Man Whore > Blog Whore?

OK.. First let me apologize for not blogging since Santamas.. I hope you all got what you wanted from the big fat guy.. I feel really bad not blogging, I realized that most of my blogging happens from the comfort of my classroom while the students are on breaks and in labs. Well, I haven't been teaching so I haven't been blogging, plus I've been too busy man whoring it up to stop and type anything... I have been thinking about all of my loyal readers, and I know what you're going to say... You're going to say "why bother doing cool and exciting things if you're not going to blog about them?".. And, all I can say is you're right... Shame on me... :D

Oh, while I'm on the apology thing... Let me apologize for the length of this blog in advance.. It has been awhile...

Before I get into history.. I woke up this morning and went to go to the Terry Goodkind blog so I could paste it in here and talk about it and he had removed it, well not removed it but altered it drastically... If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about Legend of the Seeker and Terry Goodkind's reaction to the first few episodes. As you may or may not know (or for that matter care) the show is based on Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series and each season is supposed to encompass one book. The show has had 7 episodes air (8th one to air next week) and everyone I know has been getting disheartened due to the fact that it does not follow the story and feel of the books. Anyway, so Terry Goodkind had posted a blog on Dec 29th which was as follows..

"As is my usual way, I'm pretty opinionated , Yes I know what a total shock!

BUT! as is my way, I generally am neutral up to the point that enough time and or events have taken place to clearly see something has to change.

I've been pretty much "watch the show for what it is, Love the book's etc...etc...etc."

We have seen enough from the shows to see a clear concise direction from the writers (under Ken Biller's direction) to know they (Ken Biller) have no respect for the content[s] of the series.

We have scenes where Richard is reduced to a peeping tom, Star Wars rip off's, Buxom Confessor spilling out of her bustea and running around in a corset, totally undermining the station of her office. The purity of which she portrays.

So many other things that would not happen within the world of Richard and Kahlan.. I'm embarrassed!

We have a voice, we have a means, we can make a change.

To this point we have asked that you all be supportive, give it time and a chance.

We have asked that you try and be positive.

We have removed and deleted posts ranting about how degrading the show truly is.

I will not sacrifice the integrity of this series and its characters.

I will not back down from someone like Ken Biller who is a coward and simply uses scenes from other movies like Star Trek, Star Wars, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves or Brigadoon. Someone like Ken Biller who steals scenes and plots from other shows to make this one. He isn’t creative enough, smart enough or talented enough so he must attempt to destroy what’s there by demoralizing its content and make the characters into dimwits and the show about selling skin shots for ratings!

We've allowed them to make too many compromises already; too many changes that corrupt the story line. They corrupt our story line weakening the characters morals and virtue, and we fall back. They assimilate entire aspects of the story essentially changing the latter books, and we fall back, say nothing, only showing support. Not now, not again, not ever!
The line must be drawn here!
This far, no further!
And *I* will make them aware of what they've done.

Ok, here's the game plain.

We need to start listing the reasons and areas the show is failing it's base.

We need to point out specific's that Biller has crafted to weaken and destroy the morality of character's, the integrity of the story line, the actions and events that would not happen because this story IS about hero’s, morality, objectivism and so much more.We need to lay out why.I will make sure the right people not only see these, but will also keep up the pressure until we have change! "

Pretty brutal right? I thought so.. I was kinda shocked because I had heard he had final say of storyline, scripts, etc.. Apparently not! Ok, so I saw this and realized that I needed to blog about it so I went back today as I mentioned before and this what is there now...

"Ok, here's the game plain.

We need to start listing the reasons and areas the show is failing it's base.

We need to point out specific's that Biller has crafted to weaken and destroy the morality of character's, the integrity of the story line, the actions and events that would not happen because this story IS about hero’s, morality, objectivism and so much more.

We need to lay out why.

I will make sure the right people not only see these, but will also keep up the pressure until we have change!"

I would assume (I know, never assume, blah, blah, blah).. Anyway, I would assume that Terry had gotten some kind of letter from a lawyer or something to make him change his message.. I'm just glad that google cached websites exist so that I was still able to bring you his original message.. :D

Crap, it's already 12:30 and I wanted to leave by 1:00 to go to NY for New Year's Eve, it is snowing like a mother fucker out here and we are debating on if we still want to go at all... Anyway, I have so much more to say and so little time to say it... hmph....

Strap yourselves down, here comes the quick version of the week...

Santamas Day we went over to my brother's house and had a great time, unfortunately for me almost all of the food had dairy in it so my stomach was not too happy with me, by not too happy I mean it was not happy at all.. The food was great don't get me wrong, I mean I love cheese and butter and milk but apparently my body sings a different song.. Anyway, after dinner we played Rock Band 2 on the X-Box 360 for a bit, then me and my brother played a silly Mario Baseball game on the Wii which was fun but I would need more time to get to know the players and their special abilities before I could have any chance of competing... After Mario Baseball we played this dancing game that Rachel had gotten, I forget what it's called now and don't have time to look it up.. See, this is the problem when I don't blog for a while... Hmm, maybe I'll look it up later and put it into another blog.. Anyway, so Jessie and Rachel played for a bit then I played with Rachel and Sandy but I didn't last long because of my foot so when I dropped out of the game we somehow convinced my brother to take my place! It was great watching him playing this silly game with Sandy, just one of those happy fun moments.. :D We ended the night with a little bit more Rock Band 2. I have to say that after playing Guitar Hero World Tour I think Rock Band 2 is too easy and I think it fails to capture the feel of playing the songs. In Guitar Hero World Tour I play on medium and the game does a really good job of making you hit notes in a way that falls in line with the rhythm, it obviously does not make you hit every note (on medium anyway) but you do at least feel like you're playing the song. Rock Band's medium seems to missing too many notes that need to be there, to me it seems like playing Guitar Hero on easy which I have not done since Guitar Hero 3.

Friday Jessie drove in with Doug and I picked her up after work and headed out to North Hampton area. I had to bring Jessie to the People's Pint since we were going out that way, she enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm very glad Kaitlyn showed me that place.. I am pretty lame though because I ended up getting the same thing again, they have such a good looking menu but for some reason I was really feeling that burger again. This time I had a slippery slope and a farmer brown which were both excellent. Jessie had gotten a sampler which was 5 different beers so I got to try those too.

Side note.. I hate the fact that I don't lie when people ask me questions sometimes... My mom just called and asked what my plans where, so I told her we were going to Dianne and Randy's house in NY... Obviously she thinks we're crazy and was telling me how crappy the roads are, etc.. /sigh

Right, so back to Friday, we ended up taking some beer home from the People's Pint.. We got a 22 oz bottle of Slippery Slope, 2 22 oz bottles of their Oatmeal Stout and a growler of their IRA. After dinner we went to Kaitlyn's house to drop off her exercise bike and hung out there for a few minutes chatting before heading down to North Hampton to see Dar Williams at the Iron Horse. We got in line and started chatting with the people in front and behind us. The people behind us were a cute lesbian couple from the area and the people in front of us was a girl from South Africa and a girl from Danbury CT. The girl from South Africa has been living in the US for 12 years and is almost a citizen. We went in and ended up sitting in the worst table in the house. Of the four seats one of them could sorta see the stage, there was a spot to stand near our table and we could see from there so it was not too bad but with my foot I was only able to stand there for a bit of the show. Dar Williams reminded me alot of Glen in the way she interacts with the crowd, at one point she started playing an older song and stopped after the first verse and chorus, she looked at the crowd and said that she was hoping that she would remember the words while playing it so tonight we get to hear the short version of that song. I thought that was very cute and very Glen-like. The bathrooms were downstairs which sorta sucked for me but I did stand downstairs behind the mixing board for a song which was really the best spot in the house in terms of view of the stage. Dar Williams did a song about the Milgram Experiment which I had never known about nor had the South African girl, apparently Jessie had so after Dar explained it a bit Jessie answered more questions about it one of which being what age the people were to which Jessie replied college age. The South African girl was confused by this response so I translated it into the Queen's English (university age) for her. There was something else in the evening that I translated for her which prompted her to ask (was going to be a blog title but I never got around to blogging) "are you from America?"..

Phew, this is a long out of control blog isn't it... I wonder how many pages this will be on Lynz's phone? So, Lynz gets my blogs emailed to her gmail account which she can check on her phone, obviously the phone has a small screen so it's funny to see how many pages the longer blogs are on the phone... Hey Lynz, can you post a comment on this one about the length of it... and by "it" I mean the blog... :P

So, Saturday... The plan was for Lynz to come up for lunch at the house and for Jessie to go to Ryan's.. Well, you know what they say about best laid plans... Jessie hurt her neck while we were still lazying around in bed so was in lots of pain and in no condition to go to Ryan's house. That's ok because we believe in rolling with the punches so, onto new plan.. Lynz and I went out for lunch to Bella's and I ended up continuing a conversation I had started with one of those random girls in Putnam about how many people is alot of people to have slept with. The decision was pretty much a non-decision really, there is a mystic formula that takes into account your age, your "active" years, the other person's age, active years and partners which in the end means nothing really.. And honestly does it matter? OK Cupid has a question asking if you feel there is every a point where someone has had too many partners and my answer was and still is simply no. Think about that for a second, when you hear that Gene Simmons has slept with thousands of women everyone stands up and cheers but when you hear rumours that Madonna sleeps with a bunch of people everyone condemn her.. Why not stand up and cheer for her too? I do.. You (and by you I mean anyone) should sleep with as many people as you want... There is nothing wrong with someone who does not want to sleep with many people just as there is nothing wrong with someone who does.. Live and live people... Coexist...

Ok, I really wasn't expecting that rant... Right... So, me and Lynz went out to lunch and Ryan brought over lunch for Jessie. After lunch me and Lynz hung out in the basement and watched some Cheers and chatted... Ryan, Jessie and myself decided to invite Sara and Kevin over and go out to dinner and watch Dr. Horrible (the new Joss Whedon musical staring Neal Patrick Harris). Dinner was at the Thai Place and then back to the house for the movie which was real short.. It was a great movie but it was only 40+ minutes, it was only $9.99 so I don't feel like I paid too much. The songs were awesome and the story was hysterical. Joss does not disappoint.. After Dr. Horrible we started watching 4400. We watched the pilot and then Kevin took a shower, Sara's back was bothering her so while Kevin was in the shower I brought her to the bedroom and gave her one of those back rubs that turns into one of those full body massages (reference above rant :P ).. We ended up getting through almost the whole first season on Saturday night, each episode on the DVDs are extended from the TV show. For example the 2nd season premier episode was 2 hours on TV with commercials and the DVD episode is 2 hours 5 mins and obviously does not have any commercials. Oh, wait, did I just say 2nd season? Now I'm into Sunday...

I am re-reading this blog and realized I meant to mention that mixed the Slippery Slope with Harpoon's Winter Warmer and it was an amazing combination! The giner in the Slippery Slope went perfectly with the cinnamon of the Winter Warmer..

Sunday we woke up and had a slow start to the day.. Me and Ryan ended up watching some TV while Jessie, Sara and Kevin had some problems getting out of bed (again, really, check out that above rant.. :P )... Me and Ryan ate some breakfast stuff around the house and then went out because he needed to do some shopping.. When we got back we watched some more 4400, we watched the last season 1 episode and the first 2 episodes of season 2 before going to Thai Basil in Danielson for some Japanese food.

Wow, I'm almost caught up... Hope you're still with me...

Monday was pretty quiet, I went to work and got all frustrated with the new course that I was given to learn and to teach to the other SAN instructors. Not going to rant about it, but.. It's not a good class in any sense of the word. Hopefully we can get it fixed before it runs for the first time. After work I went shopping for Tuesday night dinner and made the teriyaki sauce so that the pork and tofu could marinate overnight. I have to say having Elizabeth's fridge and oven has been a blessing this last week as I had no room for 5 lbs of marinating pork and package of marinating tofu in my fridge. Matt came over Monday night and we had leftovers for dinner before playing a bunch of Guitar Hero World Tour. Matt sung the first set of 6 songs, I sung the 2nd set of 6 and Jessie sung the 3rd set of 3. Good times had by all... I really can't wait for the drum kit to be sold separately.

Jessie is making her chocolate covered pretzels with candy canes in them again for tonight which is always a good thing..

Anyway, so, onto last night... Yesterday I went to work again (boo work) to work one on one with Josh more. I left work and got home just before 4:30.. I had decided that I was going to cook everything last night so that everyone else would get a break. That means cooking alot of food.. I made teriyaki pork, teriyaki tofu in rice, cauliflower with pancetta and capers, cauliflower with capers, and potatoes with mushrooms and broccollini. Everything went over really well and even Rene ate the pork which surprised the heck out of me since he does not like spicy food and it was a bit spicy. I was asked to post a recipe for my teriyaki so here goes:

1 jar of gluten free soy sauce
1/2 onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
2 hot peppers (I will find out the name next time I'm in stop and shop)
about 1/2 inch slice of ginger root
2-3 tablespoons of agave

put all but agave in food processor, and get it so that there are very little chunks left. Pour into a sauce pan and heat up so that the agave will melt in when you pour it in. Let it simmer for a few minutes till it starts to get a film on the top. Turn off heat and stir.. Done.. :D That number for the agave is a guess, what I do is use a medium sauce pan and pour from the bottle 3 swirls around pan which makes me think it's probably 3 tablespoons, but I don't really know for sure..

We stayed really late last night, we got home around 4:30 this morning so this morning has been a bit lazier than I would like, but at least I finally got a blog posted... :D

Next Thursday (Jan 8th) I'm going to the 2009 Northeast International Auto Show. It's running Thursday - Sunday in Providence but since I am going to Laire that weekend I am planning on going on Thursday..

I don't have time to tag this blog right now.. I will tag it later..

Merry Santamas

Just a quick, well quickish, blog to say Merry Santamas...

So, I don't take vacation from work on Santamas week because in the past we have always been told to just "work from home" so I don't waste the vacation time. Last year my boss got upset because nobody came in on Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas and he said that if you're not taking vacation you should come in... Anyway so on to this year.. I didn't take vacation again and last week my boss sent out an email saying that everyone who was not on vacation had to come in Mon-Wed and Friday, he said that we didn't have to stay long but that we did at least have to come in each day.. Well... I showed up on Monday and found that the elevator didn't work! It took me awhile to get up the stairs and when I did my boss said he was just about to call me and tell me not to come because the elevator was not working... Oh well.. It was good for me to go in anyway because I hadn't seen my boss in awhile so we had a good meeting.. As it turns out the elevator was broken because it froze up due to the cold weather so I was told not to come in for the rest of the week.

Tuesday ended up being a very busy day, Kaitlyn went to buy an exercise bike and Ryan agreed to help her pick it up from the person selling it. She got stuck in really bad traffic and got here later than we expected, Ryan came over and we drove up to get the bike. On the way back we ate lunch at Bill's Bread and Breakfast which was the first time I had eaten lunch there. It was good, I had a kielbasa, onion and pepper wrap. After lunch we moved the bike into my garage and Ryan and Kaitlyn left and I made my home made Teriyaki and started to marinate the pork for last night. Amber came over and when Jessie got home we went to Sara & Ryan's house for dinner.

Sara decided she would do pizzas because it would be quick and easy, unfortunately it was nothing but hard work for her, we may think of catering big holiday weeks in the future. I had a great time wandering around the house handing out presents one at a time. Lynz brought over candles for everyone which were a big hit until one of the kids threw one through the coffee table... Joe brought over home made candies which were really good, I stole most of the peanut butter cups... We had a full house this week with the addition of Amber and Badger (Jessie's friend), speaking of Badger he brought over a home made blueberry mead which was so good. Me and Amber left around midnight after we watched the Colbert Christmas DVD.

Yesterday I spent the whole day cleaning with Amber to get the house ready for Santamas Eve. We put the oven on the cleaning cycle and it finished right before I would have needed to start cooking, in my hurry to get things going I forced the latch and broke the locking mechanism for our oven... I ended up bringing the pork over to Elizabeth's house and using her oven.. So between Elizabeth's oven and my stove I cooked my teriyaki pork tenderloin, my caper pancetta cauliflower and spinach & broccollini and somehow managed the timing so the pork was perfectly cooked! Jessie made her raw sauce and zucchini pasta as well as rice pasta and regular pasta, for some reason we only had half a bag of rice pasta so we had to make both kinds. How many people can you sit at your table? We managed 13 people at ours, Lenny, Derek and Rachel got the bench on one side, mom and Jessie got the piano bench on the other side and we had 4 people on each long side (Matt, Lenny, Sandy and Joe on one side, dad, Jessie's mom, me and Amber on the other). After dinner while everyone was still at the table we did gifts and then dessert and Wii playing for the rest of the night. I got a new Rayman party game that everyone played for awhile and then Lenny and Rachel challenged me to Guitar Hero World Tour face offs. I like the idea of doing the presents here like that, makes it so we don't have to bring anything with us over to my brother's house today... By the end of the night my foot was killing me, I certainly feel like I pushed it yesterday being on it all day cleaning and moving furniture and cooking and everything else...

This morning we watched the entire Colbert Christmas DVD including the bonus song, the three alternate endings and the 25 little skits in the advent calendar.. Why do they call it an advent calendar? I'm not going to go down that tangent because I would have to actually look it up... One of the days in the advent calendar had the full version of "Jingle Man, Christmas Boy" which was the song he was doing in the beginning of the special.. Here are the lyrics, I want to rip it off the DVD so I can put it on my iPod...

Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Catching smugglers in New York and thieves in Illinois
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
Dashing through the town
In a one-horse Escalade
Hunting criminals down
Punching all the way, PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH!
Helping the police
Eating candy canes
Wearing polar fleece
And an umbrella if it rains
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Catching smugglers in New York and thieves in Illinois
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
Dashing through the snow
In a pizza delivery van
Over the streets they go
Hitting pedestrians, Just kidding!
Never doing drugs
Calling their grandmas
Giving lots of hugs to
Everyone who needs a hug
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Silver bells and do be do
I lost my train of thought...
ROCK LOBSTER!
Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho

The more I listen to the Colbert Christmas the more I like the Feist song "Please be Patient", I really like her voice and will need to check out more of her stuff.. She is apparently a folk artist out of California. For more of her check out my diversion of the day... :)

Jessie's mom just left and I'm going to put an end to this "quick" blog so I can spend some time with Jessie before we go over to my brother's house...

---Diversion of the Day


Jessie found this on polyweekly's forum and I figure it's Santamas so why not have two diversions.... :D

---Diversion from the Diversion of the Day
Have a jolly poly Christmas
It's the best time of the year
Quads and vees are trimming trees
While metamours bring cheer.
Have a jolly poly Christmas
And when you walk down the street
Show your glee and NRE
To everyone you meet.

Oh, ho, the mistletoe
Hung where you can see;
When your quad reaches it
Kiss her and him and me.
Have a jolly poly Christmas
And in case you didn't hear,
Oh by golly have a jolly,
Poly Christmas this year!

Happy Solstice Everyone!

Today Sara, Ryan, Jessie, Amber and myself trekked through the snow down to New London to go to the Solstice Celebration.. It was a very nice service, they did a bunch of songs and in between they used quotes from Greek Myth and Black Elk Speaks which is an interview/story they did in 1932 with a Sioux medicine man. Here is one quote that I really liked..

"You have noticed that everything an Indian does in in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished. The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain, and the north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance. This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion. Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where the were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children."
Black Elk Speaks, John G. Neihardt

What ever happened with yesterday's solstice bonfire? We didn't make it, by the time we got going we realized that we were never going to make it with the roads the way they were. So.. Instead we went to the Courthouse for dinner and to Target for some shopping.

Speaking of shopping.. Tonight afterwards we went to the Crystal Mall and wandered around/went shopping.. It was fun, I got to go to Sat Mat and look around, it was not as busy as I would have liked it to be.

How many people can you stuff in a Outback Sport? Well, how about me driving, Amber in the front, Rene in a car seat taking up 1/3 of the back seat with Ryan, Jessie and Sara taking up the rest?

This tendon thing really sucks.. Last night as I was leaving Ryan and Sara's house I stepped on a hard lump of ice/snow and hurt myself bad, I ended up having Jessie drive home and I had to crutch into the house. Today I was really really careful to not step on any un-even snow/ice patches. I did really good till I got home and after taking my shoes off Nest tripped me and I went down hard... Now for the second straight night I'm laying on the couch in lots of pain and nothing but Advil to try and make it better... Fuck... Day by day right?

So.. Onto food matters... If you remember I mentioned that I loved the way I felt in Japan and Singapore and it has everything to do with the food I was eating or rather the food I was not eating. So, I figure there are two things that you don't really eat in Japanese and Singapore cuisine and that's wheat and milk. So, since Lynz and Sara can't it wheat I figure that's the easier thing to test.. I did not cut it out completely but I did cut back on it massively and it helped but didn't make it go away. So, now I'm going to put wheat back in and remove milk and see if it gets better or worse. If it gets worse than I will really cut wheat out completely, if it gets better then I will continue to cut milk. I figure through enough experimentation I should be able to figure it out.

Well, that's it for me for now.. Jessie is done with taking the trash out and we are going to do the tree now...

---Diversion of the Day
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2008-12-16/index.html

---Thought of the Day
We are most certainly going to have a white Christmas this year.. It's been snowing here now since Friday at 2pm without stopping... Actually it stopped today from about 6pm to 11pm but it's snowing again now.. Hopefully the sun will make a hasty return and we can have an early spring...

Snow.. I hates it!

First off let me just say in case you don't already know.. I hate snow.. Sure, it looks pretty when it's coming down and it looks pretty to see a great big landscape of pure virgin snow but then I remember I have to go out in it... If it was not bad enough normally because of ass-hats who can't drive and oh by the way, it's fucking cold... Did you know that it can't be warm and snow, hence snow is shitty.. Right, so... Now let's ramp up the "suck" level of this particular snow shall we, I have a very stiff wobbly ankle which is going to make walking in this crap even more of a pain in the ass.. By the way, did I mention how everything closes when it snows? It can rain like a mother fucker and shit don't close, you get some snow and everyone goes into a panic like the world is going to end... Seriously? Is this your first year in New England? No, you were born here, then buck up buddy it's just some fucking snow..

Oh, and just because you own a 4-wheel or all-wheel drive car does not automatically make you invincible, you still to know how to actually drive. I see that problem more in the 4-wheel drive SUV jackasses than the all-wheel drive Subaru/Audi people. I love the attitude of I'm high off the ground and have 4-wheel drive so I must be safe right? NAAHH!! You're safe when you learn how to drive...

Can it be spring now??

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Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice, we are planning on going to the CT Audubon Solstice celebration tonight and a celebration at the Unitarian Universalists in New London tomorrow.

Today we have (starting at 7:30pm):
"Bring back the sun with festivities, folklore, and songs surrounding the shortest day of the year. Feasting, bonfire, and ceremonies representing cultures around the world." in Glastonbury CT which is just south of Hartford right off Rte 91 and Rte 2.

Tomorrow we have (starting at 4:00pm):
"We will once again celebrate the turning of the season and the coming of the longest night of the year. We’ll look to the light together as the choir and congregation journey into the dark of Winter, where seeds grow, babies wait, quiet dwells, people rest and anticipate. Then, finding the hope of light, we emerge in nature's cycle with spirits reborn and transformed. Our Winter Solstice is an affirmation of ancient wisdom, through music and storytelling that draws from an eclectic array of Greek mythology, Pagan chants, universal drumming, Native American texts and Western polyphonic singing." in New London CT which is right off 395/95 in Southern CT.

We are also planning on hanging with Sara and Ryan today during the day to do some last minute x-mas shopping.. btw - don't forget to put the "x" back in x-mas. I am so sick and tired of those "Put the Christ back in Christmas" things, read history you ass-hats he never belonged there to begin with... If anything we should just admit that Christmas is a secular holiday based on some fat ass (granted a cool fat ass) who breaks into our houses and leaves us gifts. Maybe they should rename is "Santamass" or "Clausmass"... Blah, or we could just all go back to celebrating the Solstice for the ubber party that it was meant to be (celebrations used to start on the 20th and end sometime on the 24th and 25th). In today's modern age of technology and needing to work imagine how cool it would be if we could all take off a week for Solstice?

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Yesterday I walked around town a bit, I went to VSC and borrowed a whole bunch of Dream Theater CDs from Dave and then went to Wonderland Books to try and find a Harry Potter CD Wallet with no luck. After that I went to Radio Shack and Savage Systems trying to find a SATA to USB cable which they make now but neither place had one. Funny side note, I found out it existed by finding one on Radio Shack's website but they don't carry it in the store. I ordered one and should have it soon.

Jessie came home early and took a long nap, it's such a hard life staying up to all hours with all her boys... :P

Speaking of her boys... Kevin came over last night and we watched Robin Williams Live on Broadway and Batman Begins before screwing around on the internet/youtube for far too long.

The Robin Williams show was from 2002 and had some really good bits in it. I think my favorite was his bit on cats being like drag queens and marking their territory... You should check it out if you have not seen it.

Batman Begins is the fist Christopher Nolan Batman movie. After seeing Dark Knight I was not disappointed with Batman Begins. I really love the way Christopher Nolan brings the Batman series to the screen. I may need to revisit Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer to be sure of this statement, but... I really think Christian Bale is the best Batman I've ever seen. Keaton was a great Batman but a crappy up-tight Bruce Wayne. Kilmer was a perfect Bruce Wayne, but failed a bit as Batman when compared to Keaton. Bale's addition of the gruff voice as Batman put him on par with Keaton and his goofy antics as Bruce Wayne made him on par with Kilmer. He is the perfect combination of those two actors in his portrayal of Batman/Bruce Wayne. Not to mention the camera work was amazing, right up there with something I would expect from Sam Raimi.

Give us a 3rd Batman Mr Nolan... Oh, wait you are... Nice... Eddie Murphy to play the Riddler in the new Batman movie due out in 2010.

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Oh, speaking of yesterday.. Me and Jessie had this great beer called Weyerbacher Heresy which has a A- rating on beeradvocate. Speaking of beeradvocate, they won't let you rate a beer unless you write 250 characters or more per review. I would really like it if I could just rate it without writing a review.

---Diversion of the Day

Cast off!

So I was just reading Jessie's blog from yesterday about Heavy Metal and I wanted to re-iterate her statement that You Really Can't Kill the Metal!! People ask me why I need a 160Gb iPod, like jeez how much music could you possibly want to listen to.. I gotta say I still listen to same music I did when I was first getting introduced to music with my father's WLEN tapes (My dad used to record a mock radio program onto cassette so that he and his friends could listen to music while in cars, etc). Granted I also listen to a whole bunch of new stuff and every year more and more music gets put into the mix, aside from the rare exception nothing ever comes out of that mix. Why do I need a 160Gb iPod? My question is how can you live with only an 8 or 16Gb iPod!? Everyone has memories linked with certain songs and points in their life when a particular song meant the world or summed up what you were feeling... Everyone has songs that make you happy, make you sad, make you sleepy, energize you, I can go on and on... How can you have that few songs that you can put them all on a 8 or 16Gb device? A world without music would be a horrible place to be...

I like Jessie's idea of a music timeline and I will hopefully steal it and make one of my own.. See how many times Kiss re-appears as a driving musical force in my life..

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Last night I went out on a date with Kaitlyn, I drove up to her house and we went to a really good microbrew placed called the People's Pint. All of their beef is naturally grass raised and they have some really good ideas for cheese spreads like "chive-goat cheese spread" for the burgers. They also have live music, last night they had a pretty cool jazz band called Bok Choi Orchestra but they have Traditional Irish Sessions on every Sunday which I would love to bring everyone to. I had a few different beers:
Slippery Slope which is a 9.8% beer described as "A special blend of 1/2 cider, 1/4 malt and 1/4 honey then delicately spiced with ginger." It's a very good beer and the ginger really adds a great taste. I had two of these before I decided to switch over to..
The Peoples Pint Irish Red Ale which is as the name suggests a Red Ale. This is also a very good beer, makes Killian's seem weak.
I tried some of Kaitlyn's Farmer Brown and Tiger Bite.. All four beers were very good and the food was very good as well.
Here is Beer Advocate's ratings of them. I actually joined Beer Advocate too so I can rate different beers and different places.

After dinner we went back to Kaitlyn's and chatted, looked at pictures, and hung out till almost 3am. I probably would have slept over if not for the bathroom being downstairs and Lynz coming over this morning to "work from home"..

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BIG news, ok, well, BIGGER news!! I got my cast off today!! My calf muscle is not atrophied as badly as I would have thought, but the muscle on the top of my foot is bothering me. Plus the whole foot having full range of movement is really friggin weird. I have stretching exercises I have to for the next few months while I build up strength. I'm supposed to do 25 stretches 3 times a day! I did 10 when I got home, I have decided to work it up to 25... One big bummer is that I have to sleep with the night splint on to make sure the foot does not get into any odd positions and the really shit pile is that I am not supposed to run and play any sports for 6 months!!! I guess that means I'll be playing Chatima at Laire, speaking of which I really need to update my Jan pre-req.. OK, changed that... Hopefully I will get medical cameos again so I can bring Daimone in at least for a few hours each month so he does not disappear..

I seriously don't remember that 6 month thing in the brochure for the surgery... Ah well, it will be better in the end.. Just gotta keep my eyes on the prize... :)

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I updated my flikr site today, I added pics from the Holiday Dazzle Light Parade up to and including last night..

---Diversion of the Day

the Fatness

So, loyal blog readers.. I am back from my Laire weekend and am sitting on the couch bed with my leg up about to watch Batman: The Dark Knight.. I'm sure you all read "Placeholder" and have been holding your breath waiting for details.. Well, never fear, in this blog you will get all that and more!

So where to start... Current events or old ones? Well, I'm all excited about current ones so I will start with one of those and then go backwards.. I got out of the shower tonight before Jessie got home and while I was using my "lushnue" my cell phone text message went off so I walked out to the phone... That's right, I walked without my crutches.. I figured that the crutches would bother my skin because of the rubber against my naked underarms so I would try to walk instead.. Well, I've been walking since, my leg is a bit sore but not in pain so I am going to continue do walk on it until/unless it starts to hurt. It is very uncomfortable to walk on because my foot is in the cast at a strange angle, but I figure that it will be good in the long run because it will help my leg to get stronger.

Well, now back to the beginning... Oh, wait... "lushnue"... Did you ever watch Family Ties? There was an episode where Alex was playing Scrabble and he used the work lushnue and they asked him what it meant and he said towel, they said use it in a sentence and he said when he gets done with his shower he uses his lushnue to dry off.. It was a pretty stupid moment in TV history, but for some reason stuck with me...

Ok, really going back to the list now... :D

The Mets built Citi-Field with the idea to lower the stadium, they built the field level at almost a movie theater angle, I don't mean a stadium seating angle, I mean a regular old movie theater angle. I would probably never buy a seat on field level because if anyone sat in front of me I would never be able to see the field. The good side is that because they did that the Excellsior level is at the altitude of the old field level/loge. The Metropolitian Box seats are at the level below the old mezinine and the Prominade runs the same alititude of the old Mezz all the way up the first row of the old Upper Deck. The Yankees built their new stadium with a bigger angle on the field and upper levels. The new Yankee stadium is just as tall as the old stadium, what they did is took the first 10 rows off the upper deck and created club boxes between the levels. I think the Mets move of lowering the stadium will get rid of the idea of "nose bleed" seats. The Yankees will still have a problem selling their upper deck seats.. Speaking of selling seats... The Yankees had most of their 2008 season tickets holders tell them to go screw themselves with their new pricing. The Mets have almost sold out their entire stadium for all Friday-Sunday games already and have not even opened up season ticket sales to the public yet.

So, onto item 3... Citi-Field food... Another thing that makes me happy about the new stadium is that the Mets have made a deal with US Food Group. They are still using Amarak for their normal concession stands but USFG is going to stock the new food areas, there are going to be a few different ones.. First is the Center Field Court which is going to be on the field level in center field, it will have a 7000 square foot Team Store and will open an extra hour or two before the game, for food it will have a Smoke Shack for ribs, a Taco stand, a Sushi stand and a bar with over 40 different beers on tap. The next one is the Sterling Club which is behind home plate on the field level, the Sterling Club is only accessable by people with seats in the field level. The next level up has the Excellsior Club which is the glass enclosed restaurant in LF. The Excellsior Club will seat 1,000 people and is only accessable by the 6,000 seat Excellsior level, my guess is that restaurant (the biggest one in the stadium) will be open to the public after the first year. The Metropolitian Club is the only one that does not have a view of the field and is only accessable from the Metroplitan sections. The Prominade Grill holds 600 people and is a glass enclosed restaurant behind home plate between the Prominade box seats and the Prominade reserve seats, that restaurant is only accessable from the Prominade sections. I talked to a lady at the Mets and she said that as long as you are eating/drinking they will not kick you out of the restaurant. USFG said that all of those restaurants (Sterling Club, Excellsior Club, Metropolitian Club and Prominade Grill) will have the same food which is awesome..

Phew this is going to be one long blog.. I only wrote about two of the things on that list... :)

I joined the Mets Club on mets.com, it gives you 15% discount at the Mets team store and the online store. It also gives you a free membership to the GameDay Audio which I buy every year anyway. The Mets Club is $19.99 and the GameDay Audio is $14.99 so for $5.00 it will give me 15% on anything I buy this year.. I should have the card in March sometime before the season starts.

I said I was going to mention "shower", but that almost seems obsolete now because of the whole walking thing, but I wanted to mention how I took a shower all by myself the other day, I did that again today so now I feel it's "old hat"...

Sara updated her OK Cupid page awhile back to include all of us in our little CT/RI community, I had been meaning to do so since then and I finally got around to it... If you have not seen it I wrote:

"On a typical friday night, I don't really have a "typical" Friday.. Friday's are pretty crazy for me, but on a typical Tuesday night (when I'm not traveling) I go over to my friend's house for our communal dinners.. It's pretty crazy actually, we end up having about a dozen adults and six kiddies. We all get together and bring food and let the kids run wild in the livingroom while the adults have some time to catch up. It's become (and hopefully will remain) a regular event.

The crazier part for me, when I stop to think about it, is that aside from my wife and my friend Matt I've met all of them because of this site in the last six months.So, if you think I'm cool, and you want to hang out you may want to check out our little poly family: jlinkens52, LynzM31, thescooch, cj_jpm, wittanman, dream__brother, puzzle_lover, darksoulseeking, and yodiebabie."

Back to the Mets... They signed K-Rod to a 3 year 37,000,000 deal which is very good considering the contracts most MLB players get. K-Rod broke, no "crushed" the single season saves record last year with 62 saves! So, after that glorious move the Mets made one I don't get, they traded Joe Smith, Endy Chavez and Aaron Heilman in a 3-Team trade with Cleveland and Seattle for JJ Putz. Putz was a premier closer in 2006-2007 but spent most of 2008 on the DL. I guess it's a good trade as it gets rid of Heilman who asked for a trade and Chvez who is apparently a dick in the clubhouse, but it also got rid of Joe Smith is who has been our best reliever for the last two years. Joe Smith had only been in the major leagues for two years too so he really has shown that he can be the "real thing".. Since writing the list the Mets also traded Scott Schoeneweis to Arizona, Scott has been nothing but crap since we got him so I'm glad we dumped him but we got nothing in return. I really wish Joe Smith the best of luck in Cleveland and hope that Putz can return to his 2006-2007 form.

In contrast to those moves the Yankees signed CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett for a total of 240,000,000.. 160,000,000 for 7 years for CC Sabathia and 80,000,000 for 6 years for AJ Burnett..

The New England area got hit hard by ice storms on Thursday night/Friday morning, my brother had lost power and it just returned on Sunday night. Here in Putnam we got rain, lots and lots of rain but no power outages. I arrives at work late on Friday because my friend Jay had lost power and was late picking me up.

So, what's left on that list? TSO and Laire... oh, and Prop 8.. Well, Prop 8 will be the Diversion of the Day, so skip tha one for now...

TSO - Me and Jessie went to see TSO on Thursday night.. It was an amazing show as normal, the first half was their normal "christmas show" which was just as good as normal, it may have been better becaue they had a few new people and the show seemed to be done better this year. This year they had one more person from Savatage on the east coast tour and during the 2nd half they played two old school Savatage songs as a Criss Oliva tribute. I kinda wish one year they would swap east and west coast touring bands so that we could see the Jon Oliva tour instead of the Alex Skolnick/Chris Caffery tour. Don't get me wrong, I like those guys, but it would be nice to see the other group.

Laire was a mix of good and bad this weekend. Good because I got to roleplay/train lots of people.. Bad because they didn't name a Sherrif and I couldn't fight so I was pretty useless in the grand scheme of things. The best part of the weekend had to be Desdimona showing up on Saturday night and finding me not in the inn because I was down at the Order meeting. When I arrived back at the inn she laid into me pretty hardcore because she had gotten all dressed up for me and I wasn't even around... Like I said, really good roleplay this weekend.

Speaking of Laire, or rather the ride to Laire... Me and Amber where driving down and we came up with a great idea for a new comedy sketch, Christmas Pirates.. OK, so here's the deal.. Draw with shaving cream on your back windsheild "Merry Christmas" then get a skull and crosscanes flag and hang it from your antenna. (Crosscanes are crossed Candy Canes instead of crossed bones). OK, so now your car is ready... Next, get yourself a big pair of scissors.. Now while you're driving down the road look for those people with the big-ass trees on their cars. Drive up real close and cut the ropes holding the tree on, as the tree falls off their car down the street wave, smile and say in your cheariest voice Merry Christmas!

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Today I booked my flight to Australia.. I am flying Quantas from Boston to LAX to Sydney on January 29th and flying from Sydney to SF to Boston on Feb 13th. I will be missing the Feb Laire event but I think Australia is worth missing one month of Laire... I booked my hotel at the Harbor Marriott which is the one Matt said I should book.

Speaking of today and the blog title of "the Fatness", I went with Amber to Bills Bread and Breakfast today and got a chocolate chip and banana pancake and spread peanut butter on it to make it the most awesomist pancake ever...

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Tomorrow is communal dinner.. Matt, Sile, Kristen, Caity and Libby won't be there so it should be a smaller group. Tomorrow looks like it will be mostly fondu of various kinds but I'm making a buffalo/quinoa dish since now I can stand and cook...

Well, that's all for now.. Sorry for the book but I guess that's what happens when I don't blog for a few days... :D

btw - Dark Knight was very good, I'm shocked actually at how good it was...

---Diversion of the Day

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black

Placeholder

I have lots of stuff I want to blog about and no time to do it.. Jeez, I hate when work gets in the way of my fun...

Amber is about to pick me up so I can head to Laire.. That's right bitches, not even a bum foot will keep me away!!!

Anyway, this blog is a list of things I want to blog about.. I will blog about them on Monday.. :)

tso
yankee stadium v. citi-field
citi-field food
mets club 15%
laire
shower
okcupid update
prop 8
putz trade
k-rod
friday storms

Have a good weekend..

Got my 2009 Citi-Field seats...

Last night we had another great dinner.. Lynz and John made chocolate covered bacon for dessert, well for appetizer and dessert really.. :) Joe brought over some collards so we could wrap Kristen's sausage and peppers, unfortunately Kristen ended up not making it because she had a massive headache.. Kevin made a barley, asparagus risotto which we ended up putting in the collards so it all worked out.. Drew brought over some really good stuffed mushrooms and Jessie made rice pasta with her homemade hot sauce. Sara made a spice cake and loaded it up with tons of frosting, the cake was in a glass rectangular Pyrex and Kevin ended up mistaking it for mashed potatoes and putting a serving spoon in it before realizing it was cake.. :D

Watched disc one of the Clone Wars TV Series last night. It was ok, and it reminded me of a line from Big Bang Theory "I’m sorry, but I’m not going to watch the Clone Wars TV series until I’ve seen the Clone Wars Movie. I prefer to let George Lucas disappoint me in the order he intend."

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Today has been a challenging day for me.. Feeding the cats in the morning was a bit of a pain in the ass, Nest was trying to rub up against my crutch and making me lose balance a bunch of times. After that I headed downstairs to my car and I slipped down the last stair..

Got to work and taught till 9:30 when I set up the con-call to call the Mets. We called at 9:40 and they told us to call back, we called at 9:55 and they told us to call back! We called at 10:00 and they told us their computer was down and we should just buy them online or if we really wanted we could call back tomorrow, we asked to speak with a supervisor and the guy hung up on us!!!!!! I really had to stop myself from throwing a fit because my students were in lab, luckily for me Ivon threw enough of a fit for both of us...

Called them right back and sat on hold for about 30 minutes before getting someone who could help us... Apparently they were only selling rows 13-17 to Sunday package people. The Saturday package was sold down to the point where they didn't have 8 seats anywhere together. The Friday package as well. I was playing around online while we were waiting for them to pick up and was seeing what packages I could get which seats for. Anyway, we ended up getting seats in section 522 which is still on the infield dirt. The guy on the phone said that row 17 (last row in stadium) has the same height as the lowest row in the old upper deck. I got row 14 seats 1-4 & row 15 seats 1-4, Ivon got row 16 seats 1-2 and Pete got row 16 seat 3. Other good news about those seats is that they are covered so we won't get rained on!

Here is the list of games I have tickets to:
Thursday April 16 7:10 p.m. San Diego Padres
Sunday April 19 1:10 p.m. Milwaukee Brewers
Sunday April 26 1:10 p.m. Washington Nationals
Sunday May 10 1:10 p.m. Pittsburgh Pirates
Tuesday May 26 7:10 p.m. Washington Nationals
Sunday May 31 1:10 p.m. Florida Marlins
Monday June 22 7:10 p.m. St. Louis Cardinals
Sunday June 28 1:10 p.m. New York Yankees
Sunday July 12 1:10 p.m. Cincinnati Reds
Wednesday July 29 7:10 p.m. Colorado Rockies
Sunday August 2 1:10 p.m. Arizona Diamondbacks
Wednesday August 19 7:10 p.m. Atlanta Braves
Sunday August 23 1:10 p.m. Philadelphia Phillies
Sunday September 6 1:10 p.m. Chicago Cubs
Sunday September 20 1:10 p.m. Washington Nationals

Other baseball news: The Mets signed K-Rod (Francisco Rodriguez) to a 3 year $37,000,000 contract, I know that sounds like a ton of money, but it's less than we paid Billy Wagner back in 2006. The Yankees also made a big signing today, they signed CC Sabathia to a 7 year $160,000,000 contract! I don't know if I would sign a 28 year old pitcher to a 7 year deal, but that's why I'm not the Yankees, that signing will be good for them for the first few years, but in the end it will probably prove to be a bad one.

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Continuing the theme of good and bad... I talked with Brian today and he is going to get someone to cover me so I can have surgery on my left foot on March 18th (three days after March Laire event). That will give me four weeks to heal before opening day at Citi-Field and the April Laire event. The bad news?? Well, they just sent out a new notification about travel expenses, they are stopping ALL business class travel which means no more business class buy back... I partially don't care because I don't use business class, but for someone who is too big for coach it is really unfair to expect them to sit on a plane for 20+ hours to fly to Australia...

Oh, and one more thing... I have to drive to the office each day during Christmas and New Years weeks...

"I Rock, Guitar Hero said so."

Sunday night me and Jessie finished Guitar Hero World Tour on medium with me on guitar and her on bass. Hot for Teacher was probably the hardest song in the game. After the game they have a Dream Theater song that you can play during the credits. After the credits they open up a "bonus" set which has some really hard songs. Completed that set as well which ends with a Joe Satriani instrumental, holy christ on a cross was that hard! The only song in the entire game that I failed at was "Hot for Teacher" the first time I played it. Every other song we beat on the first attempt. Part of me wants to move up to hard, but I guess for now I get to go backwards.. Jessie is going to pick up the guitar and I will be heading to either the bass (easier) or vocals. I kinda want to play the game all the way through on all four instruments so I might do the bass this time so I can get to know the songs better before trying to sing them since there are a bunch I have never heard before playing them on guitar.

Carrie sent me a "flair" the other day that said "I Rock, Guitar Hero said so." which is so true, you gotta love it when the singer bows to you after the song because you rocked so much... I played the guitar portion as Marcus Fretshredder and made him the best outfit for the final concert at Times Square. I bought the "star" outfit and made it all blue and orange, I even bought a "star" guitar and colored that blue and orange too. As Jessie says "It's gayer than Paul Stanley being fucked in the ass by a Paul Stanley look alike".. I don't care what she says, it's awesome...

Speaking of Carrie, she is in a really odd polyamory situation. I know you're going to say that polyamory in it self is a pretty odd situation, well I for one don't think it is so screw you for thinking so.. :P Anyway, back to Carrie... Her husband and boyfriend are both named Paul! Not only are they both named Paul but they both have last names that end in "B" so she can't even differentiate them without going to their middle names! PRB and PMB, I might add them to the relationship web, if I have her on my web I need to have her connections right? Jeez, how far do I go? Six degrees of separation and I wonder if we would find Kevin Bacon.. :D

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Last night me and Jessie watched live TV for the first time in a long time. We decided that we would watch the final episode of Boston Legal real time. On the ride home last night my friend Jay told me that the best ribs he ever had at a restaurant was at the Courthouse in Putnam. I had never had them so I decided to check it out last night. I have to say that they are really good, but the best I've had is still out in Long Beach CA at Lucille's BBQ. I am pretty sure I wouldn't even call them the best ribs I've had in the Putnam area, I still like the ribs over at Buster's River's Edge in Thompson CT better. Anyway.. Back to Boston Legal...

This was the final episode ever of Boston Legal, it was two hours and was amazing, I'm not going to say anything about the episode because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone who has not seen it. If you saw the last few episodes you will know that Denny has been getting worse with his Alzheimers and he and Alan were fighting to get Denny a new medication that is in clinical trials, in the episode before this they said they were going to the supreme court for the finale. You also know that the firm is going bankrupt and Carl and Shirley are getting married. They did a very good job of wrapping up Crane, Poole and Schmidt and even made a comment about coming back on a network that cared. Speaking of networks that care... ION TV purchased the contract for Boston Legal and begins showing re-runs tonight. The rumour was that ION TV was going asking for new episodes for a 6th season to air next year. David E Kelly also signed on a deal to produce a new drama-comedy law show for NBC for next season. The new NBC show has no title or description yet and it's rumoured to be a BL spin-off.

In other TV news - Scrubs is coming back in January, the show will air on ABC for what is being called (for the third straight year) it's final season.

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I tried to upload a video to Youtube yesterday and it won't allow the upload because the file is too short? Anyway, it was a video of a guy trying to down a tree with his truck. They had put a cable from the truck to the top of the tree and drove so that the tree would fall. It fell, right on the truck... Gotta love stupid people sometimes...

Well since that couldn't be your diversion of the day... How 'bout this?

---Diversion of the Day

Holiday "Not So" Dazzle Light Parade

The parade was lame.. Firstly it was friggin COLD!! Secondly the floats were prettly lame. The parade was pretty empty in terms of people too, and quite honestly it would have been better for us to just stay in tonight.. Kaitlyn didn't end up making it, she decided to go home and catch up on sleep which is very understandable.. Ryan did end up showing up, the project he is going to work on got delayed and he *may* be going there at 4am, he needs to call them at 10ish to see what their ETA is for starting the job..

One good note was seeing Standing Room Only Cafe. SROCafe (website to follow) is a mobile coffee shop that was recently opened by two former Victoria Station Cafe employees. I wish them the best of luck and hope that they can quickly turn thier idea into a profitable business venture. If you live in the area and have an event that you would want great quality coffee these are the guys to call.

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Plans for the rest of the night - Guitar Hero World Tour. Me and Jessie only have a few more gigs to play before beating the game with me on guitar and her on bass then we will probably play it again with her on guitar and me on either bass or vocals.

Two birthday parties makes for a long day but a good night..

Yesterday was birthday party extravaganza. First of all I stayed up way to late on Friday night. Elizabeth came over and we played GH till pretty late at night. Woke up Saturday morning and went over Lynz and John's house for Anja's 6th birthday party. There was a lot of people there, I would say the highlight of the party was they had gotten a pinata for the kids to break open. The kids all took a shot or two at breaking it and then Lynz gave it a few good shots to get it started. Once it was started the kids all took another shot or two before the leg fell off. The pinata was apparently made from corrugated cardboard so it was pretty friggin strong. Once the party ended me and Jessie hung out for a few more hours before heading home.

Toni drew on my cast during the party, she drew a Converse sneaker on it complete with star and laces.. She did a good job and it was fun having her do it.

Quick stop at home before heading out to get Sara and Ryan so we could get to Joe's party. We got to Joe's a little bit late but it had really just started. Betrayal was broken out, Jessie, Joe, Drew, myself and two other of Joe's friends played. I ended up being the traitor, I made a good run at killing but in the end Jessie killed me.. :( While we were playing Betrayal the rest of the party broke out Apples to Apples.

Shortly after the game Joe's friend Kaitlyn showed up and "Monsieur Chat" made an appearance with the blue bandanna and all. Me, Jessie and Kaitlyn ended up hanging out in the office room petting and playing with him for a while. Jessie left to hang out with Kevin and Sara who were playing Apples to Apples and me and Kaitlyn hung out with the kittie for a bit more before heading to the table to eat some cake (2nd piece for me).. Both cakes yesterday were amazing, John made a gluten free chocolate cake for Anja's birthday and Renae made a vegan chocolate cake for Joe's birthday.

Me and Kaitlyn chatted for a bit more before joining the Apples to Apples game which ended shortly after we joined. Renae wanted to play Trivial Pursuits so that was broken out. At this point it was 6 of us so we were broken into teams. Jessie worked with Kevin, Joe worked with Renae and I was teamed with Kaitlyn. In terms of playing the game that was probably the worst idea for a team, in terms of us flirting and snuggling it was the best team option. For once I played a game and didn't care if I was losing, well let me think about that.. I may not have won the game, but I may have won the game playing experience... Jessie and Kevin pretty much crushed everyone. Renae went up to bed after a few rounds so the game pretty much died out.

Tonight is the Holiday Dazzle Light Parade in Putnam. It starts at 5:00, Kaitlyn may be coming over to go to that after she leaves Joe's house. Sara is coming with Rene, Caity and Libby. Ryan is going to work on building a house for Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

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The Mets finally caught up with the Yankees a bit and made a 3D Seat Selector for Citi Field. It shows an artist rendering of what the view will look like from the seats. It's pretty nice but still not as cool as the Yankee one which has shade cover pictures.

---Diversion of the Day
http://www.stupid.com/fun/WGUM.html

---Thought of the Day
There is no "I" in TEAM but there sure is one in MANIAC.

6 Months is a long short time..

Updates.. I feel like I've been away from this blog for so long.. So where was I? Wednesday was the last time I blogged, at that time I was laying on the couch in much pain.. Now I'm sitting on the couch in a mostly pain free state. How did I get from there to here? Well..

Wednesday night Jessie brought home some Red Robin for dinner.. Lynz came over Wednesday after John's sword class and slept over so she could drive me to work on Thursday.

Thursday Lynz drove me to work and hid out in a classroom to "work from home". I was planning on leaving around 2:15-2:30 to get to my appointment to remove the stitches. A friend/co-worker was going to cover my class from 2 till the end of the day but he ended up getting laid off in a 1pm meeting! We ended up leaving around 2:40 and got to my appointment late. So.. Cast off.. Padding off.. Gauze off.. Now wait... ... ... ... I was holding my foot up and steady because I was afraid of messing up the tendon by moving my foot while waiting for the doctor to come in and remove the stitches. Ironic (annoying) thing is that when he came in he said I could have and it would not have caused any problems.. eh... Anyway, so after what felt like an hour (was probably more like 10 minutes) the doc came in and removed my stitches, as he removed them it was like a whoopee cushion letting the air out. The 2nd stitch on the inside of the foot was the moment when the massive pain I've felt all week went away! The doc pushed the foot up to where the tendon was fully stretched and then put a new cast on. Funny thing is that he put the cast on with my foot hanging down and bent, when I tried to straighten my leg it was like pulling on a REALLY taught bow/rubber band. I was partially expecting to have to go back in and have it fixed, but the whole point of the thing is to stretch the tendon.. I ended up laying on the couch in the waiting room and having Lynz push my knee down to straighten out my leg.

It still feels very uncomfortable when I straighten my leg out. If I keep it straight it's ok, but if I keep my leg bent for any length of time it pulls again when I straighten it back out.

Last night after the appointment John and Anja came over and joined me, Lynz and Jessie for dinner. We had food from Casa Mariachi in Putnam again, it's the second time I had the veggie burrito and I really love it. I think the tomatillo sauce is really what makes it that good. I'm very glad John came over last night, it was good to see him again after all this time. I was kinda hesitant/nervous about seeing him but it was really good, probably the most comfortable I felt around him since the first weekend they came over.

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Today.. I decided to see how far I could push things.. I put on my boot when I got to class and actually stood (without crutches) at the board, I walked around with the chair/crutches to support me but I put some weight on my right foot with each step. I did that till lunch time (end of lecture) before I decided I had enough and took the boot off and crutched again to the lab and cafeteria. Speaking of pushing it.. When Jessie got home we went to dinner at the Courthouse, I know the Courthouse is not really pushing it but.. I drove! I drove Jessie's car to the Courthouse, tried right foot on both gas and break and I was having issues with the break. I tried my left foot on the break and my right on the gas and that worked much better. I also walked (with crutch support) from the car at the bank parking lot to the courthouse.

Played a set of GH with Jessie and watched Daily Show. Elizabeth is over now and we are going to play a bit before I head to bed.

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Tomorrow is going to be a long day/night. Anja's birthday party is at 11am and Joe's birthday party is at 8pm.

Signing off now to go shred some songs with Elizabeth..

---Diversion of the Day

Bored.. On the couch with my foot up...

Dinner last night was very laid back, or at least for me.. I laid down on the couch with my foot up for most of the night. I feel bad because this is two weeks in a row now that I have not cooked anything nor helped with the cleanup.. Kevin made roasted veggies, Sara made a veggie loaf, Kristen and Lynz made cookies and me and Jessie brought bunches of leftovers. Jessie cooked some turnips too while we were there. Joe ended up bringing Drew last night which was great because I had never met him before, I just wish I could have been more social.

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Called the Mets today.. If you remember from my previous blog I was planning on getting Promenade Box seats for the "Sunday Package". I've been in contact with Ivon and he has been in contact with a few other people and we are all going to try to get into the same section. I was thinking about this and noticed that the promenade box section looks like it only has a few rows based on the pictures on the website. Anyway, so I call them today to ask how many rows are in each section. As it turns out the Promenade Box has anywhere from 4 to 7 rows depending on the section and the best seats we could buy today are in section 432 which are in fair territory! I refuse to buy seats in fair territory, I hate looking at the field from that angle. Remember that we can't buy tickets till Wednesday the 10th at 10am which means even those seats will be long gone by then. If instead we were to buy Promenade Infield Reserve seats we could get section 515 which is right behind home plate. Again, we can't buy them today but we will at least be somewhere in the infield, we may be high up but I would rather be higher up than further out.

The other good thing is that the Reserve seats are only $390 a seat, $390 * 8 seats = $3120. The Mets have $3032 of our money already which means the total charge now will be $88. Mike will give me the money for his tickets since and I will have 4 seats for 15 games next year. Dad will have 2 and Mike will have 2.

I will be running a con-call on Wednesday morning so all the people from Section 17 can try and get seats together. Wish us luck...

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My fucking foot is killing me! Yesterday after my class left I (without thinking) got out of my chair to lay down while I was waiting for Elizabeth to pick me up. When I say got out of my chair I mean I stood up, no crutches, on my right foot! I know that Dr Scheffel said I could put weight on it, but I had never put all my weight on it till that moment and it really hurt. I sat with it up all night at Sara's house and slept with ice on it, this morning it felt "eh". Teaching again today make it kill again and now I'm laying on the couch at my house with my foot up and it is throbbing... I have only taken 1 percocet all day so I think I'm going to take another one or two once I'm done with this blog.

---Diversion of the Day
http://www.explosm.net/comics/166

---Thought of the Day
If you don't have a reason not to sleep with someone does that mean you should sleep with them? Do you need a reason to sleep with someone? Or is no reason not to sleep with them a good enough reason to sleep with them?

Hillary back in White House!

I am so happy that Hillary took the post of Secretary of State. I am glad to have her influence in the White House, she was my second choice for president in 2008 (first was Kuchinich). I think Barack is doing a great job of bringing people into his cabinet that will make sure that we have a very successful presidency. He is pulling both democrats and republicans into his cabinet which is going to make him more popular on both sides of the aisle.



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My foot is killing me today, it was throbbing a bit earlier. Right now, it's up on my desk trying to get the blood flowing back out of it. Dinner tonight should be fun even if I have to spend it on the couch, Sara's house is going to full tonight. Confirmed attending is - Sara, Ryan, Kevin, Kristen, me, Jessie, Lynz, John, Joe, Rowan, Anja, Rene, Libby, and Caity. Matt, Sile and Daniel are waiting to see if they can get a roofer to look at the house they want to buy, if they can't get anyone to come out tonight they will be there too.

--- Diversion of the Day
http://www.explosm.net/comics/105/

Blog Tags or Labels and a GH Throwdown!

I finished Tagging (or as Blogspot calls them Labeling) my blogs. I went back, with Jessie's help, through all of my old blogs and added labels to them. I put the labels at the bottom of the blog, what do you think of them down there? I was going to put them on one of the sides but the wrap around is annoying to me. Let me know if you want to see them on the side to see what that looks like.. My problem/concern with them being at the bottom is that they are somewhat out of the way and not really visible.

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Been playing a bunch of Guitar Hero World Tour and have been doing the singing part, I actually created a character for me when I sing which is a really neat thing that you can do with that game.. Anyway, I've been singing on Medium and have been low to mid 90s on most songs I know. Me and Jessie have been playing a career with me on guitar and her on bass and we are almost done with the first time through.. Anyone out there have this game, I would love to play over the Internet in a battle of the bands type setup. Me and Jessie will rock whoever wishes to take on the challenge! That's right bitches I am issuing a Guitar Hero World Tour Throwdown to whoever thinks they can stand up the might of me and Jessie!! ... on Medium

Break the wall!

Watching Boston Legal from tonight and holy crap!! Carl Sac brings a case against the Television Networks for discriminating against people over 50. He says that there is no quality programing targeted at people over 50 and although the people over 50 make more money and buy more CD and movies only 10% of the advertising is geared towards them. He than has possible one of the best quotes in tv history.. "All the networks want to do is skew younger, kids shows for kids. The only show un-afraid to have it's stars over 50 is Bo... Gee I can't say it, it would break the wall." The last part is said while pointing at the cameras... I love this show and really can't believe it is being cancelled.. Come on, I really hope another network picks it up...

Legend of the "Lame-Ass" Seeker

Apparently Sam Raimi wanted to make another Hercules or Zena and somehow suckered Terry Goodkind into giving him the Sword of Truth Series for his characters and for the general plot/storyline. I just finished watching the 6th episode and I'm dumbfounded at how much they are not following the storyline in the book. Terry's books were so amazing and had such great stories, I was so excited to hear that they were making a full show of the series with each season being one book. I was more happy when Terry mentioned in an interview that they were going to be filming stuff that was not shown in the books, for example stuff that they mentioned in the past was going to be filmed so that instead of just saying this or that happened they could show it. Sounds good right? The first two episodes (2 hour premier) followed the general storyline, they changed some things (most minor but one major) but I was willing to let that go because it is a new medium and obviously they need to change it up for the TV audience.

Episode three didn't have anything to do with any story that Goodkind wrote or even alluded to, it did at least have a good point about people in the mid-lands needing to trust the seeker and showing that Richard was going to need to help out people for that to happen. Major problem in episode three was that all the women in the mid-lands have long hair and people didn't instantly recognize Kahlan for being the Mother Confessor.

Episode four once again had nothing to with anything Goodkind ever wrote or alluded to. Once again all women had long hair and for some reason people recognized Richard by site but not Kahlan! One thing from the stories was mentioned but it was something that was not talked about until book three and really kinda craps on some of the big surprises later on.

Episode five was something I would have expected to see on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel but certainly NOT on a Sword of the Truth show. They are inventing magics that have no place in the Goodkind world, instead of inventing new stuff can they please focus on something that actually DID happen in the series!

So that brings us to episode six. For the fourth consecutive episode we are not going to follow anything written, remember (if you read the books) that there was only one wizard other than Zedd and he worked for the queen and princess who had the box of ordan. Apparently they decided it would be cool if there was another random wizard floating around, and this one would have a Radahan and a Quilliam! If you don't know what those are I'm not going to go into detail but the Radahan is used by the Sisters of the Light in book 2 and the Quilliam is used by the Sisters of the Dark!

Other issues with the series? Well, it's episode six and there is no mention of the Mud People who were a main part of not just the first book but a main part of four different books. They were also the people who started Richard in learning about the sword's magic. No mention of the boxes of ordan and the only mention of the Book of Counted Shadows was in episode one and two and they burned the only known copy. In every episode so far people in the mid-lands did not immediately recognize Kahlan, on more than one occasion Zedd or Richard had to say something about her being the Mother Confessor before people would pay her heed!

How many episodes am I going to watch before I give up? I don't know, I'm pretty stubborn but I know a bunch of people who gave up already and Jessie is on the verge.

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Today was my first day back at work, it was tough to go back to teaching. I had my foot not-elevated for far too long and it was really bothering me by the end of the day, it was actually bothering me around lunch-time and got worse from there. I did manage to draw on the board and everything so I don't feel I shorted the students which is good. I did leave early, because Elizabeth is my ride for most of the week and she got there at 2:30, which is good because I don't know how much longer I could have lasted with my foot.

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Got home and called Ikea to have them mail me the "missing" parts for the day bed. We had two broken 60Gb iPods, one of them had a broken drive and battery, the other one had a broken click wheel. I took them both apart today and made a working one from the parts.

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Jessie ordered the Raw Box last week from Rawvolution. We had been eating it a little at a time over the last week and finished it up tonight. One of the things we ate tonight was the French Onion Soup, it was frikkin amazing. Jessie found the recipe online and we are going to have to make it. I also would love the recipe for their raw bread (hint, hint).. :D

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We can't do anything about getting the Mets tickets till Dec 10th at 10am so that gives us time to get everyone from Section 17 together so we can try and get seats together for next year. I am going to setup a con-call on Monday morning so we can all dial into the Mets together and request our seats.

Colbert Christmas

So, I'm going through blogs to label everything. I saw the blog where I mentioned the WPA (Works Progress Administration) website and remembered that at that time their Myspace page had no songs, I figured I would check it out again now and they have three songs up now.. YAY! Check it out...

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Colbert Christmas special is amazingly funny. Watched it the other day and was pleasantly surprised by it. I went into it thinking it might be on par with the Star Wars Holiday Special but after the first few minutes I realized it was going to be good. Stephen Colbert had a bunch of new original songs written for it, they are guaranteed to be Christmas traditions. The plot of the show is that Stephen Colbert is stuck in his cottage because there is a bear outside and while he is there guest after guest come in and sing a song with him. The first guest is Toby Keith who sings his War on Christmas song "Have I got a Present for You", it's really funny but I really hope it's not supposed to be serious. Willie Nelson is the next "guest" and he sings a song called "Little Dealer Boy", I think it was one of the best of the show.

Jon Stewart was next and he sung "Can I interest you in Hanukkah", I can't believe they got Jon to sing. The other awesome song was "Nutmeg" by John Legend. After each guest They would be standing under the mistletoe and Colbert would say some awkward comment..

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Joe came over tonight and we eating pizza and going to play Rummicube. I might keep working on and off on my blog labels.