
It's time for yet another road trip. This one is the first baseball trip of the year, a little late in the year for it to be my first, but that's how it goes. Friday was the lucky day and we had 5 in attendance: Cork, Kristin, Spank, Alicia, and myself. I played the role of the wingman as the other two are couples, something I've been very good at over the years. I again did the driving for another road trip, taking the passengers' lives in my hand. At this point, I guess they're willing to take that chance for something different happens everytime. That's my strategy at work and why I like my building so much. I have some characters in my building, but it keeps my day going and you never know what's going to go down. I could write entire blogs just on those kids, stuff that would blow your mind, but I'd feel a little weird exposing that, so I've always stayed away from writing about work happenings. Speaking of work, I've now been on bum time for the past week which means sleeping in till deep in the afternoon, fun times.
Ok, back to the trip. Luckily on this one, as compared to the LeBron trip recently, there were no malfunctions with Sirius. It pretty much stayed on five channels, none of which I'm sure the girls liked one bit. Usually I try not to rap people out too much since I'm one of few of my bunch who likes it, but Spank and Cork are also fans, so this trip I needed some to help my sanity. A road trip without rap for me is tough to handle. I let Spank handle DJ duties and we'd either have the channels of Hip Hop Nation and Shade 45 as newer rap, Backspin for old school jams, ESPN Radio, and Hardcore Sports 98. If you've never heard Gabe Morency and his Sports Rage show on Hardcore Sports, you're missing out. When he goes on a rant, it's like no other. He easily sets the f-bomb record for sports radio and will crack you up. I highly recommend it, the guy is a total nutcase, but he's so entertaining.

Our lone stop on the way up was off the Waynesburg, Pensylvania exit. Spank was craving some Dairy Queen. I wasn't that hungry, but how can you pass up DQ? They only have the best burgers known to man. Their DQ is big time and my town has one register. This place, uh oh, they have two! I hyped that up to the workers up there like it was a big deal and they got a kick out of it. More on Waynesburg in a bit. So we get into town and remember this is the same night of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, as Pittsburgh was at Detroit for the festivities. Ironically, Pittsburgh and Detroit were playing baseball on the same night in Pittsburgh. What's the chances? We ended up getting my favorite seats in PNC Park, the leftfield homer seats. I've sat just about everywhere in that place, but I'd take those seats anytime over the others. Besides, they're dirt cheap too.
I was surprised how many Tigers fans were at the game. The attendance was so rough that they didn't even give a number out while we were there like they normally do. We all guessed around 15,000 if that and this was a weekend night, interleague game, with it being free hat night. You serious? You really can't pack the house for that? Terrible. I know the Bucs are the equivalent of a minor league team, but you'd think the attendance would be a lot better considering it is an awesome stadium, the best I've been to anyways and I've been to a decent bit. We were saying though, look at that roster. They don't have one true power hitter and not a single go-to player. It's true, I'm not exaggerating. Being right on the wall in the outfield though, it gets no better. You're right on top of the action and get to yell at the opposing players and mess with the home guys. We were right behind Nyjer Morgan who seems to have a blast out there. He'll chat it up with the fans and goof off, something you don't see many do. On the other side, for the Tigers in leftfield was Donnie Kelly. This guy took a major verbal beating from the Leftfield Loonies, it was worthy of the seats just for that.

As the Bucs game was going on, so was the hockey game as mentioned. I'm not a hockey guy. I know what's going on, but it's not a sport I'm hardcore about like I am the others. Being in Pittsburgh that night, you couldn't help to feel the atmosphere. The Bucs crowd was quiet for most of the game, but if the Pens would score a goal, the baseball crowd would blow up and go bonkers when they found out. Nyjer was even getting into it by yelling at our section for score updates when he could. The Bucs ended up losing the game, but as usual with all trips, you get your moneys worth and then some. When the game ended, and it was one of the quicker games we've been to (it flew by), it was in the 2nd period of the hockey game.
Before I go into the hockey maniacs, I'll give a side story on our trip. We always joke around and come up with a percentage that we'll see someone we know at the game. Usually it happens, even though we're not that close to home. Spank set this trip at 33% to which I said I'd agree with that if not a good bit higher. We're in the Pirates team shop and loading up on shirts and things and the percentage gets broken fairly quick, before the first pitch. This is where I get back to Waynesburg. Out of nowhere in the hat section, I run into a Felisha, a long time internet buddy of mine from Waynesburg who is also one of the biggest Pirate fans I know and one that is legit with the rap game. There's not many in my circle that I can have some good rap chats with and knows the history and the whole works. She was with Big Vince, the Greg Maddux/John Cena look-a-like and I got to chat it up with both of them. For as many Bucs games as we've been to at the same time, for some reason we've never ran into each other. That and we're both in Morgantown a good bit around some of the same people and paths never cross. I figured that was story worthy for something different to add to the PNC Park trip. I'm only an hour south of Waynesburg and still sound like a big hick to those people, it's crazy. Felisha I'm the hick, but you're still a midget, hah.

We decided to stay in town until the game was over to see what madness was about to ensue. We bounced around between a few bars near the stadium and you could barely get in due to the hockey uproar. The streets were jammed packed and the crowd was getting rowdy. Cops were out like no other. The hardcore hockey fans, that's a totally different breed of fans. These fans are borderline psycho and definitely get my respect for how much they support their teams, it's off the charts. In town, there were a lot of Red Wings fans around too and it made for a good mix. Once the final buzzer hit, it was pandemonium. I've been lucky lately to have been part of some really good sporting events live. We decided we were hungry and got out of town fairly quick. I guess we missed the cars being flipped over and fires starting for the riots, but that's how it goes. I can remember being in Philly during hockey playoff time and it's just another world during that time of year with hockey fans. I couldn't even imagine what it'd be like in a Canadian city, that'd be fun just to be part of to see what would go down.
So we get back on I-79 South and need something to get our appetite crushed. There's only one answer for that on the way home. You guessed it.. Waffle House! I think they should start giving out free passes to us as much as we hit them up on road trips. That and they're getting free plugs in the blog, that has to count for something, come on now. Anyways, as Cleveland was the very first time Matty Cakes hit up a WH, it was time for another person to break their WH virginity. Alicia had never been before and this shocked the rest of the clan on the ride. I explained that I enjoy the dirty and filthy Waffle House places much more than the newer versions. It's like a baseball glove, you need to break it in. Mix in some of that grease, don't clean it so much and you're guaranteed for good food. I've said that for years in here. I dropped a piece of bacon on the floor there this time and it was on the ground for probably 10 seconds or a bit more. Now, WH has the best bacon there is, of course I'm not going to let that go to waste. It can't hurt, so I pick it up and eat it. I said that probably half of that piece of bacon wasn't even touching the floor, not like most of you haven't tried that one, no big deal. This time I loaded up on a ham and cheese omelette, 2 orders of bacon, hash browns covered and chunked (ham and cheese), the best sweet tea, and some toast that I wasn't able to touch. Yum yum yum! We didn't get hardly any pics on this trip though, boo.

It was time to get back to the big town. We ended up getting home around 1:30 in the morning. A quick update on the sleep pattern and this one wasn't safe at all, but I survived. When I went to bed at that night at 2:30, I had been up for 39 of the past 40 hours. I drove 2 hours to Pittsburgh and back on 1 hour of sleep the night before. I went to bed at 12:45 PM and woke up at 1:45, stupid. I rocked it out like a champ, but when I got home, I was done for. Nothing I'd recommend doing, but as usual, I never learn.
For the book fans, it's time for a movie review. After getting sucked into the Twilight series, I figured I might as well watch the movie after I finished the first book. As everyone knows, the movie never lives up to the book, that's almost a proven fact. Going in, I had to take that for what it was worth. I tried not to get mad at details left out of the movie that I thought should have been in, but they did what they could to fill 2 hours. I know I'm behind the times on reading this stuff or watching the movie, but I'm at least getting around to it. Time to rate this bad boy. Despite it not living up to the book, I'm going to give the movie 8.1 vampire bites out of 10, which is pretty good. I'm already a good bit into the second book, New Moon. It started out slow, but now it's picking up a good deal and I'm still hooked. The waitress at Waffle House we had was reading that on her shift, so I had to hype that up. Plus, it's always fun to get my buddies all worked up when they know I actually read this stuff. Cork, it's time to start reading. You know you can't wait.

Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: Hey Ash, I took your advice and went on Richard's page to find this week's girl. You're right, he has some to pick through in there. This week's winner comes straight outta Wyoming. For as much as I'm ate up online, I don't think I've ever talked to someone from Wyoming and that's saying a lot. This one has me impressed as she's not one we're going to make fun of or all of that, she seems quality to me. I could be wrong though. Everyone does a good enough job of commenting on this section, so if I'm wrong, let me know about it. Danielle, step up and accept your award: http://www.myspace.com/413811316
Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Maybe it's just me, but that's funny..

3 Quick Thangs:
1. A new video game in the house. After eating myself up with Call of Duty, it was time to switch it up. I got UFC Unleashed last week for 360 and it's worth the purchase. The game is so realistic and the graphics are top notch. Just about every fighter you can think of on the roster is there, you can make your own guy for the career mode which is great, and even battle online. Prepared to get absolutely dominated online though, you see some straight up studs on there, it's nuts.
2. Finally! Yep, finally someone is here to shut up the T-Pain synthesizer garbage that everyone and their brother likes to use these days on songs, also known as autotune. You've all heard it, rap fans or not. I guess the mainstream club rap type of fans think this junk is good, but not in my book. I'm normally not a huge Jay-Z guy one way or the other, but he's upped his status with me after releasing this song. Here he is with D.O.A., Death of Autotune, lyrics included if you click the link too. If not, just check the song:
3. A few facts to end up with.. Did you know that Malaysians protect their babies from disease by bathing them in beer? Did you know that the world’s longest street is in Canada? Toronto’s Yonge Street runs 1,190 miles. Now you know.