Squilky comments on the news...

Surfing the Web at work is equivalent to reading a newspaper or talking on the phone, an administrative law judge said in recommending the lightest possible punishment for a city worker accused of disregarding warnings to stay off the Internet.


Sweet!!! If they banned web surfing in the work place, I don't think anyone with computer access would still have a job. I remember when I was a kid, my dad and my sister would bring home photocopied jokes they got at work. So goofing off in the workplace has been going on for a while. It's probably just a lot more efficient and widespread thanks to the Al Gore and the Internet.

President Bush, under pressure about high gas prices, has ordered an investigation into possible cheating in the markets. During the last few days, Bush asked his Energy and Justice departments to open inquiries into whether gas prices are being illegally manipulated, said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Bush plans to announce the action in a 10:05 a.m. ET speech.

It's about time! Everyone was pretty understanding when gas prices went up to around $3.00 a gallon when hurricane Katrina hit. Because we understood that the supply was lowered do to the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico being damaged. But when gas prices go up $.50 in a months time with no good reason, that's when people start to get pissed. I gassed up on Sunday. It cost me $50 to fill up my Xterra and get gas for my lawnmower and weedeater. Craziness. $200 a month to go to and from work. I think everyone understands there is a need to find alternative fuel methods, this past year has been an eye opener. But I honestly feel there is no reason why gasoline should be more than $2.00 a gallon. The only reason is greed.

Mets broadcaster Keith Hernandez was reprimanded by the team's television network for "inappropriate" remarks during a broadcast about a female member of San Diego's training staff.

The former MVP first baseman said women "don't belong in the dugout" when he spotted 33-year-old Kelly Calabrese, the Padres' full-time massage therapist, high-fiving Mike Piazza in the dugout after he hit a home run during New York's 8-1 victory Saturday in San Diego.

As much as I dislike Keith Hernandez, I have to say I am on his side here. First of all the Mets network knew what they were getting when they hired Hernandez. Hello!!! We've all seen his Just For Men commercials with Walt Clyde Frasier. We know Keith is a little rough around the edges. Secondly, women in a dugout is pretty innapropriate. Nothing good can come of having women in a mens dugout. In this litigeous world we live in, it's only a matter of time before some opportunistic, manipulative woman uses the opportunity to file a law suite against a filthy rich baseball player and/or team owner. Or some team gang bang will take place in the locker room. You put a woman in a comfined space with horny, juiced up athletes who are away from their wives and girlfriends, bad things are bound to happen. I'm shocked that Geno Auriemm has been able to keep his name clean after coaching womens basketball for so long.

Oh those crazy kids...

Butt Cheek Freezers

Around daybreak this morning I had a string of really odd dreams. The only one I really remembered was the one where I was taking a college class. And when I arrived at the classroom the room was filled with couches and love seats and party decorations. The professor was Jack Black. And he was pissed that his classroom wasn't put back together after the faculty party.

Then I had this weird comedy moment came to me. It was in that state of consciousness where you are half asleep, and half awake. Where you are sort of consciously dreaming. And I saw the next great invention. The butt cheak freezer. Hear me out...


You know those side by side fridges? Well what if they made one where left the size (freezer) and the right side (refrigerator) were shaped like butt cheaks. And the gap between the freezer and refrigerator would be the butt crack I suppose. I was picturing a mini fridge for dorm rooms or swinging singles like Quagmire. In the case of the mini fridge, you would still have two sides, but they would both be refrigerators. The left side would be for light beer for those living the low carb lifestyles and for the gays. The right side would have regular beer. And in the middle where the rectum would be would be a bottle opener for your 20oz long necks.

And then I had a thought about having a deluxe fridge, like a J-Lo sized fridge that dispenses soft serve chocolate ice cream, but then I thought that wasnt very appetizing.

I also think the name butt cheek freezer, would be great for a band name. Coming to the Hammerstein Ballroom...Jason Denal and the Butt Cheek Freezers.

We crave excitement in a predictable world...

The other day someone at work told me about this mystery around San Francisco. Over the past week or so, two large chunks of ice have fallen out of the sky. Now chances are it’s coming from some sort of aircraft. But meteorologists have said that it could be a naturally occurring weather phenomenon as well. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they figure it all out.

How much more exciting and fun must it have been back in the day when there was so much more mystery to life. Nowadays, it seems like everything can be explained by science. There is even a group of scientists who try to debunk the miracles that Jesus performed in the Bible. I guess they can be looked at as biblical myth busters.

Now when an eclipse happens, or there is a thunderstorm, we know why it happened. With all the fancy satellites orbiting the planet, we have things like Nexrad 30000000 radar that can show where thunderstorms are occurring and headed. But imagine in ancient times how freaked out they must have been. When they thought they had offended the gods, and they needed to sacrifice a virgin.

I guess that’s why we have science fiction and horror stories today. People are still fascinated with the unknown and the possibility of their being unexplained phenomena. There are people who will swear on a stack of Bibles that they saw a ghost. I think I may have scene a ghost at the cemetery next to my high school, but s soon as it happened, I immediately thought that there was some type of rational explanation.

How scared can little kids get when they are at the age when they still think there are monsters in the closet or hiding under their beds. While it may be scary for them, that’s the sort of stuff that makes us feel alive. The kind of stuff that gets our adrenaline surging. So maybe that’s why so many people are into extreme sports now. They live off that rush where you can lose control and wipe out in a heartbeat.

Yet there is still a large part of the population who want things to be safe and predictable. That’s me for the most part. When I drive to work, I don’t want trees falling in the road, or deer running in front of my car. When I go to the store, I don’t want to be part of an armed robbery while I;m getting a gallon of milk. Yet these are the same fears that the media uses to spread panic and get people to read their magazine, watch their tv show or browse to their website.

We all that little sick, twisted parts of us, that like to imagine doomsday scenarios. That’s why Hollywood makes movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day. When there is a car accident on a highway, there’s a reason people rubberneck. They hope to see a bloodied hand or face.

I don’t really have any point to any of this. I’m just saying…

Oh and supposedly Tom Cruise is going to eat the placenta when his baby is born. There are rumors the baby has already been born. So I wonder if he ate the placenta. And I wonder if it tastes like chicken. Probably not. Unless it’s a raw, bloody chicken.

Tulips

Several years ago, Niel and Ani had given us a cool painted tera cota pot. When we lived at the townhouse we never really had anyplace to put. So last fall I planted some tulip bulbs in the pot, and set it on the back deck of the new house. I didnt think they would even grow because I sort of just burried them under the dirt in no particular order. Well much to my surprise about a month ago, the first little green tips of the tulips started to make their way out of the dirt. After a mild week and some much needed rain, the tulips opened. So I took some shots of them last night after work. I've never really shot flowers before, but I think they came out pretty descent. I know at least one person who will enjoy this post.

Click on the pics for a slighty bigger more detailed image.

The Easter Bunny

Ever wonder what the Easter bunny does the other 364 days of the year? We'll he kicks people's ass!!!

Weekend Happenings...

Wow am I sore today. On Saturday morning Rachel and I drove down to Raleigh to Ashley and Andrews birthday party. The party was at this place called Pump it Up. The moment you walk in you are greated by two large men with cheesy Austrian accents wearing gray sweatsuites. Just kidding.

Pump it Up is pretty awesome. The one we were at had three party areas. The one we were in had 4 large inflatable play areas. The 1st was an inflated basketball court. You can get some serious air in there. The 2nd was this giant inflated slide that was just awesome. That is the primary reason for most of my aches and pains. The third was an obsticle course. And the 4th was a sort of inflated ski ball/basketball themed inflated station.

Rachel got a great shot of Ashley and I crash landing after we came down the big slide. I didnt get a chance to pull the pics off the camera yet, but when I do, I will post a few on here.

One of the funniest/scariest moments was when my brother-in-law Mike's dad sent his little 1 year old grandson down the giant slide. He couldnt have weighed more than 15-20 pounds so he didnt have a whole lot to keep him weighted down. He went down so fast, and so out of control that he nearly went airborn. Lucky he was ok, and wanted to go right back down the slide again. The kids looked so out of control when they went down on their own. I got a few shots showing that as well. Everyone seemed to have fun. We even got my mother in law to go down the slide with the kids.

When we got back last night, we watched Two For the Money. Man this movie was awful. The movie had no point to it, nothing made sense, and it was way too long. Don't waste your time with this movie. One of the stranger things about the movie was the football footage. The movie was supposed to be about sports handicapping of college and pro football. I guess the NFL and NCAA didn't want the bad stigma associated with sports gambling, so the movie only refered to teams by their state or city names. So it was like "So should I take Texas over Oklahoma on Saturday?" And the game footage they used was awful. It looked like it was from CBS circa 1982. Al Pacino has this really technically advanced office. They're sitting watching the game on the this giant plasma tv, but it looks like crap because it's old analong footage. Pretty silly. Horrible movie. After seeing this movie I think Jeremy Piven and Matthew McConaughey shouldn't be allowed to be in any more movies...EVER! I didn't like Jeremy Piven before this movie, but I dislike him even more after seeing him in Two for the Money and that stupid discovery channel show he does. It's basically Jeremy Piven making fun of people as he goe through god forsaken, poverty striken parts of the world. It's bad enough these people are dirt poor and starving, but then they have to deal with this moron. But what do I know? It will probably win awards for being a ground breaking documentary.

SO in summary, Pump It Up...AWESOME!!!!

Two For the Money...COULDBT SUCK MORE!!!!

McConaughey...talentless, eye candy

Piven...Class A moron

Pacino...A creepy old man

Rene Russo...starting to lose her looks

Very Addictive Site

Don and Mike were talking about this website called myheritage.com. The site is so addictive. Basically it's a site that used facial recognition to try to determine who is in a photo. So you could upload a picture of Oprah or Julia Roberts and the software will scan the facial features of the photo, match it against their 3500 person database and tell you whos in the photo.

But what Don and Mike used it for was to see who the software thought they resembled. Their results were pretty funny. It though Mike looked like Johnny Knoxville and Tont Danza. Don looked like Edward Norton and Clint Eastwood.

So when I got home last night I uploaded a few pictures to the site. I was a little insulted by the results. It said I resembled Ingmar Bergman who's like 88 years old. The other three people it said I resembled were Luciano Pavarati, David Schwimmer and Jason Biggs. Rachel on the other hand, got some very flaterring results. I guess we know who has the looks in this couple ;-). Her top matches were Kirsten Dunst, Hillary Duff, and Goldie Hawn.

So give the site a try. Its hours of fun. Ani, please upload a pic of your dad and see if it matches him with Robery Deniro :-)

Rapid Fire Part 2

According to CNN I have one of the top 10 jobs in the country. Some days that doesnt seem like it.

Ive been averaging 4-5 hours of sleep every night. The drop in sleep seems to coincide with me running again. Hrmmmm

Yesterdays Yankees game was so intense. Yankees won their record 9th straight home opener. Beating the record set by the Yankees of the 1920's.

Brett Favre needs to make up his mind. Personally I think he would look great on the Jets. It's been quite a while since the Jets had a decent quarterback.

The Big Break Hawaii on the Golf Channel is awesome

Im really itching to hit some golf balls

Grave digger, when you dig my grave will you make it shallow so that I can feel the rain?

Making your own genral Tsao's chicken, not so easy, not really worth it.

Gas powered lawn equipment is awesome.

New episode of Lost tonight. Woohoo!!! We get to learn about Bernard and Rose who we know very little about.

I love Ebay

Rapid Fire Observations...

Congrats to Phil Mickelson for winning the Masters. Not that he needs any congratulating or any more good luck. Holy crap does he have a charmed life. He's plays golf for a living, ,makes a handsome living playing golf and doing commercials, his wife could be a model, and he has three beautiful children that could be models themselves. Was this guy born a with a horseshoe up his ass or what? Color me envious.

Firefox is the best browser around. I use it for about 95% of my internet browsing. There are still a few pages that don't work so well with Firefox, but it seems like Mozilla comes out with plugins to fix these problems pretty quickly. It's free, so I highly suggest it. The new version of IE (now in Beta) looks a lot like Firefox now.

Audiobooks are awesome. I actually cancelled my XM Radio subscription and have started to listen to audiobooks on my commute in the morning. I still listen to Don and Mike in the afternoon. I've been listening to Michael Connelly books the past few weeks and damn are his books entertaining. I have about 30 "books on tape" ranging from Dean Koontz and Stephen King to James Patterson and Dan Brown. Good stuff.

Bewitched is an awful movie. Nicole Kidman is gorgeous, but man is she humorless. I love Will Ferell movies, but this one stinks on ice. The only bright spot is Steve Carrel, but he's only in it for like 5 minutes.

You ever sneeze so hard, you feel like your spleen shifted?

Glazed teriyaki strip steak is awesome on the grill!!! I used an old recipe given to me by my old friend Terrence Yaki. But you can call him Teri.

This weather has to moderate a bit. It was 81 on Friday, and in the 30's on Saturday. Craziness!!!

I bought Pebble Beach grass seed for my front lawn, wow is my lawn looking awesome right about now. I don't know if its the ferilizer I laid down in the fall or the new seed, but the grass is so thick and green, Im tempted to fire a couple of wedge shots over towards my neighbors house. See lawsuit. See home owners policy. See wife throwing golf clubs into the trash.

I think I want a graphite set of golf clubs. Both Rachel's dad and brother have graphite irons, and Im still playing with steel shafts. That's just not cool!!!

Antonio Banderas, not funny.

Laptops...convenient? Oh yes. Addictive...Oh hell yes. Enourage laziness? You betcha!

West coast baseball sucks.

Rachel's mom made holiday chocolate Easter eggs filled with peanut butter some with coconut and some with coconut and cherry. WOW! She makes those Russel Stovers people look silly!!! Silly!!!

There's a company called Seura that makes high definition displays that fit inside bathroom mirrors. All I would need is a comfy chair and a mini fridge and I may never leave the bathroom. Oh man, sitting in the Jacuzi tub and watching football in high def. Somebody stop me.

Driving through mud is awesome!

I saw a story on 60 minutes a few weeks ago about how by the end of this year, Brazil will be totally non dependent on gasoline. They refine sugar caine and use that as fuel for their vehicles. If Brazil is able to do this, why arent we trying to do this here in the most powerful country in the world.

Rapid fire blog posting. Efficient? Yes. Entertaining? Me thinks so. Will I obsess with this and run it into the ground? You know it!

Summer Movies...and nipples

I watched a show last night about all the movies coming out this summer. None of them really jumped out at me other than the DaVinci Code which should be awesome. But then they started talking about some of the comedies coming out and the trailer for the Talledega Nights looks hysterical. Hopefully they didnt cram all the good parts into the trailer. Even the poster looks funny. Will drives the Wonder Bread car and ironically his characters name Bobby Ricky makes up like 40% of Bel Biv Devoe.

I heard on the radio that David Spade is dating Heathew Locklear. WTF? This has got to be a sign of the apocolypse. Oh and Richie Sambora, you are the dumbest man on the planet. You were married to Heather Locklear. A woman who's been hot and will continue to be hot till she's 90. And you cheat on her? How can you possibly trade up from Heather Locklear? I mean come on, it's Heather Locklear!!! Oh and hey, David Spade, quick asking what's in my wallet and tell me what your secret is.



Oh and finally, I admire Hillary Swank. But I admit, she's not my favorite Hillary. And no I don't mean Clinton. I don't know who designs her clothes, but I applaud who ever that gay man is. Bravo!!!! See even gay men love boobies! I encourage every woman in American, except my mom, sisters and nieces to buy one of these shirts immediately!

Celebrity News

I use the term celebrity very losely here, but I thought this was funny...

Hank Williams Jr was recently arrested for assaulting a waitress. Apparantly he grabbed the waitress, put her in a headlock and screamed "Im Hank Williams, bitch!". I couldnt help but remember when Chris Farley used to do a Hank impression on SNL. I can also see why HW Jr. wears the sunglasses all the time. He's rather dimwhitted looking with them off. I hope this doesnt prevent him from singing those great opening songs for Monday Night Football. It takes a skilled man to be able to rhyme words like Steelers and Packers.






















The 2nd bit of news is regarding "The Gambler". Rachel was watching American Idol the other night and they had Kenny Rogers on as a celebrity consultant for the competitors on the show. Man does he look odd. He doesn't even look like the same person. I think he's had a little too much plastic surgery. He looks very soft and almost womanly now. Or perhaps he had testicular cancer like Meatloaf in Fight Club and the lack of testosterone has made him soft. I didnt get a good look at his body, but there were no noticble man boobs.

Return of the Discounted Games

So far, nearly every game that has come out for the XBOX 360 has been $49 or $59. Well 2K sports has released the 1st $39 game. For some reason, I have always like tennis video games, so I'll probably pick this game up. And yes, I will be playing as Maria Shirapova, because it doesnt get any better than virtual Maria Shirapova in high def!!!

Cynthia McKinney...

One of the most important things my parents taught me was to listen and play by the rules. Apparantly Cynthia McKinney wasn't taught that lesson as a child. So many times, people's troubles are brought upon themselves because they simply don't adhere to the rules that are in place. Case in point Cynthia McKinney.

From what I've heard and read, members of congress are not required to walk through metal detectors. They wear some type of pin on their lapels to indicate they are congressmen and congresswomen. Well according to the Capital police, who's job is to keep members of congress safe, secure and protected, McKinney routinely doesn't wear the lapel pin.

This is just me, but this is how I would have handled the situation. Had I forgotten my pin, and one of the Capital police tried to stop me, I would have stopped. I would have explained who I was, offered to show ID, and tried to resolve the situation like an adult. How did Cynthia McKinney choose to handle the situation? She ignored the repeated requests to stop. Then when the Capital police tried to stop her, she struck the officer in the throat with her cell phone.

Was her pride hurt that someone didn't recognize her? It's not like she is one of the more famous members of Congress. She's far from a house hold name. I could see where the capital police could have mistaken her for Tempest Bledsoe from the Cosby show. So Ms. McKinney, how dare you ridicule the Capital police. Im sure if some crazed person made their way past security and ended up attacking a member of Congress, she would be the first person to scream that the Capital police aren't doing their job. We all know people like Cynthia McKinney. The person who screams at a waiter when they get their order wrong at a restaurant, the kind of person who feels the need to make a scene if it's too cold or too hot on an airplane. The person who talks on a cell phone during a movie, and then gets mad at people for shooshing her.

And why does she feel the need to have a press conference and invite Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte? What do they have to do with anything? But most importantly Cynthia, wear your damn lapel pin!!!

Random Stuff...

I looked at the last 5 or so posts, and noticed I hadn't really written anything of substance in a long while. So I thought I would just write a few random things.

I'm making a conscious effort to curse less. It started out as a Lent thing, but then I was at the store the other night, and there were these two guys walking around and man did they curse alot. So I came to the realisation, that when people curse a lot, it's generally because they have bad vocabulary skills. They can't find the proper words to express what they want to convey, so they just substitute curses. I'm going to try to limit my cursing to times when I've injured myself and I'm in pain, and for use in the bedroom (if you know what I mean).

It was a shame to see the run of the George Mason Patriots come to an end. I'm not a big hoops fan, but I got caught up this year because it's a local team, and the school where Rachel's brother graduated from a few years back. When they beat Michigan State, it was like, well ok, there are bound to be some upsets in the first round of 64. Then they beat Wichita State, and I was like well, who really ever heard of Wichita State. But then when they started slaying the big boys like North Carolina and Uconn, the buzz around town really started to build. For such a smalltime school to make it to the Final 4 is pretty amazing.

This season of the Shield was pretty intense. The season finale was no exception. I wondered how everything would work out, but didn't see that coming. Last season sucked. They added Glenn Close to the cast, and she just didn't fit in. She was supposed to be this tough as nails captain, but she just didn't pull it off. This year they added Forest Whitiker to the cast as an internal affairs captain investigating Mackie and his team. Very intense stuff. They rewarded the loyal fans of the show as well. A lot of the storyline dated back to seasons 1 and 2 involving drug money and the Armenian mob money train scandal. So if you hadn't watched from early on, you would be confused about a lot.

Ghost Recon is a pretty awesome game for the XBOX 360. It's the first non sports or racing game that I am really into. Im not a huge fan of 1st person shooters, but this one has a level of realism that makes me really enjoy it. They don't have ridiculous weapons, they have basic weapons that the military actually uses. You can be 1 of 4 classes of soldier. You can be a sniper (which is very fun), a rifleman, an automatic rifleman or a grenadier. The grandier seems to be thr best balance of firepower. The weapons you can choose as a grenadier have decent range, so you have a scope and can pick off targets from a good distance, plus it has the punch of a grenade launcher. My one complaint about the game is the lack of maps. I really hope they UBIsoft comes out with some downloadable maps. There are about 8 maps that come with the game, but they get a little boring after a while. But to their credit, they do offer several different types of terrain. From the jungle, to the desert, to an abandone fishing village. So there is a good variety. One odd thing is that they give you the option of wearing snow camo, but they don't have any maps with snow. So hopefully they realease a map pack eventually.

I haven't really played around with my camera much lately. So I started going back to some of the old photography websites I used to frequent. I submitted a photo Saturday for an online photo challenge. Not my best work, but it got me excited about shooting again. I'll have to keep checking back for the new contest subjects to get inspired to shoot again.

Man am I happy today is opening day. But I must admit, it's a slap in the face to have the Yankees open the season on the west coast. It's hard to get fired up for a game that starts at 10:30 PM. If you want to start the Pittsburgh Pirates on the west coast, be my guest. But to do that to the millions of Yankees fans after a long winter with no baseball seems like a slap in the face. I find it interesting that early on, most baseball analysts are predicting the Yankees and Blue Jays to contend for the AL East. Many are predicting a rough season for the Red Sox. Many experts are also saying the Braves run of winning the NL East will come to end, with many predicting the Mets as favorites to win the division. I have to admit, on paper the Mets look pretty good.

As much as I love when we spring forward, it screws my sleeping patterns up really bad for some reason. It was great that it didn't get dark till 8PM last night. But when it came to falling asleep, I was wide awake at 4:30 this morning. I went to bed my normal time of 11:30, and layed there and was wide awake. But I figured, hey it's really only 10:30, so Im sure in an hour I'll be tired. Not the case. At 12:30, I got up and read a little. At 1:30 I watched the season finale of The Shield. At 2:30 I was watching the season finale of Weeds on Showtime. At 3:30 I was staring at the clock radio, at 4:00 still staring, but a couple of yawns snuck in. Around 4:30 I finally fell asleep, but woke up again around 5:00. Finally around 5:30, I fell back asleep and a pretty deep sleep. But then my alarm went off at 6:30. So sleepy. I'm ok at the moment, but something tells me Im gonna need a nap when I get home. Especially if I want to watch the first few innings of the Yankees game.

Prison Break has to be the best new show on TV. I used to love CSI Las Vegas, and 24 and looked forward to each new episode, but this year Lost and Prison Break have replaced CSI and 24 as my must see shows. Lost is head and shoulders above anything else on television, so original, so thought provoking, so gripping. The characters on the show are so well developed and so deep, you feel like you know them personally. And each week, the show gets more and more mysterious. And I must give props to the Office as well. I don't really like comedies on TV anymore, but this show has a very subtle humor that I can really appreciate. And I think anyone who works in an office environment, can relate to some of the silly things that happen on the show.