On a lighter note

Me, Ariana and Jordan went to go see The 40 Year Old Virgin on Sat night. And I must say that the movie lived up to the hype (which I mentioned a few posts ago). It was just absolutely freakin hysterical the whole way through. I was busting a gut every five minutes.

Will people like it as much as Wedding Crashers? I think so actually. They are different kinds of comedies but I think people who liked one would appreciate the other. And in my humble opinion, I believe that those two comedies alone saved the Summer movie season from the mediocrity it had been dwelling in.

So yeah, do yourself a favor and go see this movie- cuz hey, it works as a date movie as well as just a fun comedy flick to see with the guys. So you can't go wrong.

The Lord works in mysterious ways...

So here's the update on my aunt's situation. It's actually kinda weird.

Turns out, from what the doctors seem to be telling us- that my aunt was never pregnant. The only thing in her was that odd growth, yet she tested positive for pregnancy (and she was tested multiple times, might I add). They're still doing studies to see if the growth was cancerous or not, but regardless, the doctors did NOT like how it looked.

But yeah, it's really odd how she tested positive for pregnancy and the doctors told her and her husband that something like that only happens in like one in a million people. But in the end it seems to all have worked out for the better, b/c if she HADN'T tested positive for pregnancy my aunt probably would not have gone to the hospital to check out what was going wrong. She prob would have just assumed it was an ulcer or something and just tried to have taken something for it. But considering she thought she was pregnant, she was obviously taking better care of herself, so when she felt the pain, she went to the emergency room right away and that's when they found out what was going on. Thus, her thinking she was pregnant very well may have saved her life.

So it's been an emotional rollercoaster for the family the last few days, but at least my aunt is ok (she's actually still in the hospital though) and my mom went out there to help take care of her. But we're all happy that she will be fine and while initially upset that we thought we had lost a baby, it's a small comfort to know there was none to begin with, and that this all probably happened just so my aunt would be forced to get checked out. So we are very thankful to God for that.

Depressing notes...

Sadly between late last night and today, my family has had two sad occurances.

Last night, towards the end of the BBQ going-away party for Jenny, we were informed that my aunt had been taken to the hospital earlier in the day due to severe stomach pains. We were able to call and get in contact with her husband and he sadly informed us that she lost the baby.

While, this was pretty saddening, there was some more important info given to us. Now I'm not sure on the EXACT details b/c I heard things third-hand from my mom who had things explained to her from my aunt's husband (who doesn't speak great English and may not have understood everything that was going on), but basically one of two scenarios occured. While at the hospital the doctors discovered a possibly cancerous growth (we'll prob find out for sure on that later) in my aunt's uterus that they really didn't like and had to remove. So the story is either, they saw this as they were checking out the baby and determined they had to get rid of everything inside there to be on the safe side, including the baby, or that after she lost the baby and when they were checking inside, they found the growth and removed that also. We're all thinking it was the latter.

So yeah, the situation is sad, but we're trying to look on the positive side of things. We believe that all things happen for a reason. And if the story is how we understand it, then in essence that baby saved my aunt's life. B/c there is no way that growth would have been discovered otherwise.

-The second occurance, while not as sad (in at least that no one has died or anything), was that my sister left this morning to basically begin her new life in Pittsburgh with her fiancee. They move into their new place on Sept. 1st. They MIGHT come back around Labor Day weekend to bring all of Jenny's stuff over, but that's only if they can somehow rent a car or U-Haul. If anything there is a possibility that my mom and Pat will just put Jenny's things in Pat's truck (since she basically already packed everything) and bring it out to her. And if the latter is the case, that means we prob won't see her again until Christmas.

So yeah, I'm kinda sad over that b/c me and my sis are pretty close. I mean, I always knew since I was young that she would be the first to leave the house, but I guess I didn't expect her to move so far away. Even when she had moved out years ago to live with her previous bf in Queens, she still came by the house at least once or twice a week, so we still got to see each other and stuff. But her new place is about a 6-7 hour drive or hour and a half plane ride away. So yeah, I doubt we're gonna see each other many times a year, besides holidays. So it's sad. I will miss her a lot b/c we got along really well. But in the end I just have to accept that we're all just growing up and starting a new phase in our lives. Still rough though... oh well...at least I know she should be very happy out there b/c her fiancee is a nice guy who treats her right, and in the end that's about all you can hope for with your family.

Mid-week outtings

On Tues. night me and Ariana went out to Continental Arena in Jersey to go see System Of A Down in concert. We had VIP General Admission tix, so we were in the front section of the arena, so that was pretty cool.

The Mars Volta opened for System (I didn't know who they were until near the end of their set though), and good lord did they suck. I had never really heard their big radio singles. but they were just a mess. Basically it's a huge band- guys that play normal rock instruments (guitar, drums, bass, etc), along with a flute/saxophone player, keyboardist, plus more. They were about a 10 person band and most of the songs were just big jams. But the reason they sucked is that all these people were playing their instruments at the same time! Barely ANY solos (except for the flute/saxophone player, who was only guy I felt had any real talent up there), and the lack of solos made everything sound like a mess. I remember what my friend Adam once said about a band called Dream Theater, who were similar in how individually the guys were talented but they would play these long ass songs that took forever to get to their "point." And he called it "Musical masturbation." And well that is basically exactly what these guys were doing. So yeah I was NOT impressed, but sadly, most of the crowd loved these guys. I don't understand it... but yeah it just goes to show you can't trust the American public when it comes to choosing good music. A band like the Mars Volta is exactly what has been wrong with the music scene for the past decade. Just b/c they have a bit of a different sound and can play a lot of instruments, people love them, when they should focus more on whether their music actually sounds good or not! Sigh...

But at least System's performance more than made up for the suck that preceded. They came on at about 9:15pm and played for a full hour and a half straight. The show ended at 10:45pm with no encore, but that was ok, cuz they played just about every single big song (including every song I really wanted to hear with the exception of Radio/Video, but that's ok). So yeah it turned out to be an awesome show.

****

On Wed night, the regular crew went to the Yankee game again. This time the Yanks played the Blue Jays, but sadly they lost 9-5. We continue to blame all the losses the Yanks have when we are in attendance on Christina's friend, Daniel. We blame him b/c we won all but one of the games we went to last year and this year the times when he is not around we have also won. So it's a running joke that we are threatening to take away his season passes. We only have one game left, at the end of Sept, so it will really depend on where the Yanks are in either the AL East or Wild Card standings. Cuz if they really need that game, we may really need to take that last ticket from him, heh.

****

Finally on Thurs night we had a small family BBQ that served as a going away party for Jenny, as she was leaving Friday morning for Pittsburgh to prepare to move into her new apartment with her fiancee. The food was great, and we all had a pretty fun time hanging out with each other.

****

Oh I also forgot to mention, I was able to score tix to the Foozer/Wee Fighters show (the double main event of Foo Fighters and Weezer) at Continental Arena on Oct. 14th. So yeah I'm very psyched for that.

New addition to the family

On Monday night, my mom and Pat came home with a surprise. They found a baby Peach-faced Lovebird outside my mom's school- Mercy College. They caught him put him in a box (with holes in it of course) and brought him home. My mom decided to call him (her?) "Mercy" b/c of the situation it was found in. The bird is really cute, and since it's a baby, we might be able to train it pretty well. We are giving him/her to my grandparents, cuz they will be able to devote more time to it. But here are two pics of the bird so you can see what it looks like.




And this is a pic of us introducing Mercy to Birdie.

I can't beat Henry's Title for his similar post.

Well we had ourselves a pretty fun (albeit exhausting) weekend. On Saturday I went to Randall's Island for the Amsterjam festival with Ariana, Matt, Henry, Christina, Daniel, Shirley and her bf (whose name also escapes me).

The show was freakin awesome. It is rare for me to go to show with such a large and diverse lineup and for me to actually enjoy every act, but that's just what happened at this show. The lineup of the show (on the Main stage, at least- we didn't even go to the second stage) looked like this:

Fat Joe
Hector El Bambino
Garbage
Wyclef Jean
311
Snoop Dogg
Red Hot Chili Peppers

Some of those acts also "mashed up" with other acts. Like Wyclef came out to jam with 311 and Snoop Dogg came out with the Chili Peppers towards the end of their set. Garbage also had a mash-up, but not with one of the main performers. They brought out this "chick" named Peaches who was a total mess. She was disturbing to look at. She was all whore'd out but she also looked a bit manish. None of the people knew what to think of Peaches, although a popular opinion was that the choker thing "she" had around her neck was just there to cover an Adam's apple. I truly would NOT be surprised.

But yeah Peaches' mash-up with Garbage was a complete waste. Garbage should have just finished the set on their own, b/c bringing that thing out brought their set down a bit. All Peaches added to their songs was lots and lots of vulgarity- something not really needed in Garbage's music. Oh well.

Speaking of vulgar acts though- during the beginning of one of the act's sets (I think it was 311) a fight nearly broke out right next to us. It all started b/c some drunk dude next to us just decided to rock out with his cock out (holy crap, I got to actually use that in a legitamate sentence! Go me! Lol), and started taking a piss right where he was standing- IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROWD! People who noticed immediately jumped back away from him (including us), but a couple right near him got really pissed (heh) and the guy shoved him pretty hard which caused the pissing dude to lose control of his unit (and apparently it's a little known fact that most guys, unlike girls, cannot stop once they start), so that got even more people in the area angry at this dude. He tried to apologize but the girl from the couple was even more upset than the dude, and she was a fairly rough looking chick who prob could have kicked the drunken guy's ass, so he thought twice and just decided to move away. So yeah, that was pretty freakin disgusting.

But other than that, the show went without incident and was a lot of fun. Wyclef had a great set, similar to the one he gave at Fordham a few years back (just a lot shorter though obviously). He did go a little longer than I believe he was supposed to though, but no one cared (hell the crowd actually encouraged it). After Wyclef was 311, and they also put on a great set. They played pretty much all my fave songs (Down, All Mixed Up, Come Original, Freeze Time, Amber, etc) so I was quite happy. Then as I mentioned before they had a mash-up with Wyclef at the end of their set and they performed some old school reggae song, which was pretty cool.

Snoop Dogg was the next act and to many in the crowd I'm sure he was the main event, cuz EVERYONE in the crowd was really into his set. Now, I'm not too familiar with his stuff (other than the very popular stuff that was all over the radio in the 90's and was played constantly at places like Slumni), but he put on a really fun set. Sean "Puff-Daddy-Puffy-P.Diddy-Diddy-etc" Combs also made a cameo appearance during Snoop's set but all he did was show up on stage and take a few long hits from the gigantic blunt Snoop had rolled earlier.

After Snoop's set the crowd got pretty restless (seeing as how the concert was passing the nine hour mark), and the crew was taking kind of a long time to set up their stuff, so before their set began, the crowd was given a mini-acrobat show on stage (like something out of Cirque de Soleis). I mention this not b/c it was cool (although it was impressive), but more for the fact that the male acrobat had an obvious hard-on for the majority of the act. The act was basically the dude hanging upside down by his feet and he did a bunch of tricks with the female acrobat, where she hung from him in all kinds of funky positions. But in between positions there was a lot of rubbing between them and stuff so yeah, it seems the guy enjoyed it a little too much. What got us wondering though was how he was able to get so much blood to flow to THAT head, considering he was hanging upside down the entire time?

And finally after that, the Chili Peppers came on to perform. They suffered from some sound problems during the first song but then fixed it (although, the problems did reoccur throughout the set later on). But despite the problems, they put on a great show. However, it was obvious that the Peppers (or Flea at least) were doing more with Snoop than just planning a mash-up with him though, as it was clearly obvious Flea was on some kind of high. He kept rambling something about how they were waiting for a great man- Moses, and continued to babble something about it, at which point I turned to Henry and Ariana and quipped "Yeah, it looks like he's been praying to the burning bush alright."

Another funny highlight from Flea's rambling was he asked the audience "Who want's to have their dick sucked!?!" The dude's in the crowd of course roared in approval but then Flea flipped the tables on us by replying "There's no way I can suck all that dick. Maybe 5 or 10, but no more!" Which got a pretty good laugh out of the crowd.

So yeah, as I had said, they put on a pretty good set but by this point everyone was just SOOO tired from the long day we all just had, so they weren't as energized for the Peppers as they were for the previous acts. People in our group began to drop out little by little. Shirley and her bf actually left right BEFORE the Peppers set, Christina and Daniel stuck it out a good while longer to their credit but left about 45 mins into the Peppers set. And finally, Henry was the last to fall, as Snoop and the Peppers were doing their mash up jam (which while cool, did go on for a pretty damn long time, so I couldn't blame anyone for leaving at that point).

Me, Ariana and Matt stuck it out til the end, but we were pretty exhausted. The show ended just before 11pm, which clocks the full show time at around 10 and a half hours. Pretty freakin good for just $50. So yeah, it was a hell of a show, and really well organized (I neglected to mention earlier all the festival type stuff in the area plus the good selection of food and stuff). So yeah a good time was had by all. Here's hoping they do it again next year (My ideas for some acts they should try to get include Incubus and Jay-Z. Now tell me that wouldn't be cool? We will have to see.).

Really now?

Just ran across this quote in a review for The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

- "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" racks up bigger belly laughs - and more of them - than "Wedding Crashers."- Source- www.dailynews.com

Granted I always take movie reviews with a grain of salt, but for anyone to even think this must be a good sign for the movie.

I will probably go see it next Sat as this Sat is the Amsterjam concert and I just found the FULL schedule for that show the other day and it will really be a full ALL day show (10+ hours long).

But yeah, I'm looking forward to it a lot now.

****

Was at IGN.com just before and I found some cool news and not so cool news.

The not-so-cool news first.

I was just reading a game preview for the new Suikoden Tactics game. The name of the game alone scared me. Cuz I LOVE the Suikoden games, but I can't stand those stupid tactics games.

But my fears came true when I read they were screwing with my beloved RPG series and morphing it into more of a Tactics game. Apparently it's different and better than most other tactics games, but still, I'm not happy about it. Just give me my 108 Stars of Destiny please!

-In the cooler news, I found out the release dates for both X-Men Legends 2 and Ultimate Spider-Man. I'll prob be buying both for the Gamecube (well at least I will def get X-Men for the GC, Spidey I might get for either GC or the PS2). But yeah, X-Men comes out on Sept 20th and Spidey comes out the following week on Sept. 26th.

So I really gotta get my butt moving and finally beat Star Wars: KOTOR2 before then. Wish me luck!

Two bundles of joy! ;-)

My mom just called me a little while ago to tell me that my aunt is gonna have another baby! So i'm gonna have a new cousin! Whoo! (This is a big deal b/c she's pretty much the only aunt I keep in contact with, so until Jenny & Robbie or Me and Ariana get married she's the only chance of having new babies in the family).

Although, that's not to say we expected this pregnancy. My aunt is in her mid-40's and she only has one child (my cousin Mitchie, who I used to ramble on about constantly, especially when he was a baby), who just turned 9 in May. She had a Hell of a time just having him. And she had tried to have another shortly after but was unable to, so they kind of gave up hope. Well 10 years later, without even trying, it happened. So we're all pretty excited.

I'm also looking forward to teasing my aunt on how she will be 65 when her child turns 21. Hehehe. "I am Evil J-E! I am Evil J-E!" ::Sung to the "I am evil Homer" tune::

****

And even though this is very secondary to the first news, my grandmother called to tell me that I also FINALLY got the unedited ECW: One Night Stand video in the mail! Whoo! I'm a pretty happy guy today.

Eww...

I just picked up the 6th Season of the Simpsons on DVD on my Comic Book/Bestbuy run during lunch, and I have just got to say that the Homer's Head box for it is even WORSE than it looks in the pics!

First off the head has bumps and ridges on it, bumps for the nose and eyes and stuff (which is annoying in and of itself b/c how are u supposed to stack it with your other DVDs or even put it sideways with them)?. But then it's got this clear plastic sleeve that goes over it that's NOT contoured and it looks like it could break so easily. Even the most careful of people (like me) are gonna have a hard time keeping this from bending or eventually just coming apart at the poorly glued ends).

Oh but that's not all! The head doesn't even open sideways like normal. It flips down, making it even more awkward to place down and take the stuff out of (and even harder to put back in when you are trying to close it, unless you lay it flat on a table. And even then it's a slight pain. Trust me, I just tried to while here at my desk at work and stuff was sliding out).

Thank God the people at 20th Century Fox had a backup plan to appease the soon-to-be-very-annoyed Simpsons geeks around the world, by offering a program to send people who mail in their original receipt an original style box. Granted you have to pay shipping & handling ($2.95) but it's better than dealing with that crappy new box.

So yeah if you share my concerns about the box, you can get the new one by going to: www.simpsonsbox.com

I've already filled out my form and will be mailing it tomorrow.

Random Quote

Last one of these news articles for the day, I promise.

I ran across this article yesterday and showed it to Ariana (b/c the place in question is not very far from us at all). You can read the article here.

But if you are too lazy to read the article yourself, basically it was about how apparently the platform on the Fordham Rd stop of the D train is a hot spot for annonymous gay sex (it's apparently kept on the low, but has been talked about on websites and stuff).

So once Ariana finished the article she responded to me with this:
"::sigh:: yeah, lol. I did not know that Fordham station was actually called fudgepacker-pum-pum station, lol "

That just had me rotflmao. So I had to share.

OOOH!! I Wanna play!!

In a story of "fake" violence, the Daily News was also reporting on a game most of us have probably at least heard of before- Assassins.

Basically, how the game plays is that you get a large group of people (the game reported in the news had 120 people), everyone gives all their contact info- Name, Phone #, address and a picture of themselves to what is sort of a 3rd party. This 3rd party will then contact each player individually and give them the info of another player and that person must "assassinate" that player within a week of getting the info.

Now the way to assassinate somone is either to shoot them with a water pistol, Super-Soaker or even Water Balloons. And basically the only rule of the game is that you can't attack a person on the block where they work.

So basically every person player is an assassin but also a target. And people can go to many crazy lengths to pull off their "hit." (Includng stakeouts, "hiring" help through the targets friends, etc).

I remember that Fordham actually sponsored such an event in what was either my Freshman or Sophomore year (I don't remember which, but I'm pretty sure it was early Fordham years). I didn't play, mostly b/c I didn't really know as many people on the campus yet. But now i regret it. It sure as hell sounds like a blast.

But yeah you can read all about the reporter's own experience in the game and how she did right here.

And now tell me after reading that, you wouldn't wanna play?

Don't get in the way of this man and his McDy's Fries....

Yesterday, my sister and I had heard really briefly on the news about how there was a stabbing at a local McDonald's Drive-Thru. Apparently one guy cut another guy off at the Drive-Thru, an argument ensued and one guy whipped out a knife and stabbed the other.

This was pretty much the only details we got (we didn't watch the whole story), and we just sort of laughed at how sad our society has become (I mean really, how nuts do you have to be to try to kill someone for cutting you in line at a fast food restaurant)??

Well I was just on the Daily News website and they had the full story which I just read. And let me tell you, there was one little thing the newscasters on the TV neglected to mention. The stabber was a 71 YEAR OLD MAN! And HE was the one who cut in front of the other guy and his 3 year old son, and when the guy confronted him, a fight broke out and the old man whipped out a pocketknife and slashed the father. Just freakin insane...

You can check out the full article with all the details right here.

Scary old people...

What??? What was that again? Can you speak up?

That my friends is the reaction you will most likely get from me if you try to speak with me within the next few days. That is b/c I am now freakin deaf.

And that is all due to the concert at CBGBs last night.

That show was probably one of, if not THE loudest concerts I have EVER been to (and you all know I've been to a LOT). It was so loud that I was kicking myself for not bringing earplugs. B/c honestly, it didn't even come to my mind to bring any. I rarely if ever, use earplugs. I can count the amount of times on one hand. Usually I wear them during Judas Priest concerts, and not b/c they are loud (although they are), but more to give more clarity to the sound. But damn, did I regret not bringing any last night. This was almost, if not just as bad as when I went to see Rancid about 7 years ago at Roseland and I was RIGHT in front of the main speakers. I have always attributed that show as a main cause in my hearing loss, lol.

So yeah, I still have a slight buzzing in my ears as I type this... hopefully it won't last for too long.

But anyways, about the show!

Ok, so I've never been to CBGBs before. I've heard stories before, like from Alan, but I never experienced it for myself. All I've heard was that it was a "shithole, held together by stickers."

And well, that actually is a very accurate way to describe it, lol. First off the place IS tiny! Once I got in, I was amazed that i was gonna see the Offspring in such a small place. But that's also when I realized how loud the place was gonna be b/c the opening band was already playing and it was hurting my ears, even just being in the middle.

So I whip out my cell phone and start to text Ariana all like "OMG! This place is so small yet so freakin LOUD! I'm so gonna lose more of my hearing. Hope you dont mind, heh."

So I send the text and as SOON as I hit send and put my phone away I turn around to see how the big the crowd is getting and standing DIRECTLY behind me is Dexter Holland, the lead singer of the Offspring!

He was just standing there, chillin with one of the roadies and watching the opening act. I wanted to say something to him, but it was just so damn loud (and other people also had the same idea and when they tried to approach him to chat, Dexter just put his hand to his ear all like "I can't hear a word you are saying." So that was a no go).

However, I was smart enough to bring along my copy of The Offspring- Smash album and a sharpie, so as soon as the band finished with their song, I requested an autograph and he signed the CD right there. I didnt really get to talk to him though, b/c everyone else in the vicinity also took that moment as their chance to pounce and bombarded him immediately. So at that point, he wound up moving to behind the stage. So even though i didn't really get to chat with him, it was still cool. I will definitely have to give CBGBs points for atmosphere and intimacy with the bands.

There was another opening act before the Offspring, it was a chick-fronted punk band called Theo & The Skyscrapers. I had never heard of them before, but they were actually pretty good. Only thing that sucked, is there was a song or two where she screamed and that just totally freakin blew my eardrums. Now that I think about it, that band was probably more responsible for me going deaf than the Offspring were.

After that band finished, I checked my watch and realized we were about 25 minutes ahead of schedule (from the schedule I had looked up online before the show). So I was hoping that the Offspring would come out even earlier.

Sadly that was not the case and we wound up having to wait the extra time, but thankfully it wasn't TOO bad.

One thing I noticed while waiting around was that, it was pretty packed in there, and we were sardined in quite nicely. So I began to wonder "will people even be stupid enough to attempt to mosh, considering there is ZERO room, even just by standing still??"

The answer was a resounding yes. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Cuz as soon as The Offspring hit the stage the crowd went insane and a mosh pit broke out immediately to the side of where I was standing.

Now luckily I was more to the side of the club and not directly in the middle, so I wasn't pushed around too bad. And it was actually kind of fun to be right on the cusp of the mosh pit. Especially for a few of the crazier songs.

So yeah, the show was freakin awesome. They played for only about an hour, but that was fine, b/c they played pretty much every song I wanted to hear, including some older, rarer tracks. The band seemed to be having a lot of fun too, this being the smallest stage they've played since the beginnings of their career. So they were pretty interactive with their fans. Noodles (their guitarist) started to crack jokes, including two amusing (if childish) Michael Jackson jokes. They were all like "Why does Michael Jackson like twenty-nine year olds so much?" "Why?" "B/c there are twenty of them!" and the other was "Knock knock!" "Who's there?" "Michael Jackson" "Michael Jackson who?" "That's it, now here's 10 million dollars to keep it that way."

Oh and I just found the setlist for the show! This is what they played last night:

All I Want
Long Way Home
Come Out and Play
Cant Repeat
Want You Bad
Bad Habit
Tehran
Cant Get My Head Around You
Smash
Staring at the Sun
Kick Him When He's Down
Gotta Get Away
Kids Arent Alright
Have You Ever
Gone Away
Self Esteem

(I don't think this was the EXACT order, but it's close enough)

And you can see what other people thought of the show right here: http://www.offspring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14021
(If I remember, I'll try to fix the link later so you can just click on it, since I can't do it here b/c of my stupid mac).

As for after the show, that was pretty cool too. They bouncers and roadies were pretty laid back and let just about anyone go "backstage." (There really isn't a room per se, just an area behind the stage with a curtain and stuff). So I went back there with a bunch of people and got to meet and say hey to all the band members really quickly. And I tried to get them all to sign my CD but the only one I was able to get was Dexter again (b/c initially he had signed the CD Jacket and I wanted it on the CD itself, so this time I got it). But that was alright b/c just the entire experience of that show was freakin awesome. I so wish I had a camera with me (I had run out of film the week before and I also didn't know if cameras would be allowed). Oh well, my bad. But the memories I'm sure would last me a lifetime.

So yeah, going to that show last night just made me think of a bunch of other cool concert moments I've had. I've actually seen and met some pretty big bands before, and I don't know if everyone knows about all those instances. So here are a few snippets of what happened at some of those encounters:

-Got a ride out to Philly with Rachael and one of her friends (sadly the name escapes me at the moment but I'm sure I'll remember it as soon as I post this), to go see Cake at the Electric Factory back in Nov of '01. Thing is, we didn't have tix. Rachael had met the drummer from Cake a few days before and he said he'd put her and some guest on the guest list. Well we showed up the arena and lo and behold, our names were NOT on the guest list. This really sucked as we had taken a good two and a half hour drive to even get to the place. Luckily Rachael's friend's brother and his wife were inside. So we called them and they came over near the entrance and we explained to them our story while we were outside. And well apparently the female guard that was standing there overheard our story and whispered to us- "Go ahead in." We were like "Whaaaa??" And she was just like "Come on." So we just ran inside. I proclaimed as we entered "You're awesome, I could hug you! Thanks!" And that my friends, is just about the luckiest a person can get at a show. B/c you NEVER hear about people just being let in like that (unless you have connections). So yeah, the show itself was really cool, and then afterwards we waited outside near the back exit for the band to come out. As soon as the drummer came out, Rachael went nuts yelling at him. He came over to us and apologized profusely for forgetting to put her on the list and to make up for it, he started giving us a bunch of stuff. We got the whole band to sign our ticket stubs, got a few pics with the band, they gave us some water (as it was hot out and we were all gross and sweaty from the concert) and finally they presented Rachael with a special huge cookie that was given to them by their Record company (I forget which it was but I believe it was Sony Canada) that had a pic of the bands logo on it along with some other stuff. So yeah, that was all pretty cool.

- A few weeks after that I went to go see Fuel and Sevendust at the Hammerstein Ballroom (12/01), but didn't have a ticket. I went with Jordan and his cousin worked as one of the roadies or bouncers there, and he let us in through the back entrance. As we walked in, we ran into the members of Sevendust and chatted with them very briefly before heading to the crowd to watch the show.

- Another few weeks after that (1/02) I saw Hoobastank at the Bowery Ballroom and after the show they hung around signing autographs so I waited around and had all of them sign my ticket stub and chilled with them a little asking a few questions and stuff. They were really nice guys.

-For the big Fordham Concert we had my senior year (3/02) I was part of the Concert Committee. So as such, we got to help BRING the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the Dropkick Murphys and Jadakiss to the school to perform. Another cool thing being part of the committee was we got to serve as "assistant roadies" for the day. We helped bring in all the equipment, and even got sort of a special performance during their sound check. During the concert itself, since I had a staff t-shirt, I was able to get backstage and even ON the stage to skank around during "The Impression That I Get." And finally after the show I took one of the huge concert posters and got all the members of both the Bosstones and the Dropkick Murphys to sign it. I also got some of the Bosstones to sign one of my CDs and we chatted with all of them for a bit. It was a freakin awesome day.

-The other Fordham concert I was a part of was the Spring Weekend concert (4//02) where we got Wyclef Jean to perform. I met him backstage briefly as well.

-Met Weezer at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. Jordan scored free passes to the free show they were having there and gave me the extra. So we got to meet the band and get their autographs on the new CD and then they put on a 10 song performance for us (there were maybe just about 250 people there). So that was freakin sweet.

-Me and Steve P. met Judas Priest (with Ripper as the singer) after their show up in Poughkeepsie, NY at the Chance back in July of '02. They were all really cool guys and I got them to all sign my ticket stub. They were quite friendly and hung around and chatted with the fans for a good amount of time.

-Saw Our Lady Peace in Central Park back in Oct. '02 in what was basically a very large tent near the ice skating rink there. It was a full acoustic set and we were RIGHT up against the stage mere feet from the band (so I got a bunch of great pics). After the show we met the band, I got Raine's autograph on one of my CDs, and we took a few group shots together. That was definitely a freakin highlight in my concert career (since OLP is one of my fave bands).

-Met Evanescene at the Electric Factory (4/03) after their concert. Got them all to sign my CD and chatted with them for about a minute, asking them about some songs off their original EP.

-Got to meet the members of Good Charlotte at a pre-concert Meet & Greet back in Oct 03. They were also pretty cool guys and got them to sign my CD, took my pic with them and they also put on a short acoustic set for us fans (there were less than 100 of us). Then the show itself rocked. [And as an aside this was the night of Game 7 of the ALCS between the Yankees and Red Sox. We watched some of the game on the TVs at the bar in Roseland after the show (I saw around when they tied the game). Then I ran to the train station and headed right over to the stadium (using my Supervisor ID to get in) enough to see the last two innings of the game, including the historic Aaron Boone homerun.]

-In Jan of '04, as a member of the Hoobastank fanclub I was able to score free passes to another pre-concert Meet & Greet this time with Hoobastank at the Nassau Collisseum. This was a freakin awesome time b/c it was basically we got to chill in the band's dressing room, which had a large screen TV that was showing the football game, and there were literally only BARELY 10 fans in there. So we all chatted, watched TV, took pictures (I got one with each member), got autographs, etc. We were down there for a full half hour. It was freakin awesome, and to this point is the coolest band meeting experience I've ever had (also doesn't hurt that the concert itself kicked all types of ass- it featured Story of the Year, Hoobastank, P.O.D. and Linkin Park).

And that's about it (that I can remember) in terms of MEETING bands, but there have also been a few other pretty awesome concert experiences I've had. A few notable ones were:

-Saw Metallica at the freakin Roseland Ballroom! It was actually the first time i had ever seen them. They only played tracks off Garage Inc, but it was still awesome. Then i followed that up a year later by seeing them again with the Symphony at MSG.

-I went to Woodstock 99- just WAAAAAY to many memories from that show to list here. But I must say it was the greatest concert experience of my life. (And just an awesome life experience in general).

-Saw 3 Doors Down, P.O.D. and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in one show at Irving Plaza for only 92 CENTS! (This was back before 3DD and POD got huge, so that was pretty cool).

-DFP 4.0- one of the best "big" shows I've ever been too. Not only b/c of the band lineup (which was SOLID) but also b/c of some of the things that went on during the show, like me, my cousin Jay and Goombah running into the drunk guy at the food court and scoring a free meal from him.... ahh good times.

-Seeing The Living End at the Bowery Ballroom for like $4.27. They put on one of the most amazing performances I've EVER seen. Everytime me and Anita saw each other around for like the next YEAR me and her would just randomly shout "Best show ever!!!" (I'd still rank it within my top 10 for sure).

-Me and Joe V. getting on stage to skank with the Bosstones at the Chance and then stage diving. (This was also the show that What's Your Problem Brian? opened for them).

-Fuel & Aerosmith at PNC, mostly b/c not only was it a great show, but we had a troop of like 20 of us there. Much fun was had.

-My buddy Joey D winning passes to see StainD Unplugged at the MTV Studios and inviting me to come along. The place was tiny, we were right in the front, and you can actually see both me and Joey plenty of times throughout the DVD of the show.

-Getting to the front of the crowd and singing the chorus to a song with Oleander at Irving Plaza. Then catching one of the drummer's drumsticks at the end of the show.

-Saw Audioslave across the street from my old job play outside on the roof of the Late Show with David Letterman building.

-Won free tix to see Oleander and Nickelback at the World back in Jan of '03. Was a very kick ass show.

-Going to the free Green Day show outside of the J&R Music World back in Sept '04.

And HELL, it's just too hard to remember and list off all the other cool things. I KNOW I left out a few other AWESOME shows I've been to, but other than them just being great performances nothing else to really make note (which is why I didn't list them here even if they would be on my top 10 of all time). But if anyone has any concert experiences or any fun memories of shows we may have gone to together, feel free to share.

But anyways, this post has officially gotten WAY longer than originally intended so I will cut it off here. So Keep Rockin!

Sadly the Vacation is Over...

My week off went by pretty quickly (oh yeah, the vacation was the reason I haven't updated in awhile). But now that I'm back to the daily grind of work I now have the time to post on my blog! (You'd think it'd be the opposite, but not in my world! lol).

So yeah I've been off from Aug. 5-15. A nice 10 day vacation (and I only technically had to use 4 of my days). So that was cool. It was a fairly busy week (which was probably why it seemed to go by so fast). It started off with a bang too. On Friday (the 5th) I went to Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom with Ariana, Gaetano, Joe V., Henry, Leticia, her bf, John, Maryellen and Kosal (forgive me if this is misspelled).

It was a really fun trip. Cuz first off, I finally didn't have to be the one to drive! Me, Ariana and Joe got a ride from Gaetano in his new BMW Beamer which is a pretty sweet ride. We met up with Henry somewhere in Pennsylvania and raced the rest of the way there (b/c if you didn't know, Henry had rented a car for the past month- a pretty nice car too). So yeah the racing was a bit insane (Ariana had to pray for all the soul's in Henry's car as he was trying to pull off some crazy stuff) but in the end Gaetano wound up "winning." It was pretty funny.

As for the park itself. It wound up not being very full. We guessed that the forecasts of scattered T-storms had scared a few people away. But it worked out all the better for us. We pretty much were able to go on every ride that we wanted to, except the Steel Force Rollercoaster but that was b/c it got closed b/c someone threw up on it. Sadly that wasn't the first ride we encountered in the park that met with someone's bodily fluids. The ride we had gotten on right before was delayed for quite awhile as they cleaned it. Only, they wouldn't tell us exactly what bodily fluid it was. So that just let our minds wander, and the conclusion we came to was pretty disgusting. And our guess only seemed to be strengthened as we got to the Steel Force (before we found out what had actually happened on that ride). But still, the mystery remains as to what actually happened on the Hydra...

But like I said, other than that, the trip was a huge success. After the park, we met up with Marisa (who was doing some school stuff in the same town) and went to eat at a Japanese Hibachi place. The food there was excellent; although i didn't stuff myself with a full size meal b/c I really wanted to FINALLY try Fried Ice Cream for the first time, which I did and it was quite delicious. Me and Henry were also VERY tempted to buy these cool ceramic cups that they had shaped as Ninjas and Samurai and stuff cuz they looked really cool. Henry wound up succumbing to the temptation and we got a few amusing pictures of him drinking from his new buddy (maybe I'll post said picture later... heh).

After eating it took us a few minutes to decide what we wanted to do. Some of us were tempted to go see Dukes of Hazzard at the nearby movie theater but if we did we would have gotten back REALLY late. So in the end we wound up swinging by Marisa's temporary place and helped her load her stuff into her car so she could move back to her old place. It was an amusing time as we all acted like little kids running around her dorm and playing around with all her doctor equipment and stuff.

We finally headed home after that, and it was a good idea too b/c by the time we got back home we were all freakin EXHAUSTED. I believe a fun time was had by all though.

We took the next day as a "recovery day" and just chilled in ALL day like big bums. It was good stuff.

****

Then on Sunday night we decided to finally exchange our rainout tix from that Mets-Giants game back in June for the Mets-Cubs game that night. It wound up being a good decision as it was one of the few weekends we could possibly go, and it also turned out to be a good game (the Mets won 6-1).

On Monday we followed the baseball game up with- yet ANOTHER baseball game. This time it was our usual Yankee game though (a pretty good one in fact- Yankees vs White Sox with Mussina and El Duque on the mound). Me and Ariana got there early and went to Monument Park to look around and take pictures. Can you believe that after being a Yankee fans for YEARS and even working at the stadium for 2 years where our main office was mere FEET from Monument Park that I had actually never really been inside to look around?

Well it's true, but that was rectified on Monday. It's a pretty cool place actually, just overflowing with tons of Yankee History. If you are a Yankee fan and have NOT been to Monument Park before, you owe it to yourself to get to a game early and go. Trust me, I regret not going much earlier.

****

Tuesday was an interesting day. Me and Ariana have been looking around forever for a really cool Mini-Golf place. I mean one with a damn Windmill and Castles and doors that open and close that you have to get the ball through and stuff. Sadly we have not come across anything like that in the area (we've been looking in all 5 boroughs, Westchester, NJ, Connecticut, etc).

Well in our research we ran across a website that said that there was a mini-golf place over on Randall's Island. It had some ratings for it too, and they were pretty good. There was only one picture of the place on the site and it wasn't very detailed but it looked promising, so we made a plan to go on Tues.

So we took the trek by train and bus over to Randall's Island. Now mind you, I have ONLY been to Randall's Island for Warped Tours in the past, so i don't really know my way around the Island. Turns out we initially miss our stop but the bus driver told us to just stay on, as it loops through the island and we could get off on the way out. So basically we got a bit of a tour of the island... and damn are there some "interesting" places on that island.

First off, I never really noticed before but the entire island is ghetto as all hell. I guess it never hit me, b/c as I said before the only time I've been there is for Warped Tours and that is when the island is overrun with punk style kids ranging in ages from 12-25. Not the most intimidating of people. But on a regular basis, it seems as if this island is pretty creepy. First off towards the back end of the Island there is a part where there are a bunch of centers for "troubled" people. There is a psychiatric ward for the Mentally Unstable, a detox center for people with drug and alcohol problems and also a Gay center where they try to "degay" people or something. So yeah passing through that part of the island and seeing all the weird people in that area was definitely a site to see.

We finally got out at the second to last stop in the island and crossed over to where the bus driver had pointed out the golf course would be. Only thing was that to get there we had to walk through a dark (even in the day time) deserted parking lot (with the occassional homeless or cracked out person walking by on the peripheral). So yeah it wasn't the most comfortable of circumstances.

Then to make matters worse, we reach the golf course and it's a pile of crap! I mean it's got some okay-looking holes but nothing spectacular (and no windmill damnit!). But the thing was, the place was DIRTY! Well maybe not "dirty" dirty, but the leaves from the trees had fallen ALL over the golf course and they had not been cleaned. We saw some kids playing and the balls they were hitting were getting deflected all over the place by giant leaves on the course and I just immediately turned to Ariana and was just like "I am not wasting my time or money here." She quickly agreed and we headed out.

So yeah my plan is to not return to Randall's Island for a very long time... oh wait... we've got the Amsterjam concert there this coming Saturday. Oh well... at least the island won't be deserted and creepy at that time (well maybe still creepy but not deserted).

But yeah, at that point in the day it was already kind of late to try to go do mini-golfing anywhere else so we headed back to the Bronx and I treated Ariana to the Chinese Buffet place nearby me. It was Damn good stuff, but I made a pig out of myself (which I regretted after. Gonna have to workout overtime this week).

****

On Wednesday we tried to inject a little culture and education into our lives by making a day of going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had originally planned on going to the Museum of Natural History b/c I've been wanting to go back there since last year when we took the Middle school kids there on their class trip (since i didn't get to read through and appreciate stuff as I would have liked since I had to look over a bunch of kids). But after some discussion and then my mom reminding me that the Met has got the cool Weapons and Armor section we changed our minds and went to the Met.

It wound up being a very good decision. We had a lot of fun looking through the whole museum. We went around to the musical instruments, the Asian paintings, the Egyptian stuff and finally my favorite the Ancient Weapons and Armor (I'm such a big kid aren't I)?

Oh but speaking of being big kids, remember when I mentioned us going to inject some culture and education in our lives? Well that was thrown out the window the instant we were in the musical instruments section (which is in one of those dark and really quiet rooms) and we ran across an old instrument from Asia that was shaped like a cat and Ariana shouted out "OOH KITTY!!"

It was funny as all hell though, but yeah any semblence of us being cultured people was shot that instant. Oh well... we wound up having a good time the rest of the day.

After the Museum, we didn't feel like going home yet, so we walked from the Museum (which is on 82nd and 5th) across Central Park, stopped at Grey's Papaya (yum!) for dinner and then headed to 62nd and Broadway to go see the indy film- Mad Hot Ballroom.

It was a cute movie. Total date flick i think. It also just gives you a desire to wanna go out and learn some of those dances. But in the end I'd say to save yourself the $10.75 it costs to see it in the city and just wait til it comes out on DVD and rent it. It's not a movie where u need the atmosphere of the theater to enjoy.

****

The next day (Thurs) started out slow. I went to my lawyer's office and they gave me the check for the settlement. It wound up coming out to even less than I expected b/c I had totally forgotten to account for court fees. Freakin sucks... but oh well, I can't stress out about it anymore. I'm gonna have to look at the "bright" side of things and just be thankful that i at least got a LITTLE something.

Later that night things picked up though. Me and Ariana wound up taking Henry up on his invite to go to the free Thursday nights at the Copacabana. He wound up bringing his mom and Gaetano went as well. It was a REALLY fun time. They serve FREE spanish food, offer a FREE dance lesson, and everything is just FREE (except drinks but whatever, that's not a big deal). So yeah we got there around 6:30 and we stayed until about 10pm. We danced for a good 2-3 hours altogether (including the lesson). Like I said it was a really fun time and I would totally do it again before the end of the summer. Hopefully we can get a group to go at some point but even if not I'm definitely tempted to go again.

****

The next day (Fri) was me and Ariana's 3 year Anniversary. We exchanged gifts early- I got her (well us) tix to go see Marc Anthony, Chayanne and Alejandro Fernandez @ MSG in Sept, along with Bride & Prejudice on DVD and the Star Trek: TNG Episode Companion (she'd been wanting that for awhile). She surprised me with a bunch of accessories for my mp3 player, like a protective sleeve, clip, and CAR ADAPTER (WHOO!!!). She also got me a new charger for my cell phone (as mine was acting up). And lastly she got me the Fantastic Four video game for the PS2, b/c we had just beaten Lego Star Wars and needed a new game to play together.

There was also one more gift that we each planned on buying for each other. So we wound up heading to the Palisades Mall and went to the Build-A-Bear workshop for those final gifts.

Basically we each built a stuffed animal for each other. I got her a bunny in a Jasmine (from Disney's Aladdin) costume, and she got me a bear in a kick ass Batman costume (and we also got a Spider-Man costume on the side for a spare, heh).

I've got to say that the Build-A-Bear Workshop is a pretty cute place. It totally makes you feel like a little kid again just being in there. And there is a lot more to building your stuffed animal than I realized. First you pick the the animal, then you stuff it (well they stuff it with a machine but you're the one who presses the button), then comes the one part that is sort of embarassing. They make you do this little process when you are gonna put the heart into your bear. I won't go into details here of everything they make you do, but i wasn't thrilled with it at first. But Ariana went through it so enthusiastically that I found it cute. So I begrudgingly went along with it.

Then you pick out a costume for your bear. Like I said, I wound up getting a Batman one. It's pretty cool actually. Then you go to the computers there and enter your info in order for them to print you out a birth certificate for the bear. While we were doing all this I felt a little silly but in the end my mind frame became "dammit, so what if we're both 25 years old??" Like I said, it was a pretty cute experience (especially for our anniversary) and it made us feel young again. You can't really beat that.

After that we went to a Restaurant of Ariana's choosing (I forget the name of the place off the top of my head but the food was pretty good, especially the bread they served us before our meal... OMG I could have had that as a meal alone it was so good). So yeah, it was a pretty fun way to spend our day.

****

And that was our vacation in a nutshell. The weekend itself was pretty laid back with us just watching lots of tv and a few DVD's plus me helping Ariana clean her living room so it can be painted this week.

This week proves to be pretty exciting as well. Tomorrow is the start of our crazy month of concerts and stuff (The Offspring at CBGB's... I can't freakin wait) so I'll keep you all posted on everything that happens.

And the not so great news...

Nothing bad, per se, just a few annoyances. First off, I went to get my new Fordham parking pass today during lunch. As most of you probably know, they are in the process of constructing a multi-level parking garage over the old student lot, thus leaving a huge decrease in available parking. So I was inline and I saw almost everyone ahead of me getting passes to have to park in the municipal lot across the street from the library (something I really didn't want, even if it was half the price). But once I got up, they did some searching and found that I was to be given an "F-Lot" pass. I was like "F-Lot? I know of A-Lot, H-Lot and M-Lot, but what the hell is F-Lot?"

Well apparently F-Lot stands for "Find your own damn parking-lot" b/c basically the lady handed me a map of the campus and she was like "the X's marked on the map are all considered part of F-lot." Thing is, the X's were all over the freakin place! It's basically like 6 parking spots here, 8 spots there, 4 spots there, etc. It looks like it could possibly be pretty annoying, especially on busy days. Thank God I am only on campus on Friday's during the school year b/c otherwise this would drive me nuts.

The second annoyance was that about 2 weeks ago, I won the ECW PPV on tape on Ebay. The guy e-mailed me saying he sent it out, yet I never received it. So I e-mailed the guy telling him I hadn't gotten it yet and he gave me tracking number for the package. So I went to the USPS website and when I tracked it, it stated that they tried to deliver the package on July 20th and a notice was left.

Thing is, my grandparents were home, and no one ever knocked for them to sign for a package and also, despite what the site said, a notice was NOT left.

But it said the package was at the post office, so my grandfather went today to go pick it up. Well in the afternoon my grandmother calls me to tell me that the people in the post office told my grandfather that there was no such tracking number. This pissed me off, cuz I KNEW it was right, so while I was on the phone with my grandmother I went to the USPS website again and put the tracking number in.

And I was greeted with a surprise- apparently the package was marked "unclaimed" and sent back to the sender. This got me even more pissed, so after I hung up with my grandmother I called USPS to file a complaint. I explained what happened and they tried to give me a run around about how I should have come earlier, but I yelled at them saying "how could I have come earlier if I never got a damn notice?!?" So in the end they apologized but it doesn't do much for me.

Luckily, the ebay guy seems nice and when I told him the situation, he said it wasn't a problem and he'd send it right back once he receives it. It was still just a hassle to go through though.

And finally- it seems as though my DVR does not like "Robot Chicken." Last night, for the 3rd time in a row, I had set the DVR to record the show, and for some reason, it just didn't do it. It's really weird b/c it works for everything else. Hopefully this will be the last time, otherwise I'm gonna have to get my DVR checked out. Oh well...

Great news!

I scored tix to see The Offspring on Aug. 16th at the soon-to-be-closed CBGB's!!! The place has a maximum occupancy of like 200 people, so it's gonna be like watching them in my living room. I'm very psyched!