25 random things (for Facebook)

Listening to Oasis right now, it is good, but not as great as some people led me to believe.  

This is going around on Facebook and thought I would post it on here (seeing as how I import these posts to said website).  The point is to list twenty five random things/facts about yourself.  

1. I have only had one real girlfriend in my life.  I married her, it is awesome
2. I have a great base of a record collection (I am talking LPs here people, what your parents bought) which includes all nine Zeppelin albums and several Doors and Beatles albums
3. I will never give up on any of the teams from Detroit (including the Lions)
4. I enjoy the show The Gilmore Girls
5. The best Batman movies are the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton movies
6. My mom, grandma, and aunts all have Facebook pages
7. Three days from now is my three year anniversary at my current job
8. Chocolate chip cheesecake is the best there is in the world (but only when my mom makes it)
9. After reading Max Brooks' zombie books, I started to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.
10. I will openly correct/criticize people who do not speak grammatically correct
11. I am a fantasy sports fan (I 'play' football, baseball, and hockey yearly)
12. I think we are alone in the universe
13. Despite my Catholic upbringing, I do not go to church anymore
14. Writing is how I relax
15. I can play three different instruments (trombone, harmonica, and bodhran)
16. I would rather have winter than summer
17. I have had Everclear only once in my life and that will be the only time that I will have it
18. Despite not using my degree to get a job, I do not regret going to college to get it
19. I only have a couple of friends from college I still talk to (and I only know them through Andrea)
20. I once lost three layers of skin on the back of my left heel while backpacking (a blister popped and started rubbing away the skin).  It was pretty awesome looking
21. Citizen Kane is not the best movie ever, Casablanca is
22. I would buy a two four of PBR just as quickly as I would a seventy dollar bottle of scotch
23. The best beer I have ever had is Labatt Blue
24. I loathe living in Kansas because of the far right views of the state
25. Professional athletes should not be paid as much as they are.  

cold

If it is going to be cold as balls here, it needs to fucking snow.  It has been in the mid to low twenties for the past three days, prime weather for snow.  But oh no, we live in Kansas.  It can't snow down here, that would be too convenient.  *growl*  

Other than that, things are going well.  We have been lying pretty low in the past weeks.  Not a whole lot going on in Wichita.  Just work, lots and lots of work.  So I finally got A's Christmas present in the other day.  I bought her one, but he mom did as well, about three days before the twenty fifth.  So I returned my version of the present and went on-line and bought her a personalized present.  The site had a warning saying that the product was back-ordered, and they gave an estimated date.  Cool and all, until....

It came in the mail and it was the wrong personalized item!  It had another name on it.  Weak sauce.  So a phone call is going to be made.  It makes me wonder if someone else in the world has A's personalized present.  It is funny in a way.  

Super Bowl pick

I've been thinking and thinking about the Super Bowl since last Sunday when the Steelers and Cardinals won their games.  After watching the highlights from their playoff games, I am going out on a limb and going to pick the Arizona Cardinals to win the game.  24-17.  

The Steelers defense is playing great, but their offense, especially if Hines Ward is going to be out, is not as good as people think.  The Cardinals defense is playing out of their minds right now.  On top of that, I would take Kurt Warner over Ben Rothelsberger (pretty sure that is not spelled correctly).  In his only Super Bowl game, Big Ben threw two picks (TWO, and it was against Seattle) and no touchdowns.  Kurt Warner on the other hand, has been a Super Bowl MVP (I don't know the statistics, but you have to have a great game to be named MVP).  

So there you have it, and hopefully I am right, because I hate being wrong.  

A note

A quick little note on the new picture header for my blog.  I have written about this building before, but this is the old Carleton school that was in downtown Wichita.  It is gone now.  They tore it down.  What is there I do not know, I haven't been in that area for quite some time.  But it still depresses me whenever I come across this picture.  

That is all.  

Oh, and we officially have a new president.  That's cool.

expanding music

Just recently I have started to expand my musical boundaries.  As much as I love the music I have, I wanted to look elsewhere.  So I have been looking at music that in the past, I would have never considered.  Some of the albums that I have purchased are pretty good, some not so much.  

The first one that I bought was Moby's Play and Play: B Sides.  The first real electronic music I have ever listened to.  The end result of it is that I cannot listen to the entire album in one sitting, because it is twenty some tracks.  Eventually they all run together.  I also bought the Dewayn Brothers Farmer.  A local bluegrass band.  I saw them play at a bar here in Wichita and they were fantastic.  I have started to move away from country music, it has just all started to sound similar, but this was something different.  

I have started to dabble a bit into rap music, picking up some well known albums by the Beastie Boys, Outkast, and The Fugees.  The Beastie Boys and Fugees albums are great.  Outkast, not so much.  The album is more miss than hit.  There are a few tracks on the album which are fantastic, but there are more that I just can't stand.  

Two guys that I work with made up this image their heads of me going home after work and listening to a jazz record and sipping on some brandy.  A funny thought, but now....it can kind of come true.  Substitute scotch for the brandy, but I bought John Coltrane and Miles Davis albums.  The albums are only four tracks a piece, but some of the tracks go on for ten or twelve minutes long.  These albums are great works of art, but I definitely need to be in the right kind of mood to listen to them.  

NHL misstep?

Listening to Punk Rock Girl by The Dead Milkmen.  Thanks Kim (the original punk rock girl) for introducing us to this song at Thursday kareoke.  

After the two recent successes of the outdoor NHL game, it has been determined that it will be a yearly thing.  This is fantastic news for everyone.  The diehard fans get reminded of why they started watching hockey in the first place and the fan base that don't watch it on a regular, well, they get to watch a game that is played outside.  

However, the NHL is heading for disaster.  There needs to be a huge red light flashing at the offices and bright lights saying NO.  There are three locations they are considering for the 2010 game.  Two of which are awful ideas.

• The Rose Bowl 
• Las Vegas
• Yankee Stadium

One of these things is not like the other one.  One of these things is RIGHT!  How can an outdoor game be played in southern California or Nevada outside with the integrity of the ice obviously in question?  The only reason to play a game in the southwest is to play it indoors or on roller blades.  So Yankee Stadium could be the right choice for the main fact that it is in the northeast part of the United States, so it would be cold enough outside to keep the ice in decent skating condition.  The three outdoor games in recent history are Edmonton, Buffalo, and Chicago.  Three very cold areas.  

There are some areas I think would be great sites for the main fact that it is outside and needs to be in a cold weather area.  

• Montreal
• Boston
• Detroit
• New York
• Chicago
• Toronto

And there is a connection with those cities and the NHL.  True fans know the connection, and if you don't know this connection, you aren't a true fan.  

nothing much

Listening to Bob Marley and The Wailers Live

So here we are close to two weeks into the new year and there isn't anything going on.  Pretty quite year so far.  By this time next month, A and I will be getting ready to go home for a vacation.  We are flying out on the fourteenth of February.  Not the most romantic thing in the world, but who cares.  We will see our niece, Ayla, for the first time (not counting pictures or web cam, which I don't count anyways).  Plus it'll be good to see snow.  Lots and lots of snow.  I just hope it doesn't suddenly get warm in the Soo before we get there.  I doubt it will.  

The busy part of the work year has past, and it was stressful.  Looking back compared to the previous year, this year was worse.  I think it is because of the transition we had with management.  Looking at it, we only had three executives this year that we had last year, which speaks to the turn over in retail itself.  Within my own department it sucked.  Sucked big balls.  Big hairy ones.  By the time the store had hired me new team members, it was past Thanksgiving (which is the busiest part of the year for me) and just a week or two before Christmas, so they didn't really help me out there.  Which, in effect, led to my stress level increasing.  There were points in the two months when I just hated going to work because it was just such a mess dealing with my bosses.  But all is right with the work world, for now at least.  

I have had an urge recently to pick up the camera again and start shooting.  The only problem is, is that I have gone to downtown Wichita two or three times in the past and feel that I have gotten all the pictures that I want from there.  I can only walk up and down Douglas and Central so many times before it all starts to look the same.  And I'll be damned if I'm going on some side streets, I really don't want to end up shot.  That may sound bad, but I have walked some of those streets and walked those streets rather quickly.  Maybe once the weather gets nicer I will get back out.  

hockey and fighting

I am watching Rome is burning right now and they are talking about Jarkko Ruutu biting an opponent.  Yeah, biting an opponent.  Weak sauce, I know.  Ruutu is a player who gets under others' skin and can drop the gloves.  Fighting is part of the game.  It is becoming more of a skill game than it was in the past mainly because of the European influence in the league now.  Which is fine, the games go quicker and at a faster pace.  

In the eighties and early nineties a team had one or two star players and enforcers to protect them.  Anyone who took a run at the star players ended up getting their teeth knocked in.  Case in point, the Detroit Red Wings.  Early eighties they had a young Steve Yzerman and Bob Probert to protect him.  Anyone so much as looked at Stevie Y in the wrong way, they were on the ice before they knew what happened and Probert was skating towards the penalty box.  So fighting is part of the game, and the fan base knows this.  

Jim Rome asked Mark Whicker (of the Orange County Register) if the NHL would be on a national scale all the time if they got away from the fighting.  And Whicker answered 'I think they would be more popular among real hockey fans and they are the only ones that watch it anyways.'   Now you can't take what this guy says seriously because he lives in California.  CALIFORNIA!!  They have three teams in southern California, two of which are awful, and he probably just pays attention to the Lakers anyway.  

Dude doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.  Fighting is part of hockey.  Fighting is like traveling in basketball, it is just part of the game.  

obsession

I enjoy having a beard.  I can go one or two weeks without shaving, which is fantastic, and kind of why I wanted to grow one in the first place.  I never really thought much about having facial hair, but it seems to be more and more prevalent in the past few years.  And then I stumbled across this website all about beards.  A little over the top, and borderline scary.