285

That's not what I'm benching these days. That's what number post we're on. I can't believe I've been posting for this long, or that I've reached 285 posts. Thanks to everyone who has stuck around thus far. Hopefully I can be as entertaining for anotehr 285 posts as I was (or wasn't) for the first 285. Not much happening here. Been listening to Sirius Hits One to see what new music is out and what is popular these days. Other than the new Shakira song, there isn't much out there that I like. Yeah, I like Shakira not only because her ass is a work of art, but she can sing. Anyway, they've been doing a really funny thing lately that they call Beep...and it has nothing to do with the Pussy Cat Dolls. They take a song and bleep out the lyrics so it makes it sound like they're saying something dirty. The one today was really funny. They did some Avril Lavigne song and they changed it to "isn't anyone trying to *bleep* me." It was funny. Mike introduced me to some new videos last night on You Tube.com. They're the new(ish) Volkswagen commercials about un-pimping your ride and they are seriously funny. In case you don't get to see them the commercial star Peter Stormare from Armageddon, and Bad Boys 2. He's swedish but typically plays a Russian in his more noteable roles. In the commercials, he's German, and representing for V-Dub unpimping the stupidest looking rides I've ever. The commercials are funny. I laughed my ass off.

Outside of that, there is nothing to report. Still keeping our fingers crossed for Chas and J and hope we hear something soon. Check out my wifes blog. She blogged about our Wal-Mart trip this weekend where a Wally World employee refused to speak English when we were looking for Moth Balls. I could blog about it, but I'd just get mad again at a strange Asian man that was chewing gum (smacking is really more like it) and followed me around not helping at all. It was like he mad a consorted effort not to help but pointed to a cashier who was ringing people up and slurped that she could. Yes...I said slurped so not only was he not speaking english, he was slurping the massive amount of chewing gum in his mouth...and still not helping. Sorry...I hope everyone else is looking forward to Friday as much as I am.

Movie Review - Inside Man

This weekend like any other was busy as usual. Friday I got home from work early and cut the front yard because we had company coming, and because it was time. It's almost that time of year where I'll be cutting the grass once a week. I cut the grass, cleaned the garage and when my hot wife got home we went bowling with some of our new friends. We haven't bowled in a long time, so it was fun. The bowling alley had the dumbest bar policies I've ever seen. I walked up to order drinks for all of us and the girl said "Do you see this sign? It says one ID, one drink, no exceptions." I showed her my ID and said "Fine, just give me a pitcher of Miller Light." She leans on the bar and said "Do you see this sign over here that says 'no pitchers after 9:00 and it's now 9:01?" Clearly I didn't see these signs. My wife walked up and saved this woman from a very brutal tongue lashing by saying "Do you need help carrying the drinks?" If I had drinks, this would have been a great help. I still had no drinks. So I left the bar as it was my turn to bowl. I told our friends how dumb this bar was so they went up to order their own drinks. When you get ID'd here you have to wear these stupid pink bands that say you're over 21. My wife and I went back to order our drinks and I thought I'd get me and my friend a shot of tequila (my wife does not shoot tequila) and the bartender says "Yes, I can serve you a shot but you have to do it right here." I laughed and said nevermind. She goes "So what, you don't want the shot?" I said "No lady, clearly you want it more than I do." Now that we all four have our drinks and are back to bowling a security guard starts coming over and yelling "Hold ya hands up! I needs to see yos bands since uh...y'alls uh drankin." I was confused, but he stood there and yelled until we all held our hands up to show our nice pink bands. I'd visit the bar one more time to get a beer and she asked very snidely if I wanted my 25 cents in change since "I hadn't tipped her yet." My wife wasn't around so she got a mild tongue beating. "For me to tip you, you have to do something other than open a beer and be a raging bitch. I bar tended and waited tables through college and never talked to anyone the way you talked to us. If you want to make money, work at a bar that doesn't suck and stop being a bitch." I thought it best if I didn't get another drink that night.

Saturday was just some laying around the house waiting on our weekend house guest. Hooters made it down in time for dinner on Saturday night so we visited Macaroni Grill and our neighbor who is the manager there was nice enough to treat us to dinner. Trust me, as much as I like food, and like enjoying food with friends, free food is a fantastic gift. So, afterwards we saw Inside Man. It was good, quite honestly the theater was so hot I slept through a little bit of it, but I didn't miss anything. Clive Owen, and Denzel Washington were awesome in it, and Jodie Foster still has an amazing pair of legs. The rest of her was good in the movie too. The shots of her legs were almost worth the $8 admission ticket alone. It's a good heist movie, and I do love heist movies so I would recommend you see this one. It's good.

Sunday, Hooters treated us to some ice cream at Clumpy's and we showed her around downtown where they'd done all the new construction and she went home. I turned on the races as I was pretty amped up about Indy Racing kicking off this weekend. I am sorry to hear about Paul Dana as he died in a practice crash on Saturday so my prayers are certainly with his family and his team. The race was still a good show, and an intense race. I don't have a driver in that series, I just like watching it. So much in fact that I ordered tickets to the race in July and am very amped up about it. This is probably my last season watching Nascar so I'm glad I found something else to watch that will take up less time and make me less violent. In Nascar news, Dodge won again on Sunday so that makes back to back for Dodge and makes me very happy. Not much else happening on Monday other than it being cold so I hope everyone else had a great weekend.

Good wastes of money...

Okay, the big story in the news here lately is that when people call 9-1-1 no one answers. A lady on the opposite side of town from us caught her kitchen on fire and called 9-1-1 six or seven times before they answered. This of course made news headlines every night this week. Now, with further investigation our news team has found out that last month there were about 10,000 calls made to 9-1-1, and 2,200 of them were not answered. The police chief came forward and said it was his fault and he'd fix it. Good for him, at least he's owning up to it and not saying he doesn't have the budget for it or something lame like that. Well handled. When they investigated more, they found that the night the lady with the flaming kitchen called, there were four people working. Three people were on break and one was taking calls. 9-1-1 actually didn't get to help kitchen lady. Her nine year old son ran down the street to the fire department and the fire department responded before 9-1-1 answered. To beat all, the city's 9-1-1 coordinator (not sure why we have that position, but that's just me) has said they need to further analyze this situation. They're going to appoint a comittee to conduct a four month study to find out why calls aren't being answered and develop a solution. Is this the best we can come up with? Calls aren't being answered so rather than tell these three people to not all take a break together, or hire more people, we're conducting a survey. How dumb is that? Am I the only one that thinks this is insane? I've got a better idea. Elimated the 9-1-1 coordinator because he's not needed. Instead, make him (or someone) the call center supervisor. In fact, we should have two or three of those and they can work 24 hours a day, splitting the day and night shifts however they'd like but they're also taking calls, not just playing video games on taxpayers money. This way there is always a supervisor on duty. This should also eliminate everyone taking a smoke break at once so three people aren't on break while one guy takes all the calls. How easy was that? No waste of tax money, and it's done in four minutes not four months. I'd like to think that there is something more complicated than these people flat out not doing their jobs, or that we do need a four month survey, but somehow I really believe it's that simple. I could preach for days about wastes of money, but this is the one making headlines here this week. Just thought everyone not in the area might want to know.

2005 Oscar Pics

Okay, so these are long overdue and I'm sure you have all had a hard time sleeping at night wondering when Chris and I were going to post our pics for the 2005 Oscars...as they should have been of course.

Best Picture: Raul's Pick - Star Wars Episode III, runner up Batman Begins Chris Pick – Batman Begins
Best Drama: Raul's Pick - Walk the Line Runner Up Brokeback Mountain (but only because my wife liked it so much. I still haven't seen it) Chris Pick – Constant Gardener
Best Director: Raul's Pick - George Lucas, Star Wars Episode III Chris Pick - Andrew Adamson, The Chronicles of Narnia
Best Action Flick: Batman Begins We agree!
Best Superhero Flick - Raul's Picks - Batman Begins, Runner Up - Sin City Chris Pick – Batman Begins, Runner up – Fantastic Four
Best Comedy - Wedding Crashers, Runner Up Chris's Pick – The Pacifier
Best Actor in a Guy Flick - Christian Bale Batman Begins We agree!
Best Actor overall - Joaquin Phoenix Walk the Line Chris Can’t think of one for this one!
Best Actress overall - Reese Witherspoon Walk the Line Chris Can’t think of one for this one!
Best Actress in a Topless Scene - Barbara Nedeljakova – Hostel Chris Pick – Can’t think of one…so I’ll be watching Hostel!
Movie You Shouldn't Waste Your Time On - Raul's Pick - King Kong Christian's Pick – History of Violence
Best Mindless Action Flick - Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Runner Up – Dukes of Hazzard, We agree!
Best Actress in a Mindless Action Flick (who also should have been
topless) - Jessica Alba, Sin City – Angelina Jolie – Mr. and Mrs. Smith (although the leather was pretty hot!), Runner Up – Jessica Simpson, Dukes of Hazzard
Best Actor in a Mindless Action Flick - Mickey Rourke Sin City
Movie You Should Have Paid to See In Theaters - Raul's Pick - Star Wars Episode III
Christian's Pick – Batman Begins
Movie That Should Have Had More Topless Scenes - Dukes of Hazzard
Best Revenge Movie - Raul's Pick - A History of Violence Chris Pick - Domino
Best Thriller - Hostel
Best Animated Film – Madagascar We Agree!

Christian's Movie He Couldn't Think of a Good Award for but liked – Sahara

Raul's Movie He Couldn't Think of a Good Award for but liked - Lord Of War

Movie Review - V for Vendetta

"Remember remember the fifth of November" the movie says as it opens. This movie is awesome. I think they could have put it out this summer and it would have been a great summer blockbuster to rival Superman Returns of X-3. The movie takes place opening very late on November 4th in the distant future where Britain is ruled by a totalitarian government, much like Hitler and the Nazi regime from WWII. They've taken over the country and are persecuting and experimenting on outsiders like gay people and rebels. One of their experiments is code name V, marvelously played by Hugo Weaving. Don't go expecting to see Agent Smith from the Matrix or The Elf King from Lord of the Rings, his role in this one far surpases any of his previous roles, though you never see his face. Anyway, his role is to bring down the oppressive government with the people in true Viva La Revolucion Style. I read some reviews that said this movie was bad because it encourages terrorism and violence. What movies don't? If you honestly believe that after seeing this movie, you wrote too much in to it. It's based on a graphic novel under the DC comics label and while I didn't read the book (but might), the movie is well played out. Natalie Portman is smoking hot until they shave her head. Even then she's not bad, but she sortof looks like a dude in some of her shots with no hair. The movie is twisted a bit at times, but it's really good. The plotting, the scheming, the revenge, the action, it's all there. It's not gory (much) but it's awesome. I can't wait for the DVD to come out because this is truly a movie to own that is right up there with the Matrix trilogies (also done by the Wachowski brothers) and it's worth seeing in the theaters. Now if I can just convince the wife to go see it while it's still on the big screen I'll be doing good.

In other news this weekend I got the front yard landscaped how we wanted it. I was even nice enough to document it with pictures on our photo blog. That's it for our Monday, I hope everyone else had a good weekend.

Movie Review - Crash

Wednesday night has been movie night at our house for some time because we don't have any TV shows we watch on Wednesday. It's dumb I know, but I do love some Tuesday's Boston Legal (though I could do without their recent democratic propaganda crap), and Monday Nights "How I Met Your Mother" has got to be the funniest show on Television right now. If you're not watching it, you need to. Neil Patrick Harris plays a guy that everyone has as a friend. The best way to describe him...Mike. If you watch that show at least once, you'll get an idea what it's like to have Mike as a friend. It's hilarious. In short, we reserve Wednesday for movie night because we like our shows.

Anyway, we Netflixed and watched Crash the other night since it won Best Picture. I wanted to see what all the hype was about as did my hot wife. If you haven't seen it, it's good. It's basically about racism, some of it is extreme and stereotypical, and some of it is funny. A lot of it is true in some cases, but some of it is just hollywood mess. I'd like to think that none of that could ever happen but somehow I think it does and it has. Don Cheadle opens the movie by saying "I don't think we feel anything anymore. We just crash in to each other so we can feel it." It's not exact, but something to that effect. The movie is enjoyable, but I don't think it was the best picture of the year. I would say it's a movie you should see, just because it's a good movie. I don't think you're going to learn a big life lesson from it, but you'll be well entertained for an hour and 50 minutes to say the least.

In other news I've taken time to watch Bloodrayne, and Ultraviolet this week. I'll spare you a plot synopsis and just tell you that they are complete and total shit. I guess both movies are centered around having a hot girl as the lead role, and if you have to see one of these two, make sure it's Ultraviolet. Milla Jovavich I think acted as well as one could expect in this one. The plot is dumb and useless. Bloodrayne starred the insanely hot Kristanna Loken, Michelle Rodriguez and Academy Award Winner Ben Kingsley. Maybe he's desperate in his career for movies, but this is an all time low. The acting is worse than a high school play as all lines sound like they're being read from cue cards. It's almost like the actors had a common goal to be the worst they could be. They acheived it. This movie was a total piece of crap. Save yourself the money on both counts, even if you're sick and you have to watch them...poke your eyes out instead. It will be a lot less painful.

Tonight is the highly anticipated V for Vendetta. I have been looking forward to this movie since last summer. It was originally supposed to come out November 5th of last year, but they moved it for whatever reason. Tonight, Mike and I are seeing hte 8:30 show so expect a full review. I think this is going to be awesome. I can't get my hot wife to go with us, but it's her loss really. I'll have to force her to watch the DVD when it comes out. That's all for now, Happy St. Patrick's day!

Have to share this one...

Not much happening today but I have to share this with someone. The building next door to us has probably been vacant for 10 years. The landlord is working on straightening it up because inside that place is a wreck. A few weeks ago some dry cleaners started moving in and he had crews working overtime to get that place ready on time. They didn't so it's half done and his potential clients went somewhere else. People come by all the time and want to know if I own it and how can they rent it. Seriously, we get people by here all the time with a business idea or something. It's not a bad building, and he did just put siding on it so it looks really good. Today a girl comes in that looks about like she's 18...maybe. Very petite girl with skin tight jeans, skin tight shirt, clear heals, bleached hair and odd looking make-up and tatoos on her arms, lower back and neck. What was really unusual about this girl is the number of hickeys on her neck. I counted six on one side and three on the other. These things were huge and it looked like she'd done it with a vacuum cleaner. So she asked the usual and I asked what she was going to be doing if she rented it. She gave me a funny look and I expected to hear coffee shop, hair salon, the usual. She said "Um, I'm gonna open a Lingerie Shop and I've had problems finding someone that will rent me a building with the stuff I want to sell. I'm...uh...gonna sell stuff besides lingerie though so it's cool." Wow. To think, I could have an adult lingerie store right next door. That's it for todays excitement.

Productive Days

Well, most of Spring Break I did not very much. I watched our new friends Dog while they were out of town. I swapped wheels and tires on the Cuda (and that debate continues) and did a few test runs (and of course test burn-outs). Friday was more or less the last day of Spring Break so I got a wild hair and rented a chain saw to take down some dead trees in our back yard. Our flaky neighbors (I've blogged about them before) said he'd get a chain saw and we'd get it done. That was last summer and the tree still stands about to fall on his fence. It's gone. I was ultra productive on Friday. I'll spare you the arguement I had with the guy at the rental place about the chainsaw and just tell you I won and he sucks. Saturday we decided we'd finish up the front yard and buy some landscape edging for our new flower beds. While we're at Lowes promising we're not going to spend much, we buy a new storm door for the front of the house, and a set of walkway lights for the front sidewalk. Our sidewalk wasn't thought out worth a crap really. It seems like they could have made it not suck, but they decided not to. Anyway, there is no lighting on that edge of the house, and the sidewalk is steep as all get out. At night, people have a hard time getting down it. Well, we bought lights to fix that. This weekend should be full of that kind of stuff. I swear, Lowe's knows when we're coming. Once we get it done, I'll post pictures on the photo blog so everyone can see what it looks like.

As for this week at work, there isn't much happening. Currently I'm trying to find ways to bring in revenue that don't involve the college. Yeah, it's that exciting. Probably as exciting as reading about someone else doing yard work huh?

Mike is away at his interview and should be back today or tomorrow. Everybody send him happy thoughts, he's pretty excited about this so hopefully he'll get it. It would require relocation so I'd miss having him around, but I think he'd really like it. Anyway, I'm sure he'd appreciate any happy thoughts sent his way.

Blogger Poll - Wheels and Tires UPDATED

Okay, so this is probably not something that everyone here (short of Mike) would really take notice of, but take a good look if you don't mind. No, this is not an important issue really...but I would like some opinions on it if I can. The one on the left is the set of wheels and tires we put on it when we built it. The one on the right is a set that was given to me as a gift last year. They're almost exactly like the original equipment wheels and tires would have been when it rolled off the showroom floor in 1972. Before I taint your opinions, take a good look and let me know what you think. Yes, this is how I'm spending time on Spring Break...swapping out wheels and tires and doing test runs on both of them, and burning lots of rubber around the neighborhood. Anyway, I get different comments based on which wheels and tires are on it when it's out so I'm still not sure. What are your thoughts?

Update - Since no one can see the wheels in the bottom picture, this is them...



And these are Mike's pick...

Spring Break

Well, I guess this is one of the perks of the jobs that everyone is going to hate. This week I'm off for spring break. I still have work to do, but sleeping until 9 is permitted...and encouraged I should add. Not much happening really, just checking in on the blogger world. Christian and I will post later this week on our picks for the 2005 Oscars, so check back.

Today and yesterday I just spent hanging out with my dad. We tested and tuned on the Cuda for a little while, so I've got a blogger poll also coming later this week about wheels. For now, I'm just at home doing dishes and drinking margarita's. I did finally get my music downloading figured out so I'm back in business there. If anyone didn't read the comments, I would do a Google search for Azureus...it rocks. I hope everyone else is having a good week!

Downloading music

Yeah, I still do it. I'm mean...look at me...I'm obviously a criminal. I know it's wrong and I do it anyway. Seether has this new song out that I like called The Gift. I figured while I was at it I'd just download the entire album. While I was getting ready for work I cranked it up on the computer. The neighbors were probably wondering what in the hell was going on because my computer surround sound is almost as loud as the one in the living room. It's THX certified 5.1 digital. No, it's not a necessity to have killer sound on a computer but it's cool. The computer has two eight inch woofers and five satellites, and I had it up pretty loud. In the middle of this song, the music stopped so I thought "okay, this one didn't download." The next thing you hear is a car horn honking like a car is driving by. I went to the office to see what this was about and see if the other one I downloaded was the same way. They all were...all three of them that downloaded did this. Not only that, every song on the album did it. That sucks. It probably means I should give in to the man and go buy the CD as it's only $10 at Worst Buy...I mean Best Buy. I haven't bought a CD in a few years now because I'm usually disappointed in them so this one is probably no different. I guess that's all of my rant for today. I downloaded another round of the CD to see if it was any good so hopefully there are no car horns in the middle of the music.

BIATCH!!!!

Sorry, I'm venting now. I'm almost finished with my returns for the spring semester. I was shipping the last of them back today with FedEx Ground. Since FedEx is nice enough to charge $11 for a pickup (when they stop next door every day) I drive myself to the FedEx place to drop them off once they're labeled and boxed. They know me at the FedEx place now, they know when they see the Jeep of Doom pull in to the parking lot that I've got six or seven packages to deal with, so they tell me to leave the door open and park by the front door. I got the first two packages inside when another lady shows up. I pushed my stuff to the side and told her to go ahead because mine would take a while. She just gave me a shit eating grin and said "well thanks." I guess she assumed I'd let her go ahead of me anyway. I head back outside, turn around and the door is closed. So I set down this 65lb box I've got down, open the door, prop it back open and drop off another package. I grab the last one and this same lady is getting ready to walk out the door as I'm walking in. She pushes the door closed while she watches me heading for it. I have to assume now that it's her that closed it the last time. I was moving box seven of seven and they're all about 60-65lbs, and I'd just loaded them in to the car. Being as out of shape as I am, I was getting a little winded. I just asked "Lady, what are you doing? Can you not see that I need that door open to carry these boxes in?" She looks at me with this same shit eating grin and says "I guess your mother never taught you any manners. You NEVER leave a door open." I am not happy with this lady as I'm now holding a heavy box in front of an old woman with Ronald McDonald red hair and a closed door. "Lady, they told me to leave the door open so I don't have to contend with the door and this box. What kind of person did your mother raise you to be that would make you color your hair like Ronald McDonald?" She started to mumble under her breath as she walked around the door so I asked - "What was that?" She says "People today have no respect for anyone. That's what your problem is." I said "No, my problem is that a rude bitch with red hair that isn't even believable closed a damn door on me while I was carrying a 65lb box, then told me I didn't have any manners." She didn't have much else to say so I went inside and the guy was headed back to the counter and he said "Man, did you know that lady? She was the rudest woman I'd ever met." I get outside and she's writing down my tag number. I said "What the hell are you doing biatch?" She said she was going to report me for DUI but since my tag is still scraped up from the speeding Volkswagen that hit it, she can't read it. I told her that figured. Anybody with hair that color has got to have some seriously jacked up eyesight. I don't think she wanted to be my friend anymore.