6 Years of Debauchery! The Madhouse Still Lives!

Yes, I know exactly what you're thinking. I don't even have to say it. With that thought in your head, we can't waste anymore time than we already have. We have a lot on our plates since the last time we wrote out a blog, so that should make for an easy one to write out hopefully. It's just the idea of actually sitting down and taking time to do it when half the time I'm lazy about it. I'm not sure what it is either. I'm still online way too much, but sometimes I just end up wandering onto other things and not focusing on the blog. As an added note, we've made it to 6 years that this blog has been in existence. Time sure does fly, but I'll pat myself on the back for that. For some reason, you folks continue to read my ramblings about whatever and always give nice feedback, so it's much appreciated. It's time to focus now though, the fans are getting relentless. In this one, we talk about the new Shrek, bonfires, Gutter Sluts, Pittsburgh weekend getaway, Derek having me in tears laughing, another 5K run, and a lot more. Time to get to it!



You want an update on the fingernails huh? If you've been keeping along, I went about a week or so without biting or picking at my nails. Let me tell you, that was surprisingly very tough to do if you've never had the habit. Maybe I can relate that to smokers or people with other habits that always say it's tough to stop. It was eating up at me, so one day at work, I started going to town. Going to town on my nails and biting them like a madman. It was sort of stressing me a bit by trying to not bite them when I'd want to. Now? I am back to biting them, but doesn't seem as stressful. The downfall is that they look ugly again, but I guess guys aren't supposed to have pretty nails anyways unless you're Adam Lambert.

A few weekends ago I did my first 5K run of the year. This one was sponsored by the Relay For Life and done through scenic Shinnston, West Virginia. The turnout wasn't as good as I'd expect, but that didn't stop the diehards from showing up. I'd guess there were 30-40 people doing their duty and getting the run on. When Stacia organized the Turkey Trot last November, she had a lot bigger turnout for anyone keeping track at home and I know you are. It was a windy day, but it was about 60 degrees, perfect to get some good runs in. This ended up being my best 5K time of all time ("I'm the greatest of allllll time!"- Rickey Henderson) as I beat the trail up to the tune of 22:24. That actually was a little bit of a shock to me, I didn't go in expecting a time that good. I went in thinking anywhere from 24 to 26 minutes and I'd be a happy camper. 5th Place is what it was and that's how it goes. Spank rocked it if you didn't see on Facebook already. He was a bit over 20 minutes and came in 2nd Place, dominating that stuff, nice job man, you're on another level than the rest of us on the running scene. I hope to get in a few more races as the summer season begins, but I'll keep people posted. Even if you aren't an awesome runner, give a 5K a try one day soon, you'll feel much better about yourself once you complete it. Plus, it's not a distance that is going to make you feel miserable as something a lot farther may.



The day before the 5K we did it up bonfire style. To switch all over the place on times, I ended up running that 5K on 5 hours of sleep, like a champ. 5 hours for me? That gets me bouncing off the walls, don't need much more. Site of the bonfire was in the mean streets of Enterprise, West Virginia. We here at the blog give the big thanks for the bash to Pat and Abby. It was a real big turnout and a nice night for it. Cornhole was even involved, can you go wrong with that? And no, not the cornhole you pervs are thinking about either, the actual game. That's also not to be confused with resident blog celebrity Corndog. After that, it was a late night Denny's trip, reminiscing the old days that we'd go there all the time with nothing else to do. From the bonfire, we split up into seven of us along for the action: Cork, Kristin, Trev, Meg, Derek, Whitney, and myself. I order my traditional mix of pancakes with strawberries, bacon, and cheesesticks.

The highlight of the night at least for me was the fact that I was basically in tears from Derek's words of wisdom. Tears of laughter that is, not that he was kicking my face in with steel toe boots and I was crying tears of hurt. Basically, if you're a local and haven't heard Derek tell the story of cropdusting the elevator, the little kid cussing, Derek blaming an imaginary old lady who just got off the elevator, and the mother getting fired up at the kid, then you haven't heard one of the all time classics. Your homework assignment if you're in Shinnston for the week? Track down Derek and have him tell you this. Words can't do it justice, so I won't even begin to tell it in here. I guarantee you're gonna die laughing. I heard it several times that night and it didn't get a bit old. Also, within the next month, Derek and Meg will welcome in Baby Fonzie to the world. Everything is healthy and ready to rock, the town is just counting down the days, so send the congrats out when the time comes.



Gutter Connection you say? Yes, it's time to give the softball report from your world famous Gutter Sluts. The Sluts have been hampered by two nights of rain delays (4 games total), so those games have been rescheduled for July. We have four games in already on the season and how many have we won? Not a single one, that's bad times indeed. To our credit, we played two of the better teams in the league apparently, one team particularly that just killed us that should be in a higher level. We may be starting out like the Pirates, but the squad we have this year is a blast. The way we look at it, if we ever have to lose games, we're at least going to look the best in this league as far as gear goes. We're black and orange. The hats are custom made New Era style fitteds with Connection on the back and a big Olde English G on the front, it's sharp. The shirts are black with a roided out dude swinging a gutter. Mix in some black, orange, or white knee high socks with some eye black and you're ready to rock. The team is loving the new bats, but so far, they haven't got us far enough. The first game of the season, we took to extra innings and lost by 1. The doubleheader last week against that should-be higher level team, they annhiliated us. I won't lie. My game personally? I'm doing ok at the plate, but not where I need to be. In the outfield, that's my home. There's a lot of ground to cover, but the old man legs still are as good as ever here. Posey and I, despite the age on paper, feel we're one of the fastest in our league at running the bases. I'm not the type that is going to run a good 100 meter dash or something of the like, but I like my chances in softball/basketball quickness. If you're bored, come on and cheer the Sluts at Windmill Park in Fairmont! I can guarantee you it'll be a good time.

This past weekend we needed a getaway of sorts. What did that entail? Whitney and I trekked up to Pittsburgh to stay for a few nights from Friday through Sunday. I even took a half day off work to head up there, as I've only used 1½ days the entire year at work. I'm not the type that misses too much unless I have to. We couldn't have asked for better weather during the weekend. Saturday's festivities was a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo. If you've seen our Facebook pages as most have, you'll see the pics we threw up there. I haven't been up there since I was a wee little kid, but was willing to see what they had to offer nowadays. My excitement of the zoo was wanting to see my boys, the zebras and giraffes. Unfortunately, the zebras weren't out that day, but never fear, the giraffes held me over and did it up big. Whitney and it seem like a lot of people who told us, were all about the polar bears, those things are huge in person. Overall, it's a trip I'd recommend for sure and would do again, it wasn't anything that was miserable, at least on my end.



That night, we hit up the mall at South Hills Village. Before we get to the mall, this area is one of my favorite areas of Pittsburgh. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza here across from the mall and the room setup was pretty impressive, I'd recommend staying here. It was by far the quickest check-in and checkout I've ever had at a hotel, the service was top notch. The bathroom was huge, you can't go wrong with a king size bed (although I didn't get to make any dives a la my Cleveland hotel pic on Facebook), and of course I had to take my laptop around. Like I'm going to survive a few days without internet? Speaking of the mall and technology, at the mall, we got to play with an iPad for the first time. I have been skeptical of these, but now that I've had a chance to play around with it for a bit, I come away with high praise and then some. They're the real deal. I'm a technology freak with a lot of things and could see me wanting one of these, but I'll probably hold off for a bit. Another thing I don't have that a lot of people said they are surprised I don't, a GPS. We borrowed one from Whitney's bud Jess, so it's time to send out the thanks. We rocked a TomTom and I was loving it. On trips, especially in Pittsburgh with all of the roads being a detour half the time, it's solid. I'm one that gets very impatient driving in traffic, but this thing kept me in check. I now need to decide if I want to buy a GPS just for the fun of it. I don't really need it, but they're fun.

On the way home on Sunday afternoon, it was time to hit up the Tanger Outlets in Washington, Pennsylvania. I talked about this place the first time I had went a few months ago, so I won't bore many with tales here. The moral is, basically I get stupid when I see bargains, so this place sucks me in like no other. The two of us together on a shopping trip is never good. Good for the stores because they see us coming, but you know how it goes. Still, if you're in the area and are one of few who hasn't been up there yet, it's worth the trip.



A movie update. During this time, we've been slacking on our movie watching. It happens, but we did get back on track Friday night. We hit up the local drive-in as it's one of few left in the entire state. The movie this time around? Shrek Forever After. If you're a Shrek fan, you probably already went out to see this weekend. Iron Man 2 was playing afterwards, but we had no desire to watch. I still have yet to hear a bad report of Iron Man 2 though, but just not our type of movie I guess. I'm sure I may see it one day, but I've never seen the first either. Half the place left after Shrek. Anyways, this Shrek wasn't nearly as funny as the others, but it has moments definitely. The new little fat boy in this movie was our favorite part, they needed more of him. "Do the roar!" His voice alone is enough to have you cracking up. My final grade? 7.5 big ogre roars out of 10.

I'll finish things by mentioning some action that was happening six years ago. Why six years? If you were still paying attention from earlier, you'll know that I'm doing this for the sixth anniversary of this very blog. How about 5 notes of importance (or not?) that I'm going to throw at you.



1. Highest grossing movie? Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. As a little unbelievable fact, I've never seen any of that series of movies. 2nd that year? The Da Vinci Code. 3rd? Ice Age: The Meltdown. If you want crazy, I've only seen one of the top 10 grossing films of 2006, fact. That movie? Cars.

2. 2006 sports teams who ended up being kings of their mountain? Miami Heat (the year they let Dwyane Wade get a zillion phantom foul calls to win the series over the Mavs) with NBA, Cardinals over Tigers, Steelers took the Super Bowl, Florida over UCLA in college hoops (the George Mason year), Florida over Ohio State in college football, Roger Federer won three tennis majors, and Tiger Woods won two golf majors.

3. Billboard top songs of the year? We start with #1 of Bad Day by Daniel Powter, #2 was Temperature by Sean Paul, and #3 ended up being Promiscuous from Nelly Furtado and Timbaland.

4. Some of the better video games? The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for Wii, Gears of War for 360, New Super Mario Bros for DS. Madden 07 for PS2 apparently sold the most that year (PS2), New Super Mario Bros #2, and Kingdom Hearts II for PS2 coming in at 3rd Place.

5. Notable deaths from 2006? Saddam Hussein, President Gerald Ford, and Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin.

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: You can't go wrong with cheesy commercials. This one is for The Red House, a furniture store. In it you get Big Head and 10 Gauge. "I'm white and the Red House is for me.. I'm a black woman and I love the Red House.. At the Red House, where black people and white people buy furniture!" I can't make this up if I tried. It's getting a good buzz online for being creative, but some people aren't big fans of it. Straight from High Point, North Carolina.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. Since we talked about deaths of 2006, you're probably wondering, 5 months in, how is the Lobstah Celebrity Deathpool going? With the recent death of Ronnie James Dio, that put both Corndog and ManDingo on the list with 33 points. ManDingo is a machine at this, he's on a streak of picking a death in every single year since 2005, crazy. Corndog has a death in 5 of our 6 years of playing. Blahah is on the board with 32 points for Ali Hassan al-Majid and Kasher is the only person to have two deaths with Zelda Rubenstein and Ernie Harwell, 32 points as well.

2. Oh my, getting into a zone right now with my Celtics. I didn't expect them to get nearly this far and I've watched them all year long. I'm pleasantly surprised though as they put LeBron in his place and thus far are doing the same for the vastly overrated (at least offensively) Dwight Howard. Howard is a defensive freak, but outside of a dunk, he can shoot the ball anytime as far as I'm concerned outside of 5 feet. Here's hoping they don't blow the 2-0 lead and get to face Kobe and the Lakers, the team I have been predicting all along to win it all.

3. Facts to end the day on? An elephant has no bones in its trunk, but 40,000 muscles.. Crocodiles swallow stones to help them dive deeper.. Dolphins sleep with one eye open.. Did you know that there are no ants in Iceland, Antarctica, and Greenland?