"It's T-Shirttttt Timeeeeee!"

Today's blog title is sparked off by the recent Jersey Shore quote that you can't keep out of your head. You know you're saying that when you get dressed in the mornings, don't lie. Search for it if you haven't seen those scenes yet. Anyways, time to start moving with this project at hand..



Yes, the blog is still existing. Sometimes I have to blow dust off of it every few weeks, but I get it rockin' when you least expect it. That's what I'm about to do since the last time we talked. What will go down in this issue? You get the Shinnston Frontier Days bash, elimination dinner money, a bachelor party, celebrities tweeting to me, Neti Pot, NBA, weird facts, several other things, and something about how cookies can hurt. Some people have even been known to print off copies of this and take it to the bathroom with them for reading material. Whatever works, I'm glad that you're bored enough (or maybe even slightly entertained by the writings) that you keep coming back to crave more action. Here we go!

Surprise to some, or probably actually none, I've never been to an elimination dinner before in my life. There's always a first for everything, right? Well, hopefully a first for everything except for trying heroin, seeing Mo'Nique naked, or becoming a meth head, but you get the point. Whitney and I figured we'd try it out and hit up the Nutter Fort Fire Department's deal they had at the newly remodeled 4-H building. If anyone hasn't been there since they've spiffed it up, it's pretty impressive. On the money side of things, I lasted fairly long amongst our table, but close doesn't count. Whitney lasted a good while longer into the night with her number, but the only one on our table to win any money was Timmy. He was drawn as one of the 'every 25th number' gets $100. Once your number gets pulled, the night is basically over. It's fun to BS around with people and the food was good, but outside of that, you are there for one reason and one reason only, money. I guess the people that drink love that aspect of it, but all the alcohol you can drink doesn't pertain to me. Why can't they have an all you can eat lobster, all you can eat Skittles, or even all the Call of Duty you can play till your eyes bug out? Oooh, speaking of Call of Duty, 11-9-10 can't get here fast enough!



After the elimination dinner, later that night we head back to Shinnston for another bash. This was Pat's bachelor party at The Moose. It seemed like half of Shinnston was there and most of our crew, so that was an awesome time. I'm not a bar guy at all, but when your entire bunch is around, that makes things a lot better. Plus, when I got to mix in some table shuffleboard to go along with the action, of course I'm in. My defining victory was teaming up with Clark as we took down the legend of shuffleboard, Tosh (not Tosh.0 style) and A-Train. Those two held the table most of the night. After playing, I came to the realization that one day I'll need a shuffleboard table in my house. Everyone was having a great time, no knuckleheads around to cause any ruckus since we all know each other and we ended up leaving around 3:00 in the morning. I got to do my community duty as one of the DDs of the night (don't confuse this with Maryse of WWE fame) by driving some to them home safe and sound.

Another bonus was that we had a handful of the Shinnston Flag Football League members there that night. As I type this, the Giants playoff hopes were given a big blister against the North View Lions. We were up 28-12 for those who didn't see my Facebook post after the game and ended up blowing things in the second half. The North View boys always get my respect, some good dudes on that team, so I had to tip the hat in their direction for a great battle and nice comeback. Throughout the night, you could hear Clay Riley and Harmer shouting out for the glory calls of Raider Nation, since obviously they play for the Raiders. Clay with broken ribs and Harmer with a broken finger and they still play through it. I can't make this stuff up, they're animals. Tons of injuries in this league, but it doesn't stop these guys one bit. Also, to the Riley clan, some great words of wisdom you brought late into the wee hours of the night. It's always a blast and let's try to set up that big road trip we were talking about, I'm easy to plan around, you know I'm always good for a trip.



I've talked about this a while back in the blog before, but why not revisit an old topic, but it's a goody. My sinuses are beyond brutal. I get sinus infections left and right for those who know me, just something I've always had to deal with. The pressure I get in my eye and face region, not fun when they break out. I'm not a huge medicine guy unless it's really necessary, I try not to rely on loading up on that as a crutch, but I do have some of my favorite sinus medicine that I go to. It doesn't always work though. One option that isn't medicine is what is called a Neti Pot. Some have seen these before, some have maybe even tried one before, while others are asking, what in the world is this idiot talking about? I'm about to break it down for the confused folk.

Picture a miniature tea pot. You warm up some distilled water, throw in this sinus powder mix that comes with the kit and stir it up. Then you put the pot's end up one nostril while you open your mouth. Yes, stay with me. I know it sounds utterly wacky, but don't knock it till you've tried it. You then tilt your head and in a matter of time, water is going to be spouting out the other side of your nose. Then you do the opposite, with the other nostril and so forth until the pot is emptied. It's not the most pleasant feeling, but I stand by this thing for sure. Whitney got to watch me try it the other night, her first time seeing it and she was probably a bit weirded out seeing junk pour out of me, my eyes watering, and me spitting up who knows what. After I cleaned up, bam, I could breathe again, it's the magic in me. I promise you it's perfectly safe. Some girls have told me they saw it on Oprah. I guess if it's on Oprah, it's in the mainstream, so go get yourselves one of these bad boys, they've been out for a good while. An update, on Tuesday evening I went to the docs and they said I had a pretty bad sinus infection, just like I knew all along since I get them too much. I got a shot in the hip and by the time I left the room, it was tough to walk, must've done the job.



Time to stay in the big town. Last week, town was booming as only my town can. It's the city of dreams. Or city of who knows what, but for some odd reason, I love it here. Not much ever goes on, but it has a place in everyone's heart who lives here. How was town booming though? Enter the Shinnston Frontier Days celebration that lasts almost an entire week. The carnies come in to set up shop, do their rides and games for the kiddies (no, not in that way you sickos), and local vendors come in to sell their food, albeit overpriced. How can you pass up dirty fair food though? The answer? You can't, that's how. Just like at the recent Tally Rally in Clarksburg, my stop at this one was to our buddies at Demus who served up a beast of a tally sausage sandwich. They don't shortchange you and it's a massive hoagie with hot sausage, peppers, cheese, and sauce. Loaded up and well worth it in my mind, it didn't disappoint. This year I didn't get a chance to try DeMarco's on Saturday, as I heard theirs were even better. As a part of it, local singers and entertainers from all walks of life performed on the American Idol stage. Ryan Seacrest was supposed to be there, but he decided against taking a beatdown from some of Shinnston's finest and stayed home, scared of the mean streets. A big thanks goes out to blog reader Nate Drain for bringing life back into the town. He's really motivated and has gotten a lot of people and groups involved to spice up the area. Your work around town doesn't go unnoticed man, I've told you that before, keep it up!

I'll throw this one towards the end since it's probably not a big deal to anyone else other than the Twitter world. Then again, that's a good bit of people, so hard to tell, but I like to amuse myself. I don't have to mention again how hooked I am with Twitter, I think I've talked about it in every recent blog, it's a drug. I'll call it a brush with greatness, although not in person. Have you ever had celebrities tweet back to you? I've gotten a list from some of my boys and it happens from time to time, although not too often for bums like ourselves. My list is small, but hopefully it grows. Last week with my wrestling trivia knowledge to show my dorky side, I had to prove another fan wrong on the whereabouts of Mick Foley's first professional match. The other guy said Poca, West Virginia, when in fact it was in Clarksburg and I was in person for that as a little kid at the Nathan Goff Armory. Foley wrote back and claimed I was correct. As a side note, Foley's new book, Countdown to Lockdown came out a few days ago and is very good as I've already started it.



The other brush is Dick Vitale. Every Tuesday, Dickie V is on the Mike & Mike Show at 7:15, ESPN and ESPN Radio. That's during my drive to work, so I almost always catch it. I'm a big Dickie V guy, although some people aren't his biggest fans, his passion for sports I've always enjoyed. He did a baseball segment this past week and is a big Tampa Bay Rays fan, which only a handful of people can say, even though they have a really good team. Anyways, he broke down his season awards and predicted what he thought would go down during the playoffs. He's replied to my tweets before, but this most recent time he sent two things to me that morning. That's three replied tweets. Yes, that means practically nothing to some, I know that. But I get a kick out of it regardless.

As Corndog (http://twitter.com/corndogtaylor) said after the morning chat with Dickie V: "@Bird33WV is becoming friends with @dickiev via twitter. thats awesome." Corndog also has a daily morning question he posts that all of our gang seems to like a lot that we get going with our coffee. If you want in on some of that, then what are you waiting for? Get in there and follow him. He recently hit the 1000 tweet plateau, so be sure to congratulate him on that once you click the follow button. Five random accounts that I'm going to plug in which I follow that you may want to check out: @SiMZiLa13 (Sims of WV fame), @GarrettQD (NeonTheon), @lordsofpain (my favorite wrestling website, http://lordsofpain.net/index2.html), @StripclubPapst (Dom in Germany), and @LDAngeli (Sign Guy Dudley of the original ECW). No rhyme or reason to why I picked those five, but they're this week's worthy winners. For the computer illiterate, remember to type twitter.com before those names, taking out the @.



Speaking of Twitter, how does everyone like the "new" Twitter? It's just an upgrade more or less, the house was remodeled. I really like the web setup of it, but I think most people use it more on their phones now than an actual computer. I use both and have talked about the Echofon version I use on my iPhone. That version to me is pretty similar to what Twitter's "new" web version is like and it's really handy and easier to use. One of my favorite features and Echofon has had this, is that you can finally get a shortcut once you begin to type a name. After the @ symbol, and a few letters after, bang, it's inserted to the person you want. That's just a small feature, plus the sidebox showing all of your info rather than having to click and go to a different page. It's all there for you. One more mention on the phones. Download Words Free, it's a Scrabble setup in real-time. It's addicting and you can make your move in a matter of minutes or if you're busy, the game will hold with you and your buddy till you go again later in the day. My name on there is Bird33WV.

Basketball is in the air and I'm probably talking to a wall for this paragraph. NBA preseason has already started and everyone knows that's one of the things I absolutely live for. Most people around here and I guess most in the general population aren't the biggest NBA fans or care one ounce about it. I may watch more just in the preseason than a lot of people will watch in the regular season. People ask me all the time how I can be that into the NBA as they'd much rather pick college ball or even another sport. Mix in the Celtics who I bow down to and fantasy basketball and that's a good combo. I've already been into hardcore fantasy prep mode, just something I enjoy doing with my time. I guess that's not saying a lot, but I always say I'm in NBA mode 24/7, 365. October 24th is a huge day though on my calender. Earlier that afternoon, it's the infamous EDDFL Draft. That is a 12-man effort and a live draft. It doesn't get any better than a live, in-person draft with 12 of the areas finest. Plus, we always order a big draft board from FJ Fantasy Sports. I've dealt with this company for a long time and they're nothing but the best. If you've never held a draft with a board, you're missing out, I'm serious. Their prices are good and their service is top notch. Cheap plug time, yes, so check out their place at: http://www.fjfantasy.com and tell em the EDDFL in WV sent ya. Also on the 24th, that evening is the A#BA online draft that goes 20 members deep. It's not for the weak at heart, you better know your stuff to even survive in this one and I don't say that lightly. I'll of course break things down as the season goes, if not only for my own amusement.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Cookies can hurt.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. In the ask someone if they have anything to contribute to the blog, TheAnswer stepped up. He gives us this one: On Tuesday, it marked 13 years ago to the day that wrestler Brian Pillman passed away. One of the most underrated wrestlers and promo guys of all time. It's a shame the career that Pillman could've had if he didn't screw it up with drugs. He still had a nice one, RIP.

2. In the freaky stats category, this kid in Illinois went nutty last weekend in his football game. Kapri Bibbs, a Colorado State commit, had a whopping 520 yards rushing on 39 carries with 7 touchdowns. Really? That's video game stuff. Only one of his touchdowns came from less than 30 yards and four of them came from at least 50. Sick.

3. Facts to feast on as you finish up your reading material: A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.. A rat can last longer without water than a camel.. Crickets hear through their knees.. Only female mosquitoes bite.

"It is hard to take you seriously when you're a grown woman with a Kermit purse."

Our topic this time around comes from The_Freak, he's getting all the credit on this one.



It's been a busy last few weeks. I've been places near and far. Well, mainly all near, none too far away to make it seem like I was outside of the mean streets for a while. Hopefully everyone has been enjoying the fall season, football beginning, and fair and festival time. What does this edition hold for the readers? We'll go over the Tally Rally, Jackson's Mill Jubilee, fantasy football, Gatorade, a Dougie dance gone wrong, Tanger Outlets, movie review, and reality TV just to name a handful.

I'll bounce back and forth on dates here. The Saturday of Labor Day Weekend I hit up the Tally Rally with Whitney. The Italian Heritage Festival if you will, it's a festivus for the rest of us. There wouldn't happen to be any of my fellow Italians at this place would there? Nah, who heard of such a thing. Anyways, the food here is a key reason people go, it's about as good as it gets. The stop we did this year was by getting Demus' hot tally sausage sandwiches. They were $8, but worth every bit of it. It was a lot bigger than a regular hoagie style in our area and was loaded up with tons of cheese, sauce, and peppers. I wish I could've tried more food that night, just so much to choose from. Another hit are the frittis, people make a killing off of these. Mom made these on Sunday for everyone, so we didn't have to worry about it on Saturday night.



Anyone and everyone was there that night. We joked that 90% of the flag football league were there in the streets. I even ran into a good bit of free agents making their push to get onto a team. Requests to hype it up online to get players signed and I was on a mission. You'd take two steps and you'd run into someone coming up to you, it was like that the whole time. A little crowded, but that's how it always is and comes with the territory. Around 11:00, the cops started to shut down the streets, which I thought was early. You could still be out there, just not in the middle of the street. That's when the crowds migrated to the bars and basically you're stuffing the entire late night festival crowd into two bars. I'm not a bar guy as everyone knows, but I'll make an appearance every so often, even if I don't drink. Kathy was so shocked she had to get a picture of me in one just to have proof. PJ Kelly's was so packed that you couldn't even move. We hung there with our crew for a bit, but figured since you didn't have room to breathe, that there would be better options at the next stop. Let's head down to The Ordinary. My first time in this place at night, I only remembered it as a restaurant back in the day however long that was, so that goes to show you. They were packed, but it wasn't to a level that it was rough.

Yeah, I'm getting to my story. If you read my Facebook post that night, you'll know where I'm going. The Tally Rally has always been infamous for drunken idiots getting into fights. It never fails and a lot of the same people are in them every year. As an onlooker, you see some sights. That night, I heard someone yell on the street that there was a fight. You know what my next move was. I'm going to get a little closer to see what's causing all the ruckus. As soon as I get there in my ringside seat, this Kanye West look-a-like rocks a big dude something awful. I compared it to Ronnie of Jersey Shore. It was the one hitter quitter, one shot and he was done. It was so bad that the dude was laying on concrete, blood pouring out from the back of his head, and he was out cold. Soon, you had the ambulance roll through and police all over. They had him laying on the ground for about 20 minutes until they put him in. I never did find out what it was over, but it was pretty intense and that was the excitement of the night.



Movie review and here we go. We were due for a theater trip as we've been slacking as of late. Never fear, I'm back to give another quick review. The movie in question? Easy A. We went to a Friday night showing at 9:25 at Meadowbrook. I was surprised at how packed it was for this movie, but apparently a lot of people were down for the action. Emma Stone is in this one and it also features a lot of other decent names in the flick. Who else? Amanda Bynes, Patricia Clarkson, Cam Gigandet, and Lisa Kudrow to name some, Stone looks great in this one for whatever that is worth to your eyes. Plus, she plays her role very well. Maybe my favorite character of the movie was the guy that played her dad, Stanley Tucci. I remembered him from The Lovely Bones which if you've been reading along, you know that I couldn't stand that movie. He played his role perfectly in that one though and this one he did here as well, in a totally different character. He had me cracking up good. It has a good plot to it and it isn't an in-depth movie that is going to have your brain filled with knowledge, but it's worth watching. If you want a good funny movie, this is for you. Early reports on IMDB has it at a 7.7 out of 10 as I type this up. The final grade I'm giving this beast? 7.0 tubs of buttery popcorn out of 10.

Lately it's been a tradition to hit up the Jackson's Mill Jubilee. I've written about this a lot in the past when I go over Labor Day Weekend, so you probably know a lot of what I'm going to say if you've been reading for a while. Each year, they claim it may be their last year because they're losing money, etc. Yet they always get it going, but they don't really advertise it as well as they should in my opinion. The food alone is enough to get me there. This trip I made with Whitney and my parents. It didn't seem like as much action as normal here, the past few years have been pretty low key. The back section if you're familiar with the music area, they had no vendors like in the past, so it was a smaller setup.



I do like how wide open their format is though. It's never overcrowded that you're literally walking right on top of someone. The main place we always hit up is Madia's and we tear into their Italian rib eye sandwiches. Once again, they delivered and it was top notch. Try their stuff if you're ever at a location they are serving at, I wouldn't steer you in the wrong direction with food. I also have to buy off the kettle corn lady, she doesn't mess around, doing it old school style. I got a bag about as big as my body for $4. I liked the experience, but I'm not sure the rest of the crew was big on the idea. Dad says this year may have been his last and he's usually a big fan of the Jubilee. We'll see what goes down.

Labor Day itself was a trip to Washington, Pennsylvania. Every other month, Whitney and I usually try to hit up Tanger Outlets. Just a weird schedule we have. It's not a bad drive from home and I've always recommended it up there. It wasn't nearly as packed as I'd expect since it was a holiday and everyone was having crazy sales. Then again, when do they not have crazy sales up there it seems? I didn't see any Ronnie punches thrown that day, maybe that will come on Black Friday, although I've only done that one time ever. I did that with the Posey once and it was a madhouse. I wanted to try it out once just to say I did. Watching the women go at it, push each other around for these items was awesome. At Tanger, it's a new place and very clean. Plus their store selection is worth the trip alone. Check it out if you haven't yet.



My last fantasy football draft of the year was completed a few Mondays ago. The site was at Ozzie's house which is a sight to see. Site and sight? Yep. This league has been going on for a while and is ran by Commish P. There's ten of us involved and I always like to give a roll call, whether you're interested or not, it's good for blog purposes. Aside from Commish P, we have Sims (http://twitter.com/SiMZiLa13), Bart (http://twitter.com/WESTFORKRAVENS), Ozzie, Mudcat, Pill, Matty Cakes, Maulberry, Fortney, and myself. Now time to unveil yourrrrr 2010 E-Town Junkies!

QB: Tony Romo - Dallas
QB: Matt Stafford - Detroit
QB: Jimmy Clausen - Carolina

RB: Maurice Jones-Drew - Jacksonville
RB: Ryan Grant - Green Bay (Peyton Hillis - Cleveland)
RB: Jahvid Best - Detroit
RB: Michael Bush - Oakland
RB: Steve Slaton - Houston

WR: Michael Crabtree - San Francisco
WR: Stevie Breaston - Arizona
WR: Jeremy Maclin - Philadelphia
WR: Mo Massaquoi - Cleveland
WR: Lou Murphy - Oakland
WR: DeMaryius Thomas - Denver
WR: Earl Bennett - Chicago (Nate Washington - Tennessee)

TE: Kellen Winslow - Tampa Bay
TE: John Carlson - Seattle

K: Stephen Gostkowski - New England

D: New York Giants
D: Buffalo Bills



I really like my quarterback and running back units. I think I'm deep on RBs for sure. Plus, we have the option in this league to start three RBs (2 for sure and we have a flex spot for a RB/WR/TE). Three of my RBs are solid, I'll get nice production there. Jones-Drew is ready to rock unless his knee explodes, Grant is behind a nice team and will get carries, while I look for big things out of Best. (After I wrote this section, Ryan Grant decides to get hurt, doh! So I picked up Hillis.) I actually think the Lions will be halfway decent this season, but we'll see. Mike Bush is banged up, but I can't see him not getting the bulk once they see that McFadden probably can't do it. I'm insanely young on my wideouts. This is where I'm hoping some potential rises through and I get a steal out of someone. If Crabtree isn't a knucklehead with his ego, which is very possible, he has a chance to be a stud. I look for Breaston to get some nice single coverages in Boldin's old spot since everyone keys in on Fitzgerald. Several of these guys I also have on my A#FL team that I wrote about recently. We'll see what the future holds for these youngsters.

Time for another family party, these never get old. Big Max had his 2nd birthday last Saturday and it was eats galore. First off, Gayle doesn't mess around when he makes his homemade pizzas. He was making them all night and was a machine at it. Ozzie alone put down 12 or 13 pieces, so props to him for being a beast with that. Mix in some football watching and this was during the Notre Dame game against Michigan. I've written about that already before in other outlets, but I can't be crazy disappointed over the performance of the Irish. Offensively, I liked their system as it's straight hurry up. When Crist got banged up, the backups didn't have a clue, deer looking into headlights look. I think they'll do fine, but nothing like the 9 wins a lot of people on TV have predicted, I'm realistic. I am a Kelly fan though. Rich Rod looks to have his system in shape here, we'll see if this is the year or if he's still on the hotseat. Denard Robinson, this kid is going to be something special on the college level. That offense they run is super fast. It was interesting that day in our area of the people that hate both Notre Dame and Michigan and who they were rooting for. Either that or hoping they played to a tie battle to the death. The end of the night featured storytelling of our family from years past and those stories have to be heard to believed. I promise you they're all true if you've heard some of them. Thanks to Jill and Gayle for having a big successful bash.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: It's probably not the greatest idea to try to Dougie in the middle a street with moving traffic. If you do, watch out for the ice cream trucks.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. 97 days till Christmas as of Saturday.

2. Here's some facts on Gatorade, just because I drink tons of it. 1998 was the year they switched from glass to plastic bottles.. 26 flavors have been discontinued since Gatorade's founding in 1967.. 1985 was the first Gatorade bath, done by Jim Burt of the football Giants to coach Bill Parcells.

3. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and Great Britain in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.

Wallace Wrecks, Gypsy Hill Giants, & 90210 Day

Here we go. Let's call this the Labor Day edition. I know technically we're not at the date yet, but from here on out I like to say that fall is finally here. Too many 90+ degree days for me this summer, but if that's the worst thing I have to complain about, then I should just stay quiet. We have football here and some people have even started the countdown to Christmas. I heard from someone the other day that they know people who have a majority of their Christmas shopping already finished. Really now? I respect that they get it done early, but that's a little TOO early. To each their own and I'm a guy that absolutely loves Christmas. Anyways, it's nowhere near that time yet, we need to get into this week's topics at hand. What do we have? We have softball action, The Situation dancing, bashing my Jeep Cherokee into a moving truck, The Last Song review, flag football, and a whole lot more.



I've written a lot over the years how I'm not the world's greatest driver. I'm sure I'm in the bottom percentage out there and my buddies will back my claims up of that. Still, I (knock on wood) haven't had wrecks or at least of the major kind. Recently while in the mean streets of Wallace, West Virginia, it went down. I was backing out of the outfield side of the softball field road and had a blind spot. I didn't think much of it and just kept backing like I owned the place. Behind me was a small and narrow road. I hear a horn blow and the next I know I'm backing straight into this truck going down the road, tearing up his passenger side door and side. I ended up messing up my bumper pretty good, part of the quarter panel, and tore my light casing up.

It was all my fault and I couldn't pull some BS lie to act like it wasn't at the time. That's not my style anyways. Luckily, the dude I hit was drama free and there were no issues. We were in an area with no cell service. Yes, those exist still, imagine that. We had to knock on a local's door to use his house phone in order to phone the accident in. We sort of joked about it and not long after, Cork drives down for the softball game and probably knew right away what happened. He wasn't the least bit surprised. The good thing is that is why you pay insurance for, right? I can't cry over it, it is what it is and it's going to be fixed in no time for not much cost to me. Also, my ride is already paid for in full, so I'll just look at it as an extra monthly payment. I'm not in the market this soon, but am at least looking around for another ride down the line. If you had to put a gun to my head right now, I'd pick a blacked out Tahoe, but we'll see what happens.



I called Whitney on my way home to let her know what was up since I was heading to her house later that night. I told her I had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that I played softball great that day. The bad was that I backed into a moving truck. She probably just shook her head at me and like Cork, knew that it wouldn't be any shock to anyone. Back to softball though, if you've been reading along in the blogs for a while, you'll know the last Saturday of August we venture way out to Wallace. It's not really that far away from home, but it just seems like it is once you drive in that direction. It's an annual tradition for Cork's family to have a big reunion and to get the ball field rocking. I always go and have a blast, plus the food they have is top quality. As an added bonus, the church next to the field had a thing going on that evening where they had a band going. I was playing center field and right behind me the band was jamming as we played. That was a pretty good touch and I was rocking out while playing defense. And another mark on my side is that I got on base every time over the span of two games, not too shabby. It must've been all those wins that Gutta Connection put up over the summer that had Cork and myself doing our thing.

I've never watched much Dancing With The Stars before, but it seems that I may jump into it soon. Why's that? The Situation of Jersey Shore fame is supposedly going to be on the latest cast and you know I'm all about that. I'll give it a try for sure just due to him being on it to see what happens. That's also a great marketing tool the show did to offer him a spot because that will potentially get a lot of Shore viewers who might not have watched before (such as myself) to tune in. Some thought that the show was going to be a quick fad and fizzle out quickly, but it's still going strong and the ratings are very high for MTV standards. Season 3 is being filmed as we speak while Season 2 is currently being shown on Thursday nights. The Miami season that's on now has been really good in my opinion, but I know I'm biased anyways. It's a big hit between all of the Lobstah guys (http://ballsempire.com) which features some of the internet's biggest celebrities such as DerekHood, Blahah, DirtyKash, Corndog, Wilbur, The_Freak, and ManDingo just to name a few.



Movie review time. Friday night I went the chick flick route and I've always admitted I'm not above seeing those. Whitney picked The Last Song out of the Redbox machine and I knew she had been wanting to see it, so I was down. For those who are wondering which one this is, it's Miley Cyrus' recent movie. As a sidenote, how can you beat Redbox for just $1? You can't. Well, the only other option is to burn movies from the internet and go that route, but this is option B and it's really handy. I was pleasantly surprised by how good this movie was as it ended up receiving a really high grade from me after the credits rolled. Ironically, as it has happened a lot this summer, IMDB didn't agree with our thoughts. My final grade of this one? I went super high with an 8.9 and feel it's that good. Whitney agreed with my rating there. IMDB? 3.8. Ouch! It's also a big tearjerker if you're one of the weak at heart. If you've seen it, let me know what you thought, one way or another.

"Fly around mothas!" If you keep up with the Shinnston Flag Football League, you'll know those famous words from Commish Bart. The season is underway and I've been jacked up for this for quite a while. Well, the regular season doesn't start until September 5th (Happy Birthday to The Governor himself, Clark Riley), but everyone is zoned in and ready to rock. We've already been through mini-camps and this past weekend we had our preseason week of scrimmages. It's really organized and has talent all across the league that would open some eyes. A ton of the local legends are involved in this thing from roughly the ages of 20 through nearly 40. Our Gypsy Hill Giants are the oldest team in the league, but we're disciplined, have a great line, and still bring athleticism. I've written my season preview that is on the website, so I won't break things down here as well. As I said there, as far as my side goes, offense I can take it or leave it. I'll play some sets, but defense is my home. I've been playing safety and can't wait to roam the middle and stop the bombs from coming anywhere near my territory.



This past Sunday had a packed house at Timbertown Stadium in Lumberport. All teams were present for the preseason battles and it was intense. We had two scrimmages in our Giants jerseys, decked out from head to toe. As my softball strategy, win or lose, I want to look the best out there and our team looks sharp if I must say so myself. Farris ended up with a concussion, it gets fierce down there on the line in the trenches. That's why I stay out of that area as a little dude, I'll keep the secondary on lock. No major injuries thus far though and that's always a great start. Our first scrimmage we beat the kids from Bridgeport. They are probably the youngest team in the league and are a new addition to the league this season. We played excellent in that one and put up a shutout. The second game we played another youthful team (I guess every team is youthful to us, but these are the two youngest out there) and ended up getting beat by the North View Lions. I see a ton of promise from this team. They have that swagger, a bit of ego to go with it and they have been calling people out on the message board. It's good times, but I give my props to those guys, some of my guys I had in Liberty, home of ManDingo, when I subbed back in the day. They have a few guys who can flat out fly, we'll see what happens.

I'm just about done rambling on flag ball. This Sunday, we play the Raiders at 2:30, the second game of the day. They feature one of the best players in the league in Harmer. He had some awesome plays in Sunday's scrimmages, so he's going to be a force to be reckoned with. This team is quick and are manned by a few really good receivers with height to put our shorter secondary to the test. Again, for a cheap plug, visit our league's sites. First, we have the home page at http://sites.google.com/site/shinnstonflagfootballleague. Then we have the message board which has been rockin': http://shinnstonflagleague.proboards.com. Visit them both, you'll not be disapppointed, I can promise you that.



I sent out a tweet and asked my buddies if they had any input this week for the blog. I always like to get people involved just to switch up things and go different directions. We have a few guys who made the worthy cut and here are their exact words..

Answer: "Fun fact of the day. Answer has been to 5 of RAW's 900 episodes. Calculate that percent if u can or want." If you're lost, Monday was the 900th episode of WWE RAW for the wrestling folk out there. http://twitter.com/TheAnswer310

Walz: "Since college football starts tomorrow, throw this quote into the blog from me. I've heard WVU fans say their team will win 10 games this year. Those dumbasses are about as sharp as a pound of wet liver!" As a guy that doesn't root for WVU football, I actually think they're going to be pretty good this year. The running back crew is one of the best in the country I think and the defense all returns. Not sure I'd go 10 wins good though, we'll see. http://twitter.com/MWALZ9

Cork: This one I absolutely love. This is a tweet from Cork as he was venturing the mean streets of Clarksburg, Stealey section for this. The locals, you know the tobacco store that is located in the building that was a former house? The one near Dairy Queen and Vito's. "Taken in Clarksburg tonight. This shows in more ways than one why WV is last in everything. EGADS!!" http://twitpic.com/2k3r1r http://twitter.com/corkzillaWVU

Bird's Video Moment of the Week: An oldie but goodie. This never gets old to me and I'm sure you've seen it before, but you know you want to watch it again. A simple punch to the face.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. For a little random info, the date today is the only time it will happen. Yep, it's 90210 Day. I'm talking about the original series, not the most recent chapter, which I watched as well, but you can't compare to the original. Still lost? 9-2-10, September 2, 2010. In honor, I'll do my best Brandon Walsh impersonation by going back to 1990, greasing back my hair, and acting like a rich boy.

2. I'm itching for a new video game to buy. Why I'm bringing this up in here, who knows, but I like to just ramble even if it's to myself. I know for sure Call of Duty: Black Ops will be in my hand on 11-9-10. That's not even a debate. I may get another to hold me over and have my eye on FIFA Soccer 11 on September 28th. My theory is that there are rarely any bad soccer or hockey games. I'm not a huge "fan" of either sport as far as being dedicated, but video game wise you can't go wrong.

3. Let's end with some more fun facts. Apparently termites eat wood twice as fast when they listen to heavy metal. People really studied that and got paid for it? Amazing. Another? In New York City, approximately 1600 people are bitten by other humans each year, Tyson style. Ok, one more. Rats and horses can't vomit. You heard it here first people, go educate the world and I'll see you at the next blog!

Edge Boggess Spearing From The Boardwalk

Thanks to MrsAnswer for this week's blog title, I dig it a lot. Since I'm an admitted wrestling geek who follows it way too much, MrsAnswer thought this was fitting when she saw my name and then put that connection to it one day. As usual, we like when the readers submit things for the blog to give us some ideas. If you're not a wrestling fan, and that's basically all of you, then just keep reading and forget what I just said there.



Well well well, it's been a while and I know that. We're ready to rock and now that I'm back to work, it's time for a different schedule. I'm pumped to have things cool off a bit, but it still doesn't seem like anything is cooling considering it's early August. This is the earlier I've went to work in the year, but no complaints. I like my job a lot actually, minus waking up early, but if that's my only problem, then I have it made in the shade. TheAnswer said the other day that "I'm about ready for a trip to the Madhouse of Bird33". You can visit him at http://www.twitter.com/TheAnswer310. When people speak, I have to pay attention because this has been a drought. What does this blog have in store for everyone? You get another beach trip rundown, a movie review, flag football, CD reviews, fantasy football, dirty boardwalk time, and who knows what else is gonna go down. With that said, let's get right to it.

I must be a beach bum this year because this is the first time I've ever made two trips during the same summer. Back to Ocean City, Maryland it was. You really can't beat the drive there. 6-6½ hours is all it takes, so you're not miserable driving that distance. Plus, I'm a big fan of OC's setup and know my way around there well, so it's a winning choice and I recommend it if you've never been. For what it's worth, Cork says it is his favorite beach. Along for the ride on this trip was Whitney as it was just the two of us. I did the driving and don't really mind doing that for road trips. It's easier to ride, but I made it safe and sound. Whitney either trusts my driving by now or just accepts that I'll never be great at it, so she's locked in.



Riding along was of course our boy TomTom and Sirius radio. We had a nice mix of radio on the way down and back home. I got a big dose of my rap in, you know I need that on my road trips or I might not be able to function, Hip Hop Nation 40 and Shade 45 to be exact. Also in the rotation was Sirius Hits 1, which is a Top 40 type station. We even threw in some of The Highway in there, channel 60, country redneck style. Yes, I know I don't do hardly any of that, but some I can handle for periods, no biggie there.

As a side fact, it probably wasn't the safest thing that I brought wrestling DVDs along for the ride for when Whitney would fall asleep, but I was prepared. These were the documentary pieces more so than actual matches, so that made the drive safer than the alternative. One of my favorite wrestling DVDs of all time is The Rise and Fall of ECW. I'm obsessed by the original ECW as most know and it's probably my favorite period of wrestling ever, both to attend and watch. I watched all of it on the drive down. One of Cork's tweets while I was making the drive was this gem: "it scares me that you are driving and texting AND watching a dvd, hah". To visit Cork's Twitter, here you go: http://twitter.com/corkzillaWVU. On the way back home, I watched Straight Shootin' with Ron Killings, the artist known now as R-Truth. Probably not the safest thing to play with your phone while driving and watching DVDs, but there ya go, it made for nice drives. Plus the road trip I had random tweets and pics added on out of pure boredom: http://twitter.com/Bird33WV. Seeing a trend with all of these Twitter plugs? That's what I do.



Also along the way, it's never a bad time to do the license plate game on a road trip. It's simple and something about it, even if it is pointless, gets me interested every single time. I found a good app on my phone for it, so that was just an excuse for me to use it on the setup. The total number up and back that I counted ended up being 30 total states. This thing doesn't have Canadian provinces listed, but I did see some of those of course. Everyone has a different style with this it seems, so here's the deal and it might create some discussion. When you are on a trip, do parked cars count? I've heard both opinions on this, but I personally count the parked action too. Ozzie, I know agrees with me on this. The way I look at it, the obscure states are tough to find anyways, so you have to go that extra effort, even looking when you're not in the ride. Some of my favorites on this trip included: Colorado, Maine (Blahah territory), Minnesota, and Washington (Wilbur style). Hawaii was nowhere to be found, imagine that.

The weather on this trip was downright amazing. Once again, like the trip I had to OC a few weeks before this one, we had zero rain during the daytime. That's the most important time for the beach obviously, so we were out there doing our thing with no worries of rain. As Walz would say on his tweets, we showed the waves who was boss. Check out Walz's stuff at http://www.twitter.com/MWALZ9. I like cooler water, but this week seemed much cooler than the other recent trip I made. I liked it though, but one day a lifeguard said the water was 66 degrees. I believed it too, but it didn't keep us out of it by any means. The day after that, things warmed up in the water and it was fine. Cool, verging on cold, but that's definitely more refreshing than pool water that is as warm as wizz or however the saying goes.



Josh and Cill came down the day after we got there and stayed in the same hotel. We got to hang with them on the beach everyday and hit up some places with them at night. It worked out great and we had a blast with those two, so no complaints here. One of my favorite things to do at the beach is just to people watch on the boardwalk. Luckily, we were right on the boardwalk this time. Neither of us had ever stayed on the boardwalk before, so we were down to try it out. The place we stayed at I'd highly recommend. Safari Motel on 13th Street, it's oceanfront and was super clean. The staff went out of their way to make sure we had a great stay. If you know of OC, we were at the place with the infamous gorilla on the 4th floor balcony. That's the floor we stayed on, so that's the balcony we got to rock and people watch. We didn't see Ronnie roid rage and claim out, "One shot kid! One shot!", but it was still an entertaining experience. Speaking of the Shore clan, when we had our Shore shirts on one day, so many people kept asking us if we were from Jersey. You couldn't tell we sounded like hicks? Who knows, but we got a kick out of that.

I'll end with eats and I'm always down for some quality eating. As usual on this trip, I had to hit up my favorite place there, The Bonfire. I've talked about that before. Another place we enjoyed was Yokozuna, not to be confused with the former WWE Champion, rest in peace. This was a sushi house and all four of us hit this one up. The prices really weren't that much crazier than home, and I've quickly turned into a big sushi fan. This place is at the Gold Coast Mall, 114th Street. I'd recommend each of these. Those were my big two places, but we didn't have any bad food the entire stay. Thanks to Whitney's Grandma Lil, she loaded us up with tons of homemade pepperoni rolls. That was our beach food everyday and we could've sold those things down there and made a killing. The fellow West Virginians know what I'm talking about there. Mix all of that in with some dirty, greasy boardwalk food and you feel like a fat boy. Big props to Candy Kitchen. These stores are like a Waffle House in the south, you see them every two steps. Between the four of us, they loaded up on business that we gave them on the trip. Candy is one of my weaknesses, but I could have more addicting vices.



Movie time and this week we feature Charlie St Cloud. Yes, not a typical blood and guts guy movie, but I was down, so I went to see the action with Whitney. I wasn't sure if it'd be much of a movie or not, but you never know till you give it a try. Surprisingly, it ended up being a good movie. It was a very slow movie as far as movement, but that was probably my only complaint. The first part could've been a little shorter, but the last half hour was great. I'll warn people that it's a tearjerker, so this one may test your abilities to hold it in. IMDB at the moment has it at a rough 4.8. Dang, hard judges out there! Aside from Efron as the main star for the reason the chicks want to go see it, you also had Ray Liotta and Kim Basinger as other names. I also was surprised at Efron's age. Dude is gonna be 23 in October. My final grade? I'm dropping a big 7.7 on your heads for this movie, it's a good watch.

Football is here, so I'm going to break things down into several subtopics. First, we'll tackle (no pun intended) some flag style. That's right, the Shinnston Flag Football League returns! For those in the league last year, you know it was a great time. Plus, we also did our thing on the website as well as the message board. I'm all about message board ramblings, so that has me written all over it. This season, I signed my contract with the Gypsy Hill Giants. You can't go wrong with a team based out of Gypsy Hill, that equals toughness times twenty. The G-Men have a solid roster forming, so it should be a fun year. I played for the Green Machine last season. We had some crazy athleticism out there, at one point having the most college athletes, but it didn't mesh well and we got rocked, I won't lie. The crew we have this year, I'm just as excited about. Myself personally, I'm just ready to rock out some secondary play. This old man still has his quickness and endurance, hopefully that sticks with me for a bit longer. It's always fun to see who has zero cardio shape, even though they may have the athleticism, this league will test those types. I like playing defense much more than offense. It's definitely a speed game, but our lineman aren't left out in the hunt. If you want to get in the trenches, these guys are bringing some serious punishment. They literally get to bust each other up and blood will be a flying. Hopefully this year doesn't have many injuries because last season had quite a few, namely Big E Ferris' ACL tearing which was rough to see in person. Most of you have seen updated through Facebook already thanks to my posts and Commissioner Bart doing his thing, but I'll be sure to provide commentary as we go. Tickets are already on sale now. Come see the games at Lumberport Middle School's football field, it's Timbertown ready. Visit the league website at https://sites.google.com/site/shinnstonflagfootballleague and our message board at http://shinnstonflagleague.proboards.com. If that's not enough, we even have a Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SFLTweet2010.



Speaking of football, let's now focus on fantasy football. This year I'm going to be in three fantasy leagues. I don't like being in a ton, that way you can give focus to just a few and really concentrate. The guys that end up doing that, in my opinion, don't put as much effort into the individual league if it's too much to handle. On the NFL side of things, I'm in the infamous A#FL that consists of 18 of the internet's finest. This is ran by Commish Uncle Wilbur as he's one of the quality people out there. Wilbur is also a regular reader and contributor to this very blog, so it's much appreciated. That league is already drafted and I'll post my roster in a second, not that you care. The second league I'm in is Shinnston Fantasy Football. Our draft for that is on Monday, September 6th. This is a super rare case that I won't be watching wrestling live as it happens. I know, shocker to anyone who knows me. Life isn't easy sometimes, but we all have sacrifices to make. That is a 10-man league and we draft that one in person, ran by Commish Sweet P.

To give a rundown of A#FL, here is your list of internet celebrities and local legends making up this beast of a crew. In no particular order, we have Kasher (Canada), Neon (Canada), TMac (Canada), Blahah the Great (Maine), Trev (WV), Posey (WV), Duce (Philly), Cork (WV), MrsAnswer (PA, formerly Vegas), The_Freak (MD), Don-G (Canada), TheAnswer (PA, formerly Vegas), Walz (WV), Wilbur (the state of Washington), DerekHood (Arkansas), Bono (Houston), Corndog (WV), and myself. We always joke that our online leagues are West Virginia and Canadian dudes, mixed in with people from all areas scattered in between. Also, our leagues are competitive, so you better be on top of your game to win these things, it's not for the weak at heart.



And now.. yourrrr 2010 Cincinnati Celtics! Yes, the A#FL comes from the AFL and our team names are based on former AFL league teams. I knew you were wondering. Remember, it's a deep league so you gotta dig after a while late in the rounds to show you know your stuff in order to succeed. The third league I'm in is our college keeper league and it's pretty intense. Duce Heisman Trophy League is what that one runs as, but I'll talk about that at a later time. Anywhere, here are your Celts!

QB: Tom Brady - New England (keeper from 2009-2010)
QB: Matt Leinart - Arizona
QB: Jimmy Clausen - Carolina
RB: Beanie Wells - Arizona (keeper)
RB: Matt Forte - Chicago (keeper)
RB: Marshawn Lynch - Buffalo
RB: Glen Coffee - San Francisco (retired at age 23?!)
WR: Mike Sims-Walker - Jacksonville
WR: TJ Houshmanzadeh - Seattle
WR: Demaryius Thomas - Denver
WR: Brandon Gibson - St Louis
TE: Kellen "Soldjah" Winslow - Tampa Bay
TE: Anthony Fasano - Miami
K: Stephen Gostkowski - New England
D: Tampa Bay

You want a few CD reviews? Ok, since you asked nicely, here you go..



Eminem: Recovery. This couldn't possibly be any worse than Em's last release. His last one, we'll pretend that one didn't even exist. Now he's back with a vengeance and this one is impressive in my mind. Lyrically, Em speaks it this time instead of going with the comedy route and tells a good story on his recovery. I'm not sure there's any I disliked much on this, so you can't go wrong. Ones to get are Talkin' 2 Myself, Going Through Changes which features a mix of Ozzy, No Love with Lil Wayne, and a slow down with Rihanna that has been relased, Love The Way You Lie. We're giving this two thumbs up, a nice "recovery" from that last CD which was garbage.

Nas & Damian Marley: Distant Relatives. Going into getting this CD, I was confused at this mix of talent. I'll be honest, I know basically nothing on Damian Marley other than who he is and having heard just a few songs. Nas on the other hand, one of the best that has done it if you ask me. Apparently from the Damian fans, he's solid too. It seems like a weird concept on paper, but it actually worked very well. I enjoyed this change of pace here and they fit in together. How about trying to find Leaders, As We Enter, and Count Your Blessings. Nas kills it on his verses of Count Your Blessings.

Rick Ross: Teflon Don. This is solid here, although I've heard some of my buddies say he comes off too soft in this one. He's cheesy, but plays his "character" great I think, even if he's been called out for it numerous times. I still like his jams. Every song features someone with him, so not sure how I totally feel about that, but it works for the most part on this album. Who is on this to give some examples? Jay-Z, T.I., Gucci Mane, Jadakiss, Kanye, Cee-Lo, Ne-Yo, Trey Songz, Diddy, Styles P, Drake, and Raphael Saadiq. That's power. Ones I like best on this are: Tears of Joy with Cee-Lo, Live Fast, Die Young featuring Kanye, Free Mason with Jay-Z, and the banger known as Blowin' Money Fast that you've all heard with Styles P, "I think I'm big Meech Larry Hoover, whipping work, halleujah.."



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: We go to DerekHood for this week's submission. If you're an internet freak, you're familiar with the "no homo" comment and how you use that line. If you're not, then maybe this video won't be as funny to you, but this one goes with the "no racial". Good stuff.



3 Quick Thangs:

1. Did you know that Brett Favre cooked honey chicken tonight? Did you know he tied his shoes four minutes ago? Did you know he sat on his couch? I crack up how ESPN reports every single move this guy does and I'm a person that doesn't mind Favre. Corndog is pumped up though like no other. I think the old man still has game left, just don't update me every 2.3 seconds.

2. Polls show that 40% of dog and cat owners carry a picture of their pet in their wallet.. In Los Angeles, there are more cars than people.. An average person laughs 15 times per day.

3. Did You Know? In the epic movie Scarface, the f-bomb is thrown a total of 207 times. That's an average of 1.22 per minute. And my theory as always here? The censored version of Scarface and uncensored versions are two completely different things. The censored version doesn't exist to me.

"A Mouthful of Gravel or Shit"

Yep, I still exist. The good thing is that I have a bunch of topics to throw in here each time you read these now. I never set a certain time to get a blog in by. I usually judge it by instinct. The crew that reads these, you guys are usually good at letting me know when I'm way overdue. Either that or I'll wait till I have a nice selection of topics to ramble and rumble about. That's what it's all about anyways, just going with the flow of randomness and I love getting in these just for the pure fun of it. That or maybe I have nothing else better to do. Probably a little bit of both. You're asking, what does this issue hold? I'm going to tell you. We go to my first beach trip in six years, Kari and Matty Cakes' Bash, Echofon's greatness, Beavis and Butt-head returning (oh my!), another beach trip in the works soon, Jersey Shore, being a sucker for cheap t-shirts, Wade F. Maley Field, Whitman Creek, roid freaks, and whatever else we want to throw in the mix. Here we go, it's time to rock yet again!



The title of this blog? I threw up a FB topic the other day saying how I must be missing out on all of this Jimmy Buffett and/or Dave Matthews Band frenzy that a ton of people are into. I said that's definitely cool, I'm not a hater of those, but they just never appealed to me. That topic blew up and got tons of opinions on the matter, check it out if you already haven't. You get opinions from all walks of life on that one, with some agreeing, while others like one and not the other, and some like both. Anyways, Corndog gave me the idea to use one of those classic quotes from my FB comments as this week's title. Thanks to Chrissy DeMarco, she gets all credit for this quote. Also, bonus points for her being a Class of 97 member and one of my friends who has always kept things real and honest, didn't change a bit, I like that. Here is what she said exactly: "I like Buffett, he has some entertaining lyrics...if you like to drink lol...that's the only time I listen to him. I started liking him when I lived in Florida and went to the bars on the beach, go figure ;-] As for Dave Matthews Band, I absolutely HATE that guys voice, sounds like he has a mouthful of either gravel or shit lol.." There you go folks, that's your topic this week. Also in that mix of comments are words of wisdom from DerekHood and Corndog just to name a few, you can't go wrong.

Really, one of the greatest TV shows of all time may return soon? Say it ain't so! I hope it is so. What's that you ask? Beavis and Butt-head, what else? I know at least in my age group of old dudes, all of my buddies who have seen this are all about the possibilities and want it to happen. To this day, if Beavis reruns are on TV, I'm going to stop and check it out. That doesn't count for the fact that I have every episode here at the house regardless, but you know how it goes. Creator Mike Judge apparently has been working on 30 episodes. I may be an old man or on my way to being, but I'll never grow up in a lot of ways. Beavis is one for sure that hasn't turned old on me, so I'm all about this return if it's really going to happen. Thanks to TheAnswer, he provided us with this link, check it for yourself on the details: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/geekboymovienews/news/?a=19873.



Speaking of TV, I'm a TV junkie like no other. As everyone else would say, without DVR, we'd all be in trouble. It's a big TV time of the year for me. For one, we have July 29th being a huge one in my point of view. Jersey Shore, Season 2! Yes, this crew is cheesy, but it makes for great entertainment, even if they are characters more so than "reality". I'm also excited that the entire crew (minus Angelina) will be back for Season 3 as they will get $40,000 per episode, big ballin'. I'm a big supporter and it seems like it's been a long wait since the inaugural season. I may break down Big Brother in one of my upcoming blogs as well, this is a show I can't miss and even though I've just started getting into it over the past year or so, I'm hooked. It's a commitment though, as you have three nights a week to watch, but once you start watching, chances are you'll enjoy it, but what do I know. More reality? This one I have no reason why I watch, but Teen Mom on MTV. These pointless MTV shows suck me in and the people on this show are over the top. It's a drama fest, which I why I watch Jersey, Real World, Big Brother, etc, so it's in my wheelhouse. Kids having kids, ridiculous. There was a marathon on the other day and it's so bad it's good, so I just kept watching like an idiot. Thanks MTV for shrinking my brain cells.

Family bash a few weeks ago, hosted by Kari and Matty Cakes. I'm a family guy and it never gets old hanging around my fam. Dad always jokes that a "family man" is one that has a family here, a family there, something you don't want to be, but I'll be the other kind of family guy. Shawn Kemp style. No stray kids for me running around the streets, forget that mess. Anyways, the food as usual, top notch. You've heard my speeches before, I'll put my family's cooking up against anyone out there and fairly confident it's going to hold up to be legit. The winner of the cooking side of things this time was my Aunt Linda. She was presented with the golden engraved trophy and gets to hold onto it till the next family eating celebration. The question is, will she hold onto that trophy and remain champion or will someone swoop in out of nowhere and snatch it up? A new one to me were meatballs she brought in that were cooked in grape jelly as one ingredient I know for sure. It sounds weird, I know. I said the exact same, but I'm never above at least trying different foods. It's a good thing I did, because these things were out of this world! I'm not joking either, I could've made a meal just on that alone. Another hit of hers was the spinach dip she made. A few were asking for the recipe on that one. That's not even mentioning the other great food the rest of the fam brought in, mmmm mmmm good! Also we had cornhole excitement happening in the back yard. I love Kari and Matty Cakes' house, it's an awesome setup. We had several couple duos and Whitney stepped up on my side and showed she has some quality cornhole skills, so we'll continue our run. We won our first matchup by a pretty big margin, but ended up losing in the 2nd Round. After that, it was go time since I had to wake up for the beach trip at 4:00 in the morning.



I hadn't been to the beach since 2004. Yep, six years. I used to go just about every single year and then after a while, we stopped going. Dad and myself aren't really beach bums, but we know Mom has been wanting to go back for a long time now. Out of nowhere, Dad said that we should take Mom and make it a family trip. I was down, so why not roll with it. The destination? Ocean City, Maryland. I think I'm the only person in Shinnston who hasn't been to Myrtle. The way I look at it, I'm sure Myrtle is awesome, but I've always been a big OC fan and it's a much shorter drive. I've done Virginia Beach too and liked it there as well. It's a bit over 6 hours and we went in a new way this year. We came in on the Delaware side, ending up in the Fenwick section and coming in at North Ocean City. We stayed on 126th, so that was to our benefit anyways. TomTom was at our side and good ol' Tom got us there exactly. Even when we had a detour due to a big wreck, that ended up taking us on the Delaware side and that's the direction I may go from now on, a lot of that drive on that side is easy. That part of Delaware was all country for the most part, farm lands and had a redneck feel, I liked it.

The amount of food I ate that week, no clue how I'm not 400 pounds. Luckily, I'm glad of that and my high metabolism, but I'm sure it'll catch up to me soon enough. By far my favorite place to eat at OC is The Bonfire, on 71st Street. It's an all you can eat seafood/prime rib place and it booms the business. I was a fat boy and had a few prime ribs and enough crab legs to feed Zimbabwe, not to mention salmon, shrimp, and whatever else you can think of. If you leave this place hungry, something is definitely wrong with you. It's a place I'll hit up on every trip here and I highly recommend it if you're in the area.



As far as the beach side of things is considered, we couldn't have asked for a better week. We didn't have one single day where it rained during beach time. It rained one morning lightly and then one evening around 5:00 it was a little downpour, but nothing else. We were as lucky as you could get there. Plus, the water temperature was just about perfect. It didn't feel like warm pool water nor was it on the way cold side, it was right in the middle, refreshing. The waves were also rockin' this week too. We were in high tide levels for many parts of our days and some warnings were out, so that gave us some big ones to fight through. As Walz said on Twitter (http://twitter.com/mwalz9) that week, "Enough sleeping in...@Bird33WV needs to get up and show the waves who's boss!" That I did too. Speaking of Twitter, more on that here in a bit.

On the workout scene, I hit up Gold's Gym a few days and really liked their setup they had in OC. I would've hated myself by missing workout time, always have been that way. I know I'm a little dude, but one thing I've been dedicated to for a long time is working out and staying in good shape. The area we were at, there weren't many so-called in shape people like you'd expect on the beach. Gold's had just about all types of people working out, so you didn't feel out of place, but they had some insanely roided out freaks too. Heavy juicing going on with some of these guys and not that I'd ever wanna be on roids, but these dudes were literally oozing, freaks of nature to see. They could floss their teeth with me, not like that is saying much, tipping the scales at 158.3 today, beastly. It'll be interesting to see what they are like years down the line, to if they are injured somehow. I hope not though for their case. Or they may end up like some of the old local roiders, looked great back in the day, but when they got off the juice, turned into a complete mess. It's sad to see happen, but just how it goes a lot of times.



Dirty boardwalk time. I'm a fan of the boardwalk scene. I know it's mainly cheap shops and the like, but you also see some true characters down there. I'm a total sucker for cheap and goofy t-shirts too and loaded up on more than I need while there. Like I need anymore clothes. Since I brought up Jersey Shore, I got several shirts of that line being the dork I am. One of my faves is one of The Godfather logo, except this one has Italian colors and The Situation on it instead. A fist pump shirt or two, some Italian soccer tees and you see what I was after. And I had to a classic Italian Stallion shirt just because it's funny to me in my weird sense of humor. The only non-Italian shirt I got on this trip was an old school Legend of Zelda creation. You know you're whistling the theme music right now for Zelda. What else was I a big fan of on the boardwalk? Since everyone needs a little bit of a kid mentality at times not to feel old, say hello to Candy Kitchen. These stores seemed like they were every two feet in OC and they saw me coming. Yes, I'm a total candy freak as everyone knows, good stuff. I could be hooked on worse I always say. The beach trip was well overdue, so much that Whitney and I are hitting it back up during the first week of August, the week before I start back up to work, that should be a quality trip, more on that as it happens. I'm pretty pumped up to say the least on that one, it'll be even better than the first I predict.

Everyone is probably sick of my plugging of Twitter, but I'm zoned into that like no other. I'll branch a different route and give my favorite Twitter app. What is that one? Echofon. There are so many out there, but this in my opinion gets two big thumbs up. I even have a version of Echofon through the Firefox browser if you use that. The thing I like about the phone version is that you can do a "nearby tweets" search. In my area at home, Twitter use is fairly low scale and not much happens as far as tons of people using it. At the beach, I clicked the nearby thing and tweets pop up all the time. It pinpoints the exact area to the street if you're nosy and for some reason, reading random tweets and going back and forth with bums was highly entertaining to me. To the locals, the pinpoints of my area even shows such landmarks as Wade F. Maley Field, Stydahar Field, and the Barnes Cemetery. It lists them exactly as that through, which cracks me up. Wade F. Maley Field, home of the infamous camel we have in town named Punjab. Yes, a camel in Shinnston. Well, Bethlehem if you want to get technical, but less than a mile or two from my house.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Corndog is providing once again. He texted me and says, "Did u see the logan county water slide?" We're going to scenic Logan County, West Virginia for this one. Apparently someone (Corndog probably even knows them since he's the Mayor of Whitman Creek and a popular internet commodity) made a homemade 100 foot water slide. Only in West Virginia, but I have to admit, I'd get on that "slide" and would have a blast. I'm not sure what that says for myself, but I bet most of you would too. Here is the short clip:



3 Quick Thangs:

1. I asked The_Freak if he had anything to contribute to the blog this week. Right on cue, he says..

The_Freak: There's a dude I know of. I went to high school with him. He is a cheerleader for a professional team. He always refers to them as "we", and has actually referred to himself as "part of the team". Dude, you're a cheerleader, not a guy on the practice squad, or even on special teams.
The_Freak: I hate when people say "we" when they're NOT on a team.
Me: I fall victim to the "we" thing too much too, guilty.
The_Freak: yes but you didn't put a big status with "this hurts so bad, it's the hardest part of being a part of this team. i'm sick to my stomach".

Zing! I laughed anyways.

2. The one and only Slider the Great is getting excited for this day and glad I can be a part of it. In his latest tweet, he pulls out this gem: "New Simmons mailbag and a possibly a new blog from @Bird33WV in the same day?! This is going to be a good Friday." I hope I have a worthy blog for him this time around, it's a tough judging panel to make proud and filled with pressure, but they still crave the action. Slider's Twitter can be found here: http://twitter.com/mchapman3.

3. I might as well keep the trend and roll with the basis on a lot of my regular blog readers/buds/Twitter posters and give out another plug. You've all heard about the smooth and clever DirtyKash. If you haven't, either you're living under a rock or haven't read many of my blogs. We go all the way to northeast Canada for his stomping grounds. I may have even plugged it before, probably so, but that shows it's packed with goodness. Check it out at http://twitter.com/notdirtykash.

Real World: West Virginia, July 4th Bash For Sodahead13!

Maybe I just take breaks between blogs so I have a lot of stories to write about. Who knows, but that sounds like a good enough explanation. July 4th has passed and technically, over half the year is over with around this time of year. That means it's the prime time of summer and we've been getting scorched. Get your sunblock ready because this is gonna be a ride along the road of a variety of topics. What are you getting in this edition? Here's a quick preview: Two movie reviews of Valentine's Day and Eclipse, Tosh.0, Real World: New Orleans, two July 4th celebration bashes, Sodahead13, UFC 116, and whatever else we deem worthy. Away we go!



I'm going to start off with TV action. Come to think of it, I write a lot about TV stuff, guess I have too much time on my hands. I think that's a good thing though, it could be much worse. We're going the Comedy Central route. For being a guy that likes to goof off and laugh, I surprisingly don't watch a lot of that channel. Some things I will, but it's surely not in my regular rotation like it is to some other people. This one comes to the blog with a recommendation from Abby and Pat and it's one you have to put on the DVR circuit. Tosh.0. Daniel Tosh is the host if you know of him and the concept of this show is right up my alley. It uses a lot of internet clips and spins it in a hilarious way. Some of the things on here are over the top, but that makes it great. Think of a web version of Talk Soup. Why didn't I get to this job first? Each week they also do a segment showing a web redemption. These will feature popular internet vids we've all seen and watched a zillion times of people failing. Tosh brings these people in and recreates the vid and gives them a chance to make good of it. There's been a lot, one of the better ones was having Afro Ninja appear. You all know him, the dude who tries the backflip with his nunchucks and gets mangled. Wednesday nights, 10:30 EST.

Let's now jump from TV and hit the movie scene. Don't worry, we'll get back to the TV talk before we're finished up. Two movies to talk about and give my review, both of which receive big time grades from me. The first was a rental as I didn't see it when it came out in theaters, Valentine's Day. Yes, a chick flick, but you know my theory on those. Maybe it's not super manly of me to admit, but I don't mind a good chick flick at all, I'm down for that. The cast of this movie alone is pretty impressive as there are names upon names. Who? Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Ashton Kutcher, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, George Lopez, Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah, Jacob of Twilight fame, Taylor Swift, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, and that's just some. The storyline of this I thought was really good too. You had a mix of things going on with all of these characters and they all got nice time throughout the movie. I'm going with a high grade on this one. IMDB at the moment has it at a 5.7. I'm going much higher and Whitney would agree. How about 8.5 Hollywood stars out of 10?



We now hit up the theater. On Monday afternoon, Whitney and myself trekked it to our mall to see the action known as The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. I'm a person that has wrote about the books before and even the movies. The books were great. You may enjoy them even if it's not a topic you'd think you would be into. I thought the same, I will call it the Harry Potter theory. The Harry trailers are great as well if you haven't seen yet if you're into that type of thing. Now onto Eclipse, not to get sidetracked. I'm going to start off by saying this is the best of the three released movies so far of the Twilight group, at least in my opinion. The second I didn't fully see though as I fell asleep through a lot of it, but did wake up for the ending scenes. This one is legit and even if you haven't read the books, you'd be able to follow along for this movie. The fight scenes I thought were very well done. Outside of the wolves looking cheesy to me, everything else was smooth as all gets. A woman answered her cell phone during the later part of this movie and people weren't happy. She soon told the person she'd call them later, smart move. Her phone almost got smashed into pieces. Also, if you've yet to see the Jersey Shore parody of this, you have to search for that video, it's awesome. July 29th, Season 2 of Jersey Shore! Anyways, for some reason this one got ripped apart on IMDB, a 4.5 as we type this up. In my ranks? I'm going to actually double this thing up. Yes, I'm not kidding. We're going 9 bloody vampires out of 10, go see it.

How'd the fireworks of July 4th treat everyone? Since I'm in a booming metropolis, we not only had one, but two fireworks specials in my area. The population is so huge, that's the only way they were able to do it. Friday night, the crew rolled up to Nutter Fort, home of Cork and fellow internet celebrity ManDingo. The name of the event? The Cork and Kristin Rife Nutter Fort July 4th Extravaganza. It's never a bad time when you get the gang together, mix that in with some great food and you're set. I was there to retain my cornhole title from last year that Spank and I won. Due to that, we rode through the streets of Nutter Fort on a golden float and hoisted our trophies for the world to see. This year? Spank went bigger city and went to the Bucs game to watch the fireworks, so I was in need of a partner. In steps Big Zo Daddy, always one that will get the party laughing good, so we became the Italian machismo as we teamed up together. We didn't play bad, but not anything worth writing home about. After the loss, I walked down to the park which is only a little over a block away from Cork's house which makes it easy. It was a madhouse down there with booths upon booths of vendors and people running galore. Our mission was to hit up the funnel cake stand. Can you ever pass up a funnel cake? Nope, you can't. These people made a killing! Not only the funnel cake people, but every other booth was jammed packed. How much? $5 per cake. Ouch! Since it was a special day, you pay that for the cake and get on with it. The crazy thing is that you waited in a line to pay and then after paying you were sent to another line to pick it up. It was a good 30-45 minutes waiting on that beast, but yum!



As we walked back, the fireworks had started up. No hands were blown off that I know of, so chalk one up for the good guys this year. Last year at Nutter Fort, the fireworks side of things, everyone was a bit disappointed about. This year, upon hearing the criticism of the year before, they brought their game and flexed their guns. A very solid display and everyone went home, happy due to it. The weird thing and maybe since it's more city limit type thing, I didn't hear hardly any redneck shotguns going off during the night. You hear that a lot closer to my town though, but more on that in a second. The night was ended with beer pong festivities. I played a game, but since I don't drink at all, it was kind of pointless for me since there were no consequences to myself. It wasn't like my basketball shooting ability, I wasn't anything special during this and I'll retire from the sport after one game. However, the big war was Cork and Trev teaming up against Ozzie and Matty Cakes. That was epic stuff while the fans watched as you had Cork and Trev on fire for a while and doing some major trash talk. Then you'd have the other side get on a run and out would come the infamous Ozzie Dance. You know it's a serious series of games when you have the trash talk on one side and the dancing on the other. Needless to say, the fans watching were the winners here. Cork and Trev were on a massive run to where they were almost unbeatable and then Ozzie and Matty Cakes pulled the rug under their feet to swoop in for the series win. They are this year's winners and will ride in the parade. All in all, a great time and the blog would once again like to thank Cork and Kristin for throwing the bash.

If Friday's fireworks weren't enough, how about Sunday? That was the actual July 4th day, so the pressure was on. Nutter Fort set the bar and basically told Shinnston to beat that one. Since Shinnston is now considered unsafe and ran by terrorists, anything was bound to happen on this night. By the way, that's a little inside thing that nobody outside of our area is going to pick up on. Fellow blog readers from lands of afar, I always say, there's something in here for everyone. The good of this night was that it was walking distance. Our fireworks are always in the mean streets of East Shinnston, my territory and my house is about a block or two away from the park. Yep, you get a great view without even walking out to the park from where we are. Another good thing, four houses down was Whitney's family bash, so we had two spots within a few steps from each other. You can't beat that with a stick. I may have ate the best ribs of my entire life that night, thanks to some mix of them being soaked in Coke and then the ultimate was put on, Sweet Baby Ray's. This night also featured cornhole action and we had some great battles. I teamed up with Big Ev and during one game against Simzilla and Ski, we were up 18-0 before we pulled the win. Another game we were down 19-9 (playing to 21 of course) and came back to get the epic comeback. I think after we stuffed ourselves with food, our cornhole mentality of wanting to slice the opponents' throats died down a bit. We started out as Kobe and ended up as LeBron I guess you could say.



The fireworks in Shinnston are almost always good. I think that's where we spend a lot of the town budget on. As of a few years ago, I'd definitely say that as we had very little, but our park is pretty nice and then we finally got our new basketball courts a while back that we've desperately been in need of 20 years prior. I'm giving the slight nod this year in the battle of fireworks to Shinnston, but Nutter Fort put up the valiant fight this year as compared to next. For what it's worth, the town of Enterprise didn't get blown into little pieces this year either like it did last time around. Word has it that they may be doing it there this weekend? Ouch. Should be interesting. Anyways, like we thanked the Nutter Fort bunch at Cork and Kristin's bash, we'd like to thank the Boggess and Southern clans for doing it up large in East Shinnston.

Let's flip the switch back to TV. I told you we'd be here soon enough and you were patient to wait for it. Real World: New Orleans started up last week and after the first episode, it's time to rock. It can't be any worse than last year, so that's a plus if nothing else. I'll give a real quick character analysis not to bore everyone with. This is a show that I watch every single season and still haven't lost my luster to want to stop doing so. I'll list them in the order they were presented on the first episode. Knight (his last name, but he wants to go by it) is 23 and from Wisconsin. He's a hockey player who got hurt and then addicted to pain pills. He's been through drug rehab. That is a great mix for a Real World character, he should fit in just fine for our weekly TV watching. Then we get Jemmye, who is 21 and from Mississippi. Yes, it's a girl's name, but it's pronounced like the name Jimmy. Strange. She has a crazy accent which I love, but the rest of her, thumbs down. She, at least on first appearance, is the slutty chick of this bunch and has been called out for that already. She's also been called white trash and has her unknown parts pierced is what I'll say. McKenzie, 21 from Florida. She's the typical beach girl. She's cute, but seems like a cookie cutter blonde to me. I don't know much on her actual character thus far into the season though.



Next up is Preston, 22 from Boston. He's the gay dude of the bunch and has been getting reviews online for looking a whole lot like Rajon Rondo. I'd agree to that too. Sometime this season, apparently he wizzes on Ryan's toothbrush, scrubs it around the toilet bowl, and then puts it back. Ryan gets sick and then it breaks bad? I dunno on that, just internet rumors I've heard. That's messed up, but again, that's awesome TV. Ashley, 23, also from Boston. She's originally from Jersey. She's a basketball chick, sells power tools, and has Jolie lips. She's not blow away gorgeous, but she's cute on a scale that she seems like a regular girl hanging out. Eric, 24 and from Virginia. He's the grandpa of this group. He's an international diplomat that is part of security, whatever that entails. He's also supposedly a comedian, but early on hasn't been funny. He hasn't generated a huge character yet either. Sahar, 21 from Michigan. She's never lived away and is one that has somewhat of a man back home. That basically means she'll cheat on him and it'll be crying on the phone with this guy. Those types of characters are brutal, but she's my favorite one so far based on looks if nothing else. Last but not least, Ryan, 21 from Arizona. He's a hair stylist and has already created so much hate that it's been awesome for TV. He bounces off the walls more than I do, way hyper, and has been drugged out before. On the first day, he already had the house fired up with him. He acted like a baby because he didn't want to stay with Knight, bashed Preston for being gay, and called Jimmy a white trash bum in other terms. Jump in on this season, it's a must!

It's past the fact, but UFC 116 was awesome. If you saw my FB posts during the show, it was in my opinion, one of the better all around UFC shows in quite some time. There wasn't a bad match on the show in my mind and there were three that ended up being off the chain good. The main event was why everyone got it, but it was only the third best fight on my ranks and that's saying quite a lot because the main was amazing. Fight of the night to me was my boy Chris "The Crippler" Leben going at it against Sexyama. These guys went at it like no other. The crazy thing was that Leben did this fight on less than 2 WEEKS notice. That shows how nuts Leben is and he won this thing on top. Afterwards, he called out none other than The Axe Murderer himself, Wanderlei Silva. I'm not quite sure that's the smart move to make, but I'm a huge fan of both of those dudes and want to see this fight happen. Another that could've been fight of the night was Stephan Bonnar being yet another bloody mess by winning against Krzysztof Soszynski. Bonnar really is the American Psycho. This dude takes a pounding and keeps going forward like no other. Then we go to the main. Lesnar was absolutely mangled in the 1st Round, taking a crushing and if it weren't Lesnar, it would've been called. 2nd Round, Carwin was gassed and then got locked up in a submission and it was all but over with. Carwin got some major respect after this one, but Lesnar shows again that he's a beast. Time for Velasquez/Lesnar.



Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Sodahead13 makes it on Tosh.0. In this one, he's chugging his Coke. One weird looking dude and his expressions and saying are quality. "That was Sodahead13 and he likes to crank music and chug soda." Ok, here we go. "YEEEEEEEEAAAAHHHHYUH!" It wouldn't let me embed from that vid, so here's just the regular link, click on this thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLosTy6nOj8&feature=related

3 Quick Thangs:

1. Gutter Connection softball, only a few more weeks left of play for some of Shinnston's finest. I'll be sure to keep everyone up to date as I have all year long, with FB and especially Twitter. Yep, time for another cheap Twitter plug: http://twitter.com/Bird33WV.

2. Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, Season 3: Monday, July 12th on MTV. Of course, that's on wrestling night for me, so it'll have to take the DVR seat because nothing trumps WWE RAW for me on Monday TV. Yes, I realize I'm a dork, but to me, that's what Mondays are all about.

3. As if the world hasn't already been waiting for it, both Mike Tyson and LeBron James finally have Twitter accounts. Get on that.