Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Why I NEVER leave sporting events early

First off, I wasn't actually at this game, but its a game I would've stayed til the end no matter what, and its why I do that. It all goes back to the 1980's when I went to a Mets game with my family. The Mets won the game in extra innings on a Howard Johnson walk off home run. Where was I? In the parking lot! I missed it! Don't worry, I never let my dad hear the end of that :) Alright, let me set the scene from tonight:

Washington Nationals 10, N.Y. Mets 3, Bottom 9th
- Paul Lo Duca singled to right
- David Newhan pinch hit for Aaron Sele
- David Newhan struck out swinging (1 out)
- Carlos Gomez walked, Paul Lo Duca to second
- Jose Reyes homered to deep right, Paul Lo Duca and Carlos Gomez scored (Nationals 10, Mets 6)
- Luis Castillo singled to left
- Chad Cordero relieved Jesus Colome
- David Wright singled to right, Luis Castillo to second
- Carlos Beltran walked, Luis Castillo to third, David Wright to second
- Moises Alou doubled to deep right, Luis Castillo, Carlos Beltran and David Wright scored (Nationals 10, Mets 9)
- Jon Rauch relieved Chad Cordero
- Endy Chavez ran for Moises Alou
- Carlos Delgado struck out swinging, Endy Chavez stole third (2 outs)
- Paul Lo Duca flied out to right (3 outs)


So, no happy ending this time, but that was as close to the biggest 9th inning comeback as any I'd ever witnessed! And it just goes to show...you never know whats gonna happen and its why I will never leave a game early!!!

Monday, September 24, 2007

Why I'm Dumb (Part 291)

So, I'm sure you've been following the case of the missing j-pod for the last few days. If you're not, shame on you, read below!

To recap:
Thursday, 5pm - As I'm leavin work, I'm panicking because I can't find my ipod. Thinking that maybe I left it in my car or at home, I leave, since I had a concert to get to that night.
Thursday 5:05pm - IPod is NOT in my car. Shit.
Thursday 11:30pm - IPod in NOT in my house. Not anywhere I'd normally leave it anyways.
Friday 8:35am - IPod is NOT by my desk, I looked everywhere. I figured maybe I just needed to look more at home.
Saturday 9pm - search complete. No Ipod
Saturday 9:15pm - Wow, what a deal I found on ebay! A 4 month old 80gig ipod with 18,000 songs, an itrip and a case for $200!!! Bidding would last until 11am Sunday.
Sunday 10:55am - Aw jeez, other people are last minute bidding on this thing.
Sunday 11am - I wind up winning the bidding for $244.
Sunday 11:05am - I realized I could get expedited shipping for just $5 more! Woohoo! I'm going out of town this weekend, I need it ASAP!
Monday 11:30am - My work-friend Joan (who was off on Friday) came to my desk. She said within 2 minutes she found my ipod without even moving anything around. But she wouldn't tell me where! She went back to her desk and after several emails yelling at her she told me where to look and wouldn't you know...there it is. I find my ipod.

Joan swears to me that she didn't put it there. I'm still skeptical. Somebody put it there! Anyways, so now within a few days I'm gonna have 2 ipods. I'm pretty confident that I'd be able to put it right back on ebay and sell it, possibly for even more than what I bought it for, but I don't know. I've never sold anything on there and people probably won't like the fact that I have very little "feedback" (ebay's rating system).

Oh well, now I gotta figure out which punk-ass friend of mine at work is playing cruel tricks on me!?!?!?!?

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Premiere Week!

I had a pretty relaxing weekend. Saturday was the bulk of Yom Kippur, so I was fasting, and watching college football all day. Then went out to the Brick Store Saturday night (no, they don't sell bricks...they sell beer!). We sat outside and it was really nice out. We had a good view of a small wreck. A car was pulling out of a spot and nicked a Yukon parked next to it. Left a dent in the corner of the rear bumper. We thought at first they were gonna leave, but they left a note with their contact info. Some nosy people went and looked, then we convinced them to put the license plate on the note. The guy who's car it was came out alot later and didn't really seem to care. Weird.

Anyways, busy week coming up! Tomorrow is all you can eat chicken nuggets at the ChicFilA in Marietta. I was dumb enough to eat 30 of those damn things last time. And of course I regretted it, but I'll probably do it again :)

Other than that, I have to say, thank G-D for my DVR!

Monday:
8-8:30pm - How I Met Your Mother (CBS) Season 3 season premiere!
8:30-9pm - The Big Bang Theory (CBS) New show, its got some people I recognize, gonna give it a shot.
8-9pm - Chuck (NBC) New show, looks good, we'll see?
9-10pm - HEROES!!!! (NBC) Season 2 (whatever happened to the Heroes:Origins show?
9:30-10pm - Rules of Engagement (CBS) Season 2 - Puddy from Seinfeld makes this show too funny!
And of course...Monday Night Football (ESPN) - Saints-Titans. What to do????
Oh, and at 12:35am - Late Night With Conan O'Brien (NBC) - The Season Premiere of Pale Force (starring Jim Gaffigan)

Tuesday is all quiet in TV land. But there's a preseason Thrashers game at Philips!!!! I don't think Matt can go, so I may have to search for someone else to go with...

Wednesday is also quiet, there's a new show with Frasier - Back to You - where he's a news anchor. We'll see how that works. Outside of TV-land, Wednesday is sweetwater and then Improv in the Park.

Thursday picks up again.
8-9pm Survivor:China (CBS) (premiere was last week and kinda slow)
8-9pm My Name is Earl (NBC) Season premiere
9-10pm The Office (NBC) season premiere

Then Friday I'm off to Jersey for what should be the last Bar Mitzvah in my family for at least 13 years!!!!

So, updating an earlier story...my ipod is not here. Its not in my car. And its not at my desk. Its gone. I'm pissed. But, I was playing around on ebay this morning and found an 80 gig ipod ($250 value) and an itrip ($70 value) that comes with 18,000!!! songs on it. It was $200, the bidding wound up going up to $244 but I'm happy. Hopefully I get it before Friday!!!!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Missing persons, errr item report

Missing: 1 black I-Pod (aka - J-Pod). Last seen: in my shorts pocket on the night of Wednesday September 19th.

Ughhhhhh, I'm hoping it turns up somewhere, but I'm not happy. I can't remember for sure, but I'm almost positive I brought it with me to work Thursday (I always do). But I can't remember for the life of me seeing it at work yesterday. I definitely didn't bring it with me when I went for lunch and by the time I was ready to leave after work, I starting worrying. It wasn't on my desk (yeah, yeah, thats dumb, I shouldn't leave valuables out like that. I'm not saying that someone stole it. I hope not. I just recently added my 3,000th (THOUSANDTHHHH) song to it. Its engraved on the back, so its not like someone can claim its theirs!!!! I just hope it somehow got buried at my house somehow, but I kinda doubt it. I'm starting to think it was taken from my desk. Not sure how I'm supposed to handle that.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Wednesday Night Fun - Improv in the Park

Haha, I tricked you into coming to my blog again! (or for the first time?)
So, improv in the park kinda snuck up on me! As most of you know, Wednesdays are very special to me. I spend every Wednesday that I can at Sweetwater drinking beer (mmmmmm, beer!). That goes from 5:30-7:30. Its $8, you get to keep a pint glass and 6 free beers (6oz each).

So, thats pretty much EVERY Wednesday.

Now, for the next THREE Wednesdays, Improv in the Park returns. Its 100% free.
Piedmont Park's website:

Improv in the Park - Piedmont Park Conservancy and Travel Girl Magazine welcome
back the 4th Annual presentation of Improv in the Park. Join us as our friends
at Whole World Theatre bring three free nights of hilarious comedy to Piedmont
Park, September 19 and 26, and October 3. Shows start at 8:00 pm in the Meadow,
located near 10th Street and Monroe Drive. For more information visit
www.wholeworldtheatre.com.

From Whole World, via myspace:

The next three Wednesdays is Improv in the Park. Join Whole World Improv Theatre
and Dad's Garage as we provide two hours of FREE improv comedy on the Meadow of
Improv in the Park, located near the 10th Street/Charles Allen gate. Sweetwater
Brewery will be on tap and so will Plant Smoothie beverages. The weather could
not be better so come on out tomorrow night for the 1st Improv in the Park of
2007.

So thats always alot of fun, and it sounds like that crappy third improv group is gone. So, thats that. Plenty of sweetwater for everyone all night!!!! See you there?

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

ATL Noise: Volume 5, Issue 1

I'm moving this over to my blog, forcing some of you people to look at it :)

To recap, this is a list of some upcoming concerts in Atlanta. If any of you wanna go to any of these shows, let me know. I bolded the ones I REALLY want to go to...I don't necessarilly want to go to ALL of these, some I already know I can't make, but threw em out there anyways...enjoy!

Wed 09/12/07 Meat Puppets; The EARL ($15; 9pm)
Wed 09/12/07 Morning State; The EARL
Wed 09/12/07 The Comas; The EARL

Wed 09/12/07 Peter Bjorn And John; Variety Playhouse ($20; 8:30pm)
Wed 09/12/07 The Clientele; Variety Playhouse

Thu 09/13/07 Queensryche; Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre
Thu 09/13/07 Ultradrive; Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre

Thu 09/20/07 Blue October; The Masquerade ($35; 7pm)
Thu 09/20/07 Yellowcard; The Masquerade
Thu 09/20/07 Shiny Toy Guns; The Masquerade
Thu 09/20/07 Ozma; The Masquerade

Fri 09/21/07 Interpol; Tabernacle ($32.50; 8pm) Damnit, can't make this one :(
Fri 09/21/07 Liars; Tabernacle

Sat 09/22/07 Queens of the Stoneage; Tabernacle ($30; 8pm)

Wed 09/26/07 Puddle Of Mudd; Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre ($25; 8pm)

Thu 09/27/07 Dropkick Murphys; Masquerade ($22.50; 8pm) (They sing The Departed theme)

Wed 10/03/07 Alice In Chains; HiFi Buys Amphitheatre ($30 lawn; 7:30pm)
Wed 10/03/07 Velvet Revolver; HiFi Buys Amphitheatre
Wed 10/03/07 Sparta; HiFi Buys Amphitheatre

Thu 10/04/07 Foo Fighters; Tabernacle ($38.50; 8pm)
Thu 10/04/07 Silversun Pickups; Tabernacle

Tue 10/09/07 Kings Of Leon; Fox Theatre ($30.50; 8pm)
Tue 10/09/07 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (B.R.M.C.); Fox Theatre

Sat 10/13/07 Daughtry; Georgia National Fair

Sat 10/13/07 The Donnas; The EARL ($13; 9:30pm)
Sat 10/13/07 Donita Sparks; The EARL
Sat 10/13/07 American Bang; The EARL

Sat 10/13/07 Cypress Hill; The Echo Project, Fairburn, GA
Sat 10/13/07 The Flaming Lips; The Echo Project, Fairburn, GA
Sat 10/13/07 The Killers; The Echo Project, Fairburn, GA
Sat 10/13/07 moe.; The Echo Project, Fairburn, GA

Sun 10/14/07 The Bravery; The Echo Project, Fairburn, GA
Sun 10/14/07 The Roots; The Echo Project, Fairburn, GA

Wed 10/17/07 The Shins; Atlanta Civic Ctr. Theatre ($31; 8pm)

Wed 10/17/07 Hot Hot Heat; Center Stage ($14; 8pm)
Wed 10/17/07 Bedouin Soundclash; Center Stage
Wed 10/17/07 De Novo Dahl; Center Stage

Sat 10/20/07 Kid Rock; Tabernacle ($41.50; 9pm)

Sat 10/20/07 The Whigs; Variety Playhouse
Sat 10/20/07 Jason Isbell; Variety Playhouse
Sat 10/20/07 Trances Arc; Variety Playhouse

Wed 10/24/07 Maroon 5; The Arena At Gwinnett Center
Wed 10/24/07 The Hives; The Arena At Gwinnett Center

Mon 10/29/07 She Wants Revenge; The Loft At Center Stage
Mon 10/29/07 Kenna; The Loft At Center Stage
Mon 10/29/07 The State; The Loft At Center Stage

Tue 10/30/07 Smashing Pumpkins; Fox Theatre - Sold Out

Wed 10/31/07 Smashing Pumpkins; Fox Theatre (Sold Out - I got my ticket! Ok, well, Josh has my ticket, technically)
Wed 10/31/07 Explosions In The Sky; Fox Theatre

Wed 10/31/07 Badfish - Trib. to Sublime; The Masquerade

Fri 11/02/07 They Might Be Giants; Variety Playhouse (My Birthday Present!!!!!)

Sat 11/03/07 Fall Out Boy; The Arena At Gwinnett Center
Sat 11/03/07 Gym Class Heroes; The Arena At Gwinnett Center
Sat 11/03/07 Plain White T's; The Arena At Gwinnett Center

Sat 11/10/07 Michael Bolton; Aquarium (Seriously? The Guy from Office Space? Awesome!)

Tue 11/13/07 Ani DiFranco; Variety Playhouse

Wed 11/14/07 Tori Amos; Fox Theatre ($31.50; 8pm)

Sat 11/17/07 Three Days Grace; Tabernacle ($27) - I don't REALLY need to be at my sisters wedding, do I? :(

Tue 11/20/07 Coheed and Cambria; Tabernacle ($27; 7:30pm)
Tue 11/20/07 The Fall of Troy; Tabernacle

Wed 11/21/07 Brand New; Tabernacle ($23.50)
Wed 11/21/07 Thrice; Tabernacle
Wed 11/21/07 mewithoutyou; Tabernacle

Tue 11/27/07 Kelly Clarkson; Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre

Friday, September 7, 2007

Without further uh-dew...Brian's Bachelor Party

Ok, so I didn't feel like looking up the spelling of "adieu" (spell check works in here apparently!). Brian's (my sisters' fiancé) bachelor party was actually almost two weeks ago, and I'm just now getting to this blog. Sorry folks, been busy. Seriously, I have been!

Alright, so last we left off I was bitching about my delayed flights for the weekend. The quick recap is that Friday I was flying up to Washington DC for this event and my flight got delayed about 2 hours. I was sure I was gonna miss out on Friday nights' festivities (in Baltimore) but luckily Brian's friends Anand & Emory wound up waiting around DC to take me to Baltimore. I'm still very greatful to them! (And if they ever actually checked myspace, I'd be at 100 friends right now! C'mon guys!!!) :)

So we drive to Baltimore, get to the hotel, which was RIGHT across the street from Camden Yards. Go up to the room - a suite! Get changed and find a cab to the bar. A lesson I learned is to never compliment a cab driver on his "system". Anand did. He blasted some garbage christian reggae sounding music through the stereo. I haven't fully recovered. After what seemed like alot of zig-zag driving through some streets, we got to area with all the bars and found Brian and friends. I have no idea the names of any of these bars, so don't ask. The first bar was kind of small, but it was a pretty cool environment. I remember getting a couple of beers, along with 2 shots that some of the other guys bought for everyone. Good start! This bar had some - I could only describe as - holes in the floor. You could see downstairs. No one was down there, I don't even know how you'd get down there, but you could see that it existed. I think we talked a couple of girls into believing that we were scouting the place out from downstairs. All I really remember about these girls is that they were from Michigan, and Brian used his hand as a map to show where in Michigan. And one of em lived in Atlanta for a while. Oh, another highlight from that place, I was on my way to the bathroom, and I didn't realize there was a line. Some guy pulled me out of line and said no FSU fans were allowed in there! I totally thought it was a random guy messing with me (I had my FSU hat on). I didn't realize it until about an hour later, but it was Brian's friend Andy. Oops, I'm an idiot. From there...onto bar #2. These girls wound up going with us, still not really sure why, but we are pretty cool guys of course! I liked the next bar more, it had an upstairs where we actually had room to breathe. At one point I went to the bar and got 4 beers and a water. Walking back to the group was tricky. I had 2 drinks in each hand, and mine was in my mouth, being held on by my teeth (plastic cups, Courtney wouldn't approve!). With that, its not like I could tap people's shoulder to say excuse me...and with my beer in my mouth I couldn't say excuse me either! It was probably alot more impressive in my mind when I picture it. But I made it back to the crowd. I - amongst others - drank way too much Friday night. But I needed it. That flight almost killed me and my night, but I overcame :) At about 1:45 they began kicking people out of the bar - 1:45!!!! Lame! Anyways, we left. I somehow talked myself into walking back to the hotel with Brian and Andy while everyone else got cabs. I was pretty drunk at this point, I just remember coming across a church that had a funny sign outside. For the life of me I can't remember what it said. But I remember trying to walk up to it to take a picture with my phone. I tried a couple of times, I remember it being blurry. Eventually I realized that it probably looked like I was taking a piss in the bushes. I wasn't! I swear! So I gave up on the sign. And eventually caught up to Brian and Andy and back to the hotel we staggered. We had two rooms in the hotel, a suite - on the 7th floor, and another regular room on the 5th floor. Someone needed to go to the 5th floor - and got their own bed - so I volunteered. I somehow actually found the room - only because the door was cracked a little. And plopped in the empty bed and that was the end of day 1.

Day 2 began pretty rough. I never did have dinner Friday, which also explains why I felt like sh!t. As if 7 beers and 2 shots wasn't enough, but I never ate anything! I think I actually started eating a hot pocket before I went to sleep, but it was pretty nasty. Anyways, woke up and had about 10 minutes to get ready to go to the baseball museum attached to Camden Yards. The museum was pretty cool, aside from the fact that I almost puked. It had pretty much the entire history of sports in Maryland. I didn't even know that Babe Ruth was born there. They had a really cool room that was a replica locker room where there were some uniforms - with pads - for anyone to try on. Obviously its against everything I believe in to wear a UMaryland football jersey, or a Baltimore Ravens jersey, so I tried on a Navy football jersey instead and went oneon one with Andy - Ravens jersey. Andy also was brave and tried on the Maryland jersey. I thought I looked pretty damn good in that thing. Although it was kinda tight. You'd think a jersey with the number 62 on it would be big!


Brian and I took turns in the huddle

They had another cool thing at this museum, where you got to be a play by play announcer for some famous sporting events. Brian's friend Brett - a huge Maryland fan - did the play by play of the Maryland-UNC-Wilmington game from the NCAA tournament a few years ago, where Maryland won on a buzzer beater. Brian did a homerun call of a Cal Ripken HR. I tried to be funny and also did the Ripken HR call but when he actually hit the ball I just said strike 2, as if it never happened. It was funny in my head anyways!

Later Saturday night we were going to the Minnesota Twins vs. Baltimore Orioles game. I was looking forward to it, never been to a game there...and someday I want to be able to say that I've been to a game at every stadium in the country - it's gonna be a while, I've only been to 6 (Mets, Yankees, Marlins, Devil Rays, Braves, Orioles). 24 to go! And in 2 years the Mets & Yankees get new stadiums, so I'll have even more travelling to do! Anyways, I still wasn't in any kind of mood to be drinking anything, so I just hung out with everyone as we tailgated before the game. It was a pretty cool environment. Unlike Braves games that I'm used to, the stadium is actually in a decent area, there are a couple of bars and just a bunch of people hanging out outside the stadium. Including this cool guy in a Ray Lewis jersey that said "Killer" instead of "Lewis" hahahaha. There was a table setup outside one of the bars for beer pong. An actual beer pong table! Awesome! I'm still new to the beer pong scene, but some of the guys who were playing were TERRIBLE! It's not supposed to take 45 minutes to finish a game. i was able to finish off my grandma in about 10 minutes a few weeks ago :)

So, after the pregame festivities, we finally make our way into the stadium, when all of a sudden the skies start to look reaaaaalllllllll bad. They were in the middle of inducting B.J. Surhoff into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame when the rain began. Luckily our seats were below the overhang to the 2nd deck, so we stayed dry. But it POURED! We were all amazed by all the steps involved in getting the tarp onto the field. They even put the tarp over the podium where the speeches were going on before the game.

I didn't get a picture, but I think the highlight of the night was that a bachelorette party had seats RIGHT behind us. The part that was amusing - to us anyways - was that there is no way these girls were older than 18. I may not be good with age, and I thought they all looked like they were about 14 or so. It was bad! I think one of the guys in our group got on their nerves a little and they finally left. We thought that they were going home because of curfew reasons, but turns out they stayed and sat in another section.

The game was delayed about 2 hours because of the rain and finally started at about 9pm. Thats Anand pictured on the left. Absolutely couldn't stay awake. And guess what...later in the game...he got a foul ball. And after much peer pressure - alledgedly he wanted to give the ball to Brian - he wound up giving it to a little kid. I know thats the right thing to do, but I really would be hard pressed not to keep a foul ball. Those kinds of things just don't happen too often. Kids would appreciate it for a minute then couldn't care less afterwards. But, whatever, Anand got a mini-standing ovation from the crowd. I guess that makes it worth it.

As for the actual game, it was fun. Ironically, a guy named Liz was pitching for Baltimore. He threw nothing but 96 mile an hour fastballs in the first two innings. He finally threw an 86 MPH pitch at the end of the 2nd inning. I'm not exactly a fan of either team, but Torii Hunter from the Minnesota Twins is on my fantasy baseball team, so I was trying to get an action picture of him while he was hitting. I did...but I was a fraction of a second too quick. I got a good picture on the left, but that very pitch he hit a 3 run HR. I was so close!!!
Knowing that bars closed kinda early in Baltimore, we left the game in about the 7th inning - the Twins won 8-1 - and went back to the hotel and changed. Like any bachelor party, traditi0n seems to dictate that you've gotta go to a strip club. We did, and thats all I'm gonna say about that :)
So thats about it. All in all it was alot of fun. Since I have so many girl-friends in Atlanta, it was nice getting to hang out with the guys for once!

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Jimmy Kimmel Live

Just recently, Atlanta finally was given the priveladge of being able to see Jimmy Kimmel Live. And I friggin love it. I tivo it every night and make sure I at least watch the monologue. Its hilarious. I'm gonna attempt to post a few video clips that were on youtube...

This first one is a clip of The Bourne Supremecy. the real fun starts about 2 minutes in...


Here's another clip where Jimmy Kimmel tries to rationalize why the Miss Teen South Carolina said what she did...


And finally, the best of "Unecessary Censorship" (remember, the key here is unecessary)