My Prayers Have Been Answered!!

Yes! At long last! I thought this day would never be here. Gymkata has come to DVD. "The skill of gymnastics, the kill of karate." My collection of action movies starring Olympic gymnast/martial artists fighting ninjas in 3rd-world European countries is now complete. Now if only I could have back the years I spend trying to locate the tiny, yet savage country of Parmistan (the perfect spot for a "star wars" site) on a map, my life would be complete.

Rest in Peace, Barbaro

Well, we just found out that, at 10:30 this morning, Barbaro was put to sleep. Barbaro's owners and doctor had always said that as long as they could manage his pain and Barbaro was still fighting, they would continue to fight to keep him alive and healthy. And so, for eight months, they did just that. Many owners would not have bothered. Many would have taken the $40-some million dollars in insurance and called it a day. Despite the fact that his owners probably would not have been able to breed him, because his leg would not have been able to handle the weight, they continued to do what they could. Unfortunately, after a long eight months filled with surgeries, infections, recoveries, flowers, carrots, cards, banners, hopes and prayers, Barbaro's condition reached a point where the doctors no longer felt they would be able to manage his pain. True to their word, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, along with Barbaro's surgeon, Dr. Dean Richardson, made the decision this morning and at 10:30 a.m., the racing world lost a great champion. Now, Barbaro is no longer in any pain. I wish I could say the same for us.

New Look

Well, what do you think? Apparently, the folks at Blogger.com updated their software or some such. Every time I signed on to put up a new post on the blog, I was bombarded with requests to begin using the new improved blogger. I got tired of it, so I decided to finally make the switch. While I was at it, I decided that, after two and a half years, it was time to change up the format a bit. So I browsed around for a different template. Who knows? I may play around with it a little more. But for now, the "stretch denim" template is it.

Car Registration

Just in case anyone had forgotten about "My Friday Night".... Well, nearly two years later, my registration has come up for renewal again. I am proud to say that, although I have until 1/31/07 to renew my registration, I have already paid it online (almost a week ago!) and have my receipt printed and everything! I don't have the actual sticker to put on my car yet, but I have a temp registration printed which I can put in my back window just in cases.

Oh, and why was Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg nominated for an Oscar for The Departed? Don't get me wrong, I loved the movie and he was fine in it, but it wasn't an award-caliber performance. Not to mention Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen were all equally, if not more, deserving. Who knows? Certainly not I.

Finally, I caught The Dresden Files on SciFi from Sunday. It is about Harry Dresden, a Chicago PI who also happens to be a wizard. He consults with the police when there is a supernatural bent to a case. He even advertises in the phone book under "Wizard." Who knew it was based on a series of books? Anyways, I thought it was interesting. Certainly not in the Heroes & 24 category, but it's got potential. It was certainly good enough to get me to come back. Apparently, it makes a few departures from the books, but that's to be expected any time you adapt material. Something many fanboys don't seem to get ("Oh no! Spider-Man has organic web-shooters! Sam Raimi is going to ruin everything!"). Yeah right. In any case, it's interesting. Check it out.

Nothing Goes Better with Nuclear Terror...

than pie a la mode! After watching Heroes last night (kicked ass!), I was getting ready to watch 24 (also kicked). Thank God for DVR! Then I remembered that we had in the fridge the remants of an apple pie that Chrissy's mom made (mit Schplenda!). We also had some no-sugar added ice cream (also mit Schplenda!) in the freezer. And what goes better with nuclear terror than apple pie a la mode? Nothing! Except maybe for sugar-free apple pie a la mode.

Kelly's Wedding

Well, we went to our friends Kelly & Matt's wedding this weekend. Had a great time. I took a bunch of pictures, but our camera is doing something funky, so I will direct you to Kristin's blog entry about the weekend. She has better pics than we do. The ceremony was great. Short & sweet. Just like Kelly! I think it was even shorter than our ceremony. If it were up to me, though, I would have made it shorter still. My ideal wedding ceremony is the Spaceballs wedding ("Do you?" "Yes." "Do you?" "You bet." "Fine! You're married!"). But that's just me. The reception was in a beautiful hall (called Archmere) in Delaware. It had a stained glass ceiling and a fountain in the center of the room. All the food (delicious!) was served in separate rooms, which kept things moving. Open bar (woo hoo!). And, we got to spend time with friends. Who could ask for more?

Courtney Cox (Arquette)

Pursuant to my post the other day...

Get Your Poll Widget

OH... MY... GOD...

Is this not the absolute cutest video ever??!?



We had another long day, didn't leave work until around 9:30. Then we get home. We start watching Idol, which picks me up a little. The Seattle contestants are horrendous! But then I check Cute Overload and see this little baby! I've never seen anything like it!!

Random Schtuff

Don't know why I get such a kick out of inserting a "sh" sound in to "s" words and saying them with a German accent. Oh well, never claimed I wasn't weird...

Barack Obama has filed the paperwork to allow him to run for president in '08. While I am excited about the idea of President Obama, I don't know that the country is ready for an African-American president. I wonder about his chances. I think realistically, he should run as VP on a ticket with someone else. Then, after 8 years as Veep, run for Prez. I think he stands a better chance than Hilary Clinton, though. Right or not, too many people just dislike her too much for her to make a successful bid. I could see her doing something similar, running for VP. I think it would be a mistake for the Democratic party to put either of them up for president. If they want to take back the White House like they did the Congress, they need to put up someone who can beat the Republicans. Not that I have a clue who they should run. The Republicans would do well to put up someone who comes across as a little more moderate and a lot more intelligent than Bush. If I were on that side, I would run John McCain/Colin Powell.

Blogs are like online diaries. They have an advantage in that you can get your thoughts out to as many people as you'd like, limited only by your powers of PR and publicity (how's that for alliteration?). But they have the disadvantage of being completely public. Anything you post can be read by anyone, even the person about whom you're writing, if post thoughts pertaining to a particular person (that's not intentional). Or if something is embarassing. Or just something you don't want to share with the world. That's probably why sites like PostSecret exist.

I think Courtney Cox had a boob job.

*Spoiler Alert* Season premiere of 24 kicked ass. I feel shocked. I still get a kick out of what Don & Mike say about Jack - everything he says is either a whisper ("you have to believe me, I will do whatever it takes to find this bomb") or a yell ("WHERE'S THE BOMB!!!!"). Kiefer Sutherland has such a great yelling voice, though. How bizarre is it though, that the first four hours are already available on DVD?? My thoughts/predictions for this season: 1) I can't believe Jack shot Curtis. I liked Curtis! But he was acting like a dick. Not without reason, but what he was going to do was murder, plain & simple; 2) Milo (looks like a poor man's Dermot Mulroney) will wind up being a traitor. No one would surprise me as being a traitor except Curtis (no worries there any more), Bill or Chloe; 3) Speaking of Chloe, love the new look. But she needs to scowl more. Love the Chloe Scowl. I imagine it will surface more now that the shit is hitting the fan; 4) Can't believe they detonated a nuke! 5) I hope Assad turns out to be on the level. He was Dr. Bashir!

*End Spoilers*

NEW AMERICAN IDOL ON TONIGHT! WOO HOO!

Ok, gonna try something a little new here. Men:

Get Your Poll Widget

And finally, I'm pissed Michael C. Hall didn't win a Golden Globe last night. Grrr...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHRISSY!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL WIFE, CHRISSY!! LOVE YOU!!!

Riding the Metro

Wow. What a difference. We began taking Metro (the subway) in to work this month. Discontinued the parking pass (that's a whole other story - the damn spots were so narrow in the parking garage that we actually had to tip the attendant to park the car one day because I couldn't fit the car in the spot). We still had to drive one day because we had plans (which wound up being cancelled due to Mom's ER visit). But just in today, our 7th day taking public transportation to work, our stress level has dropped significantly! Even , though we still have to drive to the Metro station, the heavy traffic part of the drive always started just after the station. The overall time it takes is about the same, but it's more consistent now. When we were driving, we would never know whether the city driving would take 30 minutes, 40 minutes or 90 minutes. No rhyme or reason. Sometimes, there would be a lane shut down for construction. Inbound. During rush hour. God forbid it rained. Sometimes, there would be a lane shut down to work on a speed trap camera. Inbound. During rush hour. There's an occasional delay on Metro, but overall, much more consistency.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to Chrissy's cousin Denise!

Interesting Weekend

Well, it's been fun this weekend. I got a call on Friday just as I was getting ready to leave work. Apparently my mother was found in her car by a neighbor walking by. She had backed the car into the garage and promptly passed out! She was disoriented and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Her neighbor had to threaten her to get her to call 911. She had been running a fever since Wednesday, and didn't bother going to the doctor. She also says that whenever she gets a fever it knocks her out. So why wasn't she concerned when she was running a 101 fever for 3 days? Because she's my mom! So, long story short (too late), she's been in the hospital since Friday night, but the hospitalist just came by and said she could go home! Yay! They're virtually certain it was a viral infection of some sort which seems to have run its course. They ran just about every test imaginable and eliminated every nefarious cause.

So... she got a virus, which gave her a fever and dehydrated her. That, in turn, decreased the O2 to her brain and caused fatigue, disorientation and stroke-like symptoms. Once she got to the hospital, they pumped her full of fluids and gave her something for her fever, she started recovering. She had a setback when she had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, but once the cut that and gave her some Benadryl, her fever dropped and swelling went down. She still has a bit of a rash from the reaction, but she's much more aware and active. Her temp, BP and O2 have been normal for over a day. Her white blood cell count is back to normal for her.

Playing Catch-Up

I saw this article from Esquire and felt I had to share. Since I was blogging anyway, I figured I should throw in a few things I had been meaning to blog. First off, hilarious article by Alan Arkin! Smart, too. Sounds like he's fairly intelligent and observant. Guess he's been paying attention for the past 73 years or so.

A new year is here, and with it, no resolutions. I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. My thought being that if it (whatever "it" is) is important enough, you won't wait until January 1 to do it. If you put it off until New Year to do it, it's probably not important enough to you that you are going to stick to it. But that's just me. I know some people need that defined deadline. I've heard of people quitting smoking that way. They say, "On 'X' date, I will stop." Then, they can mentally prepare themselves.

Then again, what do I know? I'm losing my mind. Last Wednesday (12/27) marked the 5th anniversary of Chrissy and my first date. I went to her parents' house in Jersey within the first 3 or so months. This past weekend, when we were in Jersey for New Years, I noticed these pictures

on the wall for the very first time. (Sorry for the poor quality - they were taken on my new camera phone - yay!) According to everyone, they have been there since that room was added on to the house, say, about 20 years or so ago... I was literally sitting on the couch watching TV, looked up and asked my M-I-L, "Oh, when did you get those pictures? Are they new?" She looked at me like I had just lost my mind right then and there. Poof! All gone.... There was something else that made me think I was losing my mind, but guess what? I can't remember!

MERRY NEW YEAR!!