"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!