I've gots da fever

The past two weeks Rachel has been working tirelessly getting the new store location ready. She's been working 10-12 hours days on average, which means a lot of home alone time for Mikey. The grand opening was yesterday, so things should be quieting down a bit for her. Well anyway, it's given me a lot of free time, which I spent getting the duck bathroom ready, experiment with cooking and playing a lot of video games. Last night, my video game hysteria hit an all-time high...or maybe low. I was playing NFL2K5 and running back and forth from my couch to my computer desk as air traffic control radioed me directions on Flight Simulator 2004. Believe it or not, I won the football game 20-7 and I managed to land my Cessna safely at Logan airport. Armani Toomer (it's not a tooma!!!) had a big game for me. 8 catches for 120 yards.

Later on, I decided to try the XBOX live feature in NFL2k5. I was the Colts, my oponent was the Titans. It was a defensive battle, or maybe an offensive struggle. It was 6-0 in my favor with about 2:30 left in the 4th quarter. I go 3 and out and punt the ball to the Titans, pinning them inside their own 15. I think my lead is pretty safe. Then Steve McNare throws a 20 yard completion. 2 minute warning. Then Eddie George (even though he is now a Cowboy), breaks for a 15 yard run. He's across the 50 now with about 1:20 left and 3 time outs left. He makes it down to the 1 yard line. 1st and goal. I stuff him once. I stuff him twice. 3rd down and goal. He throws an incompletion with 7 seconds left. I stack the line, 4th and goal. Eddie George manages to break the plain of the goaline. 7-6, he kicks the extra point. I get the ball back with 4 seconds left. I chuck a hail mary. Make the catch, but get tackled at the 40 yard line :-(. So I'm 0-1 for online play so far. But considering it was my 2nd game, I think I did ok. If anyone else would like to challenge me, look for Squilky on XBOX live. XBOX Live worked pretty well, on some of the longer passing plays it got a little choppy, but otherwise it was pretty quick.

I'm hoping to get to see The Village. I'm a big fan of M Night Shamalamadingdongs work, so I'm hoping it's as good as the trailer makes it out to be. The only movie of his that disapointed me was Unbreakable. The trailer made the movie seem so much better than it actually was. Signs still creeps me out. Especially the part when the video camera catches the alien at the kids birthday party. You just get a glimps of the alien, but it's enough to freak me out. It's been a while since I saw a movie that freaked me out.

TGIF!!!!

 

 

NFL2k5 Fever

Afte Dave's review of NFL2k5, I decided I would give it a try. So last night I head over to Best Buy and they're all sold out. They had it for the Playstation 2, but I really prefer sports games on XBOX. So I head over to Walmart, also sold out.  I'm going to check out a few places near my work to see if I can find it. Hmmm if it's selling so well, maybe all video games should cost $19.95 :-). Dare to dream, dare to dream.

We watched the Butterfly Effect the other night, and it was surprisingly good. I don't like Ashton Kutcher, so I wasn't expecting much, but it was a pretty intresting movie. No academy award winning acting, but the storyline made me think. The basic premise of the movie is how decisions we make throughout our lives can effect the lives of others around us. How a few seconds can spare someone from a potential disaster. How a monent of rage could ruin the rest of your life.

So it got me to thinking. What if I had never met Rachel. Would I be married to someone else? Would I still be living in NY? If I hadn't moved down to Virginia, I wouldn't have landed this job. Wouldn't have met any of the cool people I work with. I wouldn't have met my brother-in-law Mike. I wouldn't be the Godfather of one of his children. There are so many things I would never have experienced. So maybe there is a lot more truth to the saying "The Lord works in mysterious ways" than we can even imagine.

There were times when I worked in Manhattan where I would be riding the train, and a female would catch my eye. Sometimes I would try to strike up a conversation, other times I felt like I didn't have a chance and just sat there. But now I wonder, perhaps my self doubt wasn't just "stinkin thinkin' ", perhaps it was a sort of devine intervention. Perhaps if I had talked to that person, it could have led to a date. And on that date, we could have been spotted by her jealous ex boyfriend, who in a fit of rage shoots the two of us. Or what if those times when you get stuck behind a slow driver that causes you to get stuck at a red light is because if you went through that light just a few seconds earlier, you would be struck by a drunk driver. Are they mere coincidences? Or are they acts of God? A guardian angel? A loved one who is no longer of this earth looking out for us?

I think the closest I've come to seeing this sort of thing at work is a story I heard. A friend of my sisters was at home one night with her husband, and while cooking dinner she discovered she was out of one of the ingredience. So she asked her husband to run to the store down the street. So he went into the other room, was getting his shoes on and a jacket from the closet when she discovered that she had the ingredient after all. It was just in another cabinet or something.  So he takes off his coat and shoes and goes back into the kitchen. A few minutes later they hear all kinds of sirens and a crowd gathering. There was a robbery at the store down the street and two people got shot. That was the store he would have gone to. Makes you wonder...

 

Ahhh Haaa you're gay!!!

I heard on the radio that next year one of the characters on the Simpsons will reveal they are gay. Now the obvious person would be Smithers, but I think that's too obvious. So I wonder who else it could be. Could it be Mo? Lenny and Carl? Patty or Selma? Krusty the Clown? Verrrry interesting...

I got my hands on a beta version of Quake III. Holy crap is this game intense. The beta is really limited, but the graphics are amazing. It's almost too realistic. I felt like I was shooting real people. And the sound effects are just amazing. The zombies/ghoules are so freaky!!! They mumble, and speak in tongues. You usually hear them moaning before you even see them. Then they come lurking out from a dark corner. The lighting is amazing. The atmosphere is so dreary and the villains remain hidden in shadow which really adds to the realism.  And the blood spatter is so real looking. Not that I've ever shot a zombie, but it's not that real over the top kind of blood spatter. I believe the full version comes out on Tuesday. It looks to be an intense game!!!

I Wanted the best...I got the best....

So on Sunday we headed over to Virginia Beach to see Kiss and Posion. Here's the kicker. On friday at work, they had 4 tickets they were givinga way for the Kiss/Poison show out in Manassas. DOH!!!!

Well anyway, we got to Virginia Beach at around 6:30 and made it to our seats. Our seats were pretty good. We were about 20 rows back from the stage and off to the right a bit. Lined up just about in front of the amp stacks. But most importantly we were under the roof of the ampitheatre, because it had been raining off and on all day.

At around 7:00, a band named Z02 opened up and played for about 30 minutes. They were pretty awful. Plus it's kind of a drag listening to songs you aren't familiar with. Past concerts I've been to, there were opening acts like Corrosion of Conformity, LIT and Fountains of Wayne, bands who's music I actual enjoy.  So after Z02 got done, they removed their instruments and set the stage up for Poison.

About 10 minutes later, the stage lights came on and we could see the silhouette of 4 men standing on the stage. CC was the easiest to pick out because of his giant blonde hair. Brett Michaels was pretty easy to pick up to since he was wearing a cowboy hat to coverup his balding head. Bobby looked like just a regular guy you would meet at the supermarket and Ricky still looked a little flamboyant. Best part about Bobby was that he was wearing a cool Bada Bing t-shirt. For those of you who watch the Sopranos, you'll recognize that as the "gentlemans" club that Tony Soprano owns.  The very club wear a bartender was savagely beaten with a cash box.  He can't hear out of one ear anymore, but Tony picked up the medical bills, so it's all good.  :-)

Poison played for about 45 minutes, and they sounded pretty great. On the way down to Virginia Beach we popped in their Greatest Hits CD, and they played a lot of the same songs live. Luckily they didn't play any of their new crap. They stuck to the classics like Talk Dirty to Me, Something to Believe In, Unskinny Bop, Nothing But a Good Time, and the ultimate love balad Every Rose Has It's Thorn.  Man is CC Deville a maniac. Bobby was just off to the side of the stage, smiling looking like he was just so glad to be there. But CC is is changing hats and jackets between every song, he sliding around playing on his back, yelling into Brett's mic, climbing up on Ricki's drum kit. But the man can still play a mean guitar. The thing I found funny is that Brett Michaels does the same thing that Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springstein do when they play live. They talk up their songs in this odd sort of southern accent. Dude you're from Pennsylvania, what are you doing!  Even though they played on a somewhat tiny stage, they put on a really good, though brief show.

Poison finished and about 10 minutes later, the curtain dropped and KISS came out on stage. I felt like such a little kid at that point. When I saw Gene Simmons, I felt the kind of excitement I would feel on Christmas morning as a kid. All the little hairs on the back of my neck (and my ass) stood up on end. WOW, there he was!!!! In his giant platform boots, spiked shoulder pads and demon wings!!! I honestly didn't expect the show to live up to my expectations, but it really did. They put on an amazing show, and they still sound as good as they did on Alive II. The pyrotechnics and visuals are just amazing. At one point Paul Stanley steps on up onto this zipline and flies over the audience, just off to our left. He lands on this podium about 20 feet above the audience and does a song from there. Later on Gene Simmons extended his demon wings and flew up to the rafters and did a song from about 40 feet above the stage. Very cool. Plus on the stage they had these huge monitors displaying women in skimpy outfits dancing around. Plus there were huge towers of fire that would erupt at various times during their songs. An added bonus was that they were filming for an upcoming DVD that Kiss is putting together. The only disapointment was that Ace Freley and Peter Cris weren't there, but the drummer and guitar player who took their parts did a really good job.

Kiss mostly sang their older stuff, but did a few of the newer songs which most of the audience, myself included weren't into.  So they stuck with classics like Christine Sixteen, Unholy, King of the NIghttime World, Detroit Rock City and of course Rock N Roll All Night. They played for almost 2 hours, not too bad for a two 50 year old Jewishg guys in spandex and leather.

I can now check off seeing Kiss live, from  my things to do before I die list. Next on that list, seeing a donkey show in Mexico. Just kidding...

Golfing Wackiness

Finally got around to uploading some of the pictures from the golf adventure of last week. I think this picture here summarizes things perfectly. I had a good time, hopefully Niel did as well. I look forward to reading about his take on things when he writes on his blog. I'll leave the writing to Niel since that's his profession and I'll let the photos speak for themselves. The rest can be seen here http://www.pbase.com/squilky/pottstown_golf

 I started to feel pretty good about my photography,  thenI saw this photo and it made me realize how far ahead of the game some people are. The shot is so simple, yet so visually pleasing and well lit.

I hope to have some of the golf photos from the wacky, wild golf adventure of last week up in my gallery in a few days. Including the one where I nearly broke my foot. My foot still hurts, but I can put a little more weight on it each day. Icing it down seems to help a lot and the Dr. Scholls "gel inserts" give me a little cushion.  Im sure it'll be good as new in a few weeks. One of my coworkers thinks I have a small crack in my heal bone, but he's not exactly a doctor. So who knows.

I like many others, have been swept up into the world of Texas Hold'em poker. The other night I wound up winning $6,000 at a table on the pokerstars web site. Unfortunately it was a play money table. I probably wouldn't have been NEARLY as aggressive if it was my real money.

 

Back in Town

Had dinner at Rachel's parents last night. Grilled burgers, hot dogs, and corn on the cob. Still picking the corn kernels out of my teeth. The best part was that Audra and the kids were back in town for a few days. Poor little Ashley visited the doctor and got four vaccinations, 2 in each thigh. But she's plumping up nicely, weighing in at just under 12 pounds. She's got all kinds of cute rolls and dimples thanks to her baby pudge. So it was fun playing with the kids and catching up. They all seem to be doing well in Raleigh.

Got to see bits and pieces of the All-Star game last night, or as I call it the Yankees vs the National League :-). It's cool that the Yankees got A-Rod, but if I had my way, I would much rather have Soriano back as a Yankee and send A-Rod packing. To me, A-Rod is what's wrong with the game, while Soriano is what more players should be like. I wonder if he didn't have that disastrous post season last year, if he would still be a Yankee. I really thought Soriano would be a Yankee for life. George Steinbrenner is a lot of things, but cheap isn't one of those things, so some day Soriano could be back in the Bronx. Damn he has such a sweet swing!!! Oh and I won't say that the National League as a whole is weaker than the American league, but lets take a look at the facts... Clemens was 10-0 vs National League teams, then interleague play starts and he loses 2 or 3 in a row. Then he faces off against American League hitters in the All-Star game, and he gets shelled again. One things for sure, the city of Houston loves that guy.

Nip/Tuck is one of my favorite shows. Last week they had an episode where a woman born in Somalia came in to have her clitorus "re-built". She had been a victim of female "circumcision" or as she called it "female genital mutilation". She described how her mother held her down while the witch doctor of the village cut off her clitoris with a sharp piece of glass. She explained that women who had sexual urges were considered to be dirty and whores. SO what the doctors did, (I'm not sure how much of this is fiction and how much of this is real) was they cut off the tip of one of her toes and made it into a clitoris.

In this time where it's hip and cool to be "Anti-American", and to bash and scrutinize President Bush's every move. Lets take a look at some recent news events that show just how great we have things in this country. All I ever hear is negativity, and how fucked up things here are. How would you like to be the woman who gets her clitoris cut off with a piece of glass. How would you like to be a female factory worker in Mexico? There they routinely check women to make sure they get their period. If they become pregnant, they are immediatly fired.

In Athens Greece, mass graves are being found filled with dead stray animals. Mostly dogs and cats. Apparantly stray animals are a big problem in Athens, and with the Olympics coming to town, they had to tidy up the place. Nice!!!

In Iran, a few weeks before their wedding and Iranian man found out his wife was not a virgin. It was such a big disgrace, that he convinced his fiance that they should kill themselves in a murder/suicide pact. So they get two guns, put the guns to their head, she pulls the trigger, he doesn't. SPLAT!!!


Have a great weekend everyone!

Check this out...

This Land is Your Land

Someone at work sent me this link, I found it to be very entertaining. Be sure to watch the whole thing or you'll miss the dancing Rumsfeld and the dancing/screamin Howard Dean. Very funny, and it's not a one sided bash of Bush or Kerry, it pokes fun at both these yahoos.

The link has been getting hammered, so you may have to try a few times to get in...

Oh those crazy turtles...

Saturday Rachel and I went to this animal park about an hour from our house. It was meant as more of a petting zoo for kids, but hey adults can have fun too. So we get there and after about 10 minutes we walk into this open area where the animals can walk up to you. Animals like sheep, goats, pigs, llamas etc. Well off to the side we heard this groaning kind of noise. We walk over and witnessed the male turtle trying to mount the female. Now these weren't small little box turtles. These were large turtles that weighed several hundred pounds. Well the female was having no part of it, she just layed there while the male struck at her with his arms and snapped at her. You can see pictures of the "action" here and here

In one of the pictures you can see how the male turtle is snapping at the female. In the other, you can see the turtles "tallywacker".

You can see all the photos from the park right here

What I found funny is that they had these two odd looking birds there and their names were Patty and Selma. I guess someone who works there is a Simpsons fan. The photo is labeled Gruesome Twosome. The other thing I found funny was when the sheep came up to us. I petted one of them and the things felt exactly like the collar on a winter coat. It was strange. I guess I thought the wool was processed to make it that soft, but no it grows that softly on them.

MY two favorite animals was a brown goat who I named Homey. You can see me feeding Homey here

There was also a cool looking chicken there that I named McNuggets. I'm sorry, seeing all those chickens running around made me crave deep fried chicken nuggets. Hmmm I guess I know where I'll be going for lunch :-).

We had a fun time. It was really neat being able to get that close to the animals. It probably would have been even better with a little kid there. So we may have to go back and take little Andrew with us when he comes to visit.

Sunday night it was so hot and humid, so after I grilled some of my famous kabobs, we decided to head over to Rachel's parents house for a night time swim. The water was great. About 82 degrees and quite refreshing. One of the wackiest things about swimming at night is that these bats come out and fly over the pool. They don't swoop down near the water, they stay a good 20-30 feet up, but it's just really cool watching them frantically fly around. And kids, when if you try to make your own kabobs, please marinate the meat for 24 hours before cooking. It tastes so much better and has much flavor and juices.

And finally, there are a few other pictures I recently added from my Godson Dylans Communion back in May. They can be seen here

Just when you think you know a person...

Last night on my way home from work I listened to Don and Mike interview with Stan Lee. Stan mentioned that he had created Spider-Man way back in 1944 and that it was a huge thrill for him to see Spidey on the big screen. Well then he mentioned that they are in the works to do an Ironman and a Fantastic Four movie. What I found funny about the casting was that Nicholas Cage is the front runner to be Iron Man, and Michael Chiklis will most likely play the Thing in the Fantastic Four movie.

So I mentioned this over dinner to Rachel. When I first mentioned it to her, she just sort of smiled politely and went on eating her salad. Then I started talking about it a little more, and she revealed that she had no idea who Iron Man was or anything about the Fantastic Four. Maybe it's just a girl thing, but she does remember the Wonder Twins and Captain America. But had no recollection of Aquaman, and mistakingly called Silver Surfer "The Iceman". I then reminded her that Val Kilmer was IceMan in Top Gun and that the guy who surfed around on waves of ice was the Silver Surfer. But I guess if she quizzed me about the Care Bears or Strawberry Shortcake, I probably wouldn't do so hot either.

MY new obsession is with MS Flight Simulator 2004. I was always a fan of Flight Simulator, but in my younger days I never had the patience to sit behind the wheel for a 2 hour flight. Now that I am a little older, I find the game to be amazingly fun. I began my US Tour last night. I downloaded these flight plans that take you on these flights that hit every state in the US. The first leg of the trip was LaGuardia to Tweed New Haven airport in Connecticut. It was a 53 nautical mile trip that took about 45 minutes to complete in my Cessna Skyline. The next leg of the trip is from Tweed-New Haven to Hartford-Brainard in Connecticut. The longest leg of the trip will be a flight from Kona Intl At Keahole to McCarran Intl in Las Vegas. Total distance is 2358 miles. But that isn't for a long time. That is trip number 87 of 155. Hopefully by then I will have progressed onto flying jet aircraft or else it will take about 15 hours to complete.

My books from Amazon arrived today. Lost America which is a book of photos taken by Troy Paiva. Troy specializes in nighttime photography. The focus of this particular book is abandoned hotels, gas stations, planes etc from out west. He uses really creative lighting to make some visualy stunning photos. The second book is A Flight Simulator book that goes more indepth on some of the finer points of the game.

Wisdom From Jim Norton...

I know I said I was taking some time off from the blog, and since I didnt write what I am posting below, I still technically am. I just thought Jim made so much sense. If I hear one more person say that president Bush is more evil than Saddam Hussein, I'm gonna scream! The following is from Jom Norton's Blog:

I do, however, like the display of patriotism you see on the 4th of July. I simply like it because it’s become so fucking pseudo-hip to be anti-American. Cocksucking bores with little John Lennon glasses using the word ‘imperialism’ every second sentence because some faggoty professor spit it out once during a lecture. You can always tell when someone is quoting what they’ve heard on the news when they start using words like ‘deposed’ to describe Saddam’s removal or ‘unilaterally’ when describing the US going in without the consent of the United Nations. I am 35 and never heard anyone using those words and now all of a sudden everyone’s a Harvard educated foreign policy expert. Fucking dopes. Whether you’re for or against the war is irrelevant to me, either opinion is valid. I am simply talking about the pervasive idea that we are always wrong and always the bad guy lately. And fucking Europe should shut their uncircumcised mouths. Ever since the Soviet Union fell these shit bags have been getting snippy. The United States wasn’t this awful ‘unilateral, imperialistic’ monstrosity who ‘deposes’ dictators when we were keeping Russia from kicking their fucking faces in were we? Now all of a sudden France wants to be considered a force to be dealt with, so they try to rally this stupid European Union to counter balance the U.S. (and I am not saying that the United States shouldn’t be counter balanced; I’d just rather see it done by China or some other country that had balls before Russia fell apart). And I am not saying that if you’re against the war in Iraq you’re anti-American. I am just talking about a certain sense of patriotism that you don’t see very often and the reason you don’t see it is because it’s perceived as square. I like the way the media handled Reagan’s death. Maybe it was a bit over the top and flowery but fuck it, he was loved and now he’s dead. It’s rare to see that from the media of today and as long as it doesn’t cause them to report anything inaccurately, I’d like to see more of it every now and again.