New Look

Woohoo I figured out the HTML of these silly BLogger templates and got my banner updated. I think the new banner is very "Squilkyesque"

Oh....the comedy

I saw a pretty funny bumper sticker on my way into work this morning. It's probably not meant to be funny, but I thought it was. It was a sticker than read "I love (indicated by a heart) my German sheppard". Ok so whats so funny about that? Well next to those words, was a picture of none other than Pope Benedict. The reason I say the sticker probably wasn't meant to be funny was 1) it was on the back of a mini van and 2) There were a bunch of pro life stickers scattered around the back of the van.

There used to be a saying...

In the olden days that went something like this... "A good woman knows her place". Saying that in the 21st century can get a man in a lot of trouble, so I'll just let this picture speak for itself. When she was done mowing, she baked me a turkey pot pie :-)

New Reads...And Listens

I've really gotten into the Alex Cross series of novels by James Patterson. I bought 4 Blind Mice a few weeks back without realising the Alex Cross series are meant to be read in a particular order. So I sort of read out of order. But thanks to the James Patterson website , I now know the proper order in which to read the books.

4 Blind Mice is about a group of 3 former Army Rangers, who fought in Vietnam who can't stop killing once the war ends. They lead seemingly normal lives, live in nice homes, and seem like upstanding members of society. But they have dark secrets which make it impossible for them to move on.

The character Alex Cross is such a likable character. Played by Morgan Freeman (one of my favorite actors) in the movies, it's hard not to like Alex. He's sort of like a superhero, without the super strength. Instead of using brute force or some other supernatural power, he uses smarts to outwit the bad guys.

I'm already about halfway through Pop Goes the Weasle, which is another great from the Alex Cross series. This one is about a group of 4 businessmen called the 4 Horseman. The four of them can be described as adrenaline junkies I suppose. They play a sick game, which rewards points for completing certain tasks.

I also start listening to a new audio book called "100 People Who Are Ruining America...And Al Franken is #37". The book is pretty entertaining. The author and narator Bernard Goldberg talks about everyone from celebrities like Paris Hilton and Cameron Diaz, to members of congress. One particularly funny rant he had was about a congresswoman from Texas. She complained that hurricane names were ethnically diverse enough. Goldberg goes on to ask "is a black child supposed to be filled with ethnic pride as he see's hurricane Denzel demolish a small town in Guatamala?"

Another person he talks about is the wife of Larry David. I believe her name is Laura David. She's a fanatical environmentalist, who routinely harasses and verbally assaults drivers of large SUV's. Not necessarily a bad thing, until Goldberg points out that Laura David routinely flies from Los Angelese to NY in her private jet. Goldberg points out that the average person who drives a Hummer use about 1200 gallons of gas a year. Meanwhile, it takes about 1500 gallons of gas to fly Laura David's private gulfstream jet cross country just once. Ironic isn't it?

You wont like him when he's angry...

Maybe Congress needs to back off Major League baseball and take a closer look at steroid use among prop comics. Dear Lord...


I saw Gallagher do a show a few weeks ago. He's also hitting the "juice". He still does the same show where he smashed watermelons. But he did away with those oversized mallet and now sqashes them between his enormously strong butt cheeks.

Squilky...On the Aisle

This is Squilky, reporting from the aisle...

Went to see The 40 Year Old Virgin. We were gonna high brow it a bit and go see March of the Penguins, but once we got to the movies, we saw the movie poster for 40 YOV and couldn't resist...

If you like movies like Airplane, Something About Marry and Old School, you'll looooove 40 Year old Virgin. If you didn't like any of those movies, particularly the latter two, you'll hate 40 YOV.

The movie is just flat out funny. So many comedies lately are ruined for me because all the best parts are shown in the commercials and the trailers. ie Anchorman and Dodgeball the Movie. This is not the case with 40 YOV. Quite frankly, since those trailers have to be rated for all audiences, a lot of the best parts of the movie are way too "dirty" for any trailer or tv spot. As funny as it is to hear the 40 YOV scream "KELLY CLARKSON" as he's getting his chest waxed, the other things he says during the rest of the waxing are a lot funnier.

One of the story lines that isn't really touched in the trailers are his co-workers. The 40 Year Old Virgin works at an electronics superstore that looks very similar to Circuit City. His co-workers are hysterical, and provide enough of a side plot that the movie stays fresh and doesn't get boring. There's one particular guy who's this old Pakastani guy, who is hysterical. When I first saw the ads for the movie, I thought it was going to be a lot of the 40 Year Old Virgin by himself. The movie starts out that way, but many of the funniest scenes are things that happen at work, or when he is out with his co-worker friends.

The movie has its fair share of dick jokes, bother visual and verbal which is to be expected, but it is also filled with a lot of more subtle humor and bits of irony which I liked. Without giving too much away, I will just throw out some keywords here that are parts of the movie.... GILF, Stevie Wonder nipples, strawberry daqueri, plastic vaginas, and of course morning wood.

On a scale of 1-10, I give this movie a 9. I can't wait for it to be released on DVD so I can go back and watch it again. I think it's one of those movies that you miss certain things the first time around. At one point in the movie, which involves a billboard, I though Rachel was going to hyperventilate she was laughing so hard. Any movie that is so funny that it nearly caused my wife to have an asthma attack will get nothing less than a 9.

As a final note, judging by the trailers for the movies coming out this Fall, it looks like there are going to be a fair share of chic flics. When you hear starring "Reeth Witherspoon, Susan Sarandon and Orlando Bloom" and Orland doesnt have pointy ears and a long bow in his hand, it's gonna be a rough movie season. There are two exceptions however. "The Man" with Eugene Levy and Samuel L Jackson looks funny, and there is a new Jim Carey movie that looks pretty good.

Fun With Marshmallows...and fire

I

Must...hurt....Cisco.

Man have the last 4 or 5 days sucked. Was on a conference call Friday till 2AM. Another conference call from nidnight to 1AM on Saturday night. Sunday from 8AM-5PM. Monday I was at work from 7AM-6PM. And yesterday, oh boy did yesterday suck. 8AM-11:30PM. So Im running on fumes. Im home today, new conference call set for 11AM. But so far everything has been running smoothly since about 8PM last night. Hopefully my next post will be a little more pleasant.

A few things...

Woohoo, thankfully the space shuttle made it back safe. Hopefully the Nasa engineers can study this past mission and figure out the problems that have been plaging the shuttle program. If Rachel and I are going to retire to a quiet cottage on the moon, Nasa better get their act together! I want to be George Jetson!

I started a new blog, a photoblog of sorts. It can be found HERE . I hope it forces me to take more pictures on a regular basis. I really love photography, I just run out of things to take pictures of. So sometimes I need to force my way back. I have no idea what Im going to take pictures of, but I'm gonna try.

This is a shoutout to the Blogfather. You know who you are. Your secret is safe with me. Update your damn blog. I want some playlists!!! BTW, have you heard from Ralphy?

I recently had to reinstall Windows XP. I didn't lose any of my data such as music and pictures, but I had to reinstall all my applications again. I was able to import my MP3's back into iTunes, but I couldn't find where iTunes stores the playlists. Does anyone know?

I can't wait till 4:00 so I can head over to Toys R Us and pick up my copy of Madden 2006. Im going to play against the computer for a while before I start playing strangers online. Last year I made the mistake of jumping online right away, and it was a very humbling experience. Some people are just way too good. Most of them are kids who have the whole summer off, so they have the next 2-3 weeks to master the game. I figure with all the new features, I will need some time to master the controls. Niel, when you get your copy, give me a call. We can play online.

I heard a funny joke. What do Afghani women wear to the beach? A burquini!!! BAHHAHAHAH

And one last thing. Check out Google Planet. Holy Shit is this thing awesome.

Christmas in August

After my last posting, I feel the need to talk about something manly. So what better subject than John Madden football 2006.

Tomorrow John Madden football is being released. I only buy a few XBOX games a year, and Madden is ALWAYS on that short list. Im a little nervous about this years release however. I read a review on IGN, and normally they are gushing about how great the game is. This year that's not the case. My hopes is that 1) they are being overly critical because there are no other NFL games to judge Madden against or 2) That EA is holding back all the kickass features for the next generation version of the game due out in November.

The release of Madden 2006 has turned into a pretty huge deal. Stores all over are hosting release parties and staying open to the wee hours of the morning so people can buy it exactly at midnight. On the news last night they were interviewing people at a local mall. They were interviewing a few women who said their husbands were taking Tuesday (the thought crossed my mind) off so they could play Madden. Then they interviewed this one woman who said "oh no, my husband doesnt play video games, he doesn't even like sports". All I could think was, maam there's a good chance your husband is gay.

I pre-ordered mine, so I should have it tomorrow after work. Look for me on XBOX and challenge me.

Haircut in downtown Da Nang

I went to get a haircut yesterday after work. When I got there the little Asian lady asked me how I wanted my hair cut. I explained how I wanted it, and then she said something else. I didn't understand her, so I said what? She said it again, and I still didn't understand her. I didn't want to be rude by saying what again, so I just smiled and nodded my head yes. So she's goes about cutting my hair, and then when she's done, she presses this lever on the side of the chair and the barber chair goes into this recline position. Which scared the crap out of me. Whenever I get my hair cut, it tends to relax me so I sort of zone out and get pretty close to nodding off for a few winks. It felt like when you're falling asleep and you get that sensation like your falling. I really thought the chair had somehow tipped backwards and I was going to be laid out on the floor, tarred and feathered with cut hair and Vitalis.

As a kid I saw some Chuck Norris movie where he was a prisoner in a Vietnames prison camp, and I had flashbacks of that movie when he reclined the chair. I expected a shadey looking guy to come out and start driving bamboo shoots under my fingernails. Or for them to put a burlap sack full of ratson my face. She reached into this little metallic box...and produced a steaming towel. Ahhh she asked me if I wanted a shave!!! I'm not going to be like John McCaine, thrown into a tiger cage!!! WOOHOO!!

She placed the towel on my face, and for a second, I felt panic. The towel is just hot enough where it hurts when she first puts it on. Felt like my face was gonna melt, but then the towel reaches that comfort zone, where it's perfectly warm, and so soothing. Then after she took the towel off, she massaged in this warm, shaving cream. The towel and shaving cream were worth the money right there. I was so relaxed at this point, I could have slipped into a coma. The shaving part was a little scarey. I have such a thick, corse beard, so it sounded like she was dragging sand paper across my face. And it seemed to be amplified, like when you eat something crunchy and every bite sounds incredibly loud. But she didn't nic me or draw any blood. She was very skilled.

When she was done shaving me, she squeezed some lotion into her hand and massaged it into my face. She massaged under my eyes and rubbed my... temples. I was ready to marry this woman. When she was done, she put the chair back up and gave me a little neck/shoulder massage. Then she offered me a plate of deep fried dog...just kidding.

I felt so great after leaving there. I felt so loose and relaxed. That all came to an end about 2 minutes later, when a woman on a cell phone cut me off and almost took the front of my truck off. I highly recommend getting a shave along with your next haircut. Next time I'm going for the Brazilian...I don't even know what that means!
And don't forget to ask for the happy ending, especially if your barbers name is Al.

New House

Since my dad died when I was 11, I didn't really have someone around who could show me how to do basic handyman stuff. I guess that's sort of a right of passage. Where fathers show their sons how to fix a leaky pipe, or how to change spark plugs in a car. I was a bit young, so my dad never really got to show me those sorts of things. So now that I own a house, there always seems to be something that needs to be cleaned, fixed, installed, improved etc. Luckily for me, my father in law is very handy. He has helped a lot with the new house. One of the things he recently showed me was how to do some basic electrical wiring. But now Im so hooked. I went out and bought all new light switches for the house and have been wiring them throughout the week. But Im proud of myself that I learned how to do something new. I hope to continue with this, and keep building my knowledgebase, because life can be pretty boring when you don't try new things. My brother in law Daniel has been doing some amazing furniture building. I'd really like to learn how to build stuff like that.

I posted a few pictures of the new house below. I started taking pictures the other day and the battery lost its charge, so I only got a few shots. But this gives an idea of the improvements we made.


Here's the living room...










Dining Room








Dining Room 2

Song of the Week

Here's a great cover of Snowblind done by System of a Down. You'll be air drumming/guitaring in seconds, I guarantee it.

Snowblind

Hey Dr. Freud....

Over the past month or so, the multi state lottery down here called Mega Millions has had a large jackpot. So a bunch of us at work have been purchasing lottery tickets as a group. We've won a few bucks here and there which we then sink into buying more tickets, but we haven't won anything of consequence...until Monday night.

I get a call saying we won a substantial amount of money while I was on vacation and that it has been decided by the group that they want to use the money to throw a party. I'm given the address of the party and show up. It's this large night club, with a huge stage and dance floor. Im greeted by a few co-workers, handed a cold beer when I hear someone talking really loudly over the speakers on the stage. Hey that sounds like Diamond...holy shit it's David Lee Roth. David Lee Roth from 1983 in all his yellow spandexed glory. And hey there's Eddie, and Alex and that hairy guy who plays bass in Van Halen! They start playing Panama, everyones going nuts. To the right of the stage is Gwen Stafani in a cage. Wearing go go boots and dancing her little tushy off. And in the middle of the stage, its Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan mud wrestling! HOW COOL IS THIS!!!! Then I woke up...

There was more to the dream, but that is all I could remember clearly. I remember something about the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Chris Farley as well, but I can't remember what. And I'm pretty sure I had a conversation with Christopher Walken at some point. Wow I need to lay off the ice cream before I go to bed.