then you do the opposite, with the other nostril and so forth until the pot is emptied. It's not the most pleasant feeling, but I stand by this thing for sure. Whitney got to watch me try it the other night, her first time seeing it and she was probably a bit weirded out seeing junk pour out of me, my eyes watering, and me spitting up who knows what. After I cleaned up, bam, I could breathe again, it's the magic in me. I promise you it's perfectly safe. Some girls have told me they saw it on Oprah. I guess if it's on Oprah, it's in the mainstream, so go get yourselves one of these bad boys, they've been out for a good while. An update, on Tuesday evening I went to the docs and they said I had a pretty bad sinus infection, just like I knew all along since I get them too much. I got a shot in the hip and by the time I left the room, it was tough to walk, must've done the job.



Time to stay in the big town. Last week, town was booming as only my town can. It's the city of dreams. Or city of who knows what, but for some odd reason, I love it here. Not much ever goes on, but it has a place in everyone's heart who lives here. How was town booming though? Enter the Shinnston Frontier Days celebration that lasts almost an entire week. The carnies come in to set up shop, do their rides and games for the kiddies (no, not in that way you sickos), and local vendors come in to sell their food, albeit overpriced. How can you pass up dirty fair food though? The answer? You can't, that's how. Just like at the recent Tally Rally in Clarksburg, my stop at this one was to our buddies at Demus who served up a beast of a tally sausage sandwich. They don't shortchange you and it's a massive hoagie with hot sausage, peppers, cheese, and sauce. Loaded up and well worth it in my mind, it didn't disappoint. This year I didn't get a chance to try DeMarco's on Saturday, as I heard theirs were even better. As a part of it, local singers and entertainers from all walks of life performed on the American Idol stage. Ryan Seacrest was supposed to be there, but he decided against taking a beatdown from some of Shinnston's finest and stayed home, scared of the mean streets. A big thanks goes out to blog reader Nate Drain for bringing life back into the town. He's really motivated and has gotten a lot of people and groups involved to spice up the area. Your work around town doesn't go unnoticed man, I've told you that before, keep it up!

I'll throw this one towards the end since it's probably not a big deal to anyone else other than the Twitter world. Then again, that's a good bit of people, so hard to tell, but I like to amuse myself. I don't have to mention again how hooked I am with Twitter, I think I've talked about it in every recent blog, it's a drug. I'll call it a brush with greatness, although not in person. Have you ever had celebrities tweet back to you? I've gotten a list from some of my boys and it happens from time to time, although not too often for bums like ourselves. My list is small, but hopefully it grows. Last week with my wrestling trivia knowledge to show my dorky side, I had to prove another fan wrong on the whereabouts of Mick Foley's first professional match. The other guy said Poca, West Virginia, when in fact it was in Clarksburg and I was in person for that as a little kid at the Nathan Goff Armory. Foley wrote back and claimed I was correct. As a side note, Foley's new book, Countdown to Lockdown came out a few days ago and is very good as I've already started it.



The other brush is Dick Vitale. Every Tuesday, Dickie V is on the Mike & Mike Show at 7:15, ESPN and ESPN Radio. That's during my drive to work, so I almost always catch it. I'm a big Dickie V guy, although some people aren't his biggest fans, his passion for sports I've always enjoyed. He did a baseball segment this past week and is a big Tampa Bay Rays fan, which only a handful of people can say, even though they have a really good team. Anyways, he broke down his season awards and predicted what he thought would go down during the playoffs. He's replied to my tweets before, but this most recent time he sent two things to me that morning. That's three replied tweets. Yes, that means practically nothing to some, I know that. But I get a kick out of it regardless.

As Corndog (http://twitter.com/corndogtaylor) said after the morning chat with Dickie V: "@Bird33WV is becoming friends with @dickiev via twitter. thats awesome." Corndog also has a daily morning question he posts that all of our gang seems to like a lot that we get going with our coffee. If you want in on some of that, then what are you waiting for? Get in there and follow him. He recently hit the 1000 tweet plateau, so be sure to congratulate him on that once you click the follow button. Five random accounts that I'm going to plug in which I follow that you may want to check out: @SiMZiLa13 (Sims of WV fame), @GarrettQD (NeonTheon), @lordsofpain (my favorite wrestling website, http://lordsofpain.net/index2.html), @StripclubPapst (Dom in Germany), and @LDAngeli (Sign Guy Dudley of the original ECW). No rhyme or reason to why I picked those five, but they're this week's worthy winners. For the computer illiterate, remember to type twitter.com before those names, taking out the @.



Speaking of Twitter, how does everyone like the "new" Twitter? It's just an upgrade more or less, the house was remodeled. I really like the web setup of it, but I think most people use it more on their phones now than an actual computer. I use both and have talked about the Echofon version I use on my iPhone. That version to me is pretty similar to what Twitter's "new" web version is like and it's really handy and easier to use. One of my favorite features and Echofon has had this, is that you can finally get a shortcut once you begin to type a name. After the @ symbol, and a few letters after, bang, it's inserted to the person you want. That's just a small feature, plus the sidebox showing all of your info rather than having to click and go to a different page. It's all there for you. One more mention on the phones. Download Words Free, it's a Scrabble setup in real-time. It's addicting and you can make your move in a matter of minutes or if you're busy, the game will hold with you and your buddy till you go again later in the day. My name on there is Bird33WV.

Basketball is in the air and I'm probably talking to a wall for this paragraph. NBA preseason has already started and everyone knows that's one of the things I absolutely live for. Most people around here and I guess most in the general population aren't the biggest NBA fans or care one ounce about it. I may watch more just in the preseason than a lot of people will watch in the regular season. People ask me all the time how I can be that into the NBA as they'd much rather pick college ball or even another sport. Mix in the Celtics who I bow down to and fantasy basketball and that's a good combo. I've already been into hardcore fantasy prep mode, just something I enjoy doing with my time. I guess that's not saying a lot, but I always say I'm in NBA mode 24/7, 365. October 24th is a huge day though on my calender. Earlier that afternoon, it's the infamous EDDFL Draft. That is a 12-man effort and a live draft. It doesn't get any better than a live, in-person draft with 12 of the areas finest. Plus, we always order a big draft board from FJ Fantasy Sports. I've dealt with this company for a long time and they're nothing but the best. If you've never held a draft with a board, you're missing out, I'm serious. Their prices are good and their service is top notch. Cheap plug time, yes, so check out their place at: http://www.fjfantasy.com and tell em the EDDFL in WV sent ya. Also on the 24th, that evening is the A#BA online draft that goes 20 members deep. It's not for the weak at heart, you better know your stuff to even survive in this one and I don't say that lightly. I'll of course break things down as the season goes, if not only for my own amusement.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Cookies can hurt.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. In the ask someone if they have anything to contribute to the blog, TheAnswer stepped up. He gives us this one: On Tuesday, it marked 13 years ago to the day that wrestler Brian Pillman passed away. One of the most underrated wrestlers and promo guys of all time. It's a shame the career that Pillman could've had if he didn't screw it up with drugs. He still had a nice one, RIP.

2. In the freaky stats category, this kid in Illinois went nutty last weekend in his football game. Kapri Bibbs, a Colorado State commit, had a whopping 520 yards rushing on 39 carries with 7 touchdowns. Really? That's video game stuff. Only one of his touchdowns came from less than 30 yards and four of them came from at least 50. Sick.

3. Facts to feast on as you finish up your reading material: A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.. A rat can last longer without water than a camel.. Crickets hear through their knees.. Only female mosquitoes bite.

"It is hard to take you seriously when you're a grown woman with a Kermit purse."

Our topic this time around comes from The_Freak, he's getting all the credit on this one.



It's been a busy last few weeks. I've been places near and far. Well, mainly all near, none too far away to make it seem like I was outside of the mean streets for a while. Hopefully everyone has been enjoying the fall season, football beginning, and fair and festival time. What does this edition hold for the readers? We'll go over the Tally Rally, Jackson's Mill Jubilee, fantasy football, Gatorade, a Dougie dance gone wrong, Tanger Outlets, movie review, and reality TV just to name a handful.

I'll bounce back and forth on dates here. The Saturday of Labor Day Weekend I hit up the Tally Rally with Whitney. The Italian Heritage Festival if you will, it's a festivus for the rest of us. There wouldn't happen to be any of my fellow Italians at this place would there? Nah, who heard of such a thing. Anyways, the food here is a key reason people go, it's about as good as it gets. The stop we did this year was by getting Demus' hot tally sausage sandwiches. They were $8, but worth every bit of it. It was a lot bigger than a regular hoagie style in our area and was loaded up with tons of cheese, sauce, and peppers. I wish I could've tried more food that night, just so much to choose from. Another hit are the frittis, people make a killing off of these. Mom made these on Sunday for everyone, so we didn't have to worry about it on Saturday night.



Anyone and everyone was there that night. We joked that 90% of the flag football league were there in the streets. I even ran into a good bit of free agents making their push to get onto a team. Requests to hype it up online to get players signed and I was on a mission. You'd take two steps and you'd run into someone coming up to you, it was like that the whole time. A little crowded, but that's how it always is and comes with the territory. Around 11:00, the cops started to shut down the streets, which I thought was early. You could still be out there, just not in the middle of the street. That's when the crowds migrated to the bars and basically you're stuffing the entire late night festival crowd into two bars. I'm not a bar guy as everyone knows, but I'll make an appearance every so often, even if I don't drink. Kathy was so shocked she had to get a picture of me in one just to have proof. PJ Kelly's was so packed that you couldn't even move. We hung there with our crew for a bit, but figured since you didn't have room to breathe, that there would be better options at the next stop. Let's head down to The Ordinary. My first time in this place at night, I only remembered it as a restaurant back in the day however long that was, so that goes to show you. They were packed, but it wasn't to a level that it was rough.

Yeah, I'm getting to my story. If you read my Facebook post that night, you'll know where I'm going. The Tally Rally has always been infamous for drunken idiots getting into fights. It never fails and a lot of the same people are in them every year. As an onlooker, you see some sights. That night, I heard someone yell on the street that there was a fight. You know what my next move was. I'm going to get a little closer to see what's causing all the ruckus. As soon as I get there in my ringside seat, this Kanye West look-a-like rocks a big dude something awful. I compared it to Ronnie of Jersey Shore. It was the one hitter quitter, one shot and he was done. It was so bad that the dude was laying on concrete, blood pouring out from the back of his head, and he was out cold. Soon, you had the ambulance roll through and police all over. They had him laying on the ground for about 20 minutes until they put him in. I never did find out what it was over, but it was pretty intense and that was the excitement of the night.



Movie review and here we go. We were due for a theater trip as we've been slacking as of late. Never fear, I'm back to give another quick review. The movie in question? Easy A. We went to a Friday night showing at 9:25 at Meadowbrook. I was surprised at how packed it was for this movie, but apparently a lot of people were down for the action. Emma Stone is in this one and it also features a lot of other decent names in the flick. Who else? Amanda Bynes, Patricia Clarkson, Cam Gigandet, and Lisa Kudrow to name some, Stone looks great in this one for whatever that is worth to your eyes. Plus, she plays her role very well. Maybe my favorite character of the movie was the guy that played her dad, Stanley Tucci. I remembered him from The Lovely Bones which if you've been reading along, you know that I couldn't stand that movie. He played his role perfectly in that one though and this one he did here as well, in a totally different character. He had me cracking up good. It has a good plot to it and it isn't an in-depth movie that is going to have your brain filled with knowledge, but it's worth watching. If you want a good funny movie, this is for you. Early reports on IMDB has it at a 7.7 out of 10 as I type this up. The final grade I'm giving this beast? 7.0 tubs of buttery popcorn out of 10.

Lately it's been a tradition to hit up the Jackson's Mill Jubilee. I've written about this a lot in the past when I go over Labor Day Weekend, so you probably know a lot of what I'm going to say if you've been reading for a while. Each year, they claim it may be their last year because they're losing money, etc. Yet they always get it going, but they don't really advertise it as well as they should in my opinion. The food alone is enough to get me there. This trip I made with Whitney and my parents. It didn't seem like as much action as normal here, the past few years have been pretty low key. The back section if you're familiar with the music area, they had no vendors like in the past, so it was a smaller setup.



I do like how wide open their format is though. It's never overcrowded that you're literally walking right on top of someone. The main place we always hit up is Madia's and we tear into their Italian rib eye sandwiches. Once again, they delivered and it was top notch. Try their stuff if you're ever at a location they are serving at, I wouldn't steer you in the wrong direction with food. I also have to buy off the kettle corn lady, she doesn't mess around, doing it old school style. I got a bag about as big as my body for $4. I liked the experience, but I'm not sure the rest of the crew was big on the idea. Dad says this year may have been his last and he's usually a big fan of the Jubilee. We'll see what goes down.

Labor Day itself was a trip to Washington, Pennsylvania. Every other month, Whitney and I usually try to hit up Tanger Outlets. Just a weird schedule we have. It's not a bad drive from home and I've always recommended it up there. It wasn't nearly as packed as I'd expect since it was a holiday and everyone was having crazy sales. Then again, when do they not have crazy sales up there it seems? I didn't see any Ronnie punches thrown that day, maybe that will come on Black Friday, although I've only done that one time ever. I did that with the Posey once and it was a madhouse. I wanted to try it out once just to say I did. Watching the women go at it, push each other around for these items was awesome. At Tanger, it's a new place and very clean. Plus their store selection is worth the trip alone. Check it out if you haven't yet.



My last fantasy football draft of the year was completed a few Mondays ago. The site was at Ozzie's house which is a sight to see. Site and sight? Yep. This league has been going on for a while and is ran by Commish P. There's ten of us involved and I always like to give a roll call, whether you're interested or not, it's good for blog purposes. Aside from Commish P, we have Sims (http://twitter.com/SiMZiLa13), Bart (http://twitter.com/WESTFORKRAVENS), Ozzie, Mudcat, Pill, Matty Cakes, Maulberry, Fortney, and myself. Now time to unveil yourrrrr 2010 E-Town Junkies!

QB: Tony Romo - Dallas
QB: Matt Stafford - Detroit
QB: Jimmy Clausen - Carolina

RB: Maurice Jones-Drew - Jacksonville
RB: Ryan Grant - Green Bay (Peyton Hillis - Cleveland)
RB: Jahvid Best - Detroit
RB: Michael Bush - Oakland
RB: Steve Slaton - Houston

WR: Michael Crabtree - San Francisco
WR: Stevie Breaston - Arizona
WR: Jeremy Maclin - Philadelphia
WR: Mo Massaquoi - Cleveland
WR: Lou Murphy - Oakland
WR: DeMaryius Thomas - Denver
WR: Earl Bennett - Chicago (Nate Washington - Tennessee)

TE: Kellen Winslow - Tampa Bay
TE: John Carlson - Seattle

K: Stephen Gostkowski - New England

D: New York Giants
D: Buffalo Bills



I really like my quarterback and running back units. I think I'm deep on RBs for sure. Plus, we have the option in this league to start three RBs (2 for sure and we have a flex spot for a RB/WR/TE). Three of my RBs are solid, I'll get nice production there. Jones-Drew is ready to rock unless his knee explodes, Grant is behind a nice team and will get carries, while I look for big things out of Best. (After I wrote this section, Ryan Grant decides to get hurt, doh! So I picked up Hillis.) I actually think the Lions will be halfway decent this season, but we'll see. Mike Bush is banged up, but I can't see him not getting the bulk once they see that McFadden probably can't do it. I'm insanely young on my wideouts. This is where I'm hoping some potential rises through and I get a steal out of someone. If Crabtree isn't a knucklehead with his ego, which is very possible, he has a chance to be a stud. I look for Breaston to get some nice single coverages in Boldin's old spot since everyone keys in on Fitzgerald. Several of these guys I also have on my A#FL team that I wrote about recently. We'll see what the future holds for these youngsters.

Time for another family party, these never get old. Big Max had his 2nd birthday last Saturday and it was eats galore. First off, Gayle doesn't mess around when he makes his homemade pizzas. He was making them all night and was a machine at it. Ozzie alone put down 12 or 13 pieces, so props to him for being a beast with that. Mix in some football watching and this was during the Notre Dame game against Michigan. I've written about that already before in other outlets, but I can't be crazy disappointed over the performance of the Irish. Offensively, I liked their system as it's straight hurry up. When Crist got banged up, the backups didn't have a clue, deer looking into headlights look. I think they'll do fine, but nothing like the 9 wins a lot of people on TV have predicted, I'm realistic. I am a Kelly fan though. Rich Rod looks to have his system in shape here, we'll see if this is the year or if he's still on the hotseat. Denard Robinson, this kid is going to be something special on the college level. That offense they run is super fast. It was interesting that day in our area of the people that hate both Notre Dame and Michigan and who they were rooting for. Either that or hoping they played to a tie battle to the death. The end of the night featured storytelling of our family from years past and those stories have to be heard to believed. I promise you they're all true if you've heard some of them. Thanks to Jill and Gayle for having a big successful bash.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: It's probably not the greatest idea to try to Dougie in the middle a street with moving traffic. If you do, watch out for the ice cream trucks.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. 97 days till Christmas as of Saturday.

2. Here's some facts on Gatorade, just because I drink tons of it. 1998 was the year they switched from glass to plastic bottles.. 26 flavors have been discontinued since Gatorade's founding in 1967.. 1985 was the first Gatorade bath, done by Jim Burt of the football Giants to coach Bill Parcells.

3. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and Great Britain in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.

Wallace Wrecks, Gypsy Hill Giants, & 90210 Day

Here we go. Let's call this the Labor Day edition. I know technically we're not at the date yet, but from here on out I like to say that fall is finally here. Too many 90+ degree days for me this summer, but if that's the worst thing I have to complain about, then I should just stay quiet. We have football here and some people have even started the countdown to Christmas. I heard from someone the other day that they know people who have a majority of their Christmas shopping already finished. Really now? I respect that they get it done early, but that's a little TOO early. To each their own and I'm a guy that absolutely loves Christmas. Anyways, it's nowhere near that time yet, we need to get into this week's topics at hand. What do we have? We have softball action, The Situation dancing, bashing my Jeep Cherokee into a moving truck, The Last Song review, flag football, and a whole lot more.



I've written a lot over the years how I'm not the world's greatest driver. I'm sure I'm in the bottom percentage out there and my buddies will back my claims up of that. Still, I (knock on wood) haven't had wrecks or at least of the major kind. Recently while in the mean streets of Wallace, West Virginia, it went down. I was backing out of the outfield side of the softball field road and had a blind spot. I didn't think much of it and just kept backing like I owned the place. Behind me was a small and narrow road. I hear a horn blow and the next I know I'm backing straight into this truck going down the road, tearing up his passenger side door and side. I ended up messing up my bumper pretty good, part of the quarter panel, and tore my light casing up.

It was all my fault and I couldn't pull some BS lie to act like it wasn't at the time. That's not my style anyways. Luckily, the dude I hit was drama free and there were no issues. We were in an area with no cell service. Yes, those exist still, imagine that. We had to knock on a local's door to use his house phone in order to phone the accident in. We sort of joked about it and not long after, Cork drives down for the softball game and probably knew right away what happened. He wasn't the least bit surprised. The good thing is that is why you pay insurance for, right? I can't cry over it, it is what it is and it's going to be fixed in no time for not much cost to me. Also, my ride is already paid for in full, so I'll just look at it as an extra monthly payment. I'm not in the market this soon, but am at least looking around for another ride down the line. If you had to put a gun to my head right now, I'd pick a blacked out Tahoe, but we'll see what happens.



I called Whitney on my way home to let her know what was up since I was heading to her house later that night. I told her I had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that I played softball great that day. The bad was that I backed into a moving truck. She probably just shook her head at me and like Cork, knew that it wouldn't be any shock to anyone. Back to softball though, if you've been reading along in the blogs for a while, you'll know the last Saturday of August we venture way out to Wallace. It's not really that far away from home, but it just seems like it is once you drive in that direction. It's an annual tradition for Cork's family to have a big reunion and to get the ball field rocking. I always go and have a blast, plus the food they have is top quality. As an added bonus, the church next to the field had a thing going on that evening where they had a band going. I was playing center field and right behind me the band was jamming as we played. That was a pretty good touch and I was rocking out while playing defense. And another mark on my side is that I got on base every time over the span of two games, not too shabby. It must've been all those wins that Gutta Connection put up over the summer that had Cork and myself doing our thing.

I've never watched much Dancing With The Stars before, but it seems that I may jump into it soon. Why's that? The Situation of Jersey Shore fame is supposedly going to be on the latest cast and you know I'm all about that. I'll give it a try for sure just due to him being on it to see what happens. That's also a great marketing tool the show did to offer him a spot because that will potentially get a lot of Shore viewers who might not have watched before (such as myself) to tune in. Some thought that the show was going to be a quick fad and fizzle out quickly, but it's still going strong and the ratings are very high for MTV standards. Season 3 is being filmed as we speak while Season 2 is currently being shown on Thursday nights. The Miami season that's on now has been really good in my opinion, but I know I'm biased anyways. It's a big hit between all of the Lobstah guys (http://ballsempire.com) which features some of the internet's biggest celebrities such as DerekHood, Blahah, DirtyKash, Corndog, Wilbur, The_Freak, and ManDingo just to name a few.



Movie review time. Friday night I went the chick flick route and I've always admitted I'm not above seeing those. Whitney picked The Last Song out of the Redbox machine and I knew she had been wanting to see it, so I was down. For those who are wondering which one this is, it's Miley Cyrus' recent movie. As a sidenote, how can you beat Redbox for just $1? You can't. Well, the only other option is to burn movies from the internet and go that route, but this is option B and it's really handy. I was pleasantly surprised by how good this movie was as it ended up receiving a really high grade from me after the credits rolled. Ironically, as it has happened a lot this summer, IMDB didn't agree with our thoughts. My final grade of this one? I went super high with an 8.9 and feel it's that good. Whitney agreed with my rating there. IMDB? 3.8. Ouch! It's also a big tearjerker if you're one of the weak at heart. If you've seen it, let me know what you thought, one way or another.

"Fly around mothas!" If you keep up with the Shinnston Flag Football League, you'll know those famous words from Commish Bart. The season is underway and I've been jacked up for this for quite a while. Well, the regular season doesn't start until September 5th (Happy Birthday to The Governor himself, Clark Riley), but everyone is zoned in and ready to rock. We've already been through mini-camps and this past weekend we had our preseason week of scrimmages. It's really organized and has talent all across the league that would open some eyes. A ton of the local legends are involved in this thing from roughly the ages of 20 through nearly 40. Our Gypsy Hill Giants are the oldest team in the league, but we're disciplined, have a great line, and still bring athleticism. I've written my season preview that is on the website, so I won't break things down here as well. As I said there, as far as my side goes, offense I can take it or leave it. I'll play some sets, but defense is my home. I've been playing safety and can't wait to roam the middle and stop the bombs from coming anywhere near my territory.



This past Sunday had a packed house at Timbertown Stadium in Lumberport. All teams were present for the preseason battles and it was intense. We had two scrimmages in our Giants jerseys, decked out from head to toe. As my softball strategy, win or lose, I want to look the best out there and our team looks sharp if I must say so myself. Farris ended up with a concussion, it gets fierce down there on the line in the trenches. That's why I stay out of that area as a little dude, I'll keep the secondary on lock. No major injuries thus far though and that's always a great start. Our first scrimmage we beat the kids from Bridgeport. They are probably the youngest team in the league and are a new addition to the league this season. We played excellent in that one and put up a shutout. The second game we played another youthful team (I guess every team is youthful to us, but these are the two youngest out there) and ended up getting beat by the North View Lions. I see a ton of promise from this team. They have that swagger, a bit of ego to go with it and they have been calling people out on the message board. It's good times, but I give my props to those guys, some of my guys I had in Liberty, home of ManDingo, when I subbed back in the day. They have a few guys who can flat out fly, we'll see what happens.

I'm just about done rambling on flag ball. This Sunday, we play the Raiders at 2:30, the second game of the day. They feature one of the best players in the league in Harmer. He had some awesome plays in Sunday's scrimmages, so he's going to be a force to be reckoned with. This team is quick and are manned by a few really good receivers with height to put our shorter secondary to the test. Again, for a cheap plug, visit our league's sites. First, we have the home page at http://sites.google.com/site/shinnstonflagfootballleague. Then we have the message board which has been rockin': http://shinnstonflagleague.proboards.com. Visit them both, you'll not be disapppointed, I can promise you that.



I sent out a tweet and asked my buddies if they had any input this week for the blog. I always like to get people involved just to switch up things and go different directions. We have a few guys who made the worthy cut and here are their exact words..

Answer: "Fun fact of the day. Answer has been to 5 of RAW's 900 episodes. Calculate that percent if u can or want." If you're lost, Monday was the 900th episode of WWE RAW for the wrestling folk out there. http://twitter.com/TheAnswer310

Walz: "Since college football starts tomorrow, throw this quote into the blog from me. I've heard WVU fans say their team will win 10 games this year. Those dumbasses are about as sharp as a pound of wet liver!" As a guy that doesn't root for WVU football, I actually think they're going to be pretty good this year. The running back crew is one of the best in the country I think and the defense all returns. Not sure I'd go 10 wins good though, we'll see. http://twitter.com/MWALZ9

Cork: This one I absolutely love. This is a tweet from Cork as he was venturing the mean streets of Clarksburg, Stealey section for this. The locals, you know the tobacco store that is located in the building that was a former house? The one near Dairy Queen and Vito's. "Taken in Clarksburg tonight. This shows in more ways than one why WV is last in everything. EGADS!!" http://twitpic.com/2k3r1r http://twitter.com/corkzillaWVU

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: An oldie but goodie. This never gets old to me and I'm sure you've seen it before, but you know you want to watch it again. A simple punch to the face.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. For a little random info, the date today is the only time it will happen. Yep, it's 90210 Day. I'm talking about the original series, not the most recent chapter, which I watched as well, but you can't compare to the original. Still lost? 9-2-10, September 2, 2010. In honor, I'll do my best Brandon Walsh impersonation by going back to 1990, greasing back my hair, and acting like a rich boy.

2. I'm itching for a new video game to buy. Why I'm bringing this up in here, who knows, but I like to just ramble even if it's to myself. I know for sure Call of Duty: Black Ops will be in my hand on 11-9-10. That's not even a debate. I may get another to hold me over and have my eye on FIFA Soccer 11 on September 28th. My theory is that there are rarely any bad soccer or hockey games. I'm not a huge "fan" of either sport as far as being dedicated, but video game wise you can't go wrong.

3. Let's end with some more fun facts. Apparently termites eat wood twice as fast when they listen to heavy metal. People really studied that and got paid for it? Amazing. Another? In New York City, approximately 1600 people are bitten by other humans each year, Tyson style. Ok, one more. Rats and horses can't vomit. You heard it here first people, go educate the world and I'll see you at the next blog!

Edge Boggess Spearing From The Boardwalk

Thanks to MrsAnswer for this week's blog title, I dig it a lot. Since I'm an admitted wrestling geek who follows it way too much, MrsAnswer thought this was fitting when she saw my name and then put that connection to it one day. As usual, we like when the readers submit things for the blog to give us some ideas. If you're not a wrestling fan, and that's basically all of you, then just keep reading and forget what I just said there.



Well well well, it's been a while and I know that. We're ready to rock and now that I'm back to work, it's time for a different schedule. I'm pumped to have things cool off a bit, but it still doesn't seem like anything is cooling considering it's early August. This is the earlier I've went to work in the year, but no complaints. I like my job a lot actually, minus waking up early, but if that's my only problem, then I have it made in the shade. TheAnswer said the other day that "I'm about ready for a trip to the Madhouse of Bird33". You can visit him at http://www.twitter.com/TheAnswer310. When people speak, I have to pay attention because this has been a drought. What does this blog have in store for everyone? You get another beach trip rundown, a movie review, flag football, CD reviews, fantasy football, dirty boardwalk time, and who knows what else is gonna go down. With that said, let's get right to it.

I must be a beach bum this year because this is the first time I've ever made two trips during the same summer. Back to Ocean City, Maryland it was. You really can't beat the drive there. 6-6½ hours is all it takes, so you're not miserable driving that distance. Plus, I'm a big fan of OC's setup and know my way around there well, so it's a winning choice and I recommend it if you've never been. For what it's worth, Cork says it is his favorite beach. Along for the ride on this trip was Whitney as it was just the two of us. I did the driving and don't really mind doing that for road trips. It's easier to ride, but I made it safe and sound. Whitney either trusts my driving by now or just accepts that I'll never be great at it, so she's locked in.



Riding along was of course our boy TomTom and Sirius radio. We had a nice mix of radio on the way down and back home. I got a big dose of my rap in, you know I need that on my road trips or I might not be able to function, Hip Hop Nation 40 and Shade 45 to be exact. Also in the rotation was Sirius Hits 1, which is a Top 40 type station. We even threw in some of The Highway in there, channel 60, country redneck style. Yes, I know I don't do hardly any of that, but some I can handle for periods, no biggie there.

As a side fact, it probably wasn't the safest thing that I brought wrestling DVDs along for the ride for when Whitney would fall asleep, but I was prepared. These were the documentary pieces more so than actual matches, so that made the drive safer than the alternative. One of my favorite wrestling DVDs of all time is The Rise and Fall of ECW. I'm obsessed by the original ECW as most know and it's probably my favorite period of wrestling ever, both to attend and watch. I watched all of it on the drive down. One of Cork's tweets while I was making the drive was this gem: "it scares me that you are driving and texting AND watching a dvd, hah". To visit Cork's Twitter, here you go: http://twitter.com/corkzillaWVU. On the way back home, I watched Straight Shootin' with Ron Killings, the artist known now as R-Truth. Probably not the safest thing to play with your phone while driving and watching DVDs, but there ya go, it made for nice drives. Plus the road trip I had random tweets and pics added on out of pure boredom: http://twitter.com/Bird33WV. Seeing a trend with all of these Twitter plugs? That's what I do.



Also along the way, it's never a bad time to do the license plate game on a road trip. It's simple and something about it, even if it is pointless, gets me interested every single time. I found a good app on my phone for it, so that was just an excuse for me to use it on the setup. The total number up and back that I counted ended up being 30 total states. This thing doesn't have Canadian provinces listed, but I did see some of those of course. Everyone has a different style with this it seems, so here's the deal and it might create some discussion. When you are on a trip, do parked cars count? I've heard both opinions on this, but I personally count the parked action too. Ozzie, I know agrees with me on this. The way I look at it, the obscure states are tough to find anyways, so you have to go that extra effort, even looking when you're not in the ride. Some of my favorites on this trip included: Colorado, Maine (Blahah territory), Minnesota, and Washington (Wilbur style). Hawaii was nowhere to be found, imagine that.

The weather on this trip was downright amazing. Once again, like the trip I had to OC a few weeks before this one, we had zero rain during the daytime. That's the most important time for the beach obviously, so we were out there doing our thing with no worries of rain. As Walz would say on his tweets, we showed the waves who was boss. Check out Walz's stuff at http://www.twitter.com/MWALZ9. I like cooler water, but this week seemed much cooler than the other recent trip I made. I liked it though, but one day a lifeguard said the water was 66 degrees. I believed it too, but it didn't keep us out of it by any means. The day after that, things warmed up in the water and it was fine. Cool, verging on cold, but that's definitely more refreshing than pool water that is as warm as wizz or however the saying goes.



Josh and Cill came down the day after we got there and stayed in the same hotel. We got to hang with them on the beach everyday and hit up some places with them at night. It worked out great and we had a blast with those two, so no complaints here. One of my favorite things to do at the beach is just to people watch on the boardwalk. Luckily, we were right on the boardwalk this time. Neither of us had ever stayed on the boardwalk before, so we were down to try it out. The place we stayed at I'd highly recommend. Safari Motel on 13th Street, it's oceanfront and was super clean. The staff went out of their way to make sure we had a great stay. If you know of OC, we were at the place with the infamous gorilla on the 4th floor balcony. That's the floor we stayed on, so that's the balcony we got to rock and people watch. We didn't see Ronnie roid rage and claim out, "One shot kid! One shot!", but it was still an entertaining experience. Speaking of the Shore clan, when we had our Shore shirts on one day, so many people kept asking us if we were from Jersey. You couldn't tell we sounded like hicks? Who knows, but we got a kick out of that.

I'll end with eats and I'm always down for some quality eating. As usual on this trip, I had to hit up my favorite place there, The Bonfire. I've talked about that before. Another place we enjoyed was Yokozuna, not to be confused with the former WWE Champion, rest in peace. This was a sushi house and all four of us hit this one up. The prices really weren't that much crazier than home, and I've quickly turned into a big sushi fan. This place is at the Gold Coast Mall, 114th Street. I'd recommend each of these. Those were my big two places, but we didn't have any bad food the entire stay. Thanks to Whitney's Grandma Lil, she loaded us up with tons of homemade pepperoni rolls. That was our beach food everyday and we could've sold those things down there and made a killing. The fellow West Virginians know what I'm talking about there. Mix all of that in with some dirty, greasy boardwalk food and you feel like a fat boy. Big props to Candy Kitchen. These stores are like a Waffle House in the south, you see them every two steps. Between the four of us, they loaded up on business that we gave them on the trip. Candy is one of my weaknesses, but I could have more addicting vices.



Movie time and this week we feature Charlie St Cloud. Yes, not a typical blood and guts guy movie, but I was down, so I went to see the action with Whitney. I wasn't sure if it'd be much of a movie or not, but you never know till you give it a try. Surprisingly, it ended up being a good movie. It was a very slow movie as far as movement, but that was probably my only complaint. The first part could've been a little shorter, but the last half hour was great. I'll warn people that it's a tearjerker, so this one may test your abilities to hold it in. IMDB at the moment has it at a rough 4.8. Dang, hard judges out there! Aside from Efron as the main star for the reason the chicks want to go see it, you also had Ray Liotta and Kim Basinger as other names. I also was surprised at Efron's age. Dude is gonna be 23 in October. My final grade? I'm dropping a big 7.7 on your heads for this movie, it's a good watch.

Football is here, so I'm going to break things down into several subtopics. First, we'll tackle (no pun intended) some flag style. That's right, the Shinnston Flag Football League returns! For those in the league last year, you know it was a great time. Plus, we also did our thing on the website as well as the message board. I'm all about message board ramblings, so that has me written all over it. This season, I signed my contract with the Gypsy Hill Giants. You can't go wrong with a team based out of Gypsy Hill, that equals toughness times twenty. The G-Men have a solid roster forming, so it should be a fun year. I played for the Green Machine last season. We had some crazy athleticism out there, at one point having the most college athletes, but it didn't mesh well and we got rocked, I won't lie. The crew we have this year, I'm just as excited about. Myself personally, I'm just ready to rock out some secondary play. This old man still has his quickness and endurance, hopefully that sticks with me for a bit longer. It's always fun to see who has zero cardio shape, even though they may have the athleticism, this league will test those types. I like playing defense much more than offense. It's definitely a speed game, but our lineman aren't left out in the hunt. If you want to get in the trenches, these guys are bringing some serious punishment. They literally get to bust each other up and blood will be a flying. Hopefully this year doesn't have many injuries because last season had quite a few, namely Big E Ferris' ACL tearing which was rough to see in person. Most of you have seen updated through Facebook already thanks to my posts and Commissioner Bart doing his thing, but I'll be sure to provide commentary as we go. Tickets are already on sale now. Come see the games at Lumberport Middle School's football field, it's Timbertown ready. Visit the league website at https://sites.google.com/site/shinnstonflagfootballleague and our message board at http://shinnstonflagleague.proboards.com. If that's not enough, we even have a Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SFLTweet2010.



Speaking of football, let's now focus on fantasy football. This year I'm going to be in three fantasy leagues. I don't like being in a ton, that way you can give focus to just a few and really concentrate. The guys that end up doing that, in my opinion, don't put as much effort into the individual league if it's too much to handle. On the NFL side of things, I'm in the infamous A#FL that consists of 18 of the internet's finest. This is ran by Commish Uncle Wilbur as he's one of the quality people out there. Wilbur is also a regular reader and contributor to this very blog, so it's much appreciated. That league is already drafted and I'll post my roster in a second, not that you care. The second league I'm in is Shinnston Fantasy Football. Our draft for that is on Monday, September 6th. This is a super rare case that I won't be watching wrestling live as it happens. I know, shocker to anyone who knows me. Life isn't easy sometimes, but we all have sacrifices to make. That is a 10-man league and we draft that one in person, ran by Commish Sweet P.

To give a rundown of A#FL, here is your list of internet celebrities and local legends making up this beast of a crew. In no particular order, we have Kasher (Canada), Neon (Canada), TMac (Canada), Blahah the Great (Maine), Trev (WV), Posey (WV), Duce (Philly), Cork (WV), MrsAnswer (PA, formerly Vegas), The_Freak (MD), Don-G (Canada), TheAnswer (PA, formerly Vegas), Walz (WV), Wilbur (the state of Washington), DerekHood (Arkansas), Bono (Houston), Corndog (WV), and myself. We always joke that our online leagues are West Virginia and Canadian dudes, mixed in with people from all areas scattered in between. Also, our leagues are competitive, so you better be on top of your game to win these things, it's not for the weak at heart.



And now.. yourrrr 2010 Cincinnati Celtics! Yes, the A#FL comes from the AFL and our team names are based on former AFL league teams. I knew you were wondering. Remember, it's a deep league so you gotta dig after a while late in the rounds to show you know your stuff in order to succeed. The third league I'm in is our college keeper league and it's pretty intense. Duce Heisman Trophy League is what that one runs as, but I'll talk about that at a later time. Anywhere, here are your Celts!

QB: Tom Brady - New England (keeper from 2009-2010)
QB: Matt Leinart - Arizona
QB: Jimmy Clausen - Carolina
RB: Beanie Wells - Arizona (keeper)
RB: Matt Forte - Chicago (keeper)
RB: Marshawn Lynch - Buffalo
RB: Glen Coffee - San Francisco (retired at age 23?!)
WR: Mike Sims-Walker - Jacksonville
WR: TJ Houshmanzadeh - Seattle
WR: Demaryius Thomas - Denver
WR: Brandon Gibson - St Louis
TE: Kellen "Soldjah" Winslow - Tampa Bay
TE: Anthony Fasano - Miami
K: Stephen Gostkowski - New England
D: Tampa Bay

You want a few CD reviews? Ok, since you asked nicely, here you go..



Eminem: Recovery. This couldn't possibly be any worse than Em's last release. His last one, we'll pretend that one didn't even exist. Now he's back with a vengeance and this one is impressive in my mind. Lyrically, Em speaks it this time instead of going with the comedy route and tells a good story on his recovery. I'm not sure there's any I disliked much on this, so you can't go wrong. Ones to get are Talkin' 2 Myself, Going Through Changes which features a mix of Ozzy, No Love with Lil Wayne, and a slow down with Rihanna that has been relased, Love The Way You Lie. We're giving this two thumbs up, a nice "recovery" from that last CD which was garbage.

Nas & Damian Marley: Distant Relatives. Going into getting this CD, I was confused at this mix of talent. I'll be honest, I know basically nothing on Damian Marley other than who he is and having heard just a few songs. Nas on the other hand, one of the best that has done it if you ask me. Apparently from the Damian fans, he's solid too. It seems like a weird concept on paper, but it actually worked very well. I enjoyed this change of pace here and they fit in together. How about trying to find Leaders, As We Enter, and Count Your Blessings. Nas kills it on his verses of Count Your Blessings.

Rick Ross: Teflon Don. This is solid here, although I've heard some of my buddies say he comes off too soft in this one. He's cheesy, but plays his "character" great I think, even if he's been called out for it numerous times. I still like his jams. Every song features someone with him, so not sure how I totally feel about that, but it works for the most part on this album. Who is on this to give some examples? Jay-Z, T.I., Gucci Mane, Jadakiss, Kanye, Cee-Lo, Ne-Yo, Trey Songz, Diddy, Styles P, Drake, and Raphael Saadiq. That's power. Ones I like best on this are: Tears of Joy with Cee-Lo, Live Fast, Die Young featuring Kanye, Free Mason with Jay-Z, and the banger known as Blowin' Money Fast that you've all heard with Styles P, "I think I'm big Meech Larry Hoover, whipping work, halleujah.."



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: We go to DerekHood for this week's submission. If you're an internet freak, you're familiar with the "no homo" comment and how you use that line. If you're not, then maybe this video won't be as funny to you, but this one goes with the "no racial". Good stuff.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. Did you know that Brett Favre cooked honey chicken tonight? Did you know he tied his shoes four minutes ago? Did you know he sat on his couch? I crack up how ESPN reports every single move this guy does and I'm a person that doesn't mind Favre. Corndog is pumped up though like no other. I think the old man still has game left, just don't update me every 2.3 seconds.

2. Polls show that 40% of dog and cat owners carry a picture of their pet in their wallet.. In Los Angeles, there are more cars than people.. An average person laughs 15 times per day.

3. Did You Know? In the epic movie Scarface, the f-bomb is thrown a total of 207 times. That's an average of 1.22 per minute. And my theory as always here? The censored version of Scarface and uncensored versions are two completely different things. The censored version doesn't exist to me.