"That's One Shot Kid!"

Here we go, this is the 418th blog in my collection, time flies. Happy Belated MLK Day to all, hopefully you got work off and got to rock it out. If not, it's already over anyways and it's time to relax and read up on the latest words of randomness around North Central West Virginia. Remember the reason we had the day off, a lot of people don't appreciate it. As usual, I like to give a little lead-in to what you should expect. Whether it entices you to read farther or not, who knows, I'll do what I can for you. You get two movie reviews to start this beast off with. Also in this section, I had an unexpected call at 3:00 in the morning and in that, a mini road trip is planned. Count that in with the good deed and it ended up working out for everyone. Yes, you don't have to ask, thoughts on Jersey Shore are definitely in here and I have to do my best The Situation impression. I can't leave you hanging, plus you get some great quotes from last week's episode. More TV you want? American Idol is in here. How much TV per day does the average American watch? Also on the agenda we have more CD reviews, a new laptop and iPod after mine were on the fritz, and how well a new supplement on the market holds up and whether you should buy it or not. Ok, that's a long intro, it's time to get things started like we do around here..



It's becoming a recurring theme of the blog. That's right, my movie reviews with a ranking system. You know the drill by now. It's nothing formal, but just my thoughts on the movies I've been watching lately. Saturday night I was able to double up. Props to the Redbox $1 nightly rental machines, those things are handy. Not theater movies this time, we're hitting up some rentals if you didn't figure that out by now. I figured with my regular movie partner, I'd pick one and Whip would pick another. She picked out Fame, which I had zero clue about going into. I'm down for whatever, so I was in to check it out. The one I picked out was The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard. Let's get right to the action and let people know about these bad boys if you haven't already seen..

First off, we go to Fame. Apparently, this is a big hit with some people. Girls seem to be all about it, but once again, I've never even heard of it. Back in the day, they had an original version and this is the modernized platform. Outside of Kelsey Grammer and Charles S. Dutton (aka Roc), I didn't know anyone in this. Megan Mullally is in it, but I don't know her since I've never watched Will & Grace or anything else she's been in. This follows along a group of high schoolers, which in reality we know they're pushing the ripe age of 30 years old. They are all enrolled at the New York Academy of Performing Arts and it follows them in their path to make it big. The storyline is easy to follow. From knowing basically nothing about this going in, it reminded me a bit of Glee. That's not normally my element, but then again, I got hooked like no other on the season of Glee this year. My favorites in the movie who I thought played their roles the best were Denise Dupree (real name Naturi Naughton), Malik Washburn (Collins Pennine), and Jenny Garrison (Kay Panabaker, almost 20 but looks 8 years old). I thought it was a pretty good movie and I didn't have any problems with it, it was fun. Naughton and Pennine are very good together in their duets, Naughton having the R&B voice mixed in with Pennine's hard raps. I wonder how many of these "kids" actually did their musical parts though. Review time and the online reports aren't being kind to it. IMDB gave it 4.3 out of 10, ouch. Maybe I'm being too lenient, but it gets 7.1 mid 20-year old high schoolers out of 10. I liked it.



The next movie on deck? The Goods. This is my kind of movie right there, just your easy to follow stupid humor comedy. It's probably not a movie you want to watch with younger kids as the cussing flies, which doesn't bother me, but just letting you know if you're concerned on that at all. The cast they had for this was awesome I thought, everyone played their parts very well. Jeremy Piven of course is the main guy behind this and his character as Don Ready is excellent. My favorite guy in this one though was Charles Napier who played Dick Lewiston. The off the wall remarks out of nowhere this old guy pulls are hilarious. Noureen DeWulf, wow. The dentist from The Hangover (Ed Helms) and the cop (Rob Riggle) are part of this movie. If you're wanting a good comedy to have you laughing and one you won't have to put full focus in, this is right up your alley. IMDB wasn't as nice as I am on my rating, they gave it 5.8 out of 10. Me personally? I'm going to throw out 7.4 f-bombs out of 10 for this one. I enjoyed it for sure.

After the movies were over, I was about to crash. That's when my phone rang at 3:00 in the morning. I was thinking, who in the world would be calling at that time? Around here, you never know. I look on it and it's Cork's girl Kristin. I didn't put two and two together, so answered to see what was up. She said she needed a huge favor and wondered if I could drive to Waynesburg, about an hour away, as they were stuck on the interstate with a flat tire. I'm always up for a late night mini road trip and since we were the only people awake of our crew at that time, we'd make the trek. It was Maria's car that had the mangled tire. It had five lugnuts on it and one of the lugs was way off kilter and didn't match the others. Either it was stripped, on backwards, or something else. Plus, no tow trucks in the area came to assist. Good deed of the month time at your service. At 3:30, we leave Shinnston and head up the road. I was in a coma, so glad that I didn't have to go alone as it kept me awake. When we get up there, we stuffed six in the Jeep with Ozzie jammed in the very back, Maria, Cork, and Kristen in the middle, and Whip riding along since she didn't want me going alone, so big props to everyone involved. No traffic out that late either, imagine that. We made it home safe and I took one for the team. It's just what you do for family, no biggie on my end. As for Maria's car, it's back on the road and ready to rock like no other. We got home around 6:00, went to bed at 7:00, and woke up at 11:00. Champs.



A week or two ago, my laptop that I've had for 2 or 3 years was dying on me as well as my original iPod. I've had that one for about 3 years, it was a beast. It's not good times when both are spazzing out, but that just gave me an excuse to buy myself some belated birthday presents. They weren't dead so to speak, but I wasn't about to test things and have them really screw up on a day where I'd need them. The laptop's screen color is mangling bad and it has gotten worse over the past month or so. I turn the contrast down and that helps some, but every few days it'd get worse. Now it's green a lot of times and just not worth fooling around with. It works fine, minus the color, so I'm going to use it as a backup and put the old Dell desktop in the corner. The iPod? It'd be fully charged and then I'd take it to workout with me. On some days, it'd only stay on for about 30 minutes and then go all wacky.

On the laptop scene, I picked up a 16 inch Toshiba with a 500GB hard drive, 4GB of memory, Windows 7, and all of that. I wanted one a little smaller than the other laptop I have, which is an 18 inch HP. I have literally no clue what I'm going to do with a 500GB hard drive. No way I'd ever come close to using that. My other laptop has a 160GB in it and I still have most of it free, but since most newer ones today come with insane space, I might as well load up since that's pretty much a basic feature. So far after a few weeks, I'm loving this thing, no complaints yet. That was my theory on the iPod too, the space, more on that in a second.



Is this week really the finale of Jersey Shore? That's going to put me to tears since I'm so hooked on this show that is so bad that it's good. As Kasher says, they could've stretched this out a bit longer and not done a few of the 2 hour nights they've done a few times. Let's touch on last week though. I could type up a blog just with my thoughts and quotes on this show, but I'll try to make it halfway short into one paragraph. This will seem all jumbled up, but I'm going rapid fire speed here. A few Vinny moments for me that I liked. When The Situation was getting his chick in the hot tob and took her down the steps, she busted herself and Vinny is literally rolling on the ground laughing. Then his impression of The Situation was dead on.. How about Pauly D's phone call to the Jewish/stalker girl. He ripped that girl apart after she didn't get the hint. DerekHood posted a photoshopped version of that shirt on my FB wall for those who didn't see, a job well done. Pauly D's Jewish girl would show up everywhere, that was a bit strange.. The main part of last week to me was Ronnie roid raging once again. I love how he acts that he doesn't want to fight and then shortly after, he rages and goes at the guy. Another guy was running his mouth, a bad bad mistake. Ronnie is probably only 5'6" as all of these guys are little, but he's straight diesel. He rocked that dude in one punch and he was laying there a complete mess.. Random, but I've been growing my hair out, mainly due to boredom and I haven't done that in a while. While playing ball last Tuesday at The Lighthouse, the hair was up and everywhere after a while. That's when Buck started fist pumping and started calling me The Situation. I had to crack up at that and it became a good running joke. I might have to run with it just to be stupid. Based just on last week's 2-hour show, I'll paste some quotes that were said, some of these are golden.

"Honestly, all we care about is getting girls and going to the gym."- The Situation

"Ditched the zero and and went with the hero."- The Situation when he stole Vinny's girl

"Get the fuck outta here bro! That's one shot! That's one shot kid!"- Ronnie when he buckled that guy

"You have no game at all."- The Situation
"That's not what your sister thinks."- Vinny

"Me and Sammi, we left at 4:00. You know, I just couldn't take it anymore. We've been here since 12:00. You know. 5 hours, that's like enough." - Ronnie showing his math skills

To the Twitter fans, enjoy if you haven't already been following this: http://twitter.com/JSQuotes



The first iPod I had and it lasted me a while was a 30GB classic. At the time I got this new one, I had about 20GB free from that 30. More space than I needed, but I like being more safe than sorry. The new one? I could have used my iPod on the iPhone, but I'd rather not. I don't like running the battery down crazy low all the time, don't want to bang it around when I run, and wanted more space than it has mainly. Most people like the wee little fancy colored ones, but to me, you're just paying for the color and look. The way I look at it, I might as well go with the classic I know and can end up getting like ten times more space if not more. It's small to me, plus it has the video if I need that. I ended up going with a 160GB classic. In my mind, for the price of the 160 as compared to the wee little ones, it's a steal that I couldn't pass up, practically giving it away. I doubt I'll have 40,000 songs to fill this thing though, hah. So far, I'm liking it a lot and it's a good bit updated since the other classic I had.

Speaking of working out, it's time to hear me ramble on some of that. You know how it goes, I bring it up at a regular pace, but try not to send you into a bore fest. This won't pertain to many, but it's going in here anyways. To my crew in Lobstah and Twitter, you've heard my reviews of this already, so it'll be much of the same. New supplement time. I'm still taking mainly the same stuff outside of this new purchase. It's a pre-workout nitric oxide mix from USP Labs. It's called Jack3d and it's similar to No-Xplode and Altered State. Both of those are great products too, but I like switching things up from time to time. This stuff here is a little different than those. How so? You notice it kicking in within the first minute or two, no joke. It's scary how it kicks in, the first time will surprise you a bit. It's real easy to mix too. You put a few tiny scoops in 4-8 ounces of water a half hour before you workout and you're good to go. The price isn't bad either if that's a factor you're wondering about on the buy. It gets a big thumbs up from me after a few weeks in.



Like everyone else out there, I'm on board with the American Idol bandwagon as usual. Some people watch this time of the season just to see the bums. Others wait till the bums finish before really getting into it. I like both sides actually. Atlanta last week was pretty strong I thought. Boston was ok. I'll probably be rooting for the same as most people have been talking about already. The hick girl that likes to "jump off bridges", she surprised me. I thought they'd have her on to be brutal, but she's actually good. From Boston, Amadeo Diricco would fit in perfectly on the Shore. Plus, he has talent, he could be interesting. A lot of people seem to like the cop too with his voice. I like Jermaine, the guy who takes care of his sick mom. And what's up with Guitar Girl (the one dressed up as a guitar) doing well? That was a shocker, even if she is a goof. The talk of last week was definitely the old man, Larry Platt. Don't know his name? You know the song for sure as it was on YouTube in a matter of minutes. Pants On The Ground. "Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground! With the gold in your mouth, hat turned sideways.." Yep, now it's stuck in your head too.

It's time for more rap CD reviews. With no time to waste, here we go..



Gucci Mane: The State Versus Radric Davis. We hit up the ATL with this one as Gucci has been all over the place the past year or so. He loads it up with 20 tracks and pushes the minutes in, good to see. First, you want to know who is on this beast. We get Lil Wayne, Cam'ron, Rick Ross, Soulja Boy, Waka Flocka, Urshhher, Keysia Cole, Nicki Minaj (who I think is real hot when she's not trying to be super slutty), Trina, and Bobby Valentino. That's loaded up with talent. You've all heard Spotlight with Ursh and I'm a big fan of that, even if it is clubby. Ursh still gets it done. Others to get that I can recommend are All About The Money with Rick Ross, Bad Bad Bad that has Cole, and Volume. Gucci does a nice job of mixing the rough lyrics on some songs then bringing along a chick or R&B dude to do a chorus to give you that feel. Good CD here.

Tony Pacasso: Memphis 10-A-Key To NYC Mixtape. Here's one of those CDs that I get just because. When it's someone you really don't know much about, you take a chance and go with it. This turned out to be not bad at all. It comes hard and grimey, so if you're into that style of rap, you'll like this if you can find it out there. It's also not an annoying mixtape to where you're hating it because an untalented DJ is screaming his name over and over the track. This is more like a preview of things to come as it's straight raps.

Snoop Dogg: Malice N Wonderland. A few people were asking me about this for a while. I was hesitant on getting it. One is that I always expect the 1992 Snoop Dogg to make his return. In 2010, I've realized that isn't going to happen, so I'll keep those expectations lower. This compared to his last few albums though, I thought it wasn't bad a all. It isn't loaded up with totally mainstream type stuff as he switches it up. He doesn't get all mean like we'd want out of him, at least out of those of us who were rap fans when Snoop first came on the scene. Some reading this were barely born then, ouch. This is Snoop's 10th album, a veteran of the game if there ever was one. A ton of people are on this thing such as Lil Jon, The Game, Jazmine Sullivan, The Dream, Soulja Boy, R. Kelly, and Pharrell to name some. Tracks to jam to? Pimpin Ain't EZ featuring the legendary R. Kelly, Different Languages with Sullivan who I'm a fan of and I usually don't care much for chick music, Pronto with Soulja Boy (he's still a little dork, but he cracks me up now), and 2 Minute Warning. Check it out.

I had more I wanted to pack into this blog, but some things have to get held over till the next week. That just gives us more material. The annual Toughman Contest is at the end of the month and I can't be anymore excited. You know I have reports on those in the past how many ever years and you definitely get your worth for your money spent and then some.. Also, it's kicking into high gear in my 30-man keeper fantasy baseball league, Chin Music, that is basically a year round league. As I type this part, we're in the middle of our offseason draft that consists of the guys just drafted or international imports. I like it for the fact that you have to be on top of the minor league systems as well. We all have 55-man rosters, have salary caps, and the whole works, it's serious. I may post my draft results one day, but we'll see..



Bird's Dirty of the Week: We're going to North Carolina for this week's action. Apparently she's single and "looken". She's also supposedly the girl that you'll never be. Who knows, I just report on it. In her words, "i want a guy or gurl thats really no bull shit added so you drama dont add or fuck with me love to meet new ppl this is me like it or not". I'll give her credit though, she looks good. http://www.myspace.com/sexyassbitch289

Bird's Video of the Week: The Shore boys goofing off in their hotel before going to a Lakers game.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. We haven't tried birthdays in a while, so why not do it up.. Let's go with Wednesday, January 20th. Before that, we'd like to thank a big blog contributor, none other than Kasher, he celebrates his today, the 19th. Have a good one Kasher! Onto the 20th.. The second person on the moon or so they say in 1969, Buzz Aldrin, 80. Paul Stanley, guitarist of KISS, 58. TV talk host Bill Maher, 54. Actor Lorenzo Lamas, 52. White Sox fiery manager, Ozzie Guillen, 46. Rainn Wilson of The Office, 44. I'll get scolded for this, but I'm one of very few people who have never watched that show. I hear it's great. Stacey Dash, I'm sure she's still looking great at 43, but I haven't seen her in ages. Melissa Rivers, she hits 41. Rob Bourdon, drummer of Linkin Park, I don't know him, but he's 31. That's not a bad list. I could give some lower level sports players, but I'll refrain from that as much as possible.

2. I just read in the latest Men's Fitness magazine that it is 289 minutes. What is 289 minutes you ask? That is the average time an American spends watching TV each day, 4 hours and 49 minutes. Crazy. I'd say I'm in that bunch though for sure.

3. Some weird facts to end up on. Chickens can live without a head. One supposedly lived 18 months after getting beheaded, but I don't believe it.. A car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to start the average car.. Porcupines float in water.. We started with a chicken fact, let's finish with one. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds.