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Flashback time: The year is 1990

January 11, 2008
Skid Row

Skid Row

After work tonight I stopped off at the bar to have a beer with Carl. We hung out and chatted for a bit and then I headed home for some dinner. When I got home the family had decided they wanted In ‘n Out Burger for dinner. I jumped in the car with Chris and we headed out. We hit the drive-thru and were on our way home in no time.

As we cruised down Warm Springs we saw the marquee in front of Sunset Station that read: Skid Row 8 PM tonight. I turned to Chris and said, “Do you wanna go?” Of course she wanted to go.

We returned to the house, ate dinner and got dressed to go. We arrived at the casino around 7:40. We walked over to the club and tried to purchase 2 tickets. “Sorry, they’re sold out.”

WTF?? How could they be sold out?

Luckily my wife works with one of the guys works at the club. We gave him a call and he was able to score us a couple tickets. Sweet.

We headed in the show started only a few minutes later. They played all the old Skid Row faves; Monkey Business, Slave to the Grind, 18 and Life, I Remember You (a more rockin’ version of it), Get the Fuck Out and they finished with Youth Gone Wild. From start to finish they were on stage about 75 minutes.

The original lead singer is long gone. The current singer says he’s been with the band 9 years. I’m not exactly sure how that happened. I don’t think he was all that good. Regardless, we had a great time and it was cheaper than going to a movie.

I have a soft spot in my heart for hair metal bands. I love the music. I can go and sing along with most of ‘em. But Skid Row was one of my favorites back in the day. It was great to see them still out making music and rockin’ it like it’s the early 90′s again.

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: ,

Rock Band and the Downloadable Content

January 9, 2008
Rock Band Drums

I sure love the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). At first I was a bit bummed out that, even though it’s taking place in my backyard, I’m not attending. But then, by mid-day yesterday there were enough blog reports of new goodies to send a gadget junkie like myself in to an orgasmic coma. No less than 10 people sent me a link to the Alienware Curved LCD Monitor that was announced.

Today I was passed a link to a new set of prototype drums for the game Rock Band.

Rock Band Drums

While the drums certainly look awesome, I see two major issues why I could never own them. First, they look like they’ll be expensive. Second, where the hell would I put those? Unless I plan on converting my living room in to Rock Band Central 24/7, I think I’ll have to just pass on these. But, they sure look awesome!

Speaking of Rock Band, yesterday I went on to xBox Live and downloaded some of the extra tracks they made available for download. I grabbed the Metallica Pack (3 songs: Blackened, And Justice for All, Ride the Lightening), the Black Sabbath Pack (3 songs: N.I.B., Sweat Leaf, War Pigs) and Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast. The Maiden song is a lot of fun to play on drums. I’ve found that to be true of all the Iron Maiden songs so far. I would love to have a bunch more Iron Maiden content available. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

After waiting a while for the songs to download, I finally got to play the Metallica songs. First I played Blackened on Medium. Holy crap! That song was hard. I got 4 stars, but there was a section where I wasn’t sure I was going to pass the song. I played the other two songs and got 5 stars on each. I then went back and 5 starred Blackened as well. I have no idea what those songs are going to be like on the Hard level, but I can see myself failing them a few times before being able to beat them.

If you have Rock Band and xBox 360, you gotta go grab the Metallica songs. They are awesome to play and a definite challenge. Tonight I’ll try them on hard and see how well that goes…

Filed Under: Entertainment Tagged With: ,

Speed Links: 1/8/08

January 8, 2008

The following are a few sites I’ve run across lately that I thought some of you might like:

Waiter Rant
This is a blog written by a waiter in a high end restaurant in the NYC area. The guy is a great writer and his stories are quite funny. He was recently nominated for the 2007 Reader’s Choice award for Funniest Blog. After reading several posts over the past couple days, it’s clear to me that he’s definitely worthy of the award.

Eventful
While looking at the tour dates page for a band I’d like to see come to Vegas, I was presented with a banner that said “Want to see this band in Las Vegas? Demand it!” By clicking the link you are letting the band know that somebody in your city wants to see them. They can then use that information to find out where their fans are the most passionate about seeing them. Brilliant.

Flock
“The Social Web Browser” is how they describe their product. This is a free browser available for Mac, PC or Linux that integrates all most of your social media sites in one place. It saves your logins for the different sites and then you have the ability to drag/drop links or photos to your friends, post directly to your blogs, read all your RSS feeds and much much more. I’ve messed with it a bit over the past few weeks. If you spend a decent amount of time on social networks, you are going to love this browser.

That’s it for now. More later.

Filed Under: General

Not exactly how I wanted to start the new year

January 7, 2008
Police Bike in Mirror

Police Bike in Mirror

This morning on my way to work I got pulled over for speeding. Apparently I was doing 28 MPH in a 15 MPH school zone. The crazy part is, I drive through that same school zone every day on my way to work. I’m a bit of a speed Nazi when it comes to school zones. So, I must have totally just spaced out this morning as I was driving through that area. The motorcycle officer didn’t pull me over right away. I was at least a mile away before he pulled up behind me at a stop light. I saw him in my rear view mirror and didn’t give it a second thought. Then, the light turns green and on went his lights. My jaw must have dropped open. I had zero idea why he was pulling me over. But, if he says I was speeding, I was probably speeding.

Care to guess what it costs to be pulled over for doing 28 in a 15 (school zone)? If you guessed $297, you’d be right. Ouch. That stings.

I was trying to remember back to when the last time I had been pulled over was. Well, I was pulled over a few months back for an expired registration, but didn’t get a ticket. But, the last time I got a moving violation was more than 10 years, and probably more like 15 years ago.

Man that sucked.

Filed Under: Ranting Tagged With: , ,

Fairly lazy weekend

January 6, 2008

This was a pretty low-key weekend. I don’t think I’m fully recovered after being sick last week. My energy has been totally zapped. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal in a day or two.

Saturday morning I went and played poker at Nevada Palace with a buddy. We had a last longer bet in the tournament with the loser buying lunch. I’m happy to say that I really enjoyed the lunch he bought me. Unfortunately I can’t say that I made any money in the tourney, though.

Saturday night was our monthly home poker tourney. I was only expecting to see about 10 people show up, but we ended up having 16 players. Not to shabby. Unfortunately (again) I didn’t make it in to the money in that tourney either. That doesn’t really bother me, but, the fact that I played really, really poorly does bother me a bit. There were times when I pretty much just gave up on playing for the money in the pot and didn’t stick with my normal attacking style. I’m sure if I had stuck to my normal style I would have at least done better than I ended up doing. Ahh well, there’s always next month…

This morning we woke up way too early. 5:30 to be exact. Today was the first day back with the Road Runners training group. Our buddy (and massage therapist) Dave is joining us for training, too. Today was mainly about getting signed up and just getting out for a little exercise. We ended up doing about a 40 minute walk. We jogged the last 5 minutes or so. I’m glad to be getting back out there for some exercise, but it was a little too cold and windy for my liking today. To figure out what our training schedule is going to be, we need to decide on a race to use as a target. We may use the Disney Half Marathon as our target.

After the walk we came home and took a 2 hour nap. Then, Dave came over and Chris and I both got massages. I really needed one. My back has been a bit of a mess lately and he really helped relieve the pain. While Chris was getting her massage, I slept for another 45 minutes. We then got up and had some lunch. I followed up lunch with another 2 hour nap.

This evening we were looking for something to watch on TV. Last week I Tivo’d the movie “You, Me and Dupree”, so we started watching that. After the first 5 minutes we started thinking it was bad. After 15 minutes, we had to turn it off. It was terrible and showed no signs of pulling out of the nosedive it was in. We ended up watching some old episodes of Cash Cab instead.

After Cash Cab was over, I saw that tonight was going to be the premier of the all new American Gladiator. I loved that show as a kid! I have been looking forward to watching the new one. The 2 hour premier was awesome. The new gladiators are over-the-top characters, and you can’t go wrong when one of the hosts is Hulk Hogan. The show is entertaining and I’m sure I’m going to end up watching them all.

I’m looking forward to getting to work tomorrow to see what the rest of the competitors in the Beard Off look like. I’m sure we are all going to look like we are homeless by the end of the week.

Filed Under: Ranting

Has your dog ever told you what he wants?

January 4, 2008

At the house we have 3 dogs; Cooper, Pee-Wee and Axel. Cooper and Pee-Wee are both Chihuahua’s and Axel is an Irish Setter. Axel is a big, clumsy dog with way too much energy. We’ve had him for about 5 years since we was about 9 weeks old. From the time we got him, he’s slept in a kennel in the house at night. We basically do this for our own sanity. When we was really young, the dog would chew up everything he could get his mouth on. Leaving him out of the kennel at night with no supervision would be a very costly proposition. Apparently, that’s no longer the case.

The night before last, as we were getting ready for bed, Axel had been put outside to potty for the last time of the evening and then put in his kennel. We were upstairs in bed and Axel began to whimper/bark. This is uncommon. Normally, when we turn off the lights downstairs, he knows it’s bed time and we don’t hear from him again until morning. This time, though, he wouldn’t stop. So I got up and let him outside again. He milled around but didn’t do anything. I put him back in the kennel and went upstairs. The whimper/bark continued. After about 10 minutes of it, he finally trailed off to sleep and that was the end of that. So I thought.

Last night was almost an exact repeat of the night before. After putting him outside and then in to the kennel, the whimper/bark started up again. Chris and I were playing a game upstairs and I said to her, “Ya know what, I think he just doesn’t want to sleep in the kennel. Should we just let him out and see what happens?” Chris agreed and I headed down stairs. I let him out of the kennel and went back to the bedroom. Axel followed me up the stairs but stopped in the hall, curled up in front of our door and went to sleep. When we finished our game I got up to turn out the lights and go to sleep. Axel woke up, got up and walked in to our room and found a new place to lay. He curled up again and went right back to sleep. When I woke up this morning, there was Axel, sound asleep on our floor. In a different spot than where he started, but from what I could tell, he had slept in our room all night and hadn’t got himself in to any trouble.

I’ll let him try it again tonight and see what happens. Who knows, we may not have a need for the super-sized kennel in the living room any more. That would be awesome!

Filed Under: Family Tagged With:

I hate being sick!

January 3, 2008

What a horrible way to start the new year. In the early afternoon on the first I started feeling pretty crappy so I decided to go lay down in bed for a while. I ended up sleeping for most of the afternoon and woke up feeling really, really sick. After a few hours of talking myself out of puking, I decided I would probably feel better if I just got it over with. So, I headed to the bathroom to force myself to puke. But, by the time I got there, my body needed no forcing. Vomit out the nose is no fun at all! Right back to bed I went. Happy New Year.

Since I had just taken 9 days off work (counting some weekend days), I didn’t want to call in sick on the first full day back. So, I set the alarm, got up, got dressed and headed on in. I was still feeling bad, but was going to give it a try. 2 hours later I was heading back home and to the comfort of my bed. I was back in bed by 9:30 AM and didn’t leave for longer than 5 minutes all day.

I ended up watching 4 movies yesterday. They were:

SuperBad
This movie is so damn funny. I’ve already seen it about 6 or 8 times. I’m pretty sure this is one that I’ll be able to watch over and over again.

The Departed
Awesome movie and a great cast! Even though I already knew the ending (everybody gets shot in the head), I could still watch this movie several times.

Transporter 2
What a huge steaming pile of poo this movie is. To give you an example, in one scene Frank sees the reflection of a bomb stuck to the bottom of his car that he’s forced to get in and drive. While driving he sees a crane with a hook hanging on it. So of course he hits a ramp that rolls his car upside down and the hook from the crane knocks off the bomb 1/2 a second before the bomb is detonated. Oh, and the car finish the roll in mid air and lands back on all 4 tires. The only thing worse is when I found out that they are going to make a sequel to the movie Crank, another Jason Stathom movie. At the end of Crank, Stathom’s character “Chelios” falls out of a plane and hits the ground. In my mind, that equals DEAD! But, not only does Chelios obviously survive that, here’s the story outline for Crank 2: “Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working.” Wow.

Lucky Number Sleven
I have owned this movie on DVD for over 6 months, but for some reason I had never opened it. This movie was so good. I really enjoyed it. Good story, great cast and the interaction between the characters is fantastic. I have to say that I pretty much liked everything about this movie. If you haven’t seen it, make sure you do!

Thankfully I made it back to work today. I don’t know that I could have handled another day in bed.

Filed Under: Movies, Ranting Tagged With: ,

New Years Eve Party

January 1, 2008

It’s been a long standing tradition that on New Years Eve, rather than go out and brave the wild and crazy parties, instead we invite over some friends for some games. This year was no exception.

Yesterday started with me returning to work after 9 days off. It ended up being a half-day and we were let go at 11 AM. That gave me enough time to deal with approximately 1000 emails I had received over the past week. The funny part was, out of all of them, there were less than 10 that I actually had to reply to or deal with in some way. After work a small group of us went over to Buffalo Wild Wings for some lunch and a few beers.

We did a little bit of shopping for the party and then came home to straighten up the house. I then took a 2 hour nap in preparation for staying up late. I don’t know if there is anything I enjoy more than a nice mid-afternoon nap.

People started showing up shortly after 7:00. We had some snacks and then I made a batch of Strawberry Margaritas. I haven’t made them in quite a while, but I sure do enjoy them! I normally add a little bit of sugar, but forgot in the first batch. I was reminded of that fact and fixed the situation for batch #2.

When Sarah showed up, she had brought a bottle of Jager and also some banana flavoredMalibu rum, which I had never had before. She mixed a drink for Chris with some rum and OJ. Wow was that good! I’m talking DANGEROUS good. Tastes like candy, but puts you on your butt after you realize you’ve had 3 glasses.

Another drink that I tried last night for the first time was Tequiza. It’s beer made with blue agave. It has a hint of lime flavor as well. I may just have to pick up some of those for the next poker night. It was really good!

The group had a good time playing Rock Band. We all took turns on drums, guitar, bass and vocals. Rock Band is the ultimate party game. Several times we had 4 players playing and a group of people watching and singing along in the background. They even let me butcher a few songs on vocals. I may not be able to sing, but I was still able to get a 98% score singing Radiohead’s Creep. I was pretty stoked on that!

We also played a game called Taboo. I found out something quite interesting about that game. I am way better at playing that game after having a few drinks. I have played the game before and have NEVER done so well.

Thanks to those of you who came over to share in the fun of counting down the end of 2007! I had a great time. I look forward to many more opportunities to get together with you all again in 2008!!

Before I go, here’s a video of Paxton on Guitar, Me on Drums, Craig on Bass and Ashley & Marcia on Vocals playing the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I go. Enjoy

Cheers.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , ,