Road to our own personal Wrestlemania!

Last week both James and I were bored at work, and James challenged me to a "Wedding License" Ladder Match at Wrestlemania. This has come about from a few long running jokes stemmning from how awesome Ariana is, and how she'll say or do things which prompts James to get on his knee and propose to her (or ask if she has a sister). One example was, a few of us play the WWE Fantasy game, and Ariana actually knows the rules to the game better than some of the guys. So one day when we were discussing whether something should have counted as an object shot for points, she goes and says "No, it's not b/c it's inherent to the ring." (This impressed James to no end, as that was exactly how it was stated on the WWE site). So things like that have brought us to the point of his challenge. There is enough backstory, that we could actually put together an awesome 5 minute promo about the match to hype it up, lol.

We even booked the entire match. The referee will get knocked out near the end of the match (probably due to a reversed irish whip where either me or James will accidentally crush the ref in the corner). I will be climbing the ladder as Ariana distracts James, but then she'll either claw his eyes or something to make him stumble backwards into the ladder, knocking me off it (maybe sending me crashing through a table) on the outside. James will then climb the ladder, and get the contract.

BUT, the referee will still be down. So James friend (and manager for this match), Melissa will then turn on him, knocking him out with a steel chair shot. At this time I'll be getting back in the ring. I'll pick up the dropped Marriage License and at that point the referee will finally wake up, see me with it in my hands and declare me the winner.

(Yeah... sometimes we just have WAAAY too much time on our hands, lol).

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And this just in! I've added a new match to our Wrestlemania card: it's a Battle Royal between all my male friends where the winner earns the right to be the best man at my wedding!

I've already booked the match to the point where I've selected the final five men in the ring. It'll end between: Chaz, Greg, Henry, Joe V, and Jordan. But I've yet to book a winner (wow... how this parallels real life! lol).

At least I have up til Wrestlemania to decide that one! I'm like the WWE bookers in real-life, I keep changing my mind all the way up to the last moment, heh.

Minor Disappointments

Last week I went with Joey D to see Silverchair in concert at Webster Hall. The show was only $20, so we were pretty psyched, b/c we both still listen to their stuff every once in awhile (I think their first album- Frogstomp, is awesome).

So we get to the show, and meet up with one of Joey's buddies and we're set to rock out. But the performance wasn't exactly what we were expecting. They played a lot of their lesser known stuff, and a few newer songs. And while the songs weren't bad, we were disappointed b/c we just didn't know the stuff. They are great performers and musicians though, so we were having a decent time, but we were just waiting for their older, harder stuff from the first album.

Sadly, that never came.

They didn't play even ONE song off of Frogstomp, which really irritated us (as well as many people in the audience). I hate when bands do stuff like that. They HAD to know that most of the audience were fans of the earlier stuff and that's what they were expecting to hear, so it takes a lot of nerve to go out there and just play whatever they heck they wanted without taking the fans into account. The fans are the ones that support the band and make them who they are. You HAVE to please your fans. So they totally killed the buzz of the crowd. Most of the people at that show will never go to a Silverchair show again (I know I won't), and many didn't buy the merchandise that night, b/c they went home unhappy. Dumb move on the band's part.

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The second disappointment wasn't so unexpected though. I went with David on Saturday night to go see Ghost Rider. Ariana was busy with work stuff, David wanted to see the movie and I was bored, so I figured "ehh, why not?"

Visually, the movie is cool. Ghost Rider is just a very cool looking character, so to see him in "live-action" was pretty sweet. But the plot of the movie? Bleh. The acting? Even worse. Like I said, the only redeeming parts were the effects on Ghost Rider. Oh and Eva Mendes in her very form fitting dresses. But those things can't save a movie.

My "favorite" part: at the end of the movie (don't worry I'm not really spoiling anything you'd care about) when the previous Ghost Rider says to the current one "I'm coming with you. [to go after the bad guy] I got one last ride in me." Which leads to this cool scene of the two Ghost Riders (the current one on his motorcycle and the older one on his horse- both in cool looking flames) riding off to where the villain of the movie is hiding out. But then they arrive at the place and the old Ghost Rider turns to the current one (Blaze) and says "this is as far as I can go. You're on your own here." and gives Blaze the hellfire shotgun and leaves.

What the heck!?!? What was the point in him coming along for the ride?? Purely for the visual obviously, but in the context of the movie itself- for NO REASON WHATSOEVER!! That just had me laughing.

So overall, a disappointment. Here's hoping the next few Marvel movies are better (I'm sure Spider-Man 3 will be cool, but I'm crossing my fingers on Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer).

Some thoughts going through my head

I've been feeling a tad anxious lately. Things seem to be coming together well, but it just has me thinking about how busy I'm going to be and how much things are going to change in the next few months.

First, there is the process of getting the co-op apartment I mentioned in the last post. It's kind of on pause at the moment, b/c the lawyer we're going to use is away this week, but things will start back up next week. So we gotta figure out the mortgage, deal with the co-op board, etc. And then once we actually close on the place, we gotta deal with fixing it up (and decorating it). And even though I know I'll have help in that aspect, it still seems like a daunting task ahead of me.

Then there is the wedding planning going on at the same time. As most of you know, Ariana and I are planning to get married in October, so plans are full speed ahead. We spoke with my pastor, and he let us know which dates were available, and now we're in the process of researching and calling different sites to hold the reception. It's a hard task, mostly b/c we're working with a tight budget, but things are coming along (although if anyone has any suggestions, we'll gladly take them).

And finally, there is school. This semester looks like it could be a little more difficult than the previous one, mostly b/c this semester I have two term papers to do (which are always the bane of my academic existence). It's also pretty reading-heavy for the beginning of the semester but at least I know it's gonna slow down later.

So these things are stressing me enough, but then there is just the whole getting ready to finally leave home. I've never lived on my own before (well other than a few summers when I dormed at Fordham), so one thing I really need to do is learn to cook. I think the rest will fall into place, but cooking is something I definitely need to learn to do soon. So that's another thing that is going to take up time in my life.


And that's not even mentioning that before all these things came at me, I had been thinking of being a more active person. Cuz generally when I get home, it's the same routine- I workout (sometimes), play some Wii (or Guitar Hero), and watch lots of TV on my DVR. And that's fine, b/c I enjoy those things, but I've been thinking lately that I want to actually DO something. For example, my mom's husband is a graphic artist, so I see him always designing things on the computer, or learning an instrument and writing songs. I've always wanted to do stuff like that, but I've just been lazy. And I'm tired of being lazy. One good thing is that with the whole apartment thing coming up, I think that will solve this issue for me, b/c that will be something I will have a huge hand in building.

But then I've also been thinking about friendships and how I've been out of touch with some people. This has come up, especially in the last few weeks due to a few situations that have occured (which I'll get into in another post). But basically, I wanna be more in touch with my friends. I used to be on AIM all the time, and constantly chatting with people and stuff. And I'm still on, but not really. I have the AIM on, but I'm always watching TV or doing something else. And I never call anyone anymore (which is probably more the internet's fault than mine but still). I want to make sure I keep all the great friendship's I have and not be left out due to me not reaching out as much as I used to. I know these thoughts and ideas might be unfounded, but it's what is floating through my head at the moment, and this is my venue to share it so I'm taking advantage of it (hey, half of the title of this blog IS "random thoughts").

So yeah, I just felt I had to get that off my chest. If anyone has anything to say about what I've written, please feel free to share.

This past weekend (Feb 9th-11th)

Friday was a pretty crazy day. I had lots to do, and lots of things came up (both good and bad). Work was fairly laid back (which was cool). So I took a long lunch and met up with Sheila in McGinley center to chat. Then when I got back to the office I watched the latest episode of Heroes on the nbc website.

I hung around the office even after we were let go for the day b/c I had to wait to pick up Ariana when she got home b/c we were planning to go see the Co-Op apartment in the building right behind Jordan’s place.

I had been talking to Jordan throughout the day, setting up what we would need to do once we got there. Well as I was leaving the office to pick up Ariana, I got a random call from Jordan (I say random b/c I had just spoken with him about 15 minutes beforehand, and there was nothing we really needed to say til we saw each other in a few minutes). And he sounded shaken. He told me he had an emergency and probably wouldn’t be able to go with me to see the apartment, (I’m sure by now you all know why. If not, maybe you should ask him. I won’t go into details about it here). So I had to scramble and call my mom so she could come with us to give us any advice we’d need.

So I picked up Ariana, and my Mom and Pat followed us up to Mt. Vernon. We met up with the realtor (who is a friend of Jordan’s family), and Maryann met up with us too, to keep her mind off the crazyiness that was happening with Jordan. We all checked out the place, and it was pretty sweet. It needs some work (we’ll basically have to do the floors, as well as gut the bathroom, and everything in the kitchen except the fridge and stove), but other than that it’s not too bad. The living room in the place is huge, and it’s actually a 2 bedroom place, so we could potentially be in that place even a few years after our first child. So it’s definitely exciting.

After looking at the apartment, me and Ariana went back up with Maryann to Jordan’s apartment, and the rest of the crew came over as well for the planned Wii/video game party. Phil, Ketrin, Joe J., Pete, Joe V, Henry and Goombah all came over at one point or another. And even though the intention was mostly to play the Wii, we spent a good chunk of time playing Guitar Hero 1 & 2 (which was sweet).

I finally got to challenge Henry in a full on “Rock-off,” which was cool b/c the only person I’d ever played the game against was Phil and I whupped him pretty good. Henry came ready to battle, even decked out in full rock-gear (including eyeliner and the words “rock” and “hero” written on his knuckles. But I turned him into a rock “fool” by kicking his butt in every song I played him in. Go me! Lol. Now I just gotta challenge Greg...

Jordan finally arrived around 9pm, and he filled everyone in on what happened to him. He was glad we were all there to keep his mind off things, and I think we all did as good a job as possible and we all had a good time.

We also had our “line of the night” around that time, when Phil was passing his Wii-mote to Pete so he could play and said “Pete, I only like you with your strap on.” (Read into that what you will, lolol).


In the end we stayed until about 2am playing random games (I believe the last game we tried was a surgical game on the Wii, which was amusing. Jordan controlled the character as his “surgical team” of Phil, Ketrin and Joe yelled instructions to him. It was a funny sight.).

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Woke up early the next morning, picked up Phil and we went to Jordan’s. The girls had their early day out (brunch and shopping) while guys had their day to hang. We initially had the plan to have a marathon and watch all three Lord of the Rings movies, but since there was only 4 of us (me, Jordan, Henry & Phil), we decided to change plans up a bit. So we watched LOTR: The Two Towers, and then Equilibrium. And halfway through the day we ordered ourselves some “man pizzas.” We ordered 2 pies- one was bacon pizza, while the other was half BBQ-rib and half Philly Cheesesteak. That were freaking amazing pizzas!

-Another thing I did about halfway through the day, was I called Esther (the realtor from last night) and made an offer on the apartment.

Later on, the girls came back and some of them hung out in the apartment as well (it was Maryann joined by Ariana & Ketrin).

Jordan’s brother Daniel also came over later in the night, and after Phil, Ketrin & Henry left, we were still hanging out, and we decided to order the movie- Idiocracy on On-Demand PPV. For those of you who have never heard of the movie before (I had never heard of it myself before this point), it’s the latest Mike Judge film. We were all fans of Office Space, so we figured we’d give it a shot.

The movie itself, is REALLY dumb, but also hysterical. The premise to the movie (and the narration throughout) alone make the movie. But there are some really funny scenes throughout. Just to give you a very brief idea of what the movie is about- it basically shows what life in the world is like 500 years in the future, after all the stupid people in the world basically pro-create at such a higher rate than the average intelligent person, that in the end stupid people populate the entire earth (there is about no one with an IQ over 80 alive). But two people (a man and woman) who were COMPLETELY average were frozen and are now released in this time. But average in our time, is genius in this time, so it leads to some funny situations.

Now, I dunno if the movie was really as funny as we found it (we were pretty tired and out of it by the time we watched it), but there were lots of little “easter eggs” throughout the movie we found really amusing. So if you like stupid movies, I’d recommend this one, I think it’s good for a laugh.

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And the next day, we slept in a bit, and in the afternoon (around 1pm), we met up with Jordan & Maryann once again, and we went to the open-house of the apartment I had put I bid on, so Jordan could finally get a look at the place. He thought the place had a ton of potential and wasn’t in bad shape at all. And he immediately came up with a bunch of ideas for what we could do with the place.

And in even better news, when we got to the place, Esther told us that our offer had been accepted! So we basically made our first step into purchasing our own place! So we’re pretty excited.

Don’t go congratulating us yet though, there is a long and annoying process we need to go through before we officially own the place, but at least we are on the right track. So just keep us in your thoughts and prayers that everything goes well and we can get the place.

After we left the open-house, we went back up to Jordan’s place and kept discussing stuff about the apartment and what we could do with it, once we (hopefully) own it. We then ordered some Chinese from the place nearby (to see what we might be eating on a semi-regular basis, heh), and watched Clerks 2 on DVD.

Finally, later that night me and Ariana went to Phil’s place to watch the TNA: Turning Point PPV.

So all in all it was a pretty fun and exciting weekend!

Beginning to plan for the future

One thing I forgot to mention about the Superbowl party the other day. A conversation that came up (as it usually does when we’re amongst a group of friends), is when we are setting a wedding date. Well we have some ideas in mind, and now that Ariana is done with her comps exam, we will have time to look into stuff. So we got into a conversation with Jordan, and he offered to help us looking into condos in the lower Westchester/Mount Vernon/New Rochelle area.

And Jordan was on the button with everything. He actually called me the very next day, which was sooner than I expected (but awesome), with a lead on 3 places. And we set up an appointment to see the first place on Tuesday night.

So, on Tuesday night, I went with both my mom and Jordan to see the first place. It wasn’t much to talk about. It wasn’t bad, but there was just nothing really to it. It was very “plain jane” and would take a lot of work to make very nice. The only major pros to it were that it’s in a good area with access to lots of stuff (including the metro north in walking distance), and it wasn’t very expensive. I doubt we’ll go for it (depending on how the other places are), but it’s on the list.

After seeing the apartment, Jordan was telling my mom all about what he did with his place, so since we had to drop Jordan off at his place anyways, he invited us up to show my mom his apartment. She was totally impressed (as most of us were when we saw it as well), and he told us about the other two places to look at, one of which was a condo only two buildings over from his place.

Well today, I got yet another call from Jordan and we’re seeing the condo near his place on Friday evening. The price is good, the area is really nice, and the place is supposed to be in good condition, so just say a little prayer that the place is in as good a condition as we’ve heard, and if so, we very well might make an offer. So I’m pretty excited, wish us luck!

The annual Superbowl party

Last night (well on Sun. Feb 4th) was Joe & Patty’s annual Superbowl party. Lots of people went (Me, Ariana, Jordan, Maryann, Kristen, Henry, Esther, Phil, Ketrin, Pete, Jeff, Susana, Kate and a few other people who I forget the names of off the top of my head).

As far as how Joe’s Superbowl parties go, it goes down one of two ways. The guests are fairly interested in the game and we basically focus on our attention on it and the commercials. OR the guests can give a crap about the game and we wind up doing other random stuff during the game itself (talking, playing poker, etc), and stop only to watch the commercials.

This year, with the mix of people and the game being a huge mess (8 turnovers/fumbles?? Insane), and the commercials not being up to par, it basically just became a hangout night, with a football game in the background. But that was totally fun. There were lots of funny moments and conversations- Henry basically being an a**hole and making Pete and Phil his b*itches, and of course our dream plans for this coming weekend at Jordan’s place which consist of the guys (while the ladies are doing their girls hangout) watching all three Lord of the Rings movies on a giant screen TV, pizza, alcohol, and video games, capped off by having the returning ladies have a battle royal in jello (or chocolate syrup).

I don’t recall exactly how that last part evolved into what it did. I remember Ketrin was beating up on Peter and it got into a discussion of the ladies wrestling, and then Jordan thought about hosting a ladies battle royal at his apartment. Shockingly, none of the ladies smacked us as he suggested this... they actually seemed to give it a second of thought. So Jordan and I just kept rambling off things like how we could lay down some tarp in his apartment and have the ladies brawl in a kiddie pool filled with jello, and all the while, we are all laughing but no one is objecting to any of our “plans.” So forget it, by the end of the night we’re telling Joe he needs to rig up a webcam for us (cuz we could freakin charge for this), and we’re making plans to go to Target other places to get the needed supplies, lol.

Forget it, by the end of the night, me and Jordan had grins plastered on our faces as the ecstacy of the event played out in our minds. As Jordan said flat out to all the ladies: “Lord of the Rings, pizza, beer, video games, and our women wrestling in jello... if this were to all go down I could die the next day and be the happiest person on earth.”

Amen brother... Amen.

Celebrating Ariana being done with comps

Ariana had her comps exam yesterday (well on Fri. Feb 2nd). So while she was taking her test, I was actually with her godmother in the ER (don’t worry, she’s okay). Thankfully we weren’t in the ER long (only about 3 hours), and we actually made it out before Ariana got out of her exam.

After Ariana was done with the comps, she went out with some friends to grab something to eat and go to the movies to celebrate being done from all their studying. But we waited til today (Saturday), to celebrate on our own.

We had initially thought of maybe going to Red Rock West (on James and Phil’s request) but Ariana was too exhausted to do any big crazy drinking til late, so we decided to something more low-key. We called up a bunch of the crew to do Pizza Hut and the movies. We initially thought of seeing Dreamgirls (b/c Ariana had been wanting to see it), but decided to see Smoking Aces instead.

We wound up having a small group, but that was mostly b/c it was very last minute, but we had a great time. I tried Meat Lover’s Pizza for the first time at Pizza Hut, and I definitely enjoyed it. As for the movie, it was a bit confusing (they throw a LOT of information at you in a short amount of time), but after discussing the movie afterwards with everyone, it got pieced together for us.

But when we got out from the movie it was still early and our minds were fried so we decided to sneak into a mindless movie. So Jordan checked the movie listings and found that Epic Movie was starting in about 15 minutes. But as we were heading into the back of the theater to see it, we passed by a theater showing Catch & Release. That was actually the movie Ariana went with her friends to see the day before after exam, and she said it was funny, and James and Maryann were interested in it as well. So even though Jordan and I would have preferred Epic Movie, we figured we’d see Catch & Release anyways.

And wow... I think a mindless movie like Epic Movie would have made more sense than Catch & Release did. It was just such a terrible movie! Ariana felt bad, b/c she had recomended it, but I just joked that she was just so fried after her comps exam that she would have liked anything. But even though the movie sucked, it was still amusing b/c me and James kept cracking jokes through the whole movie. We had each other busting out laughing at multiple points throughout the movie, so that made it worth it in the end.

Quick January catchup

I'm not even going to go into a lot of detail over the month of January, b/c well... it's a full month, and I don't feel like it. Plus there are things in February I wanna hurry up and blog about. So here we go, full speed ahead.

-I played a lot of Guitar Hero (both 1 & 2), especially at the beginning of the month. I'm doing pretty well in it too. I'm now in the process of trying to earn 5 stars on every song on medium, and I'm pretty close. I only have a few left for the first GH, and I have five stars on 33 of the 40 songs in GH2. I tried hard mode once, just to see if I was good enough yet, since I was doing well in medium, and well... hard is another world all it's own. I couldn't even beat the first venue. So I'll just keep trying to fully beat medium, and then I'll try moving on again.

-I also played a lot of Wii. It's tons of fun, and a pretty good workout, if you actually stand up and do all the full motions like you would in real life. So I add that to my DDR and regular workout routine for some extra cardio. At the current moment (now in Feb), I have reached Pro Status in Baseball, Bowling and Boxing. And i'm fairly close in Tennis as well.

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Went to the movies only twice in Jan. First, I went to see Happy Feet with Ariana, my Mom and Pat. We had heard so much about it, that we just had to go see it. And I gotta say, it was a pretty fun movie, for both kids and adults. I fully enjoyed it.

The next movie we saw was during a sort of "guy's night out" with some of my old church crew. We went downtown to the AMC on 42nd street to see Pan's Labyrinth. I didn't know ANYTHING about the movie before seeing it, but my buddy David really wanted to see it (I was leaning more towards seeing Children of Men, but I was out voted). But in the end I thought it was a good flick. Then after the movie the guys (me, David, Matt, Joey and Jason B), went to the Times Square Brewery for some food and drinks, and we closed the place down.

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Throughout the month, I went into hardcore planning mode to try to get our proposed cruise trip off the ground. I wound up getting us a really great deal (especially for the summer). A full 7 day cruise to the Eastern Caribbean along with the flight down to Florida for under $1000.

But sadly, almost everyone flaked on us. We needed 8 rooms in order to be considered a group (which is about 16 people), and in the end we only had about 7-8 people who were committed to the trip. So that had me a bit bummed. Although in the end, it may have worked out for the best- at least for me and Ariana (I'll explain why in a future post).

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I caught up with the entire series of the new Battlestar Galactica. I bought the first season on DVD, and had the entire second season and all of the current third season recorded on my DVR. So I started watching during the Christmas break, and by watching at least 1-2 episodes a night (and even 3-4 on a handful of occassions), I was up to date with the latest episode by the end of the month.

And I have to say, the show is AMAZING. I had been hearing about the show for quite some time, and had always wanted to watch, but I was behind and didn't wanna just jump right in. But I'm glad I took the time to watch the entire series, b/c the critics aren't kidding when they call the series "one of the best shows on television." It's got all the drama of 24, (as well as the action, and even the torture sequences, lol). Also, due to the nature of the enemy on the show, basically ANY character could be a traitor, and they might not even know it! So it really keeps you guessing.

I'd definitely advise anyone who may be on the fence of whether or not they should give the show a try to go ahead and do it. Buy the DVDs and have a blast. I do have to warn that the first season can be a little... I don't wanna say "slow," but they throw a LOT of information at you in the first few episodes, and it takes awhile to really get rolling. But trust me, hang in there and you will be rewarded GREATLY, especially in the middle of the second season, which I'd consider one of the greatest collections of episodes in almost any TV series I've ever watched.

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Henry & Pete's huge b-day party was at the end of the month. We only got to go to one part of the three-pronged party, but we enjoyed ourselves for the bit we were there. But overall, it was a slow month in terms of outtings b/c Ariana was studying all month for her comps exam (which she took on Fri. Feb 2nd). That's explains why most of my highlights for the month have to do with video games, movies and TV shows, lol.

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I also restarted grad classes at the end of the month. I don't think I got to mention before, but I got an A in both my classes last semester. So I'm very proud of that. This semester I'm taking Multicultural Counseling and Groups Counseling. So wish me luck in those classes!