Malt o Meal

I'm taking a page out of Foodie Chickie's book here. I wanted to talk about these cereals I've been eating lately. I've been on a real cereal kick for about a month now. I can't get enough cereal. On nights when Rachel get's home late, I'll eat a bowl after work to hold me over until dinner. But it was a real bummer paying like $5.00 for a box of Frosted Flakes. So one day while I was at Giant, I saw this cereal called by a company called Malt o Meal. The cereal wasn't in a colorful box with a cartoon animal on the front. It was in a rather plain looking plastic bag. They were on sale for 10 for $10. I figured they couldn't be any good, so I just bought one bag. I tried the cocoa pebbles "clone" that Malt o Meal makes and holy shit was it tasty. They call it Choco Dyno Bites. I ate 2 bowls of it, and have been hooked since. I went back the next day any bought another 5 bags for $5. So far I've tried their frosted mini wheats, their fruity pebbles, and cocoa pebbles. They have all been really good. Im not sure how widely a distrobution they have, but if you see their cereal at the store, definitely try some.

They supposidly make one called Marshmellow Matey's that I want to try. It's supposed to taste like Lucky Charms. And they also have a Raisin Bran cereal that I would like to try, but have not yet seen. Ill have to keep looking to see what else I can find. But for now, I still have 3 bags of cereal left, so I have a ways to go.

Bode Miller should be on the Mets...

After watching hours of olympic coverage the past week and a half, I have come to the conclusion that US Atheletes have no right to be on skis. It's like the Scandanavian countries are lightyears ahead of us when it comes to all manners of skiing. It's like they are modern day humans in the evolutionary scale and the US ski team is still covered in fur and dragging their knuckles. When you lose a ski race by a few tenths of a second, that's understandable. But there have been many US skiers who have finished a full second or more behind. A second and a half may seem like a short amount of time, but it's like an eternity in skiing. As bad as US athletes are on alpine skiing events, they are even worse at cross country events. They are eons behind. It's only a matter of time before guys named Thor and girls named Heini are kicking are asses at snowboarding as well.

Ya know how every year the Mets and the Jets get all their fans excited. The season begins and they are filled with promise and hope. On paper they look unstoppable. But after about 1/3 of the season, their true colors emerge and you realize they aren't getting the job done. Going into the olympic games, Bode Miller was supposed to be a threat to win a medal in 5 of the alpine skiing events. So far he's competed in the mens downhill, the super G, the mens combined and the super slalom. He hit one of the gates and lost a ski in the super G, so he didn't finish. In the mens combined, he missed a gate in the slalom portion and was disqualified. In the giant slalom, he finished, but way behind everyone else. He was huffing and puffing at the end of both runs. How can you be an olympic caliber athlete, and be that badly out of shape? He also screwed up the mens downhill, I just forget how. I think he may have missed a gate there as well. He still has the regular slalom coming up, but I have lost faith in him. Poor Nike, pouring all that money into marketing around Bode and he is 0 for 4.

Next, I want to climb on the soapbox and talk about LIndsey Jackobelis. You know the people at Wheaties were getting ready to slap Lindsey's face all over their cereal boxes. Lindsey is cute, she's wholesome looking, and she's a gold medalist. Not so fast. Instead of just finishing a race she was winning by 3 seconds, she decided to hot dog it on the last jump. As a result, she whiped out, fell, and ended up coming in 2nd. Now coming in 2nd is a great achievement. Finishing 3rd is a great achievment as well. Knowing you are one of the top 3 athletes in the world at your given sport is something to be very proud of. But when you lose the gold medal because you do something stupid, it takes some of that level of proudness away. I understand when people hot dog and showboat during the X-Games. But it annoys me when someone does it during the olympics. You are there as a representative of your country. You are supposed to behave in a manner that would make your country proud. Ultimately what Lindsey did, really hurt her. But it also make US athletes look bad as well. People around the world already think Americans are arrogant and a bunch of showoffs. We don't need some 19 year old snowboarder making us look even worse.

Lastly, I want to talk about athletes who train in the US but compete for another country. How is this right? You have some vodka guzzlers from some former Soviet Republic train in Minnesota for 4 years, then they compete from the country of Balbukastan. It's sort of like Mike Piazza playing for the Italian baseball team in the WBC. Technically I could qualify and play for the German Olympic team. The only criteria is you have to have a parent who was born in the country. My dad was born in Germany, so I could slap on my kaiser helmet and play for team Germany. But I have no allegiance to Germany, I would have no sense of pride playing for the German team. But believe you me, if I won a gold medal for the US I would be filled with emotion hearing the national anthem being played. If you want to compete for team Butbakastan, train and live in Butbakastan. That's just my $.02.

A post with words...

Those of you who know me, know that I am an indoorsman. I prefer the comforts of home, as opposed to "roughing it" out in the elements. This has only gotten worse since I moved to Virginia. At least in NY, when I commuted to work I would be subject to the hot subway platforms. In NY I experienced the bitter cold and biting winds while walking to school and waiting for buses. But now I drive to work, so in the winter Im cold for about the first 2 minutes of my drive and then the heat kicks in and Im toasty warm. We have central AC in the house, so over the summer, im relatively cool and comfy as well.

So anyway, I wanted to talk about this show on Discovery Channel that really fascinates me. It's called Survivorman. It's one man, a couple of cameras and mother nature. That's about it. The show begins with the star of the show being left off in some desolate location somewhere on the planet. His goal is to survive for 7 days on his own. Some weeks he is dropped onto a tropical island such as Belize. Other weeks he must survive a week in the Canadian Rockies. It's pretty amazing to watch.

I know very little about outdoor survival, so when he is able to find things to eat, and uses moss to keep himself warm at night, Im just amazed. One one episode he took a pile of rocks and layed them around the fire he built. They got nice and heated as the fire burned. He then piled those rocks around him as he slept to radiate some heat.

What's really cool about the show is that he films all his own stuff. So he strategically sets up cameras on tripods as he walks around and sets up camp. There was one episode where he wanted to film himself descending a hillside. So he walked all the way down, then had to climb back up to retrieve his camera gear.

The guy can be a little overly dramatic at times. But there is a likable quality about him. The one complaint I have of the show is that they usually drop him off at times of the year when the weather isnt at its worst. For example, the Canadian Rockies episode took place in October. So the temperature was right around freezing, but not brutally cold like you would find in January or February. The same with the Senora Desert episode. They dropped him off in the spring, so the temperature during the day was upper 80's to low 90's not the 110+ degrees that a desert can reach in the dead of summer. But he does manage to survive with the barest of minimums. He doesn't have any food or water when they leave him. It amazes me how little food and water a person actually needs to survive. There were some episodes where he snack on berries he found, and little else.

I recommend the show. It's pretty entertaining and informative at the same time. I've seen him start a fire about 5 different ways already. It amazes me how long it actually takes to start a fire when you don't have matches. So check the show out if you get a chance.ent ways already. It amazes me how long it actually takes to start a fi

Olympic Hotness!!!!

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You're not hardcore...

Unless you live hard core!!!

Here's a few of pics of Rachel and I snowtubing in the mountains of Virginia. Holy crap was it fun. I highly recommend it...

http://www.pbase.com/image/56196344

http://www.pbase.com/squilky/image/56196378

http://www.pbase.com/squilky/image/56196379

http://www.pbase.com/squilky/image/56196382

Olympic Fever

I would first like to say that from now on, I would like to be known as the white sausage.
Man am I caught up with the Olympic fever. I love the Olympics. Since the weather was so cold and crappy all weekend, Rachel and I watched a lot of Olympic coverage. I sort of have mixed feelings about some of the newer events like the snowboarding halfpipe. But I guess if you consider curling a sport, so is the half pipe. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of skill and unbelievable acrobatics involved in snowboarding in a halfpipe, but I don’t really see it as an Olympic event. Its fine for the X-Games, but I don’t know if they should be handing out gold medals in it in Torino.

On Opie and Anthony they read this list of sports which used to exist in past Olympics. One of my favorites, and one that really shows how times have changed is an event called live pigeon shooting. And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like. They would release live pigeons from cages and men with shotguns would have to shoot them. I guess this is why the clay pigeon was invented for skeet shooting. A sport I really miss though is barrel jumping. I guess the thrill of barrel jumping is similar to the thrill of Nascar. It’s ok when they actually jump and clear the barrels, but when they miss and crash, its that much better.

We had our fair share of snow this weekend. Not as much as folks in the northeast, but we got a lot more than we’ve had in the past 2 years. Fortunately for us, it snowed here for about 6-8 hours before it really started to stick. On grassy areas, and places like our back deck, it stuck almost from the beginning. So we probably had close to a foot and half of snow out there. But on the roads and sidewalks it was probably more like 8-10 inches. The snow was its highest out by the sliding glass doors on the deck. I guess the wind swirled around there and we had a drift well over 2 feet. It was fun, and it happened on a weekend, so the major roads were all in pretty good shape today for my commute in.

Here’s are a few pics from yesterday…

New Holiday...

Hey check out this website. They started a petition to try to get the Monday after the Super Bowl designated as a national holiday. As long as they don't take away another holiday like Presidents Day or Memorial Day, I am all for another day off. Apparantly today is one of the biggest days for people calling in sick. Check out the site and spread the word!!!

A couple of pictures...

I finally hooked up my Mac G4 the other night. It had been sitting in a closet (along with John Malcovich) since we moved last summer. I found a picture from when Rachel and I were in Colorado a few years back, and for some reason it cracks me up. I title this one "Don't mess with Texas" or "Squilky-Texas Ranger"

















I have CNN.com as my browser startup page and much to my surprise, I saw Niel on the front page. Dude it was just a cartoon, there was no need to burn the Danish Consulate down. Please refer to Niel by his Muslim name of "Kalid Mokmuffen".

F-You

I just want to send a big F-You out to that overgrown rat they call Punxsutawney Phil. I hate the whole ceremony that revolves around groundhogs day. Dimwhitted people in dumb costumes, reciting stupid speaches and kissing a groundhogs ass. And you know it's not a real holiday, because Google goesnt have one of it's letters shaped to look like Phil.

The best part of ground hogs day is knowing spring is near and the movie starring Bill Murray and Andy MacDowell. Whatever happened to Ned? Ya know....needlenose Ned...Ned the head.