150th Post!

Why am I making a big deal about this being my 150th post? I dunno honestly (especially considering I had forgotten to celebrate my 100th post or any other normally celebrated anniversary) but I couldn't think of a better title for the post, so you all get that, lol.

Umm, let's see not too much to report on this week, so I'll just put it all in one post as opposed to breaking things up like I had been lately.

On Saturday night, me and Ariana went to Jordan and Maryann's b-day party down in the city. They rented out the basement of Lucky Jack's and a good time was had by all. Lots of people attended and we met a bunch of new people (whom I've forgotten the names of for the most part, lol). The highlight for me was the fact I didn't have to drive afterwards (for once) and so I was able to take part in the drinking festivities- which meant Jager-bombs!! I had about 4-5 of them plus like 2-3 other drinks, so I was happily buzzed for the night. Henry posted pictures of the event on his blog, so i'm not gonna bother doing it again on mine, so I'll just link you to his post right here: http://shot_at_greatness.blogspot.com/ (it's the post titled- This is how we do it- Proof).

Sadly there was an altercation at the end of the party that temporarily killed my buzz, but since I really don't know all the details of what happened, I'm not gonna say anything about it here. I'm just glad everyone was ok afterward. And as I said before, other than the crazyiness at the end the party was lots of fun and big props to Jordan and Maryann for showing us all a great time.

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The next morning I woke up for the pre-sale of Yankees postseason tix. That was a difficult feat in itself, considering we did not get home til about 5:30am (stupid crappy train service in the middle of the night...). Since there were 4 of us who had the season tix and the rule for the presale was only 2 tix per SERIES. Me and Ariana attempted to get tix for the World Series while I tried for ALCS tix for Christina and Daniel.

I tried for the WS tix first, and was shocked at how expensive they were! Tix for the Tier Reserve (or the nosebleeds as some of you refer to them as) were $146 EACH. I mean I KNEW they'd be pricey but I wasn't expecting it to be THAT bad (I expected probably around $90). And we just absolutely refused to pay that price considering they are normally only $16 and we only paid $10 for ours all season.

I did score ALCS tix for Game 7 for Christina and Daniel though. So we wound up getting left out temporarily.

I say temporarily, b/c later in the week- the pre-sale was extended and I decided to get tix for me and Ariana for the first home game of the ALDS. I got them b/c Ariana had never been to a playoff game before and wanted the experience, plus even though I've been to a few playoff games, they were while I was working there, so I didn't get the FULL experience as a fan. So it should be a lot of fun.

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Other cool stuff I got this week- I got a call from KROCK on Friday afternoon telling me I had wont the First Season of Lost on DVD. I didn't even remember entering a contest for it at first. But that was a nice surprise. Later on in the day, I remembered why I entered (b/c I had been watching the Summer replays of the show on ABC and for some reason they skipped a few episodes and it was pissing me off to have to go online and download the ones that I had missed). I wound up receiving the DVD in the mail on Monday (fast service!) so me and Ariana will prob go through a few episodes this weekend.

I also got another thing free. I went to Bestbuy on Tuesday to pick up a few DVDs. I had initially only intended on buying two items- the Family Guy Stewie movie and the latest Gilmore Girls Season (shut up, it's a good show, and I KNOW some guys who are reading this also watch it, lol). But while scanning the latest releases I saw the DVD of the Hardcore Homecoming show (the big independant ECW Show they ran in the old ECW Arena the Friday right before the WWE's ECW One Night Stand). I had heard the event was pretty cool so I decided to pick it up.

So I get to the cash register to pay and when they read me the total, I realize it's a bit lower than I was expecting (but of course I was gonna keep my mouth shut). As soon as they handed me the receipt I saw what they did was charge me twice for the ECW DVD but not for the Gilmore Girls DVD. But even double the amount of the ECW DVD was not as much as the GG DVD so in the end I saved myself about a good $20 or so. And the best part- as I was leaving the store, the alarm actually rang, and I got scared for a moment cuz I knew if they looked at the receipt I'd be screwed- but the guard just waved me through (prob b/c i was at the register right near the exit and he saw me pay right there). So that was pretty cool. Score one for incompetency in a big retail store! It actually worked in my favor this time, heh.

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And finally- another item I picked up in that same Bestbuy trip (although i had ordered it online and just picked it up)- the new Ultimate Spider-Man videogame for Gamecube.

I just started playing it on Wed night and it's pretty cool. It's VERY similar to Spider-Man 2 (kind of like Grand Theft Auto in the free roaming sense) but it just looks like a comic book. You also play as both Spider-Man AND Venom. Which is a pretty cool feature as each character plays very differently. It's fun b/c Venom is pretty vicious as some of moves involve sucking the life out of victims, snapping opponents backs in half (with sick "snap!" sound effect to boot) and more. Plus the story for this game is a lot better than Spider-Man 2's was so far, so if you liked that game I'm sure you'd love this one.

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This weekend should be fun- it's the final weekend of the baseball season and there are two great series occuring- Indians-White Sox and of course Yankees- Red Sox. So I'll be glued to my TV for those.

Plus Serenity opens today, and I'll be going to see it tomorrow after the baseball game, so that should be really cool. I'm looking quite forward to it.

Been a pretty good week

Last week (Thurs to be exact) I went with Ariana to see Dane Cook at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. I got downtown pretty early though, so to kill time I wandered around Times Square. I hit the Toys R Us to look around at all the cool toys that I would want but most likely won't get (as I've pretty much stopped collecting due to money and space issues).

So of course I ran across three things that I was VERY tempted to buy- and all of them were Transformers (what can I say, I'm a sucker for kick ass looking robots). They have these new huge transformers and I saw the new Starscream and Megatron and both looked freakin awesome. Sadly, they were also quite expensive, so that killed my immediate temptation (which is good b/c like I said these things were huge and I already have no room for anything).

However, the third transformer was regular sized and it was something I bet a ton of guys out there would love. It was the character of Grimlock (who used to be the leader of the Dinobots, he was the T-Rex), but they've updated him and now instead of a T-Rex, he's a SWEET looking Ford Mustang GT. It's in car mode in the box, and it looks great. You almost couldn't tell it was a Transformer. It could have easily been mistaken for a model. That one was only $20, so the temptation was definitely there, but in the end I decided not to get it (at least not right then) b/c I didn't want to be carrying anything around for the rest of the night. I've since mentioned
my find to a few people though and they all really wanna get one too now. So I just found that kinda funny, we are all such big kids at heart, lol.

-But yeah, as for the comedy show itself, it was hysterical as expected. My only complaint (and it's not Cook's fault at all) is that I regret buying and listening to his album before seeing him live, b/c he did a lot of material from it. And we all know a joke is always funnier the first time
you hear it. But like I said it was still funny, I only wish I had done things in the opposite order.

-On Saturday night, me and Ariana went to Joe & Patty's place for a Poker night. There was a pretty good group. I don't remember everyone's names (b/c most people I just met that night), but there were nine of us altogether and we all had a good time.

I didn't do as well as last time, but I was a part of probably the most memorable moment of the night when during the first hand of the second round, I went all in against 3 other people who ALSO went all in, with what I felt was a very solid hand (three 6's and 2 Kings). And I would have won the hand too and taken the biggest pot of the night if not for the damn River card, which wound up giving the victory to Henry's friend, Perry and essentially eliminated three people from the game. So yeah, it was definitely a "TV-worthy" hand.

Ariana picked up my slack though and did well for herself. She wound up splitting the overall pot three ways at the end (b/c the game lasted for quite sometime and we decided to just call it a night). So that was cool.

-The next night was the Unforgiven PPV at Phil's place, where we all scored our Fantasy guys. But I already went over that in my last post so I won't repeat myself here. It was very cool though.

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-Went back to the High schools this week, and thankfully there was no big turnover like last year. So I'll be working with pretty much the same people, which is good.

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-In concert news- Jordan scored four tix for us to go see Disturbed at the Nokia Theater Times Square, which I was just told used to be the old WWE Restaurant/venue- the World, so that is pretty freakin sweet.

-And finally, another bit of freakin sweet news- we went to the final game of our Yankee season tix last night. And not only did we win the game (which brought us to 4-4 on the season for games we went to), but Boston lost, which put the Yanks back on top of the AL East by themselves for like the first time since freakin April.

-Now we normally give Christina's friend, Daniel, a pretty hard time at the Yankee games b/c we would blame each loss on him, since last year we only lost 1 game we attended out of all the ones we went to. And the only difference from this year to last year? Daniel.

So yeah, we busted his chops pretty bad all season-threatening to make him give up his season tix (or steal them from him) b/c he was bad luck. But with this last victory, I think we can let him off the hook b/c taking back the AL East is about as good of an ending for our passes as we could have hoped.

Boo-ya!

Last night was the end of the WWE Fantasy Season, with the Unforgiven PPV. The scores were just posted this afternoon, and I kicked ass!!!

I was on freakin fire this last week. I scored 477 points this week (the most anyone in my league scored in one week all season), and was in 118th place for the week OVERALL (that means only 117 people scored better than me, out of over 100,000 people playing the game).

So overall in the league I was in I wound up finishing in second place. But as I was telling Chaz (who was also in my league), I didn't play the first week, and for the second week, I screwed up (which was my bad b/c I didn't read all the rules and stuff) so I fell WAY behind. Yet I came up from the basement, and still wasn't TOO far out of 1st place.

The Fantasy League ranks people week by week, and after my screw up that second week, I was in 103016th place (yeah, ouch). But I was determined not to let that get me down and still try to win this thing. So each week, I kept moving up the ranks. I came in 1st place in my league six times (out of 14 weeks- well 13 technically) and I was never in last place again after that first week I played (actually I was in second place at least 3 more times).

And by the end of the league's season I was ranked 2378th, which is a pretty dramatic leap, don't you think?

So yeah, while I may technically be in second place, I'm totally proclaiming myself winner of my league (which I don't recall if I mentioned or not was named "Freakin Sweet Wrestling"- yeah we're all Family Guy geeks). Cuz I seriously doubt anyone else in my group could have made that comeback. And hey, if they wanna dispute my claim, they can just try to take me down next time around.

And we JUST found out that they are starting Season 5 in three weeks (it starts Oct 10th) and it's free again, so me and Chaz have already signed back up. Cuz this time, I'm determined to make the leader boards.

So yeah, I just had to share/revel in my victory with you all.

If any of you are hardcore wrestling fans and would like to join the Fantasy game, you can sign up now on the WWE website. Trust me, it's tons of fun.

A quick addendum

I completely forgot to mention an amusing thing in my last post about my question being posted on the WWE Fantasy site.

When a person posts a question at the end it will put your name and your team name, like this: Joe Schmo from "::insert team name here::"

Well when they posted my question they put my name but then "from Bronx, NY." And I was wondering why (b/c you have to enter your team name when you send a question, so they obviously had it). Then it hit me... my team name was "Darth Asskickers." They prob didn't wanna post it b/c it had the word "ass" in it.

I know, it's a stupid reason, especially considering what kind of company we're talking about here, but what other reason could there be? B/c if you check, EVERY other person has their team name after their question.

So yeah, I just found that funny, and had to share.

I'm Famous! (sorta)

This is the final week in the WWE Fantasy game, and so I was looking through the website, particularly the questions section (where people can e-mail asking about point discrepencies and such). Well I get to the Smackdown questions and once I start reading the first question on that page, I noticed it looked familiar. I was like "hey, I started my question the same way... whoa! This IS my question!! Kick ass!"

So yeah, check it out! (If it can't be seen, b/c I'm not sure if you need to sign in to get to this section, let me know and I'll just copy and paste what's there on the blog).

Serenity Poster

I just ran across this on ign.com and had to share. It's the Australian movie poster for the movie Serenity. And it looks freakin awesome.

What happens at Joe's Party, stays at Joe's party...

Until I post the really embarassing pics here that is!

Check out some of these funny shots from the party:

Me and Ariana (she was the only one brave enough to wear the hat outside of the restaurant)


Joe is gonna kill me for this one, but tell me he doesn't look like a Mexican stripper or something here (see the dollar on the side, heh)?



And last but not least, Joe took this one and put exactly what we were all thinking in the balloon. Poor Gaetano... this sucker is up on Henry's blog too. LOL.

Fun, even if not my style...

On Friday night I took Ariana to see the triple headlined concert of Marc Anthony, Chayanne and Alejandro Fernandez at MSG. It's not my kind of music at all but this was part of my anniversary gift to Ariana since she has wanted to see Marc Anthony in concert forever (and she was also very excited for Chayanne).

Pretty much the ENTIRE show was in Spanish (except for Marc Anthony's last song- "I Need to Know"), but that was fine with me. This was all for Ariana. Plus I still thought the music was fine, and I also got some amusement by watching the reactions to stuff in the audience. It was a fairly mixed crowd age-wise. Lots of older women though, and it was hysterical to watch them fawn and scream at any and all three of the men on stage. That definitely kept me entertained for a good part of the show.

Ariana loved the entire show too, so I was very happy about that. I was especially happy that Marc Anthony played for a little over a full hour unlike the last time I tried to take Ariana to a show of his and he only performed 4 songs (and the sound for his set wasn't the greatest either). So we were both quite pleased.

-The next day (Sat) me and Ariana bummed around for the first part of the day. We watched the first hour of Smackdown online- which wound up being a waste b/c unlike the rest of the country, they actually wound up showing the full two hours over here. Oh well.

-We then watched the Family Guy movie- The Stewie Griffen Story which Alan had downloaded and passed onto me this week. The movie is pretty freakin funny. It's amusing to hear all the characters curse and stuff. The best parts of the movie though was anything featuring Quagmire. Oh man all those scenes were freakin hysterical. If you are a Family Guy fan, you need to pick up this movie when it comes out on DVD (which I just found out is going to be on Sept. 27th).

-Later that night we went to Tequilla Sunrise in Larchmont for Joe's b-day gathering. I'm not a fan of Mexican food at all, so I picked up a slice of pizza beforehand. But regardless I had a fun time at the place b/c a good amount of people showed up, so it was good to see everyone again. It's true what Joe was saying- we gotta try to do this more often than just for people's b-days.

After dinner we then went to New Roc to go see the Transporter 2, and there we caught up with Marisa who had conspired with me and Henry to keep her presense a secret from Joe and surprise him before the movie. It wound up working out quite well, and Joe was happily surprised, so we were all proud of ourselves for pulling everything off.

Finally we ended the night by spending an hour at the New Roc arcade, where we spent most of the time either just catching up and playing a few rounds of Air Hockey. One funny comment to come out of the air hockey tournament was that Marisa and Ariana played against each other but near the beginning of the game, me and Joe left their game to play our own finals when another table opened up b/c the arcade was only a few minutes from closing and we wanted to get that final game in.

Well in the end Marisa won a hard-earned victory from Ariana 7-6, but then they both stormed over to us, complaining that we ditched them. So Ariana commented that:

"We were like the WNBA just there, busting our asses playing a game but no one comes to see them!"

We all found that comparison pretty funny, but we were saved from actually being in trouble when less than 5 minutes later they shut down the power to all the games. So we were able to prove that if we didn't start the game then, we wouldn't have finished. ::Phew!::

And that was about it for the weekend. I'll come back later in the day to post some amusing pics from the b-day gathering, along with some other stuff if I have the time.

Another batch of B-Day shout-outs!

Happy Birthday (future or belated) to those with September b-days!

My Dad (9/7)
Robin G. (9/9)
My Aunt (9/10)
Jordan (9/25)
Maryann (9/25)
and to Joe V. whose was actually back in Aug but we just celebrated this past weekend.

Firefly/Serenity

I believe I mentioned at some point that I've been watching the reruns of Joss Whedon's Firefly on the Sci-Fi network to prepare myself for going to see Serenity when it comes out Sept. 30th.

I had missed the initial run of the show, b/c they put it in the TV graveyard that is Friday nights. And as much as I love Whedon's stuff, I did have a life.

And now, they are still showing the reruns on Friday's but at least now I've got a DVR so I can record it and watch it whenever I want. And I must say, I've been liking what I've seen so far. The show is definitely heavy on the sci-fi elements, but also has a big western feel. It's an interesting mix to say the least. But one thing that makes it stand out is of course the action and humor- things Whedon knows how to provide in spades.

So yeah, last night I'm watching last week's episode and it had one of most hysterical quotes I've heard in a Whedon show. I just had to write it down once I heard it b/c I was laughing so hard.

Basically the set up is the Hero, (Mal is his name) helps out this colony and as payment they basically give him a wife, named Saffron (but he didn't realize that he had gotten married b/c it was a weird ceremony).  So he doesn't wanna be married (even though she is pretty and all) b/c he is the loner type.

But she keeps wanting to please him, and it makes him uncomfortable (especially around the rest of the crew).  She wants to cook him dinner, wash his feet, etc and he's getting weirded out.  He wants to get a divorce immediately, so he asks the preacher (they have a preacher on the ship) and he says he'll work things out but he better not take sexual advantage of her, otherwise he'll go to a special place in Hell

So as Mal is getting ready for bed that first night, the girl surprises him by being naked in his bed, and he's like "woah!"  So as she continues to make sexual advances to him, he stutters out "i can't do this.  It's morally wrong..."

So the girl responds with this, and the delivery and the reaction was just pure comic gold:

Saffron: "I do know my bible...on the night of their betrothal the wife shall open to the man as the frough to the plow and he shall work in her, in and again til she bring him to his fall and rest him then upon the sweat of her breast."
Mal: "Woah.... good bible."

Now that's freakin funny dialogue. So yeah, stuff like that, along with the very cool previews for Serenity have me pretty psyched for the movie. Let's hope it lives up to the hype.

Thoughts on Hurricane Katrina and more

What does this picture (courtesy of www.alexrossart.com) have to do with the hurricane and the disaster down in New Orleans? I'll get to that soon enough.

I realize that I haven't even mentioned the horrible circumstances of Hurricane Katrina up to this point. It is just a very sad situation and I've been praying for those people since last week.

But we all know about what's going on down there. Now I'm gonna bitch about the job the Federal Gov't is doing down there and how despicable the Bush Administration is.

Ok, there is a lot of blame going on as to whose fault it is, on why the support for the people of New Orleans was so poorly handled. The Federal Gov't is blaming the City, the City is blaming the State, the State is blaming the Fed gov't, etc. And there is blame to go ALL around, but let me bring to the front a big fact.

On Aug. 27th, Pres. Bush declared an Emergency in New Orleans. The SECOND he did that, he basically put the federal gov't in charge of everything going on down there, and thus, the City and State were off the hook. And while that doesn't mean they could just sit on their hands, what it DOES mean, is that they were fully expecting the Fed gov't to get involved ASAP, and help did not come for days! So in the end, if you're gonna go around pointing fingers as to who the most blame lays on, don't forget that.

[Ok, before people start bitching to me about this opinion, I DID state that there was blame to go around. The city and state should have been better prepared. However, once the Pres said what he did on Aug. 27th, he was basically taking over, and he did a piss poor job of it. That's the equivalent of a little kid wanting to build a soapbox racer, buying the materials and having the instructions in front of him, then their dad says, "I'll build that for you." But the race is coming up soon, and he doesn't hurry up and help him. So the kid has to start himself and doesn't do as well of a job as he should have if he had his dad's help, and then the car comes apart during the race and he crashes.]

Oh and another thing about Bush- did anyone catch his comments last week right after the disaster first occured. In that interview with Diane Sawyer, she directly confronts Bush by asking something along the lines of (I forget the exact phrasing) "with the situation in New Orleans, and the War in Iraq, how will the budget overseas be affected in terms of paying for aid here." (I know that wasn't the exact question, but that's what she was getting at).

But anyways, his EXACT response was "We will win the war on terror."

WHAT THE FREAKIN HELL?!?!?

Talk about a one track mind! She's asking about our own people who are in dire need of aid, and what he's gonna do about it, and he babbles about winning some stupid war on "terror." I wanted to smack the man when I heard that.

-Ok, and then the situation down there is bad enough, but then last week the price of gas SKYROCKETS! And then they have the nerve to say it was b/c of Hurricane Katrina! What the hell does the hurricane have to do with gas prices?? Fine, ok. The hurricane affected some oil places in the Gulf Coast. Umm, so what? We get oil from a ton of different places, including Iraq which we've basically just taken over and you're telling me b/c a hurricane affected just ONE of the areas we get oil from, that the price gets to jump more than 50 cents a gallon? In the words of the Hurricane (the professional wrestler one) "Whuzzupwitdat?!?"

I'm sorry to say, Bush and his buddies can BS all they want about not really being in the oil business anymore, but their friends are, and don't you think it's more than just a funny coincidence that in the years that Bush has been in office the price of gas has gone up about 300%? Now refer to the picture at the beginning of this post and see what I feel that Bush is really doing to our wonderful nation.

-Oh, and one last thing that is bothering me. The fact that people in the federal gov't (and thus all the stupid reporters) are referring to the victims of Hurricane Katrina as "refugees."

Why the hell are we calling these people "refugees???" A refugee is someone from another country who seeks shelter/help during wartime. And ok, granted, we are at war, but this has NOTHING to do with the war. I dislike the use of this term. I just feel it has a negative conotation to it. Use the term "displaced citizens" or something, considering that is exactly what they are.

But I just hate not only that term but also just how these people are being treated by the gov't. Like did anyone hear the story about the woman with three children who was being "rescued" by the National Guard. She had an 11 year old, and two infants. Well the mother was told that she along with the two infants could go with the transport, but she had to leave the 11 year old behind to go on another transport b/c "the 11 year olds are going somewhere else."

Please tell me how this makes sense!?!? How would you feel if this happened to you? And what the hell is up with the insensitivity of the National Guard and gov't?? How dare they do something like that! It's absolutely disgusting.

And granted, they are undermaned, ill-prepared and under lots of pressure, but here's another thing- many other countries have offered tons of assistance. Granted some of those countries are Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Venezuela. So Bush and his cronies are now in what they feel is a bind (but it really isn't). They can accept the help (which might I add, iincludes something like 1,200 doctors from Cuba, and a DISCOUNT ON GAS from Venezuela), but they know that it'll probably come with strings attached. And granted, these countries are SO doing this on purpose to make the U.S. look bad. After all the crap we've said and done to these countries, they are making themselves seem like "the better man" (whether that is actually true or not), for still offering massive aid to us.

So you know my opinion on this?

Pres Bush has just been served a nice big helping of humble pie. Now he better shut up and eat it!

If he refuses this aid, people will freakin flip! Especially the lower class people. It will just go to show that the U.S. gov't really doesn't care about the majority of the people affected by the Hurricane b/c they are poor. It's not a race thing, like my co-worker said today "it's not b/c they are black, it's because they are POOR!"

Most of the people still left are among the lower class, people who may not be "contributing to the overall economy of the nation." So the federal gov't sees these people as expendable, or "collateral damage." And it's freakin disgusting.

Thankfully, lots of people are opening their hearts to the people of New Orleans. I just hope and pray it reaches everyone in time. But yeah, I've got a bit more to say, but I'll end my bitching here. I don't want to get myself more annoyed than I already am. Just please continue to pray for all those affected by this tragedy and that Pres. Bush actually makes some good decisions for once in his life and does right by the American Public.

-End rant.

3 Concerts and more

Ok, so as of last night we are just about done with our huge series of concerts. I'm taking Ariana to the Marc Anthony/Chayanne show on Friday and after that, nothing for over a month, until the Foo Fighters/Weezer show.

But I must say, the past few shows we've gone to have all been pretty freakin cool.

The first one was Our Lady Peace at the Bowery Ballroom on Wed night. Me and Ariana went to that and met up with Stevo there.

Bowery Ballroom is a pretty sweet place for a show. It's mad small (smaller than Irving Plaza) and has a really cool bar/lounge area downstairs where you can chill before the show or between bands. So we took advantage of that for all of us to catch up while the opening band delivered the suck on stage.

As for OLP's performance, they were great as always. They played for prob about an hour and a half and did about 14 songs. Seven songs were older hits, while the other 7 were songs off their new album. And normally, I hate when bands do that (especially considering the new album came out only one day before the show), but the new songs were really good, and they put a lot of energy into them. So in the end, the great performance of those new songs live, has given me a deeper respect for the album itself.

-Then the very next day, me and Ariana went to see Green Day at Giants Stadium. Jimmy Eat World opened and they put on a good albeit short set. They only played a half hour, but in that half hour they played pretty much all their hits. So it worked out, b/c I heard everything I really wanted to. If they had gone longer it would have been more like filler than anything else for me, heh. But yeah the performance was solid, and the lead singer's voice sounded better than the last time I saw them. So that was cool.

Then Green Day came out and freakin rocked the house. Before the show I had actually been a bit skeptical as to how good the show would be. Not b/c of Green Day per se, b/c I had seen them a few times before and they are always fun, but more b/c they were just playing a huge arena and I didn't know how the crowd or the sound for the band would be.

Well luckily the crowd was VERY into the show (the entire arena was on their feet the whole time) and the sound for the band was pretty good, so I was happy about that. Not to mention the setlist Green Day played was freakin great. They played pretty much all their major hits, including some lesser known, but still cool songs. They also played for just under 2 hours, and the whole time they were very energetic and had the crowd eating out of the palms of their hands. That's one thing I definitely have to give credit to Green Day for, they know how to work a crowd and put on a Hell of a show.

So my worries of possibly not enjoying the show were completely erased and by the end of the show, both me and Ariana had to say that it was actually one of the best shows we had ever been to (which is a pretty big thing to say, especially from me).

-Then to end the trifecta of shows within the week, me and Ariana went to see Coldplay @ MSG last night (Christina and Daniel went also, and after the show we wound up meeting up with Matthew and David too).

I wasn't thrilled with the opening band (although everyone seemed to think they were ok, other than the fact the sound was way too loud for them). They can have their opinions but mine was "ehh," also b/c they played for way too long (a full hour for an opening band that is not known? The Hell is that about)?

Coldplay also played a long set (an hour and 45 mins) but it was filled with pretty much all their big hits. I think the only big song they didn't play was Trouble (which disappointed me slightly but since the rest of the set was awesome, I couldn't complain too much). The concentrated mostly on the first 2 albums, and the stuff they played from the new album were the better songs, so like I said it was a REALLY solid set. Just about all you can ask from them, so we all walked out of the show pretty happy.

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Oh and last but not least, something else to be happy about (hey the title of this post does say 3 concerts AND MORE)- I FINALLY beat Star Wars: KOTOR2 on Monday!!! WHOO!!

So yeah, I'm pretty psyched about that. The game was a lot of fun, although in the end I still think the story to the first KOTOR was far superior. But I'd def still recomend this game.

But now I've gotta make a decision. Which game do I start next? I'm thinking Suikoden 4, but I also have some PSone RPGs I should go through (Chrono Cross and Wild Arms 2). So it'll be a hard decision. I'll let u all know what I chose in a future post.

Batman-isms

Ok, I thought I was done with posts for the night, but I ran across this while reading my Wizard magazine tonight and just HAD to scan it in and share with everyone.

The article this is taken from is about how Batman has apparently gotten soft over the years, b/c when he was first created, he was a bit of a prick (at least from the way he was initially written). Check out the pic below to see what I mean:



Now tell me that "Quiet or papa spank!" isn't a better catchphrase than "I am the night!" or "I'm Batman!"

Hell, that's up there with "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch!?" from Chappelle Show, lol.

The thing with Robin is pretty funny too, as it puts some credibility to the theories of how the relationship between Batman and Robin wasn't always on the level, heh. So yeah just had to share.

Talent vs No-Talent

I came across two amusing stories about bands having issues with one another, one on the legal front, the other onstage and in the public eye.

The first is that apparently the band Slipknot is trying to bring legal action against Burger King for those new Coq Roq commercials they are having for their new Chicken Fries. Basically Slipknot is trying to say that the band in the commercial are stealing their look and sound (if you haven't seen the commercials you can visit www.coqroq.com to get a sample of what they are like).

On first glance at the story it sounds like utter BS. However, the one thing Slipknot has on their side is that, apparently Burger King DID contact Slipknot a few months ago wanting to use them in commercials to promote their product and were turned down. So that looks kind of bad for BK from a legal standpoint.

But other than that, I stand by my initial belief that this is total BS. Fine, BK might have tried to get Slipknot to promote their stuff (although I can't fathom why) and they refused, but the band they DID get to promote the product are not exactly like Slipknot. They might have crazy masks, but all the masks look like Chickens or Roosters- not all crazy kinds like Slipknot does.

Plus, just from the two different BK commercials with Coq Roq that I saw, showed that they have more talent in their pinky fingers than Slipknot as a whole does. So Slipknot is prob just jealous of the new band b/c they are getting lots of exposure for a similar playing style which they obviously can perform better than Slipknot can.

But you can form your own opinion after checking out the article right here.

- The second battle actually involves two more well known acts- Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath (or more specifically Sharon Osbourne on behalf of Ozzy).

Apparently, Bruce Dickinson (the lead singer of Iron Maiden to those of you not in the know- and if you are not in the know- for shame!) had been making a few not so nice remarks about having to open for Ozzy while on stage at a few Ozzfest shows.

So to get back at Bruce and rest of Iron Maiden, on the final show of the tour, Sharon Osbourne handed out about 30 eggs which were snuck past security to people in the front rows, who then pelted the band with them. And they also pumped chants of "Ozzy! Ozzy!" over the loud speaker before and even DURING Iron Maiden's set.

So understandably both sides are pretty pissed with one another. Dickinson made a few comments responding to what happened through his publicist which prompted Sharon to release a written rebuttal, which can be found along with the rest of the article at this link.

It's pretty amusing, so you should check it out. Basically, they are both acting like big babies. So it should be interesting to see if this plays out any further.

More Info on my Aunt

Well, we finally know exactly what happened to my aunt.

It's actually similar to what I explained before. My aunt basically went through what is known as a "Molar Pregnancy." You can find out all about what that is through this link.

But for those of you too lazy to click the link, what it basically boils down to is that she was sort of pregnant but not really. To quote from the website what happened is basically that: "Complete molar pregnancies have only placental parts (there is no baby), and form when the sperm fertilizes an empty egg. Because the egg is empty, no baby is formed. The placenta grows and produces the pregnancy hormone, called HCG, so the patient thinks she is pregnant. Unfortunately, an ultrasound (sometimes called a sonogram) will show that there is no baby, only placenta."

This is a bad thing though (obviously). It wasn't cancerous (although as the website states, things can get pretty complicated to the point it's almost as bad as cancer) so it had to be removed. But she is ok now, so we are all very thankful for that. So yeah just figured I'd put in the final update on that situation.