My weekend in Jacksonville

Fun with bullets...

Things I learned this weekend:

• If you win the lottery, you will spend money on coke (the powder form).
• It is perfectly acceptable on a dating game show to ask if you've seen your dad's ballsack.
• It is very important to put sunscreen on the tops of your feet. And on your lips too! movie quote time:
  Can you bring me my chapstick? my lips hurt real bad! Ugh! Idiot!
• I-16 is perhaps the most boring interstate in the US. At least the DUI checkpoint was entertaining.
• Carl is the only person amongst our group who is capable of seeing shooting stars.
• Drinking wine from a plastic cup on the beach at night isn't the worst thing in the world.
• Feeding birds should be illegal in the US, or just ban all idiots from the beach. I got shit on because some friggin foreigners kept feeding the damn seaguls.
• Jacksonville isn't a popular Memorial Day destination for seeing girls in bikins.
• Don't ever go to - or take part in - a Tijuana donkey show (I didn't, but I think Tracy or Stacey did) :)

I feel the need to expand upon the feeding of the birds lesson. I'm not exactly a regular beach go'er but I know some things. For example, typically the wind blows outward from the ocean towards the beach. So, this friggin family of foreigners - we'll call them the Retard family - sitting in front of us showed up with TONS of bread to apparently feed to the local seagulls. As soon as they start that, the entire worlds population of seagulls show up. They're all hovering over the Retard family. Now, the winds were pretty strong, so where do you think the seagulls shit lands? Nope, not on the Retards...on us. They were asked to move at least 3 times before I got a bird turd on my arm. Finally we got Papa Retard to stop, but then Junior Retard, Jr and his brothers kept going. And this is after Matt's towel was hit twice and a couple of other bombs landed amongst our group. The moral of the story...please don't ever feed seagulls when people who don't want to get shit on are around. This has been a public service announcement.

Heroes Season Finale!!!

I almost forgot!!!! Anyone else get addicted to this show? If not, you should! Its at least 24 times better than 24!

For those of you who don't watch, the DVD comes out August 28th I think, and I believe I'll actually be buying it ASAP. Lauren got me hooked about 8 episodes into the show and I haven't looked back.

Now, if you are a regular viewer, here are my thoughts about the finale:

Nobody died!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Nathan - flew Peter up into space so "the bomb" wouldn't hurt anyone, but he probably flew him up there and then flew to safety and will be back for season 2
Peter - He can regenerate, so can he even actually die?
Silar - We saw he managed to crawl away, but what power does he have to escape that one?
Parkman - Drove off in an ambulance...what an idiot, please tell me he was at least wearing a bullet-proof vest?
Hiro - I was scared for a while that maybe he tied, he's definitely my favorite character, so I'm glad they showed that he teleported to the 1600's or whatever.
Ando - Back in the office in Japan
DL - seemed to be holding on

Someday I need to get to wikipedia and read everything on there. I know there's gonna be a Heroes Spinoff coming up with 6 episodes with new characters. And then there will be a 24 episode second season. I can't wait!

Mets and Braves at it again

Haven't written anything in a while, so its time. I went to tonight's Braves-Mets game with Lauren. Just before I was about to buy the cheapest possible tickets at Turner Field, a guy pulls me aside and said "I have tickets for you". I could only think to say, no thanks, I'm just gonna buy the really cheap seats. He wouldn't take no for an answer and told me to walk out of line with him. He gave me these two tickets and they were awesome seats! I asked him what he wanted for them and he said nothing. He was sitting next to there, so he wanted to give these tickets away to a Mets fan! Lucky for me I was wearing my brand new Blue Mets David Wright t-shirt/jersey and Mets hat!!!

So that was pretty cool, these seats were just behind home plate (about two sections over towards the 3rd base side) and 19 rows up. Nice!

Oh, I forgot to mention this guys' wife! 9 months pregnant and absolutely gorgeous! Lauren agreed :) She's due next Friday and out at a baseball game! With a Mets shirt and everything! My kinda girl ;)

But as for the game, yeah, well, the Mets always lose when I go, so that was nothing new. But they lost bad, 8-1. The Braves pitcher even hit a 3run HR over the center field wall. Bad, very bad. Hopefully the next two games are a little better, and yes, I'll be there!

Why Lauren is Dumb (Case #293)

For those not in the know, Lauren is my roommate, and is better known as "failure". I've actually gotten away from calling her that, but I think its gotta make a comeback. Both of us have been struggling with allergies the last couple of weeks. It seemed like - for me anyway - that it was worse when I was on the couch. This is crucial, because the couch is the prime Mitsa viewing area (Mitsa is my 57" TV, not some girl I look at from across the street through binoculars, I don't know HER name). Now that "Failure" is car-less for a bit, she's been working from home. Something gave her the idea to work at the table in our living room. On this table was a vase with some flowers. Flowers that had been there a while. A long while. A very long while. Turns out several months worth of mold formed all up in there!!! Who knew?

The flowers are gone, and so are both of our allergy problems. Note to self, don't ever buy girls flowers...they die, grow mold and attack my nose. Not worth it!

Keep Me Away From The Set List!

As I sit here waiting for my drunk roommate to finish watching American Midol so we can start watching a movie, I thought I'd write something. I went to see the band Chevelle last night at the Roxy. Got a good spot right next to the sound and light guys. I noticed right above the sound equipment was a piece of paper with printed out song titles. I couldn't stay away. All throughout the concert I kept looking to see what song was up next and how many songs they had left. It kind of ruined the concert a little for me! I learned that its ok to be surprised by the next song. I even knew which 3 songs they were gonna play after the encore, thats no fun! After the first song after the encore he said, the norm "you have been a great crowd, how about 1 more song?" All I could think was, you lying bastard you've got 2 more songs left! And I was right.

On another note, if you get a chance to hang out near the "light guy" its pretty amazing. It seemed like every time the drummer hit any drum, the light guy would press a button to make certain lights over the stage turn on. He was going pretty damn fast!!! I was very impressed. If its not enough for him to keep pressing these different buttons, but there were so many buttons he has to know which button was for which light. It also made me wonder if that guy worked for the band or for the venue. I would guess he works for the band, because he has to memorize the beat of every song. But does the band travel around with all that equipment and the lights? Or does he use whatever lights and equipment are already at each venue. Either way, thats a tough gig! Much respect for the "light guy"!!!

Jason Zaikor and the Bowdens

First off, props to Brett Strauch for getting your people to spell my name wrong. Nice work. Kidding, of course, tonight was amazing. It was the Atlanta Seminole Club's Bowden Day 2007. Brett hooked me up with tickets, Shari bailed on me so I managed to get two replacements - Lauren (my roommate) and my old college friend, Robert Bell (hadn't seen him in FOREVER! And he wound up winning Bobby Bowden's book as a raffle prize!). Anyways, what it is is, Bobby Bowden during the offseason goes on tours - mainly in Florida - and speaks on behalf of the local Seminole Club. This year, Terry Bowden and Warrick Dunn were there too. Terry spoke for a while. He finally told us why he got out of broadcasting...while being a sportscaster, you have to stay neutral, you can't root for any certain teams. Well, he said he couldn't do it anymore, he HATES the Gayturds (my spelling, not his). Of course that got a pretty good laugh out of the crowd.

Bobby began his speech and told a story of a Thanksgiving in their house. He told all his kids (6 of em) that he wasn't thankful this year, he had not yet gotten any grandchildren. He announced to his kids (all married with their spouses in attendance) that he was putting $100,000 into a trust fund and his first grandchild would get it. Bobby said that before he got his head up, all of his kids and their spouses took off :)

Later on, they had a question and answer portion. Someone stole my question from last year (which national championship ring do you value more and which do you wear? - neither, he wears a ring Burt Reynolds gave him. the national championship rings are too heavy!) So I had to come up with SOMETHING to ask him this year. I did, but first, a guy asked how he felt about playing Alabama this year. He said, he didn't want it...he wanted Middle Tennessee State :) Bobby grew up an Alabama fan. But the problem now is too many ticket requests :)

He then said he had time for one more question (Terry Bowden was going around the room with the microphone) I raised my hand, Bobby looked at me, but Terry found someone else. I did my "awww shucks" move with my arms and Bobby said we had time for 2 more - to get me in!!!

So Terry came over to me, and I grabbed the mic..."Well, I was gonna ask for Alabama tickets but I guess I won't now - pause for laughter - My question is, does the unfortunate success of the Florida Gayturd program motivate you or do you just take it as a fluke, like the rest of us do?" - Pause for more laughter. Terry Bowden tapped me on my back and said "I like this guy!"

Bobby had a good comeback of course...he said, not really, I can only think..."What took them so long? We got our second championship in 1999, and it took them, what, 8 years?"

4 more months to kickoff!!!!

PS - Everyone say a little prayer for Lauren's car, which should now be called "Failure, Jr."...which basically melted today on I-75. Seriously, everything under the hood apparently needs to be replaced!!!