Blast From The Past, Yogurt, & Busted Waterbeds

Weekend time and we're due for a new post. What kind of stories will get their due? We'll start off going with an injury blast from the past after a recommendation to write on it from someone who was there at the time, giving up candy and more for a bit, my idea on yogurt that wasn't agreed upon, waterbeds busting, and hand sanitizer on shoes. That's kind of a weird mix and I know some of them sound a bit strange, but that's the direction we're moving to. We hit all emotions and now it's time to get down to business and crack thing open.. On we go!



You want the latest injury report? Everyone wanted updates and it wasn't like I was dead or something, but still, much appreciated. My eye was black and blue for a good while, but we're back in action now. I went back last Friday to get my stitches out and the same doc that put them in, he takes them out. Again, he knew what he was doing. Obviously they all should, but you know what I mean. He said he was glad to finally see someone who he didn't have to pick crust out of their stitches when he took them out. He said he gets a lot of dirty people, not good times. I'm a neat freak, you can't roll up in there all filthy. Get with it people. I did that enough after I went in sweaty the week before with blood gushing out of my face. He also told me to take a week or so off of ball, even though I wanted to play really bad a few days after. I couldn't play half speed like he suggested and he said even if I bumped it, it'd bust open a lot more, so I had to take the week off. Speaking of injuries, my boy Wes wrote me on Facebook with a comment to the blog, so I have to give him props for that. I don't think he'll mind if I paste what he wrote for those who didn't see on there, it had me cracking up. That will lead us to the next topic, taking us with a blast from the past:

Wes said:

Beegis! Another battle scar! I never catch your blog on the first day you put it out but i always find myself readin it at some point. The point bein, 5 stitches is a big deal and i know how it is when we play sports. NOT the same in SC! I get told i'm too competitive all the time. Back to the point, 5 stitches is a big deal, but nothin compared to... the day of the collision heard round the world! I just think you should've went into a little more detail in your blog because that day was somethin else! Hammer has never been the same since! I think, for those who weren't there to see it, that you really can't compare the two. The infamous day at Nolan Field will forever be a battle scar for the ages. Hands Down!

Let's hit the rewind button and go back to 8th grade for me. Yes, that was ages ago, I know, just a little guy. The infamous Nolan Field was the site of the action. For those not in my section of town, Nolan Field was named after our buddy Nolan Ryan (nickname derived from the baseball player) since he lived across the road from the field. It's not even a "field" so to speak, but more of a lot of land to play sandlot football on. I feel like I'm ancient that nobody in my town plays sandlot ball anymore. If I could go back to any time in my life, it'd be a little kid back in the day. Don't get me wrong, I love life how it is now, but those days it didn't get any better.

We're doing our thing as we play, of course with no helmets and pads. Who plays sandlot with that junk anyways? Me and my buddy Hammer were on the same team. We both are lined up on offense and take off on deep routes. The ball is in the air and you're awaiting the outcome. A perfect spiral is floating high above (it was probably a terrible throw by whoever threw it, but it sounds good 16 years later) and we both attempt to catch it. An instant later, our heads collide and we drop like a ton of bricks. After that, I didn't remember a single thing until 6 hours later, major concussion time. We'll get to that point though. Apparently, blood was everywhere and Kippie takes off running down the road to get my parents. My top teeth went through my bottom lip and my bottom teeth went through my top lip. I had braces on at the time and they got all jacked up. That had me wearing braces a little longer than predicted.



I guess someone went to give me a cup of water, or so my buddies say. They give it to me and I try to take a drink of it (?) and blood starts going everywhere in it, filling it up. Then I get asked where I was at. My answer? Behind Pittsburgh. No clue what that would even mean, but that's what I said at the time. They fix me up at the ER and I wake up for a brief period later that night to say hey and was in a coma (not literally, but you know how I like to say that anyways) and then crashed the rest of the night. I still have the battle scars from that one too. Dad comes off as a pretty tough guy who doesn't care what people think, but during that whole scene at the ER he was a nervous wreck I heard. Ever since that day, I never played sandlot tackle football again. I was tiny for that game anyways, it was bound to happen, but always a good story to tell. I hope I did it some justice Wes, we'll find out.

Easter time is approaching. I'm not the type to get all into preacher boy mode because this isn't the place for it. I'm Catholic, but won't lead this into much of a religious discussion. To me if you're any type of christian, you somewhat have the same general beliefs as the other religions, just a different presentation of it. Well, lent started up this past Wednesday and a tradition is for someone to give up something that is true to them, be kind to someone on a regular basis, etc, during that time period to show the suffering. This year I went for the triple. I'm giving up pop, tea, and candy over that time. For those who know me, I know exactly what you're thinking. How can I go 40 days without candy? That's impossible, right? It seems that way, but I'm going to prove people wrong. So far so good though. And Friday night I did my good samaritan deed of the week by fixing up a neighbor's computer for about 3 hours. Nothing you really ever "want" to do, but try being the nice guy for once, some people don't know the concept of that. No point of being a mean grump, but back to the three things. I've also heard people joke around that I went overboard in giving up 3 big things there, although I don't have much pop nowadays compared to what I used to go through. Besides, all of those things are bad on the abs, which leads to the next quick paragraph..



I've never dieted before or to that major of a level, but I've always been really into the exercise scene. I have a crazy high metabolism, but I'm sure one day that will change, hopefully not soon though. However, I'll tie that in to a quick ramble on supplements. In random conversations, especially around other people that workout, the topic of supplements come up and what everyone prefers. I go through cycles. Sometimes I will be on a mixture of things and other times, take some time off and be on nothing. Some work, some are garbage. I've written about my favorite supplement ever in NO-Xplode before in this space, but on Friday I switched the scene up. The latest I'm going to experiment with. First would be Taraxatone from Cytogenix. It's marketed as an "extreme muscle definition agent that sheds excess body water". The other new one? Aplodan from Muscletech. In basic terms, it wakes up dormant muscle fibers and gives more strength and mass. And I feel like a baseball player since it "triggers untapped human growth potential". Maybe both will be garbage, we'll find out and maybe give a review in due time. And I wrote that section because I always say there's a part in the blog for everyone. You might not be into the exercise scene one bit, but someone out there knows what's up on that, so there ya go with a side ramble.

I'm going to end this top section with my thoughts on yogurt. Why yogurt? You're reading along and thinking, no way can he make the topic of yogurt interesting. Here's my deal with yogurt. I like it a lot, especially the ones with the fruit inside that you get to mix up, yet I have a problem. Why can't they make big people sized cups of yogurt? Come on now, that little cup is going to do something? Sure, you can keep getting more cups, but that's a bigger process and it should be easier. Why can't they have pints or quarts, Ben & Jerry's style? Instead, I was at Wal-Mart putting all of these little cups of yogurt in the buggy. Arizona Jas and Jodine both disagree with my theory, they think it'd be too much, doh. Someone out there has to think we need bigger yogurt cups.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: This comes to us from Manda in Virginia and it's a short one. Something about it though has me going good. I guess it's the weird dad's little dance he does out of nowhere when he walks in on the kid doing his soccer tricks. Here we go:



3 Quick Thangs:

1. This youngster was telling me a story the other day. He was saying how he busted his waterbed. I asked how he did that. His answer? His buddy had a pencil in his back pocket and jumped on the bed and water was all over the place. Corndog upon hearing this, he was amazed that waterbeds still exist. I haven't heard many people using them lately either come to think of it. Stuff like this I can't make up at all, that's why it's easy at times to write some of the blog up once I get going.

2. I needed a quick fix the other day. A part of one of my shoes had some dirt all over it. That's nothing out of the ordinary, but it was time to clean them up. I do the impatient thing and start looking around my room. I see hand sanitizer and put some of that on my shoes and wipe it down with a paper towel. Surprisingly, the shoes cleaned up nice and were shiny afterwards. I bet you've never tried that one. I'm a dork for doing so, but I bet someone tries that now after reading it, just because it sounds so silly.

3. Today's fact to think on? I've never heard it before, but I'm sure some of you geniuses out there have tried it? Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying. No idea if it works, I just write about it.

Bloody Mess, Fountain Pop, & Caramel Apple Spice!

Some people have already heard or seen the story I'm about to mention. I haven't had stitches put into me since 8th grade. When I was a kiddie, I got a bunch of stitches and it's fun to have the battle scars as proof. Something about that is always entertaining. I could tell big stories on each, but I'll save that. The last time I got stitches was playing sandlot football on the famous Nolan Field. My bottom teeth went through my top lip and top teeth went through my bottom lip. I was out of it for 6 hours on that one. I've also been hit in the head with a croquet mallet (true story) as I got behind a dude swinging and it rocked me above the right eye. Fortunately, I've never broken anything or had any major injuries, so I'll take stitches every now and then if that's the worst case scenario. Now it's time to set up last Sunday's story..



I play ball with a bunch of dudes in Bridgeport every Sunday. Stereotypically, that's the rich boy section of my county, even though they sometimes get a bad rap. Anyways, a dude was bringing the ball down on a break pretty fast and I was one of the few guys back on defense. I figured I might as well take this guy on and D up, not going to let him get easy buckets. I was playing D on him pretty tight and he went to try to cross me over. As he did that, I went in the same direction, still up in his face, and our heads collided. We both dropped and hit pretty hard. As soon as I dropped, I put my hand to my head and knew it was a mess. Blood was gushing pretty good and then a few of the guys took me to get cleaned up. As it was getting cleaned, they said I needed stitched up for sure. A few asked to drive me to the docs, but I figured I was about a mile away, I might as well drive myself. Whether that was the right move or not, who knows, but I wasn't feeling a bit dizzy.

I get to Medbrook (our local quick docs) and it's about 1:30 on Sunday afternoon. The place was a zoo. So many people were in there that it was standing room only, baseball style. Speaking of which, baseball is just around the corner! I walk in, still wearing my ball gear and have a bundle of wet paper towels covering my eye. These people look at me like I'm from another planet because I'm gushing blood as I walk in, good times. I tell the check-in chick what was up and then they tell me to have a seat. With me gushing blood, I figured I'd get in pretty quick, right? Wrong. I ended up waiting for nearly an hour. It wasn't a big deal, it was just the hassle of it all. Maybe I should've snapped my leg in half to get me into the room quicker. All in all though, I got to talk to the random bums there waiting, always making for good stories.



As I got in, the doc was about as smooth as it gets. I didn't even feel him jamming the needle in my head a few times to numb my eye area up. The actual cut was underneath my eyebrow. The doc said that it went to the muscle, but it didn't go inside or it could've been a lot worse. It's been a good conversation starter this week, something I'm never short of to begin with. I could've made up some big gigantic story of how I took on six MMA fighters at once and came out victorious or had a rough Valentine's Day Weekend to where some chick roughed me up. An interesting thing to me is from people who have no clue on basketball. You'd be surprised the amount of people who are saying, "Your eye got that messed up by playing basketball?!" Uh.. yes, believe it or not, it can be pretty physical. It's not like I was out there shooting around, goofing off, it gets intense.

I was talking to Corndog the other night (more on him again in a bit too) as we do often, bored online. He told me one of the funniest things I've heard lately. We were watching wrestling on TV and just making random comments about it. Jeff Hardy, for those who don't know, is a WWE wrestler. He's been involved in a recent injury storyline (not real) to where he hasn't been on TV for a bit. This ties in to Corndog's church point he had to make. He was doing his church duty and they were going through that week's prayer requests. Apparently, the chick who reads the requests at his church just goes through it all, regardless. She also isn't a wrestling fan as we find out. One little boy put Jeff Hardy on the week's request and was serious about it. Due to that, Corndog was listening to the requests and out of nowhere, the request about Jeff Hardy is read in front of the congregation. How great is that? He might've been one of few to have picked up on that in church, but I know I'd be cracking up. Meanwhile, the little kid was just hoping his prayers would be answered. Also, it might be just me and Corndog who find that story funny, but so be it.



I was at the dentist on Thursday, hanging in the waiting room. The only other person in there with me at the time was this guy who I'm guessing is about 50 years old or so. He's a balding dude with fairly tight sweat pants on and absolutely no style. That's fine either way, but I'm just setting up the scene for you. There's a TV that is on in the waiting room and I'm just checking it out. Out of nowhere, dude starts rambling on. It started with him seeing David Spade on there and us giving opinions on him. From that it went to Chris Farley. Then it eventually led to 90s grunge rock. The people in the office were getting a kick out of how this guy I've never met in my life is just talking away like he's known me forever. Of course I'm not going to miss that opportunity to rattle this guy's brain. As it turns out, he's a huge Alice in Chains guy and is throwing out some big knowledge on the Seattle grunge scene at the time, impressing me actually. At one point, he was saying how underrated Chains was at the time and says he mentions to people who say they probably don't know their songs: "What do you mean? You've never heard Man in a Box or Rooster?!" I played that up because I knew it fired him up that his boys didn't get enough respect in my mind. Then he goes into who all was on what drugs during that time, concert schedules, etc. He says when Chains is touring again, even without Layne Staley who died, he'll be there when they hit Pittsburgh. "I'll be the oldest guy in that crowd, but I don't care!"

Our first section of American Idol is in the books. This year, they've switched the rules up on us to keep people on their toes. Going into the week, we were down to the final 36 contestants. They are broken into three groups of 12. This week, the first group of 12 sang on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, they ended up picking 3 out of that group. Apparently, and they haven't said the rules much on this part, but they will also have 3 wild card people who can slide through eventually. Who goes through of the first group? We have Pink Hair Alexis, Widow Boy, and Redneck Michael. I was very disappointed that Anoop Dogg didn't get through, he better get a wild card. Pink Hair, Simon is comparing to Kelly Clarkson in that she's coming out of her shell and making a name. Redneck Michael is a person that I can see people getting into since he seems like a guy that people will like. I like him too, but still would've picked Anoop. Widow Boy is a serious contender, part in of his story that he lost his wife not long before he auditioned and part because he's a real talent. I might as well run off a few quotes from my boys on our message board:

DerekHood: 20,000 votes between Sarver and Noop Dogg. That sucks ass, and I am not a happy Idolator this evening. Hopefully the judges will give him one of the last three spots.

ManDingo: What was with all the girls with big teeth last night? Was it American Idol or a WNBA tryout?

Kasher: This is stupid. Michael makes it through, but not Anoop Dogg? Michael sucks.

It's time for your regular dose of Corndog's wise words. As usual, all wise words are 100% real, never taken out of context:

Corndog: the birdman
Me: Whatcha doing?
Corndog: bored bored bored
Corndog: have you ever heard of an Upper Decker?
Me: Bored during the greatest weekend of the year, for shame.
Me: No?
Corndog: its when you go in someones bathroom
Corndog: and poop in the tank in the back of the toilet
Corndog: LOL!
Me: Oh yeah, hah.
Me: They did that on one of the seasons of Ultimate Fighter.
Corndog: i missed that
Corndog: i find that to be very hilarious

Corndog: i never stick to the subject
Bird33: Keeps us on our toes.
Corndog: such as....
Corndog: I really love fountain pop
Corndog: and someday would like a fountain pop machine in my house

Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: Once again, the work is done for me. No clue why I keep putting my name on this. It should no longer be sponsored by Arizona Jas for she has practically taken over this section. This week, she unveils Ms. Chetta Boo to the masses: http://www.myspace.com/mschettaboo

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: I was ready to post a new blog and had a subpar video in this spot. The_Freak saves the day. This is one of the best videos I've seen in a while. It's bad to laugh, but you know you'll die laughing. The mascot ends up tearing his ACL in this action. Here is Bango of the Milwaukee Bucks. Ouch!



3 Quick Thangs:

1. It's birthdays you want, it's birthdays you shall receive. We'll try Friday, February 20th. This is a pretty good crew. We start it off with an old school actor. That would be Sidney Poitier, 82 and still rockin' it out. Ivana Trump, 60. Fresh off a DUI stint and back to work, that would be Charles Barkley, 46. He's still one of the most entertaining people on television. Model Cindy Crawford, 43. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana fame (he was talked about at the dentist too), would've been 42. Rihanna, busted up face and all, only 21.

2. Today's fact that I never knew? Mexican women spend 15.3% of their life in ill health. Who knew?

3. I've never given Starbucks much of a chance over the years. Nothing against it, I'm just rarely there. I was there the other night and wanted to try something off the wall. I ended up going with the caramel apple spice and let me tell you, that's some good stuff. If you're into sweets, you'll be down for this hot concoction. It reminded me a bit of a cinnamon bun in taste. Go get it, it'll be worth the purchase.

I'm On A Boat With Aussie Rap & Anoop Dogg

Here we are again. The blog will send the Valentine's Day wishes out a few days early to everyone who is worthy of that. To me? This weekend is much more important than that. It's the NBA All Star Weekend! I could write an entire blog on this, with my predictions of each event, and what all I will be doing, but I'll spare the thought this time around. Something that the rest of you will be more inclined to hear about might be in the blog, so it's time to give a quick preview before jumping in head first. In this edition you get some Idol talk, Rob is back, Chris Brown is a waste of space, Australian rap, what bugs me about screen names, Facebook chat is brutal, and much more. Here we go..



TV time and I might as well break out some American Idol. Yeah, I'm hooked as most that know me will tell you. After Wednesday night's show, we're down to the final 36 contestants. Things will change as the season goes, but people are asking who the people that I will root for this year are going to be. Wait no longer, I'm about to unveil it. There's a handful of people that I'll be on their side until they prove me wrong. That'd be Anoop Dogg, Emo Adam, Blind Dude, Jasmine, Texas Redneck Girl, Widow Boy, Ju'Not, and Redneck Michael. Duce of Lobstah fame directed us to some Anoop Dogg videos on YouTube and this guy is really good I think. His group is called the ClefHangers. Search for his Boyz II Men stuff (I'll Make Love To You) where he takes the lead and is pretty impressive. Emo Adam has a weird look, but he's himself it seems and I like what he's done so far. Blind Dude not only has the great story on his side, but he brings some talent on the stage as well, especially when he busts out his keyboard. There's not a lot of girls that have jumped out yet to me, but Mississippi Jasmine, not to be confused with Arizona Jas and Cali Jas, is one of those kids who seems to be on the right path. Texas Redneck Girl is cute and can sing it seems, but she still needs to be introduced to some triple cheeseburgers. You'd snap this girl's arms just by touching them. Widow Boy's story is one of the main topics people are talking about. He lost his wife just not long before he did his auditions in the first round of bums. Not to mention that, but he's real good too, so keep an eye out for him. Ju'Not, we'll add him to the list, and I'm not sure what's up with that name, but creative enough for me. How Tatiana and Nate Dizzle made it through, ouch. I say due to their drama, they got pushed through. I was telling my buddies, Tat is probably one of those girls you'd have that your buddies hate in 2.2 seconds, but when quiet, she's a little freak, so who knows. I still don't care for her though, but she sorta cracks me up by putting on this show. Nate though, ugh.

A new TV show update. I watch more TV than the average person I'm sure, but I usually stay within the same schedule. I'll rotate around several shows I can't miss and then it's basketball games other than that usually the rest of the week. MTV is saving me again. I haven't been big on too many of their shows lately, aside from being still hooked to Real World. Sunday night broke things open though. This past Sunday, Rob (of Rob & Big fame) returned! Yep, at 9:00 Eastern time, you get to see Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory. If you enjoyed his last show, you'll like this one just as much it seems, at least from the first episode. Big isn't back on this one, but DJ Drama and Meaty are both still around. It seems that Rob just goofs off all day and that's his life, he has it made. He's 5 years older than me, so I don't have to grow up anytime soon either, hah. The first episode has an appearance from NBA stud Lamar Odom.



Chris Brown, really now? I used to sort of like the dude and feel he might be the best dancer out there, but hitting a chick? And Rihanna? Geez. Come on man, you can't whip anyone if you really tried and you're out there acting all hard hitting girls. Get out of here with that garbage. I don't care what your excuse is, you can't be busting up some girl. I thought that was a written in stone rule anyways, but apparently not for too many people. Even if a girl is a 7'2" giant beastly amazon woman, it's still a no in my book. Chris Brown, no excuse you can give me at all. You get this week's finger of shame pointed at you.

Since I'm on the music kick, I'll flip it to a positive manner now. Everyone knows I'm a big rap fan. Most in my area aren't rap fans one bit and I can respect that, but I'm going to branch it out another step. Australian rap. What, you never knew of such a thing? For as big of a rap guy as I am, I'm new to this genre as well. Due to that, I had to have the Aussies on my lists give me some help, mainly Phoebe. I might as well recommend some things now that I have your ears geared up to jam. Drapht has songs such as Falling, Jimmy Recard, and Inspiration Island. Now we move to Funkoars and go with Kidney Shifters, And Now For Something Completely Different, and The Greatest Hit. How about the Hilltop Hoods with The Hard Road, Breathe, and The Nosebleed Section. Last but not least, we'll try out some Bliss N Eso. They have Bullet And A Target, The Sea Is Rising, and Eye Of The Storm. These songs should keep you busy for a while and you can thank me later. Oh, you want a quick American rap song before I leave ya on this topic? Ok, go get Dead And Gone if you haven't heard yet from T.I. and Timberlake, a real good setup.



Here's one for the video game fans and even if you're not, I'll bring the topic to your level. I play a lot of Xbox 360 Live (online), mainly Call of Duty 5. It's a game that I've had since it came out in November and I haven't even been tempted to buy another game since. That's how much it has me consumed. Anyways, when you sign up for a Live account, you obviously need a screen name to get it under way. The same can be said for chat messengers online, the same formula basically. I like seeing some creative things or something different. What bugs me is that so many of these names, and I'm probably old fashioned in my thought here, but tons of them have 420 as their clan tags or anything of weed reference. Now that's fine and dandy if you do that stuff I guess, just not a choice I've never made, but it must be cool to have that reference in your online names? I'm missing the boat on that one, but you'd be floored if you've never played games online and how much of this is out there. I have no clue at all on drug related stuff and am very naive on it, so I can't give much of an opinion than what I have already said. It's sad (for them, not me) that today's kiddies know more about the drug culture than they do about stuff they can actually do to make their lives better. I'll never understand that, but just wanted to get a comment out there dealing with the nicknames. At least be original with it. I don't care what kind of screen name you have, but why make it the same like everyone else?

With everyone and their brother on MySpace and Facebook, this little section will appeal to a lot. For as big as Facebook is, they can't get some little things right. What's up with their chat boxes on there? It's straight up brutal if you ask me. First off, and I've heard others complain about it too, you often find yourself clicking out of the main page accidentally. What happens then? You lose the chat of course. Maybe I'm just always used to chatting nonstop on AIM, MSN, and Yahoo, but it's about time that Facebook upped their game on this side of things. You'd think by now they could have a little update to make it where you could exit out of the page and still have your little chats up, but I guess not. Plus, it's so generic. It gets the job done, but just barely. Maybe I'm spoiled on the chat end of things and demand a lot more, but who knows.



I'm not a person that can sit around all day and watch the news. I know what's going on for the most part, but it's not my cup of tea. One thing that puzzles me is the late night news shows. It's the SAME story over and over and over. I watch SportsCenter everyday and they do a lot of the same, but in a few days, it'll switch over to something else. There's always something new going on. Tot Mom though? This has been going on for 6 months or whatever and this dirty murdering girl is still the lead story on these shows. My parents get all into that, but that would drive me crazy, no matter what the story was, if I had to hear about it every single night. Even Favre and A-Rod don't get this much coverage.

Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: Arizona Jas with yet another. You guys keep making these blogs easier and easier to write. As Jas says on this week's girl, "She's not a fattie either! Some of the ones I send you are... huge!" Fair enough for me, so we'll use it: www.myspace.com/brooklynbillinphilli

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: This was submitted to me by the great DerekHood. We've put up Andy Samberg stuff before and he's back with another gem. This one features T-Pain (despite him being annoying with that synthesizer junk) and is called I'm On A Boat. Hilarious, at least to me. Plus, even the famous Kevin Garnett line gets mentioned in this one, so anythinnggggg is posssssibblleee!





3 Quick Thangs:

1. Today's weird fact that you could probably care less about? The oldest pig in the world lived till the age of 68 supposedly. I figure there's a pig out there somewhere, running around wild, that is older, but 68 is getting it done for sure.

2. I just saw a commercial for IHOP. A deal they have going is that they have all you can eat pancakes. Now I'm not a huge eater when it comes to that stuff, and I love my pancakes, but who can really eat a whole bunch of those? Like is someone gonna sit down and eat like 15 pancakes? I guess it's possible, but IHOP still makes out money wise. Besides, what's it cost to make a pancake? A penny?

3. Ok, we're going to double up on videos this week. Dentist Boy has been the craze of the internet the past few weeks. You've all seen him by now, but time to give him some dap right here in the blog. Also, some of the remixes are really good too. My favorite is when he tries to get out of his seat and goes with that crazy primal scream around 56 seconds. I bet I've watched that segment of the video 40 times already, showing how much time I waste. Here he is:

Joe Dirt At The Toughman Contest

Our first post of February and we'll rock it out, or at least try to. January flew by for me, mainly because we had so many snow days at work. You just can't beat getting paid to sleep in and hanging out online most of the day. I like my job a lot, but when they pay me to stay home on these days, you won't hear me complain one bit. What do we have cooked up for you to read in this edition? You'll get the Toughman Contest on Friday, a controversial story from the show, a comparison to Russell Crowe, my thoughts on this year's ring girls, food, and what bugs me about windshield wipers. That's just a portion of what we'll dive into this time around, so prepare to get your reading glasses on, it's go time!



The 30th Annual North Central West Virginia Toughman Contest came to us from scenic Clarksburg, West Virginia. The setting? The Nathan Goff Armory, site of being able to say that I was in attendance back in the day to see Cactus Jack's (Mick Foley) first pro wrestling match. This year had the most entrants in the history of the contest, 100 in total, wow. We always love going on Friday nights because that's when you get half the bums who have no business being there. Also, you get more fights that night it seems. Before I talk about the fights, I'll mention what went down outside first. No, nothing crazy, but it'll set the tone. Spank was riding shotgun and we pull in to park. It was a mess down there and they wanted $10 to park. You're kidding me, right? You all know how I feel on the Wal-Mart Syndrome of idiots who search for hours to find that "perfect" parking spot. Not me. Get out and walk you lazy bums, you can be there by the time the idiots are driving around. Due to that, Spank and I decided to drive to the hospital and park for free. It wasn't much about the $10 as much as it was it being so crowded and it'd be hard to get out. That night it was freezing, but Spank isn't a lazy bum, so he had the same idea I did. We were roughly a half mile away from the armory to where we parked. In the cold, at night, we take off running the highway until we get there. By the time we get there, it was a nice workout and people had to think we were really the ones being idiots running out in the cold. Hey, we saved $10, got a good run in, and beat the clueless people driving around into the building, so I'll chalk that up as a win. We joked that it probably seemed like we stole something with us running like that.

We get there and had pretty nice seats indeed. We were on the floor, 6 rows back and our view was quality. The place was packed with the finest characters of Harrison County. If only we could've made a documentary on this stuff, it'd sell like hotcakes. We had a ticket mixup when we got there. Apparently, our row was double booked as they sold the same tickets twice. Ugh, go figure. This old man who was in our row was all fired up and stood around, trying to direct the crowd. I'm not going to waste my time figuring out the tickets, so I just sit down and claim my seat. One guy next to me (he reminded me of Joe Dirt) and his wife were that night's victims of my random conversations. To make a long story short, the old man comes back after they announce there are refunds for the ticket problem. He asks our row for our tickets so he can get an answer. Joe Dirt didn't want to hand them over since he didn't trust the old guy, that has us going good. Joe Dirt then tells the man that he's going over there with him to see if that's what he was going to do. They all come back and we keep our seats, yet the old guy and his clan got moved to better seats and refunded their money back. I guess that's what I get for not wanting to pay $10 to park in a muddy hole.



47 fights! That's how many we got to watch on this glorious night. You want something that you get every penny's worth of your money at? That'd definitely be a show like this. I think I could've watched another 47. This year was fairly tame compared to last, as far as the crowd situation goes. There were a few rumbles, but no great ones like I wrote about in last year's blog. Remember last year when the two chicks, just a few seats down from me, got into the fight of the night? This wasn't your average girl fight with them pulling hair, one chick got lit up and that had the crowd going insane. The good is that I didn't get beer spilled on me this year (last year I did) as we set the odds of that happening to 50/50. It's a shame how few of these guys come into this contest in any kind of shape at all. I don't think they know what cardio even is, I'd guess a good 80% of them were out of shape. That doesn't always mean they can't be tough, but many get winded in no time. We saw one guy come into his fight, obliterated drunk. Another redneck came in and fought in blue jeans. Keep those images in mind for the topic that I go off on here in a few paragraphs.

So many of you are wanting to know all about the ring girls, huh? Ok, we're getting there, be patient. I always have an opinion on the dirties that I see out and about. I find out that it's a hit with both the guys and girls when I talk to them as they also give their comments. I'm a pretty honest dude, I try to tell things as straight as possible. On the same side, I usually can get along with just about anyone and try to be as nice as possible. Opinions though, I'm usually not short of, especially in this space. This year we had four dirties as our ring girls. Two of them had no business being in. I'm sorry, that's just what I feel. If you're out there in the ring showing off your body, I don't think it's wrong at all for me to give an assessment, they want that attention anyways, so I'll respect that much in that they had the guts to get out there. Another girl (this year's winner) apparently thought it was great to put 30 pounds of glitter all over her body. What'd she do? Put glue all over her body and then roll in a bed of glitter? She did win the creative award by coming out during a few rounds in a Steelers bikini, that sealed the deal since it was Super Bowl Weekend and the Steelers fans were hyped up. Nobody puts a lot of thought into these contests though, you have to bring something to the table, so I'll give her that. None were what I would call gorgeous by any means and the thing that always bugs me (I guess I'm in in the minority here) is that they don't have much to their bodies. I've rambled about it many times before, but I just don't get the whole near-anorexic look. If you're going to get in a contest like this, normally you'd think they'd have something to shake or whatever to make themselves look like more of a fool? The girl that I liked best at least had a body, or her top half anyways was busting out, so a big thumbs up on my end. I'll be sexist here, but if you're an average looking chick and have a hot body, that raises you some points at least. If you're an average looking chick and don't have anything to that body (way way skinny), that doesn't do much at all in my book. Not being mean, I'm just talking out loud, not to offend anybody. It's just what I like, but each guy likes a different type of girl, so that's the beauty of it. Anyways, moving along..



Back to the fights. There was one knockout in particular in the heavyweight division that was just scary. We're talking big boys as this one 305 pound dude named Big Daddy was doing battle. He was actually losing the fight until out of nowhere he just crushes this guy. You see some knockouts, most usually of where the guy knocked out will be up before the 10 count, but be in no condition to continue. This one, there was no doubt about it though. The guy that got rocked, he looked to be dead. They had him on the ground for a good minute before he was moved. Lights out. They pick him up and when he's standing, they have to catch him because he falls back down. Big Daddy of course got huge cheers since the crowd is bloodthirsty. As a random sidenote, Joe Dirt and his wife fit right in with my conversations out of nowhere, they were pretty good people. All night though, him and his wife kept saying I looked like someone, but they couldn't figure out who. Out of nowhere, late in the night, Joe Dirt pokes me and is all excited, saying he figured it out. Mind you, this guy is about 50 years old I'd say. He says I look like Russell Crowe and then tells his wife the same. They were saying it's almost exact. Hmm.. really? I don't see that one at all. I always laugh at comparisons like that. So I'll add Russell Crowe to the list of people I've heard I look like over the years to go with Freddie Prinze Jr, Marc Bulger, Jeff Gordon, John Stockton, and the Blues Clues Dude. I'm not saying those are even close, but just what I've heard, you decide.

Now while the juices are flowing, I better tap into the topic that might be controversial. I'm not sure controversial is the word for it, but it is something that gets me soooo mad about my area. Granted, I love living in West Virginia and for the most part this state is awesome and I don't want to move. We do get some stereotypes for people who don't know us, many times those come true in certain places. That was true at the Toughman Contest. There was one certain fight that featured a black dude facing a white dude. It was an even contest for a while. As the whitey would land good punches though, the crowd started to go wild. I thought I was hearing things at first and then it'd pick up more and more as the fight went. Then, whitey knocks this guy out and I seriously thought the roof was going to come off the place. It was like they won the lottery or something, all jumping up and down and stuff. It was actually embarrassing to be a part of and my crew (Spank who was with me, along with Ozzie, Matty Cakes, and Cork who sat in another section) all had the same thoughts. I take a very strong offense to racist people, but sadly you can't change many people around here. Some people might take up for it, but I'm still going on record to say that there are tons of racist and ignorant people around here. Maybe one day West Virginia will stop living in the 1800s.



After the rumbles, we jumped into Cork's new pimp ride and the five of us headed to the hospital parking garage. We only have a few late night stops that are open that you can get food at. We decided on going to the FOP that I've talked about before, 24/7, can't go wrong. I ended up getting the steak panini with hot peppers that roasted me and they were great and cheesesticks. I didn't get my usual late night combo of pancakes and cheesesticks. While there, the five of us were planning out our next road trip. We're well overdue, so I'm ready to get something going, even if it's just a small-time trip. We discussed everything from the Baseball Hall of Fame (Cork and I have been trying to get that one going for a long time), a LeBron game (those never get old just to see how those fans treat him like a god), Boston, Atlantic City again (I'm not a huge fan, but have tried it twice), and I even threw out something random like Alabama for no reason whatsoever because it'd be different.

Saturday night it was time for UFC 94 at Posey's. He's got the great setup for a show and I always appreciate the home feel there when I go. As a bonus, one of the wild dogs was put in the other room and there was no noise all night. The Taco Bell dog was on its best behavior, even hanging on the couch with me. If they can do that, I'll be their buddies. If they bark their heads off, thumbs down. Kaiden was cracking me up good, dude has nonstop energy and was going strong till probably 11:00, same with Kierstn. Aside from the kiddies, in attendance for the festivities was Posey, Scherri, Jarrod, Jarrod's Buddy, Spank, and myself. I won't go in detail about the show, although I could. However, St. Pierre totally dominated Penn, but that's not why I'm writing about it. They both weighed in at 170 pounds on Friday. Their fight was on Saturday. Most fighters gain a decent bit so they can have some extra strength from what they cut for weigh-ins. St. Pierre was said to have fought from 185-187 that night. I can understand the retention in that during a day's time and the gain. The thing I don't understand, and I know these guys are on just about everything (even if they are tested), but how do you gain 17 pounds in a day and still come to the fight all freaked out and jacked up? St. Pierre was shredded like no other, you'd think there would be a little softness going, but nope. I'm in pretty good shape and all, but I don't think I could gain 17 in a day and be ripped up. Then again, I won't try either, just something to think about.

I had a few topics that I was going to crunch in during this post, but I'll save that till next time. One of those I can give a preview about will be what fires me up when playing XBox 360 online. It's not really video game related, so all will be able to follow along on that. It has to do with the types of screen names people choose for themselves on there. Other than that, let's begin to wrap this up..



Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: This one is pretty rough. Ok, very rough actually. Arizona Jas sent it partly due to a joke I assume. This girl has the dirty factor though, but not in a good way at all. This girl is just ugh.. http://www.myspace.com/karlao

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: This week's video comes to us with credit given to Corndog. It's a news segment of a guy bringing a snake on. The newscaster starts to hold the snake and then freaks out when a lizard jumps up on the snake. A short clip, but you'll watch it over and over, guaranteed.





3 Quick Thangs:

1. Fake rap beef always cracks me up. It's all part of the game, somewhat like wrestling. They don't usually "hate" each other, but it's still funny to watch. Now we have Rick Ross who is about as gangsta as Joe Dirt (even though I like Ross and he plays his character well) going at 50 Cent. They're going back and forth in retaliations. Ross started out with a song called Mafia Music and 50 comes back with Officer Ricky, Go Ahead And Try Me. Check em out, why not, they're good.

2. You want a snack recommendation? Go buy a bag of Lay's Honey BBQ Flavored Twists. They're tasty and once again, you'll be supporting the Dave Posey Fund, a worthy charity.

3. You know something that really needs improved upon? That would be the back window windshield wipers. They have cars that can practically drive themselves, but they haven't figured out a good way to make the back wipers halfway reliable? Why do they have to be the half moon wipers? Can't they come up with a way to get the entire glass so it doesn't streak off and look filthy? Just as bad as that would be the wiper fluid back there, it never gets the entire glass. Hold tight until next week..

Lil Smokies, Meatballs Blowing Up, & Sour Patch Kids

Ok, here we go. January is about wrapped up and we'll see what February has in store for us. As a quick preview in this one you get my thoughts on a few movies, packaging woes, gripes about MySpace and Facebook, kiddie birthdays, food thoughts, Lil Smokies, Goody's getting the Finger of Shame, words of wisdom from my crew, and no candy for a while.. That's just a portion of what to expect, whether it's good or not, we'll find out soon I'm sure..



I was due for some new iPod headphone buds. My old ones were about shot. I buy a pair of those JVC marshmallow buds that I've been a fan of. They're only $20. That's not the story though. The story is what it is packaged in. These people who package things must want you to think that gold is inside. I practically need a knife to open these things. And how about DVDs? It's like you need to be the world's strongest man to open half of those. What's the point? I don't need a workout when I open something new that I buy. It's a $20 piece of junk, make it simple to open for us people who don't carry around deer knives with them 24/7. Is that too much to ask for?

Once again we have several movies to review. The first I had been intrigued by when I've been seeing previews on TV. The weird thing is that it's not even out in theaters till this week, but I've already been able to see, good times. That movie would be Taken. It doesn't seem like the type of movie I'd normally check out since it has that thriller aspect to it. It's not a scary movie so to speak, it's definitely more action. It stars Liam Neeson, who I honestly didn't know anything about, but apparently he's been in some pretty big films. The lead chick is Maggie Grace, another I don't have a clue about. Nothing amazing, but not half bad, and much better with dark hair than blonde. The lead character reminds me of a mix between MacGyver (I guess I'm dating myself on that one) and Jason Bourne. It's predictable, but the action and storyline involved are pretty good. Also, after I was on the fence with watching this one, Arizona Jas sealed it. She had already seen it too and along with dropping some f-bombs in her review, that sold it for me. I was saying that the movie critics need to start cussing in their reviews some. You know that'd sell you if nothing else, just for a laugh. For my ranking, we'll go with 6.9 stolen girls taken hostage out of 10.



The crowd is demanding another movie review. I guess when the demands come, I have to get on my A-game and get with it. This one is another recommendation. I'm a huge Adam Sandler guy, but never got around to seeing You Don't Mess With The Zohan. Shawna sent this as a recommendation and she knows I'm always down to watch the pointless comedies with not much plot. Those are my movies for sure. I was wanting the old Sandler back, not serious Sandler and we got him in this one. If you like his old stuff, you should be a fan of this one too. This movie is hilarious. Michael Buffer being one of the villains, that sort of cracked me up. Scrappy Coco! For those who have already seen this one over the summer, you'll know what I mean there, that name had me laughing, guess it's just me. Shawna also wants the chicks to know that she was impressed that Sandler was somewhat built in this movie. Seems weird to picture him as someone that works out, but who knows, just throwing her note in there. I'm going to give this one 7.1 swift kicks to the face with a fake accent out of 10.

Everyone and their brother is on MySpace and Facebook. Granted, I am too and get hooked like the rest of you. Something that bugs me, and as I usually say, I can't be the only one, deals with requests sent. No, I don't want to adopt a virtual pet on there. No, I don't want to have some funny card or stupid joke sent to me. No, I don't want to save the world with the earth tokens. Please save yourself the time people. I'm sure 80% of the ones who receive this garbage could care less, if not more. If you're into that type of thing, more power to you, but it's not my cup of tea. It doesn't make me too mad, but it's just a hassle when you constantly get that junk. The same goes for the fake porn style chicks who send you friend requests. The cycle never ends, yet we're all still on there 24/7 as we spend hours looking at bums, their pics, and what they've been up to.



This was a few weeks ago during the Monopoly Weekend. I could've slipped it in at that time, but I had enough topics going that time around. I was driving up Bridgeport Hill for the locals that know the area. Ozzie and Maria were riding along. That night it was probably 20 degrees tops if we were lucky. Wind was whipping and it was snowy, nothing you wanted to be outside hanging out in. Goody's in my area (maybe nationwide, I dunno) is going out of business. On the side of the highway in the freezing cold, Goody's had the bad nature to send one of their workers outside with a sign. First off, this was about a mile from where the store actually is, but he was out where all the cars pull into this area. This guy is out there in 10 layers of clothes and holding this sign for people to go shop at Goody's. Oh my! We better get our lowly worker out there to hold this sign since we're going out of business, the world is ending! If that guy didn't get paid at least double what he made an hour inside the store, then that's dirty. Forget that. Goody's, due to that, you get this week's Finger of Shame. I mean, who does that to their workers? The big chief doesn't know what hard work is and he's sending someone out there making probably less than $7 an hour to hold a sign, looking like a homeless person begging for food.

Saturday was big birthday action high atop scenic Tank Hill in Shinnston. No, it wasn't mine, that was earlier in the month ,even though there was no party. This one was for Lil Posey who turned 2. The house was jammed packed with 30+ people I'm guessing and Kaiden was having a good time. I had pressure on me since Scherri always says I usually do it up big with coming up with some good birthday presents for the kiddies. I'm not ready for my own by any means (scary thought and my buddies would agree), but I might as well hook up the kids of my buddies, why not. I ended up getting a dinosaur toy set, a big ambulance that made sounds to drive Posey crazy, and police car that also made noise. As an added bonus, usually when we're up there hanging, Scherri's and her side of the family doesn't mess around one bit with the good eats. Still, as some random info for you to soak in, the best wedding food I've been part of was when Posey and Scherri did their thing, no comparison at all. So much stuff to eat on Saturday though, but my favorite being the homemade Lil Smokies in sauce, it doesn't get much better.



Since the Lil Smokies have me hungry as I type this, it's time to talk about a few things you should munch on. I'll give you two things to pick up this week at the store. The first would be Eggo Bake Shop Swirlz, preferably strawberry. If you're a fan of Pillsbury Toaster Strudel, you'll be in god shape with these. These are also a bit easier than Toaster Strudel and I know a lot reading want to go the lazy route. The icing is already inside these things when you throw them in the toaster, so that saves time. Once they're ready to eat, you don't have to do anything with icing, it's done for you, simple as that. Our second thing, we'll hit up will be granola bars. After playing ball each Sunday, I've been picking up a big 32 ounce Renegade (Sheetz's version of Gatorade that is pretty good) and a few granola bars to hold me off till dinner a few hours later. I've been hitting up Nature Valley's strawberry yogurt bars, they're quality. You wouldn't think of a granola bar being that special, but this is a good one to pick up if you're on the road.

It's time for a short break to hear what some of my buddies have been up to. First, we get Corndog giving us his words of wisdom on his recent food excursion:

Corndog: I got some bad news to report
Me: Uh oh, whatcha got?
Corndog: $4.22 worth of baloney was left out on the counter this morning after i made my lunch
Me: Doh.. big bummer right there.
Corndog: and another thing.....
Corndog: Campbells Chunky Soup says to heat the Rigatoni and Meatballs for 3 - 4 minutes in the microwave
Corndog: i put it for 3 minutes and it blew up
Corndog: a noodle and a meatball actually escaped the bowl in the process
Me: Hah!! Rough food day out there.
Corndog: and in case youre wondering....yes i put it back in the bowl
Bird33: Gotta get your money's worth.
Corndog: i believe in equal rights

And now we move along to Kasher and DerekHood's thoughts on American Idol, uncensored:

"Alright. What's really bothering me lately are the people who make it to Hollywood, but who come out of the audition room with a "pretend sad" look on their face to try and fool their family/friends outside. But really they're hiding their orange paper behind their back or inside their hat or whatever, and then pull the paper out after they walk out just to get a reaction. Fucking stop it. Just stop."- Kasher

"One thing that's bothered me, much moreso than the fake sadness thing that Kash mentioned, is the pansy motherfuckers whining and crying about how this is their dream and pretty please give them another chance and they'll outwork everybody and their children are there and their mothers are dying and kittens will be murdered by the millions if they don't get to go to Hollywood ... and then the judges pass them through. What the fuck? When did this turn into America's Got Talent?"- DerekHood

Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: Arizona Jas takes her seat in this section once again. The girl she's sending along has a whopping 324 pics. 324? Jodine, she has nothing on you though, hah. A good mix of pics, so we'll consider this girl from New Jersey, worthy for the blog's sake. I do gotta give her credit for decent music on the page and the Obama theme. http://www.myspace.com/she3baby

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Here we go with a video I was sent, but the person who sent doesn't want credit. Ok, either way is cool with me. Here is a New York Giants fan turning into a little baby once his team was out of the playoffs to the Eagles. Not safe to listen to at work, or at least not with speakers cranked. This guy is a mess, but you know you'll laugh just like I did:





3 Quick Thangs:

1. Since we already have the birthday feel in the air for this blog, why not try Thursday, January 29th. Actor Tom Selleck starts things off with celebrating his 64th. Wrestling legend, Jerry "The King" Lawler, he hits the big 6-0. Oprah goes for 55. Actor Nicholas Turturro of old NYPD Blue fame, I don't consider him much of a huge celeb, but maybe he is, 47. Former Bills wideout great Andre Reed, Spank and Matty Cakes will be thrilled for this one, 45. He was in the September Buffalo blog for whatever that's worth. Actress hottie Gabrielle Union, 37. Actor Jude Law, also 37.

2. It's Tuesday afternoon as I type this part. I may have set a personal record. For 8 of the past 9 days, I haven't had a piece of candy. I'm not sure what has gotten into me, but something new to try. I used last Saturday as my "cheat day" as I tore up a piece of Kaiden's birthday cake and then had a few Cadbury eggs later that day as well as some Sour Patch Kids. Yum. I may try this for a bit to see how it goes.

3. I should have a decent blog in the making for next week. A lot of topics so far will include Friday night's Toughman Contest, another trip to Posey's on Saturday for UFC 94 as we get St. Pierre versus Penn, and Sunday is of course the Super Bowl. Other things will pop up as well, so stay tuned or give some suggestions, I'm always open to ramble about whatever.

Slumdogs, Monopoly, & Cell Phone Lady!

We have a few movies to review this time around. Yep, I've been a busy movie watcher, if that's what you want to call me. First up to bat.. The Wrestler. This one stars Mickey Rourke as he's given a second chance to get back into the big time after falling off the face of the earth for years. This one has also been getting some solid reviews, both from the average movie fan to the "expert" critics. Rourke won Best Actor at the recent Golden Globe Awards for whatever that's worth to anyone. You probably already know that, but just in case not, that's what I'm here for. Wrestling fan or not, that doesn't matter one bit, the story here is going to compel you to watch. Wrestling movies in the past have tended to be pretty bad overall, but this one is different. It shows the ups and downs that a star wrestler can have and how low things can go. Marisa Tomei is the lead chick in this movie as she plays a dirty stripper. Her character is similar to Rourke's in that they are both going downhill in their professions. As an added bonus, Tomei gets naked in this one, multiple times. She's listed as being 44 years old, but some places dispute her being a few years older. Either way, she still gets it done. I know, you want my ranking. I wasn't as wild about this movie as the review say, but the movie is good however. It gets 7.3 dropkicks out of 10 in my book.



I do have a second movie to get to. Can we keep the streak going? As Obama would say, yes we can. Next up will be to talk about Slumdog Millionaire. If you haven't heard any of the hype on this one, you are straight up missing out. I don't watch any of the movie award shows, but this one also loaded up at the Golden Globes. It won four awards there, the most notable being Best Motion Picture. That's some high praise there. Before I grade things, I may have to put this in my top 10 movies of all time list. If not, it's definitely a contender. I'm serious on that too, it's a must see movie. Out of 34,000+ votes on IMDB, it is currently #34 in their Top 250 and has a rank of 8.7 as I type this paragraph up on Tuesday night. I'm going higher actually. It's time to step up and give this one a 9.3. We don't venture in the 9 range much at all, so keep that in mind. It tracks an 18-year old orphan and his life story as well as following him around with his brother and the girl of his dreams. They all go their separate ways and the orphan, for years has been trying to get back together with the girl that got away. She was taken by gangs as they tried to escape. Also, he tries to win 20 million rupees on India's version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. The people in this movie were all unknown to the movie world, but they picked a perfect cast. Bonus points to Freida Pinto, the lead female in this movie, very quality on my end, gorgeous. But what do I know? The moral here? Go see this movie immediately, you will not be disappointed one bit, trust me.

Apparently I need to mix things up living here in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia, imagine that. Most knew that about me anyways, but I'm fairly content, just not up on the wholehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif "big city" mentality. Cali Jas says that I'm definitely old school and I had some funny comments on the last blog from people, that's always good times. Remember the Real World breakdown last week? The chick I called a transvestite was actually not. She's actually transgendered, something I even know much less about. I don't think I've ever seen a transvestite in person before (I wouldn't know anyways), let alone someone that is transgendered. I'm always willing to learn new things though for sure. If that's what they want to do and it makes their life more comfortable, go for it I say. As far as trying to explain that, I'm the last guy that would know, oblivious to a lot of things on that level I guess, hah. So to you big city people, keep busting out that knowledge to me. One day I may understand it all. Also, as a side not for no reason other than it makes me laugh, it's TO crying in that pic. That never ever gets old. "It's really unfair. It's really unfair. That's my teammate! That's my quaaaateerrback! If you guys do that man, it's unfair!



Saturday was a pretty good time with the crew. I'll have several topics from that night. No, it's nothing over the top that is going to have me turning into a crazed alcoholic and druglord. It started out with me rolling to church with Ozzie and Maria. I like their church a lot. I've been before, but I won't ever try to preach in my blog, most people don't want to hear that, I understand. That's not my style anyways. One thing I didn't like and it really doesn't have to do much with church, but the action itself. This old lady was sitting beside us and her phone goes off like four times. It was pretty loud. Normally, if you were an idiot and didn't turn it off before you came in to begin with, you'd at least shut it off quick, right? No, this woman didn't do that. She picks the phone up, answers it and starts talking IN church on it. You serious? It would've been out of place, but I was wanting to grab that phone so bad and stomp it into little pieces and then dance around as the rest of the congregation cheered me on. Well, maybe not the dancing around part, but you get what I mean. I've stated that problem before. She's the same person who is on TV at a baseball game and is just wanting people to notice her using that phone. Get out of here. Use your phone all you want, that's fine, but there's a time and a place. Maybe that's me being old school, but I can't be the only one who wanted to bash that woman's phone in.

After church, we got the crew rounded up for some Shogun action, hibachi style. Who all went? That'd be Kari, Matty Cakes, Ozzie, Maria, Mudcat, Sweet Pea, and myself. Usually our Japanese bunch is bigger, but we were well overdue. We had the seven of us at our table as well as 3 "random bums". I was next to these other three people and it ended up working fine. Most of the time, when people sit by randoms at a hibachi, they won't bother them at all or even talk. What fun would that be? I like to get any kind of conversation going, so I was talking to these people and they were probably sick of me, but that's the experience you get at Japanese if you ask me. I order my usual of filet (medium rare, closer to rare, yum) and scallops that are huge as my main meal. By the time I get my main meal, I'm half stuffed. Not to mention I was roasting in there when I was eating and that's never good for someone like me who has a weak stomach. That's what my crew is there for, they can cleanup on my extras for free.



Since I'm an old man, what do we do to get the night started with after we put food into our bellies? That'd be another trip to Ozzie's place and all seven agreed to hit up the festivities. I've been a Monopoly fan for a long time, but not many others seem to ever be too interested. Posey, Spank, and myself are always trying to get a game going, but we rarely ever find more than three people to jump in. We switched it up this time though. Kari and Sweet Pea jammed on Guitar Hero, while the rest of us battled it out. 3½ hours in total the game was, but there was a change of pace. How so? It wasn't your average Monopoly game. This was the Electronic Banking version. I was skeptical of it at first, but it turned out to be real nice. You don't use any bills at all for money. It's all based on cards that you slide into a machine and it calculates the losses and gains you make on the spot. Matty Cakes was the host as he got a kick out of running it and towards the end of the night, Mudcat took over reigns. I always say it is one of those games that ends up as a fun time, whether you win or lose. First to be eliminated was The Mudder, followed by Cakes, then Maria finishing 3rd. After a fight till the death that ended in my defeat at 2:30 AM, Ozzie finally runs through the snowy streets hoisting the gold Monopoly trophy for a well deserved win. I am a fan of this version of Monopoly though, no complaints here.

I'm not a huge fast food guy on a regular basis. Give me good home cooked meals any day of that grease. Every now and then though, we need to hit it up. I'm also not much of a McDonald's fan, but from time to time like anyone else, you get something from there. I will give them credit on their fries. Maybe it's because they're so unhealthy, but they taste good, that they hit the spot. Another thing I'll recommend would be their chicken snack wraps. These, as far as McD's go, are on the healthier side of their foods. Also, if you get a grilled version, it's pretty good indeed. I've tried all flavors, the BBQ, honey mustard, and ranch. You really can't go wrong with either for a quick snack. It's not a monster meal, but grab a couple and put em together with a big sweet tea and it makes for a decent enough lunch. While McD's has nothing on Arby's as far as fast food goes, I figure I'd mention that just because. I'd also guess that half the people reading this right now are hungry. Even if you're not, you can get a snack wrap down at the very least. If you don't like it, blame me. Plus, they're cheap.



Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: We have Cali Jas and Arizona Jas in the same blog. That's when you know business is about to pick up. This week's submission works at Hooters if that helps the dirty factor and it's a "friend of a friend" is what Arizona Jas says. In her interests it says that she's selfish, impatient, and at times hard to handle. That sounds like a mess. Jas says she's legal though and has worthy pics, so we'll see what the fans think. http://www.myspace.com/jessicalovespink

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Due to our Monopoly theme earlier, I might as well go with a Monopoly video. Mr. Monopoly goes broke, his chick leaves him and he ends up going to the slums, eating out of the garbage. I thought it was creative. Not overly funny, but well done. Don't sleep on Baltic Avenue though, that and Mediterranean are my favorite properties for whatever it's worth.





3 Quick Thangs:

1. Some of the birthdays were listed wrong the last time. We'll see if we can nail them this time around. We'll go with Thursday, January 22nd. Steve Perry, the lead vocalist for Journey, he's 60. I'm not sure he's much of a celebrity to me as I wouldn't know him if he walked in my room, but most people know Journey songs at least. Steven Adler, who was in the blog recently as he's on my Celebrity Deathpool list, he's somehow made it to 44. He was the Guns N Roses drummer who is a complete mess. Say no to drugs kids, look at Adler. DJ Jazzy Jeff, he's also 44. For the Japanese wrestling fans, Manabu Nakanishi of New Japan Pro Wrestling, 42. That's not too impressive of a list, but I'm not the one who picks the birthdays. I just write about them.

2. Back to the movie front.. When I wrote about Gran Torino in the last blog, a few of the blog readers have also jumped in and watched since that. Corndog said it was excellent and not the ending he expected, while Spank and Alicia both gave it a big thumbs up as well. Give me some ideas of movies to check out and I may get around to it some day. If so, they'll get my opinion in here for sure.

3. Today's weird law fact? It's apparently illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis. For real now? And people think I live in the old days.. Until next time.. thanks for wasting part of your day to read this.

Ramen Noodles, Transvestites, & Pregnant Celebrities!

I had to renew my license picture the other day at the DMV. I prepared to be waiting a while since it seems like it's always a zoo up there. It wasn't as bad as I expected, but still nothing exciting by any means. The entire wait was about 45 minutes, I could handle that and then go home. I'm waiting in line for a bit and this dude in front of me said he needed to run to his car and get money. He asked if I could save his spot and I didn't have a problem with that since I'm a good guy like that and the line didn't seem to be moving. As soon as the guy runs out, the line starts to move and it's already my turn. People are pushing their way in and I couldn't actually stop the line and say wait for this knucklehead to return. I tried, but had to get on with my business. I see him walk in a few minutes later and he's in the middle of the line now. I paid my deal and then had to go to another wait to get my picture. I was joking to that guy that it seemed like a punk move, but nothing I could do and he was cool with that.



Speaking of the DMV, have you been to your local one lately? You see some straight up characters there, it's a treat to see, or maybe not a treat. I saw a vast variety of people. The funny thing is with so many people being there, and I'm around my area bouncing around a good bit, but I've never seen any of those people in my life out in the public before. I pretty much go just about anywhere in my area and I'm going to run into someone I know, that's how it goes. Not on this day though, it's like they pulled them out of the woodwork so to speak. You had your rednecks from deep in the sticks, your mothers with 7 kids, a few guys in suits, just the whole works. An interesting combo for sure. I was joking with Arizona Jas on the chick quality there that day. I said the best chick in the building was this cracked out looking girl and that's the pool I had to look at. She asked what did I expect at a WV DMV? I guess I can't argue that one too much. :)

Movie time! Yep, it's yet another review. I've been fairly steady with these over the last few months. On Christmas, I really wanted to see Gran Torino. Unfortunately, it didn't come out in my area. That happens a lot around here, I just have to get used to it. This movie was nominated for a Golden Globe. It is already in IMDB.com's Top 250 movies of all time, currently #125 as I write this part on Sunday night. It's impressive to me, that Clint Eastwood is now 78 years old and can still be a total badass in a movie. Even if you're not a Clint fan, you should enjoy this movie as it has a great story behind it. I'm usually a wuss when it comes to a movie with a saddened ending, but I held my own for this one. You get a hard nosed military guy who has some prejudice problems and overcomes that by helping out his Hmong neighbors, going against gangs, and learning about himself. I won't spoil anything, but go check this movie. I'm going to give it a high rank. Let's go with 8.0 guns a blazin' out of 10.



"This is the true story of seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped." This year, the 21st season of Real World, coming to us from Brooklyn, starts out by featuring 8 strangers instead of the usual seven. This will probably be long, but I'll go through each character, with of course some of my opinions. We start off with 21-year old Baya, a chick from Salt Lake City. She wants to be a pro hip-hop dancer and has somewhat of a horse face. She can dance for a whitey, I'll give her that. Next up is 23-year old Chet, also from Salt Lake City, weird. He's a Mormon who is waiting till marriage. People thought he was gay, but I guess he's not. Devyn, a 20-year old St. Louis girl, and right off the bat thinks she's better than everyone else. However, she's way hot on appearance, is busting out like no other, and has won Miss Missouri Teen and some Miss America Teen pageants. I smell big drama there. JD is a 22-year old dolphin trainer, who is our gay dude of the bunch. I don't care either way actually on the gay thing, never really did, but it must equal ratings because they throw one in each year. I say let them do their own thing, but like with straight couples, I just don't want to see them all over each other in public, it's that simple. Be all over your dude or chick away from me.

The next four? Katelynn. Wow.. We've never had this before on any season. She's a 24-year old transvestite who was born male. I'll be honest, I don't even know much about that whole process, but I'm going on record to say it's beyond weird. Maybe I'm living in old days, who knows. Even though it's not my lifestyle of someone being gay, I can live with that part like JD does, and have no problems. But the he-she thing? Nah, that's just out there. Maybe this season of Real World is all about teaching idiots like me who have no clue about that process, I'm willing to listen and say that I'm out of the loop. Ryan is the 23-year old Army veteran, so big props to him on something I'd never be able to do to begin with. He's also the clown of the bunch, from small town Pennsylvania, and I can see a redneck feel to him. He likes to predict what kind of person you are within 5 minutes of meeting and seems fairly funny. Sarah is up next. She's a 22-year old punk chick from San Fran. I'm growing a bit on the tattoo thing on chicks. On some, it can work. This girl pulls it off, arm sleeves and all. She looks pretty good I think and is now in her first relationship with a dude when all of her past ones have been with chicks. Last, we get Scott in New Hampshire. This is the wannabe model who the chicks seem to be all over. He recently won a best abs on the East Coast contest. I guess he'll be doing the big pimpin' for sure and seems decent enough so far as his character goes.. Now mix these eight unique combos together and you're bound for insane drama. Tune in, Wednesday nights at 10:00 PM EST on MTV or watch online.



Thursday night the crew met up at Ozzie's house to watch the Florida versus Oklahoma, national title college football game. In attendance we had Ozzie, Maria, Cork, Mudcat, Matty Cakes, Kari, and myself. I had predicted Oklahoma to win (I know Kristen, I know) this one and that just kept putting my horrible bowl predictions this year down the tubes. I had a blast as usual with the crew, just telling stories and some great sports chatter. Mudcat and Cork had a little side bet on the game where Cork gave Mudcat 5 points. Florida ended up covering and it ruined Mud's night by having to hand over the money. That was funny to see. During the night and afterwards, we busted out the Wii. I have a Wii, but this was my first time playing Wii Fit. I didn't get to play it for a long time, but it seems like it'd be well worth the purchase. This is especially true if you have a crew battling at it against each other. At the end of the night, it was finished up with Cork showing how he's the man at Guitar Hero while the rest of us just bask in his world. I'm ok, but I've never been anything great at it. When they pull up the 4th and 5th notes, I have a rough time with the pinky finger and adjusting back to the other side. For a little dude, I have big hands (can palm basketballs and things like that which serve no purpose since I can't jump), so I've always wondered how guys with monster hands can ever be decent at this when I have enough problems.

A different topic during the game that I'll bring up for no reason. I was hungry and asked Ozzie if he had any ramen noodles laying around. Who doesn't have ramen noodles, right? Of course Ozzie had a bunch, so I went to "cook" it up as I was chef. Nobody else was hungry and I'm usually not shy, so I'll find something to get the belly going. I had it boiling and threw in the noodles. After it was done enough (I even like my noodles a bit crunchy, al dente if you will), I strained out the water. I'm not a broth fan at all, so I eliminate that. Then I throw in the pack of chicken mix and whip it up. At that point, it's ready to eat, so I take it back to the huge soft couches and continue to watch the game. I'm eating it straight out of the pot that I cooked it in. Outside of Matty Cakes who saw things my way, I guess it was out of the ordinary that I did this. My reason behind this? That's only one thing I'd have to wash when I was finished instead of two. No, that's not being lazy, it's being efficient. Besides, is there any real big difference in a bowl I could've put it in or that pot? Nope. I do this all the time with things I cook on the stove such as mac n cheese, soup, or whatever.



To prove I'm ate up with TV watching, this week started up a new season of American Idol. Sadly, I admit that I'm hooked on this. I'm sure that lowers my manliness, but so be it. Also, most of you reading this are Idol fans as well, you just have to come out and admit it. I'm undecided on the new judge they have along this season. She's fairly hot, but then on the other side, she's pretty annoying after the first week. That's a tough cookie to crack, I'm not sure how to weigh that one. If I had to pick at the moment, I'll give her a thumbs down, but it can't hurt to look at for a bit I guess. Anyways, I won't start to break down many people until later in the season, but I did enjoy the opening shows. I was glad to see a lot of bums because I've been reading they were going to try to do away with most of that. That's entertainment. I love the main rounds as much as everyone else and their brother, but give me some people who are absolutely hideous too. During Tuesday's show, we had an AIM chat that featured blog contributor Corndog and DerekHood. We're 30 and yet we're spending our nights chatting for 2 hours as we watch Idol to just bash people and ramble on. Surprisingly, that's a good time. That shows how much is going on in my area, but I'm always down for that. Out of the Lobstah crew (http://theballsempire.com), we even get it going on our message boards after the show is over. Yep, ate up, but it could be worse.

Here's one I have never understood the point of. I guess people who eat up Hollywood gossip can explain this one to me, but I'm out of the loop there. The scene is when a famous couple is pregnant. The tabloids are all about being the first to show the celeb chick being fat and whatever. Not only is that screwy enough, but then it comes time when the baby is born. These couples get tons of money just for letting someone be the first to take a pic of their kid. I'd take the money too, so I can't blame the celebs, but what's the big deal on getting that pic out there? Third, and maybe the biggest gripe, it deals with the baby's name. I don't think I've ever talked about the name of a celebrity baby, yet when you get on the homepage of certain sites, they hype it up that they named it something outrageous. Am I supposed to be impressed that they named it after some planet, an exotic food, an adjective, or even some long lost goddess of love? Well, I'm not, it's just annoying to me. I can't be the only one.



Now that we mentioned Corndog (he's all over the place), we're going to see what late night snack he came up with:

Corndog: im about to do something right now that i think you'll appreciate. its eatin time...ill brb to tell ya what i came up with
Corndog: ok im back. you ready for it?
Me: Yep and then I gotta tap out for bed early for once. Whatcha got?
Corndog: leadin off.....
Corndog: A deadman sandwich
Corndog: aka ham salad
Corndog: followed up by....
Corndog: what im gonna call the Fat Man Sandwich
Corndog: startin from the bottom it goes like this.... a piece of bread..ham..turkey...cheese..mayo...bread...roast beef...cheese...mayo (again)...bread
Corndog: and a big ol jug of fruit punch sugar free wal mart brand kool aid
Me: Dang, that even takes a while to read.
Corndog: haha
Corndog: have you heard the term Deadman sandwich before?
Me: Don't think so, but you're doing it up huge, hah.
Corndog: i learned it from a buddy. cause anytime someone dies....when the familys eatin...someone always loads up a big tray of ham salad sandwiches
Corndog: i am just lookin at your dirty thug ho from last blog.....thats hilarious

Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: We're going overseas for this one. Kristen in Germany is going to provide us with this week's goody. "I know you're at work, but couldnt pass this up. Pretty decent ho right here, not a gazillion pics, but the few she has are quality with the captions you like, and she's got a million friends too...at least i thought it might be a good one. Anyway..her link is": www.myspace.com/nicolein602phx

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Corndog is back in action, doing double duty this time for us. He's going to start wanting paid for all of these contributions. He's coming to us with a Cakeroll. I wasn't sure what to expect on this one, but it had me laughing good if nothing else, so I hope it does the same for you:





3 Quick Thangs:

1. It's hard to believe we're already in the middle of January. For birthdays, let's try Friday, January 16th. We'll start off old school. Actress Faye Dunaway, 68. I know she's a big name, but I honestly had to look up what she had played in since I had no clue. Apollo Creed of Rocky fame (he's never Carl Weathers anymore) goes for 61. Rapper, Slick Rick The Ruler, he's now 44. Today's generation of rap "fans" who are fans for a minute and then hate it the next day should look up to Slick Rick. So many of today's rap lines are taken from him. He doesn't get enough credit. Zakk Wylde, Ozzie's guitarist, 42. Staying on the music scene, it's LL Cool J, 41 and still ripped out of his mind. About 25 years in the rap game and still is a name. Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, 40. Blink-182 guy, Travis Barker, 34. It's all about music on this day I guess. One of Eminem's boys, Obie Trice, 32. Nobody under 32 today is worthy.

2. It's time to get pumped up. How so? Only because Cadbury Eggs are out! I bought my first batch last Sunday and was surprised to see them out so early. If you've been reading the blog for years, you know that's my favorite candy out there, bar none. I wish I could get a figure of how many of these I've had in my lifetime, it'd be sick. You have to go with the big ones, throw them into the fridge so you're always stocked up, and it should be illegal how good they taste. Go get some next time you're out. Or better yet, buy some for me the next time you see me.

3. Something else to get excited for? Locally, it'll be the 30th Annual North Central West Virginia Toughman Contest. I'll be going again on Friday night, the opener. That's the best time to go in my mind and you get your money's worth and then some. Go back and read last year's thoughts on the contest and you'll see some of that action. The crowd fights are just as good as the in-ring action. Last year I was two seats away from these filthy girls who got into a rumble and one got beat down bad. The drunken redneck crowd went insane, good times. I'll be sure to write about this when it goes down, January 30th... Stay tuned until next week!