Weezer-i-oke

This past Saturday I went with some friends to go see Angels & Airwaves and Weezer at The Arena At Gwinnett Center. Angels & Airwaves were really good, but they only played about 6 songs or so! When they left the stage I could've sworn lead singer Tom DeLonge said, "we'll be back in a minute to rock the roof off this place". Well, I guess I heard wrong, at that point I was kinda expecting the band to come back out and play some more. No such luck.

They took the stage down and eventually out came Weezer. This was easily a top 5, maybe even top 3 concert I've been to. And I've been to a lot of em! (That's not even updated).

Here's a video of a guitar solo and then me kariokeing (is that a word?) along to the Sweater Song...(sorry for the bouncy camera, I'm no pro)

Here's the set list...

Now this may have been the coolest thing I've EVER witnessed at a concert. A local radio station, I assume 96.7 The Buzz (is 99x still trying the online thing?) held a contest to have a few musicians auditions to take part in a song during the concert. Well, they managed to get about 30-40 people on stage during the songs "Island in the Sun" and "Beverly Hills" (I'm pissed that my camera died, no more videos and I had to jack other peoples' pictures. They had a ton of different instruments on stage including guitars, drums, a bassoon?, cello, trumpet, saxophone, and even a tap dancer, who got the most love from the band - even a hug from Weezer lead singer Rivers Cuomo.

Matching outfits! They all wore white first, then stripped those off into the red track suits in the video above.

Congrats to the Ralls'

Riley Anne Ralls (formerly known as Eggbert) was born at 11:34pm on Friday October 17th, 2008. I am (un)officially an uncle!!!!

Typically I am not a big fan of kids but I've been friends with Jason (and eventually Tara) for a long time and I'm very excited for them. In fact, I was over at their house Thursday night, trying to setup their wireless modem when Tara said she hoped that she would be in the 5% that actually have their baby on time (Riley was due on Saturday). Maybe five minutes later, she followed that up with ... "my water broke!" I'm half surprised I didn't run out the front door and all the way back to my place to hide, but I didn't. I was legitimately excited for them. Weird!

I went with Tracy, Kim and Michael to visit them at the hospital on Saturday...pictures soon to come...including my kick ass baby gift for Tara mainly, not so much for the baby :)

Jason, the proud new daddy of a conehead :)

Aunt Tracy actually looks like she knows what she's doing. Or at least she looks happy!

As for me, I'm kinda wingin it!

Kim is so good at this she looks bored

And here is my gift to them. Tara actually requested that I brough her beer in the hospital, but this is clearly the next best thing...

And with Tracy's assistance the labels really came out AWESOME!

"Welcome Riley
Love, Uncle J
Bottom's Up"

Thrashers "Unleash" New Third Jerseys

At tonight's Face-Off event, the Atlanta Thrashers unveiled their third / alternate jerseys. And, uhhhhhh, I don't like them...at all. To me they look like basketball jerseys. In fact, here's a quote from someone on a message board,

"That third jersey's got to be one of the ugliest jerseys in sports. It's a
Hawks jersey with long sleeves!"

That's probably about as accurate as I could come up with. They're gonna wear these things at 14 (of 41) home games this year, starting with the game on November 14th.

Here are some pictures. The numbers on the front of the jerseys are NOT normally supposed to be that big:

They kinda look a little more tolerable from behind...

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Wow, it gets worse! You know its bad when ESPN is talking about how bad our new third jerseys are!

Let's hear it for the Thrashers, who've set a new standard for bad design with their new alternate uniform. The massive chest number belongs in the NBA, the shoulder logo belongs on a San Diego Chargers jersey, and the socks belong back on the drawing board. Additional photos here, if you dare, and here's a schedule of when this uniform will be worn, so you can make other plans for those dates.

My biggest problem, beside the huge numbers on the front, is that the theme for home games is "Believe in Blueland". Anyone see a problem there???

Praying for Rain...Worked!

No, this has nothing to do with the drought!

Of course, I'm talking about kickball!!!! I think the thing I was most excited about when I started my own kickball team was the chance to have my team play against my old team. Before the schedules were released, we emailed the league and requested them to schedule our teams against each other. Well, originally the schedule came out and they didn't schedule it. We emailed the league again...and they changed the schedule so that we would play each other.

One catch. They scheduled the game for Wed. Oct 8, 2008. On Yom Kippur. (Probably the most important Jewish holiday of them all). So I knew I wasn't going to be able to play. I was pissed!!! But I knew there was only one thing to do, and I did...I prayed for rain.

Given the fact that it NEVER rains in Atlanta anymore, I wasn't exactly optimistic about this one. But I woke up this morning and noticed something odd was falling from the sky. Turns out it was RAIN!!!!! It's been a while since I've witnessed it! So, apparently God was listening to me...and tonight's games have been postponed!!!!! I'm literally giddy right now. If there's one thing I learned from all of this it's that kickball is probably way too important in my life right now, but I love it!!!!! :)

And while I'm complaining about bad scheduling, I'm also pissed off that the Atlanta Thrashers scheduled the 2008 Face Off Event (a meet & greet with all the players) for tonight! WTF???? I think I've been to that the last two years and it was a really great event! The newest Thrasher, Mathieu Schneider is Jewish, I wonder if he'll be participating?

Fantasy Baseball Bragging

Warning - dorky post ahead!

For several years now, my favorite fantasy game has been The Sporting News Ultimate games. They're setup like the stock market, where each Major League baseball player is given an IPO price at the beginning of the season, and based on how they do, their price goes up or down as they get bought or sold by those playing the game. So the more money you have, the better players you can afford. Anyways, the season ended this week, and, unlike my Mets, I finished on a high note!

Out of 7,902 entries, I finished 12th! A lot of people (including me) have multiple entries, and each entrant is only allowed 1 prize, so finishing 12th actually meant I actually finished in 5th place! $500!!!!! Woohoooo!!!!!

Why I'm Dumb (Part 296)

After last night's 12-3 (I think?) kickball loss, we all headed to the bar. I was pretty hungry at this point, but I didn't want just a plain bar burger. So I saw a burger on the menu that was a "Black Bean Burger". In my head, I'm thinking its a burger with black beans and a corn salsa on top. That's different. It never occurred to me, but when the waitress didn't ask me how I wanted my burger cooked...I should've known. It was a meat-less burger!!!!!!! I'm such an IDIOT!!!!!!