Angry Words

This past Sunday I went out to the miserable Best Buy and picked myself up a Motorola Xoom. I had been wanting one for a while and with the release of the wifi-only version (no pricy data plan required) on Sunday, I figured what the hell and went out and got one. I'm not going to be reviewing the device here because there are literally a a brazillion people who have already done so. (Isn't it funny how the word "literally" now literally means "not literally?" Language evolution is fun.) Feel free to go watch a few YouTube videos if you have no idea what the device is. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Great, welcome back. Ok so as you know by now, the Xoom is an Android (made by teh Googles) powered device which means that I have now joined the ranks of people who have non-obsolete mobile based operating systems. I'm looking at you Palm Pre. Anyway, with the Xoom I am finally able to play with all the games and apps that the cool kids have had for quite a while now. Specifically the game "Angry Birds", which does indeed make me quite angry and "Words with Friends" (which is a scrabble type game for all you non-cool kids out there) which is incredibly infuriating due to the fact that my friends are all better at it than I am. Also, the word "lulz" is not accepted as valid submission for some reason...

Well, due to my love of Sci-Fi channel X + Y animal combination "horror" movies, I propose a similar new game: Angry Words. I thought about maybe going with Words with Birds but felt that people might think it was some kind app for teaching words to species of theropod descent (Birds). And let’s be fair, there would not be a large enough target market for that game, only targets. And if you don't get that joke then you aren't a fan of Futurama (The original, that is. Not that God-awful reincarnation that airs on Comedy Central.)

The idea behind Angry Words (which I am going to trademark) is that you would get a customizable amount of Angry birds to be fired at your opponents word when you feel they have cheated or otherwise got super lucky with a Z,Q,J combination. As we all know (us cool kids anyway), whenever someone drops a successful Z,J or Q on a triple letter or triple word combo, it makes you want to rage quit faster than Lindsay Lohan at a rehab facility. So you would get let's say 3 chances a game to bust out what is essentially a trump card for ridiculousness. The birds would still be fired from a slingshot and the number of birds could be agreed upon at the beginning of the game and there would be a bonus at the end of the game for any unused birds. This would make the game more of a skill game while at the same time discouraging cheating. Also, how fun would it be to know that your friend on the other side of the internet is enraged because you blew up their word that took nearly 4 hours of researching on the internet!

So what do you guys think? Pretty sweet idea, huh? Not as cool as the Sharktopus or the impending Piranhaconda that SyFy is about to release but pretty cool nevertheless in this author’s opinion. Admit it, you would want to play this game! Also, the Xoom is awesome and I recommend it to all you nerdy people out there!

Shoutout: Congrats Christine on your 200th post!
Bonus Shoutout: This one goes out to Michelle for requesting a shoutout in order for her to read this post!

Dumb terrorists

Wow, super FAIL at updating this thing more often. Oh well, today we are going to talk about terrorism. I was reading this article the other day and it got me to thinking "wow, this is the best they got now?" Don't get me wrong, I’m not complaining that Al Queda has been reduced to sending the Gomer Pyle of terrorists to attack us, but seriously, these are the people responsible for me having my rectal temperature taken every time I board a plane now?

It seems to me that on 9/11/01, Al Queda sent their best 19 guys and ever since then they have been sending the guys who rode the short bus to the terrorist training camp. Since then, we've had "Guy who lights foot on fire", "Guy who lights crotch on fire" and "Guy who tried to light jet fuel on fire". The terrorist in the article above picked Detroit to blow up because it was the cheapest flight he could afford. When price is a major factor in your terrorist plans, I'm pretty sure you are doing it wrong.

Another tidbit from the article was how the guy "rose through the ranks. He was assigned the job in Aden to videotape the 1998 suicide bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors and injured 39 others, but fell asleep." It goes on to say "he is now a mid-level manager in the organization." What? Mid-level manager? When did Al Queda turn into a Dilbert cartoon? Do these guys get paid time off and an extensive benefits package? Do they get to upgrade their company suicide-bomb-car from a Ford Taurus to the Escalade? I am honestly very confused here. These terrorists hate us so much that they have practically become us. Next thing you know they will be complaining about Linda in payroll about how much she jibber-jabbers at company parties and how much money they have lost in their terror 401k’s. (A terror 401k invests in the Terror Stock Market, duh.)

So what is next for these terrorists? Tearing off mattress tags? Not using the tongs at a buffet? Farting in the elevator? Who knows. All I know is that I find it simply hilarious when these guys fail so miserably. It is such a shame that our societal rules preclude us from firing these failed terrorists right into the sun.

I was on a boat

Wow, nearly 3 months without an update, a new personal best. I want to say I will try to update this more often but work has been really stressful recently and I just haven’t had the energy to write up one of these things. By the way, isn't that what blogs are for anyway, to only post about why you aren't posting enough? Anyway, now that I'm done with the excuses, on to the blog.

Ok so let's see, what's been going on lately? Well I took a cruise to Cozumal and Progresso last month. While there I picked up a box of Cuban Cigars and a Poncho. And no, I don’t get one of those brightly colored ones either. I got the kind that Marty was wearing when he was doing his Clint Eastwood impression in Back to the Future 3. You know, the duel scene with Biff "Mad Dog" Tannen. Great movie. Anyway so I got those things but I was unable to acquire something I thought for sure I’d be able to find: an authentic Mexican torta house. We must have wandered all over the place looking for a place that sold tortas, but alas, no luck. It was truly a tragedy.

And I wouldn't consider myself a cigar smoker per se, but by golly those were some of the finest smokeables I have ever purchased. Imagine me on the top deck of the boat, in my full captain attire, smoking a big fat cigar. It reeked of classy. I got the cigars on the cheap as well. Talked the guy down from 50 bucks down to 20. I also got a legit pair of cigar cutters in the duty-free area in Cozumel. He wanted 15 but I got him down to 6! Bartering with the locals is a blast!

The cruise was a lot of fun and I can't wait until I book the next one. The next vacation destination for me appears to be Vegas yet again since the good folks over at Total Rewards continue to inundate me with offers for free nights there. That trip will probably take place around my birthday although nothing is set in stone just yet.

Hopefully this post will give me the spark I've needed to get back to posting on this thing regularly. I mean, only 18 posts for all of last year? Pathetic. Ok well that's all for now, hopefully I'll have something with a little more substance next week. Oh wait, you don't come here for substance.

Profoundity

This last Sunday, season 2 of "Eastbound and Down" came to a close. And although I felt this season was no where near the level of awesome that was the first, it still had its funny moments. The episode on Sunday closed with a quote that I found rather profound and since I so rarely find things to be profound I figured I would share it with you here:

"Just like that the journey is over. Depression is finished and you're on your way back to the world of the living, smiling, regular people. The road has been paved with dickheads, back-stabbers, and pains in the fucking ass. But memories are made, allies were had, pole smokers were toppled and the truth was discovered. And like any journey, if you stay the course long enough, the road might just show you what you need. All you got to do is keep your eyes on the road and your foot on the fucking gas." -Kenny Powers

So there you have it. And since this will inevitably be the only post I put on this blog this month, I hope you will savor it and enjoy the profoundity of it!

Drew Brees owes me 825 dollars.

Ok we haven't had a sports blog in a good long while and since this weekend was probably the worst sports weekend ever for me personally, I figured it was time for one.

Let's start with the Texas Rangers. After winning the first two games of the ALDS in Tampa Bay, the Rangers somehow didn't get the memo that you actually have to win the 3rd in order to advance. So now the series is all tied up at 2 games each after Tampa came into Arlington this weekend and quite frankly put a beat down on the Rangers. I still think that they will advance to the ALCS to play the Yankees, but they need to get their shit together ASAP. Luckily, I think they will have Cliff Lee starting for them in game 5 which should give them the advantage. At least the Phillies already clinched since I am quasi rooting for them in the National League.

Moving right along to the Houston Texans. I have neglected to write about them this season because I wasn't really sure how the team was going perform this year and I didn't want to jinx them. After starting out 2-0 by beating the Colts at home and the Redskins on the road in their first ever overtime victory, there was some considerable hype that this might be “the year". I'm talking, of course, about making the playoffs. (Playoffs?). ESPN had the Texans ranked number 3 in their power rankings after week 2. Well I must admit that after watching yesterday's game against the Giants, I would be surprised if they managed to finish 8-8 this season. In fact, that is my most optimistic scenario since the Texans are your classic "Myspace Angle" team at 3-2. In all likelihood, they will finish at 7-9 or 6-10 just like we always expect them to. Until they can figure out how to show up week in and week out, I just don't see the team doing anything of value. Beating the Colts at home in the season opener doesn't mean jack if you aren't able to finish out the rest of the season.

And now for the triple whammy, the New Orleans Saints. I decided to play in a Survivor/Knock-Out style fantasy game this year. The idea is that you pay 15 bucks at the beginning of the season and then pick an NFL team to win each week. No point spread or anything, just win. If your team loses, you are out and if they win you continue on. Last man standing gets all the money. The only catch is that once you pick a team, you can no longer use them the rest of the season. I had planned out a perfect road map for the season and figured that the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints would be able to beat the miserable Arizona Cardinals who were starting an undrafted rookie quarterback. Boy was I wrong. Drew Brees took it upon himself to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by throwing 2 interceptions in the 4th quarter, both of which led to touchdowns for the Cardinals. It is in that respect that I figure Drew Brees owes me 825 dollars. The game was a lock for crying out loud!

Ah, felt good to get that all out of my system. I thought it was an omen that this Sunday was 10/10/10. I figured that all 3 teams I was rooting for would get "10's" for their performance. So much for superstition. By the way, there is a slight chance that I will be going to the Texans/Chiefs game this Sunday. Should that opportunity present itself, you can bet your ass that I will be wearing a bag over my head. Look for me on tv!

*EDIT*
I forgot that I was supposed to give Christine a shout out. So here it is, go check out her blog here!

The Sharktopus

This past week, I noticed that the word "Sharktopus” was a trending topic on Twitter. Intrigued, I looked up what all the fuss was about. You see, since I no longer have cable, I am occasionally behind the ball on new TV shows and made for TV movies. Sharktopus was one of those movies airing on the Sci Fi channel. After reading some of the reviews on the internet and watching the promo commercial, I decided that I had to see this thing.

So last night, I watched the Sharktopus movie. I'm using the word "movie” lightly here since there was really only about 30 minutes of actual plot related material. The other 60 or so minutes were the indiscriminate killings of the Sharktopus on the some sort of vacation resort in Mexico. Now, you may be asking yourself, what is the Sharktopus? Let me break it down for you one time. The Sharktopus is half man, half shark and half octopus. It was created by the DOD, apparently, to be a super stealthy killing machine or something. It was controlled by a control collar that conveniently gets destroyed in the opening scenes of the film, thus setting up the story.

You obviously cannot go into this movie expecting anything but entertainment value. I found myself laughing at the simple absurdity of most of the kill scenes. The Sharktopus can impale people with its tentacles, jump into the air to catch a bungee jumper and walk on fucking land. I bet you thought the Sharktopus would be confined to its watery home, but you'd be wrong. The Sharktopus can climb mountains to kill people in a cliff top restaurant. Also, the Sharktopus doesn't even consume his victims; he just kills them for what I can only assume is the pure joy of it.

I'm not going to go into any more of the plot details because I honestly believe you should watch this movie. It has everything a Sci Fi movie of the week should have: overzealous reporter, power drunk Shartopus creator, down to earth Shartopus creator's daughter, former Navy Seal hero, annoying radio DJ guy and girls in skimpy outfits. I applaud the Sci Fi channel for knowing no bounds when coming up with these films.

What's next, Sci Fi channel? Got any more ideas for the next half something half something killing machine? How about a half crocodile half hippopotamus: The Croctopotomus! It can even have the same plot and story! Think about it: "The Navy, wanting to have a bigger yet also stealthier presence in the Sub-Saharan jungle, creates a new breed of monster, The Crotopotomus. But, due to a malfunction, the Crotopotomus is released in downtown New York where it dwells in the run down subway lines waiting for its next victim.” And then at the end you could have it climbing the Empire State building or something for no adequately explored reason. And when the monster is finally killed at the end by the Army or another Croctopotomus or something, the creator will weep and shout to the heavens: "Who's the real 7 billion dollar monster now? Not I…..not…I.” Credits roll.

All rights reserved. Just be sure to send me my movie check when it gets made.

Las Vegas Road Trip

This post is a long time coming. I apologize in advance if it is TLDR. It has already been a month since I took the road trip and it was about damn time that I blogged about it. A little bit of history first, the idea to go on a road trip to Vegas originated from watching a day long marathon of History Channel's Pawn Stars. It was during this marathon that my brother jokingly reminded me that I had yet to sell the Country Legends autographed guitar that I had purchased at a charity auction earlier the previous year. I jokingly responded by saying that I should drive to Las Vegas and attempt to get on the Pawn Stars show and sell my guitar there. For some reason, we both got really serious about the idea and just sort of ran with it since 1) my brother has never been to vegas and 2) I really wanted to go to vegas again.

So we set out. I drove from Houston to San Antonio to pick my brother up from his school on a Friday after work. The next morning we woke up around 6:00am and proceeded to drive to Albuquerque, NM, some 800 miles away. That first day was rather uneventful. Getting stopped at the border control stations along the way always makes me nervous for some reason. I mean, I am a legal citizen who is also not a drug mule but nevertheless I always think in the back of my head that I am one of those drug mules who doesn't even know it and I would end up going to prison like in that awful Claire Danes movie Brokedown Palace. I was also pleasantly surprised at how nice of a city Las Cruces was. I guess I really never had a reason to think it would be a dump other than the fact that it is in the middle of the freaking desert and I just figured it would have more of a The Hills Have Eyes kind of vibe. I couldn't have been more wrong; Las Cruces had a Jack in the Box and Super Target and everything else you would expect to find in a civilization. Albuquerque was nice too.

Ok so the next morning we got up early again and hit the road bound for the Grand Canyon. This segment of the journey really struck me at just how empty the parts of northern New Mexico and Arizona really are. At best we would see a truck stop every 80 or so miles but pretty much everything else was just flat plains with the occasional mountain range. Oh, and the 4 for $20 Indian t-shirt deals that were advertised every 4 miles or so. That day's trip was relatively short compared to the epic 13 hour drive the day before. We arrived in Williams, AZ around 1:00 local time and attempted to check into our hotel. The story about this hotel is so long and ridiculous that I will spare you it right now for another blog post. Anyway, check in time was 3:00 so we decided just to grab some food real fast and do all of the Grand Canyon stuff that day before checking in to the hotel later at night. The Grand Canyon was awesome as usual.

I was pretty surprised at the amount of foreign visitors that were there. I would say that maybe 30-40% of the folks there were French and maybe another 20% of the people were from Asian countries. I didn't remember it being so culturally diverse the last time I was there.

Quick tangent: On the way to the Grand Canyon, my brother and I got the opportunity to go to Meteor Crater. Set aghast by the $15 dollar admission fee, I began plotting my revenge. While exploring the crater, I picked up a small rock on the outer rim and put it in my pocket. I sure showed those guys! Now fast forward to being at the Grand Canyon. I decided that it would be in mine and all future generation's best interest if I hurled the rock from Meteor Crater into the Grand Canyon. And I did exactly that. Think about it, in 8 brazillion years (that's 4.7 years in metric), alien archaeologists are going to be poking around in the Grand Canyon, find my rock and say "By golly, Grog, this rock shouldn't be here, this throws my whole view of ancient Earth in a New Light I tell ya". Grog is the name of an alien, in case you couldn't pick that up through context clues. Also, the aliens are from the southern region of whatever alien world they come from.

Moving along, the next day was the day we would be driving into Las Vegas! Having driven this route before, I remembered that we would be passing over Hoover Dam. This was an unexpected bonus from my brother who had never been there before. The water beneath the dam looked even lower than the last time I was there when it was already pretty damn low. According to Wikipedia, the entire basin is expected to be dried up in the next 20 years. Scary thought for folks like me who like Las Vegas having electricity and running water. But that is a problem for future people to figure out…it was time to do some gambling! We stayed at Bally's since I had complimentary nights there. I like staying at Bally's because it is right in the middle of the strip and you don't have to walk too far in either direction to get where you want to go. So we did some gambling and my brother won quite a bit of money right off the bat with his bullshit beginner's luck while I had a pretty heavy dose of veteran gambler's luck. I managed to win a poker tournament at Mandalay Bay the second day we were there, the very same Mandalay Bay which began a series of unfortunate events that led to me being kicked out of the Luxor Hotel and Casino last time I was in town.

So we stayed in Las Vegas for 2 nights. There was a plan to stay for 3 but we were both pretty vacationed out by this point. I laid some money on my Super Bowl picks and we headed out to the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop that was the main reason for this whole trip anyway.

The pawn shop is a lot smaller than it looks on TV. None of the people you see on the show were working the day we went there. This was a disappointment to my brother who really wanted to meet Chumlee. They had some of the stuff from the TV show in the show room and a merchandise area that I have never seen on the show. My brother and I both picked up a Chumlee t-shirt and we went back to the car to bring the guitar inside and do some dealing. After standing in line behind a guy who was pawning his Xbox 360 for what I could only assume was drug money, we stepped up to and placed the guitar on the counter. The counter where we were at was the place where you usually see them paying people on the show for the items that have been brought in. It was really cool seeing the desk behind the counter where the old man sits. Long story short, the guy pretty much offered me the same amount of money for the guitar that I had bought it for. "I can't even get near the 2k you are looking for", he said. Discouraged, I took my guitar with me back home where it will no doubt lay in anguish for a while until it appreciates a little more in value. Fail.

So we left Las Vegas, headed back over the Hoover Dam and proceeded to drive to Tucson, AZ. The original plan was to stay in Tucson for a night, explore some of the things around there the next day and then drive back to Las Cruces for one final night. It turns out that we were so sick of driving that we decided to forgo the final night of our trip and just drive straight back to San Antonio from Tucson. This was hardly the scenic route that we took on the first half of our trip. Driving through the empty desert is certainly not as nice as driving through forested mountain ranges and plains. Luckily with these new fangled phones and cars, we were able to listen to hours and hours of uninterrupted music which definitely cut down on the mundanity (not sure if that is a word…) of driving 867 miles. We made it back into San Antonio around 8pm, only 13.5 hours after we departed Tucson. 80mph speed limit zones really help out on long stretches of road like that.

All in all it was a fantastic trip. Getting back out to the Grand Canyon and finally getting to see Meteor Crater were definitely highlights of the trip. My brother had a great time in Vegas. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time in Vegas as well, I just would have had a better time if I had got the $2000 I was hoping for at the pawn shop. At just over 3300 miles, it was a little bit less than driving from coast to coast. As much fun as it was retelling this story, you must absolutely stay tuned for my post about the adventure we experienced at the hotel in Williams, Arizona. It was nothing short of a debacle.

Ok, I am just under 3 full pages in Microsoft Word right now, better stop typing. This is by far my longest post on this blog yet and should make up for the utter lack of updates recently. If you actually read through this whole post then I applaud you for being able to fight through my incoherent rambling. Be sure to leave a note in the comments on if this post even made sense. Hopefully I will be able to get back to updating this thing with some kind of regularity.

And now for some keyword selection...