Home

Finally back home, and somewhat recovered from my Tennessee trip. Sorry to disappoint anyone stopping by with the hopes of a complete recap of the 3 day festivities, but unfortunately the details must remain under wraps for the time being. I also let everybody down in the photo department as I forgot my camera absolutely everywhere we went. I will say that the trip was good for me, I had a blast as always, and I'd leave right now and head back up there if I could.

The hockey game was one of the highlights though, and the Preds put on a clinic against the Coyotes. I've never seen domination like that in person, and it was truly impressive. 4-1 was the final score, but honestly it was way worse than it sounds. The Preds ended up with 47 shots on goal vs the Coyotes 27. Great game, and probably the second most fun I've ever had at a hockey game.

I picked up Predators jerseys for the munchkins, and I do have a photo I took today to show you guys. It was hard to get both of them to sit still, being that Catie is 7 months old and Jacob refused to take his eyes off Spongebob for 3 seconds. Here it is anyway:


I want to thank Matt and Amber once again for opening up their home to me. You guys are honestly some of the best people I know, and I'll never be able to thank you guys enough.

Amber, you never cease to amaze me. You're a woman of seemingly infinite patience, and thanks again for letting me kidnap your husband for a day. I hope I didn't get him into too much trouble.

Infinite Playlist - No Trivia

Oh yeah, I'm back once again with one of my overwhelmingly popular musical suggestion posts. Of course I'm not actually suggesting "musicals", just plain music, but you already knew that.

This time it's "No Trivia" by From Autumn to Ashes. This song appears on what is hands down one of the greatest records of all time, The Fiction We Live. Seriously, it's that good. The entire album speaks to my soul.

No Trivia - From Autumn to Ashes

This will more than likely be my last post for this week as I prepare for my trek to the fine city of Smyrna, Tennessee tomorrow. It's gonna be beer, hot wings, hockey, and debauchery with none other than The Frozin One. These pictures should be good.

Fruit flavored hard candy, zombies, Solid Snakes, and scary little girls

Or "What I got for my birthday this year". This is the last birthday themed post for a while, I promise. But I had to give all my wonderful friends a shout-out and show off my birthday swag. Of course I'm too lazy to actually take pictures myself, so I've scoured the internet for visual aids. Again, my laziness knows no bounds.



My first gift was from the kiddos, F.E.A.R. 2 for my PS3. I loved the first game, and after finishing my first play through this morning, I gotta say I think I love the sequel even more. As good as it was, the first game took place mostly in one building and you had to travel between floors (which all pretty much looked the same). In the sequel, you actually move around a bit and the change of scenery was nice.

Like the first, this one had some really memorable creepy moments, but my favorite was the school when all the lights went out in the hallway. The lockers? Dude. You just have to play it to see what I'm talking about. Trust me, this game is awesome.



Next, when I got to work on Monday, I got a bag full of awesome from the Queen of the Shotgun herself, the incomparable Threels. For those not in the know, a bag full of awesome includes some fruity-liscious Trident gum, a 3.75 lb bag of the finest gourmet candies known to man, Jolly Ranchers, and a shiny copy of Metal Gear Solid 4, which I understand is the greatest game of all time. So far, I've only partaken of the Jolly Ranchers, but with F.E.A.R. 2 finished, I'll be jumping into Metal Gear this week. Snaaaaaaaake!!!!!



And finally, last but most certainly not least, I got my very own Dismember-Me Plush Zombie from Mister Binky. This thing is around 800 different kids of awesome. You can remove his head, arms, legs, and the brain he's holding in his hand and re-arrange them at will. You can also separate his legs from his torso, revealing some disgustingly hilarious entrails. That's how you spell fun with a capital "FUN" people. There are all sorts of neat things like this on thinkgeek.com, but you'd be hard pressed to find anything there more awesome than a plush zombie.

Bonus, check out the short film from the website for a laugh, ok maybe more like a chuckle, but still.



All this, and I've still got the Hockey Night Bash in Nashville with Frozin to go. It's really nice to have friends who "get" me, and I have some of the best in the world. Many thanks to everyone who made turning 31 less painful for me.

Happy Birthday Mini Me

Today is my son's 5th birthday. Five freakin' years already?! Where has the time gone? We're preparing for the traditional birthday dinner at restaurant of birthday person's choosing, and there's absolutely no telling where I'll end up. I'm thinking probably McDonald's, which sucks for two different reasons. One, I despise the food at McDonald's, I liken their menu to what chow time in Hell will be like, and two, because it literally takes me threatening his life to get my son off the damn playground thing.

What the hell though, it's his birthday, and if the kid wants to eat disgusting food and play on the playground thing, then that's what we'll do. He will also get to pick out a present today to hold him over until the party this weekend (where he'll be geting his first swing set). It should be fun attempting to catch him when he goes flying off the thing 30 feet in the air. I simply can't wait.

Ah the spoils of parenthood. Happy Birthday kiddo!

No Killzone 2 demo?

Want to play the Killzone 2 demo, but don't want to pre-order? Europe got it this week, why not us? Whatever could we have done to get the bone from Sony like this? Well, worry not my fellow non-European, no pre-order having gamer! Just follow these simple instructions on creating a European account on your PS3 and download away:

1. First create a new user for your PS3.

2. Sign Up for the Playstation Network.

3. Select somwhere in Europe as your Country/Region. (You can select ANY region as long as you can provide a real address.)

4. Make sure your language is set to English.

5. Select Master Account.

6. Create an e-mail account for your new PSN ID. If you have another e-mail address you can use just use it.. a friends, a parents, or a girlfriends etc. Otherwise visit any of the free e-mail websites below:

* Gmail - http://www.google.com/mail/help/promo1.html
* lycos - http://mail.lycos.com/lycos/Index.lycos
* mail.com - http://www.mail.com
* hotmail - http://www.hotmail.msn.com
* AOL - http://free.aol.com/thenewaol/email.adp


Once you've created an account simply use the e-mail address in your registration.

7. Create an online ID.

8. Enter a name, it's up to you how to play this one.

9. Next you'll need to provide a valid address for the region. Lets say you pick Hong Kong as my new homeland. Visit Frommers here ( http://www.frommers.com/destinations...78_inddin.html) and click on any of the restaurants names. Once you do this you'll have a valid address for your new account so enter it!

That's it, congratulations you've now successfully created a foreign region PSN account for your PS3! Enjoy the spoils!

Shout out to Silverfireshot courtesy of the Gamertag.com boards for the info. See everybody on Helghan!

Super Depression

Wow, life really sucks when you keep getting closer to 40. Pour us another one, Clark.

Infinite Playlist - The Rapture

Ever have one of those songs that you swear was written just for you? One that whenever it comes on, somebody always seems to come along and interrupt your listening to it, forcing you to restart it over and over, but you don't really mind? One that no matter what's playing when you first get in your car, you immediately change the cd to? This is one of those for me.

Senses Fail is actually a band that I just recently discovered for myself while browsing music at Amazon. This song is "The Rapture" from the album Still Searching. It's only a little under 2 minutes long, so give it a listen, it'll make me happy. You all want me to be happy, don't you?

The Rapture - Senses Fail

Movie Night Recap

Alright gang, I know you're dying from anticipation as to what I thought about the movie, but that's not why I'm here this morning. Real quick, just to get it out of the way, the movie rocked hard. It was probably the best Friday the 13th movie since part VI: Jason Lives (which is my favorite so that's saying a lot). Yeah it followed the same old Friday formula, the deaths could've been a little more brutal, but I couldn't find much to complain about.

I am very happy to report that Bink will be pleased when it comes to the boobie department, this film had a LOT of boobies, including some that it made you wait for, but ended up being what could possibly be the nicest boobies I've ever seen. I'm not alone either, as the lucky bastard getting to enjoy said boobies *ahem* first hand even went so far as to refer to them as "stupendous" which got a good laugh from the audience in LaGrange. Here's the chick the boobies belong to, unfortunately I've so far been unable to find a picture of the actual boobies themselves.



No kids, I'm not here to talk about the movie, despite the above paragraph I'm not even here to talk about boobies, I'd like to share the details of my first solo outing past 7pm in quite a while. I arrived at the theater at around 8:30 to buy my ticket for the 9:35 showing. The street that the theater is on was literally overflowing with kids, none of whom looked particularly old enough to be out on the street after dark by themselves, but at least they seemed to be traveling in packs. The notion of a pack mentality was further implied to me by the fact that they all kept staring at me as if they were sizing up their next meal. "Where are these kids' parents?" I wondered.

So I managed to wade my way through the ocean of pre-teen angst and made my way up to the ticket window. I paid my money, got my ticket for Friday the 13th no questions asked (this part is important for later but not so much now), and returned to the parking garage. I had decided to ride around a bit being that it had been a while since I hit LaGrange and had an hour to kill. During the first 20 minutes of my drive, I saw somewhere around 400 cars pulled over by the police, and I quickly decided that my best course of action may be to find a gas station, buy myself a water, and head back to the parking deck to drink it in the truck while I waited. So that's what I did.

So after a bit of random texting, and my Deer Park Water, I decided to brave the mean streets again and walk over to the theater. When I entered the lobby, I was surprised to discover it was a mob scene. Wall to wall people, more people than I'd ever seen in a theater and I went to see Titanic 3 times, so I've seen a lot of people in a theater. I took a picture with my Blackberry to share the horror with you guys. Keep in mind that I'm no photographer, but here's what I walked in to:



Needless to say, I was a little uncomfortable. However the night wasn't about being comfortable, it was about getting to watch Jason on the big screen, on Friday the 13th, and nothing was going to prevent me from doing so. With nothing else to do but stand, I started looking around at the other folks in the lobby. Now, I'm getting on up there, but I still remember being a teenager, and I can't ever remember my parents dropping me off downtown at the theater to go see a movie that's obviously going to more than earn it's R rating. Most of these kids looked hardly old enough to drive, and there I was feeling VERY old. A point driven home whenever I would momentarily lock eyes with one of the younglings. You guys ever see Billy Madison? The "Chlorophyll? More like borophyll!" scene? I lived that shit last night. For blogging purposes, I did muster up the courage to ask one of the children to take a picture of me in line to show you guys. Here it is, and yes I packed my own snack in one of those thermal lunch bag things:



Altogether, I stood in line for about a half hour before they finally started tearing tickets and letting the front of the line go in. I had a wonderful time listening to some redneck moron tell two girls (who were probably a couple of decades younger than him) all about the new motor on his boat and the hot tub he was getting ready to install in his trailer when it was finished. Yes, his trailer, which was apparently unfinished. At some point, the whole concept of a line went out the window and people just started cramming toward the poor kid tearing the tickets. Having decided that I'd heard enough from the loud mouthed moron behind me, my old concert roots began to show and I started moving past people not really giving a fuck how rude it was.

As I walked down the hall, I noticed yet another cluster of children gathering at the front of the auditorium that Friday was playing in. Yep, the mob was there to see Jason. All of them. The cluster forming? Oh, that was because of the two policemen carding people before letting them enter to sit down. I finally got to the door, thinking that I would be allowed to walk right in being that I'm clearly older than 17, but I would be wrong. What I got was a flashlight butt to the shoulder and a "how old are you, bud?" Bud? Dude I'm fucking older than you are, and I'm certainly not your bud. Was I really being carded at a fucking movie? Indeed I was, and rudely by some asshole obviously fresh from the academy. Say "officer bud" if my watching this movie was going to be a problem, shouldn't that have been handled when purchasing my ticket? That's how it went down the only other time I've ever been questioned before entering a movie.

After *snicker* proving I was old enough to watch the movie, I walked in the auditorium. I was surprised to see an empty seat at the end of my favorite aisle (the one at the front of the middle section, with the metal handrails to put my feet up on), and I sat down. Again, I started people watching, noticing the folks coming in, filling every single seat in the place. I could not believe that some of these kids were there to see Friday the 13th. There was a fat kid that couldn't have been more than 10, and he was alone as far as I could tell. How did he get past security when I couldn't? More importantly, where were the parents? I just couldn't get over it.

Those of you keeping track of these events chronologically should note that I walked into the lobby at around 9:20pm, then stood in line until 9:50, and didn't actually plant my ass in a seat for my 9:35 start time movie until 10pm or a little after. But the movie finally started, and despite having every single other Friday night movie distraction (girl next to me got several phone calls, people talking and screaming, cell phones frequently going off, girls screaming at every semi-loud noise in the movie, etc.) I managed to enjoy the movie, and the boobies.

I left the theater feeling extremely old and feeble. I was tired, a tad annoyed, cold and wet (it was raining), and wondering exactly when it was that things changed so. When did I get too old to be out after 9pm? I told a friend once that I knew I was getting old because the kids were starting to dress funny to me. When did I make the crossover? Despite the fact that I turn 31 Monday (something that I'm feeling even worse about now), I really don't feel like one of those old guys I used to make fun of when I was out. Jesus this getting old thing is a hard pill to swallow, though I suppose swallowing pills is yet another thing I should be preparing for.

Hooray for Happy Valentines Date Night! I'll never do that again.

My Super-Hot Valentines Date

Oh my God, Oh my God, OMG you guys!!! I have a date with this super hot guy tonight! I'm soooo excited. His name is Jason, I think he used to be a hockey player or something? I don't know, but he's totally hot and he has a lake house! He invited me over there after work. You guys know I don't usually put out on the first date, but I don't know, there's just something about Jason. If he plays his cards right, tonight just might be his lucky night. Here's the picture he gave me!



I think he might be the one, God I hope Batman doesn't get jealous! I'll let you guys know how it goes!

Kiss the Cook!

It would appear that right now, my spiffy new "looks like it always did" blog will be filled with nothing but randomness. Apologies for those of you returning for one thought-provoking post about comic books after another. I still read them, I assure you, just not as many. I suppose the truth of the matter is my brain is a little stuck on random right now, and I've chosen to make you fine people suffer along with me.

Now, first a bit of embarrassment to get out of the way. When I posted yesterday that I expected you f*ckers to comment away, of course I was referring to Binky. I never expected the first person to comment to be Mrs. Frozin (whom I would never refer to as a f*ucker). So, sorry about that Amber!

However, in one of her comments she did offer to give me some help with recipes. Some of you know already, but I've been learning to cook lately. Don't ask me why it took almost 5 years, but I'm no longer content to feed my son from the microwave, or warm up chicken in the oven that's been previously cooked in other, more effective ways. So far nothing I've cooked has killed him and to be perfectly honest I'm pleasantly surprised. More pleasant surprisedness comes in the form of my actually enjoying cooking, which I never would've thought to be the case. Here's a pic of me hard at work in my kitchen on something that was probably delicious:



So far I'm pretty good at meat loaf, an assortment of breakfast foods, Mr. Binky's World Famous Pepperoni Pizza, Mr. Binky's World Famous Pepperoni Pizza minus the pepperoni, and the soon to be famous Mister Bones's Taco Ring (or "those delicious tacos with the ham in it" as Jacob refers to it). Of course various meats prepared on the grill don't really count, as I've known my way around a grill for several years now.

See?

I'm always looking to branch out though, and while I do have a couple of cook books now the thing about them is everything in there sounds good, but how do I really know it will be good? So in an effort to keep my children from starving, or worse yet suffering from bad food prepared badly by their father, I'm calling on anybody out there willing to pass some recipes my way to either shoot me a comment here, or send me an email at the address on my profile. This ought to be interesting.

Necrophilia is no laughing matter

You fuckers better comment like you've never commented before!

(By "fuckers" I of course mean bestest pals and beloved friends)

Infinite Playlist - diemuthafuckadie

Ah, February. For some, it's all about candy and flowers, love is in the air along with a bit of a chill which makes for perfect, romantic evenings spent curled up by the fire with that special someone. In the Batcave it's all love, all the time and as such for your listening pleasure I give you Twiztid's heartfelt ballad from their debut Mostasteless, diemuthafuckadie.

Side note, before my first post I had no idea that it would link you to where you could purchase the albums for these songs. I'm in no way condoning the purchase of these albums, nor am I getting any kind of kick back if you were to decide to click on the Amazon link and do so. It's not like I paid for the music when I got it, why would I expect anyone else to? Get em however ya like, ye scurvy pirates! Arr!

Anyway, yeah Twiztid, diemuthafuckadie, enjoy!

Diemuthafuckadie - Twiztid

Eat it, Bill!

I fired up the Xbox last night, got set to play through Blood Harvest, and waited patiently for OBB to begin the witch startling. I made it through the first level without ever hearing one, not uncommon for first levels but I could tell OBB was starting to get antsy. He had that startle-ready look about him.

Level two started and it wouldn't be long before I would hear that signature sobbing. Of course my first instinct is to figure out where she is, then head in another direction. My partner OBB on the other hand would be on her trail like a fat kid who just smelled cake. To my surprise, the all too familiar "Bill startled the witch" message never popped up on my screen and her sobs soon became an echo in the distance behind us. There would be another ahead though in level 2, and somehow OBB refrained again. Could it be?

In all, through the last 4 levels, Blood Harvest would tempt OBB and the rest of my companions with 7 witches, including one in the finale which is the first time I've ever known of such an occurrence. Normally once you're done with level 4, the main things you have to contend with in the final level are the horde, Boomers, Smokers, Hunters, and Tanks. I thought surely with this being OBB's first opportunity to fuck me at the very end, it would be too much for his old ass to resist, but though I definitely heard her, I never did find her. I stuck to the road, afraid to venture too far into the woods, which I suppose is where she probably was.

Once I made it past the ambulance at the gate, I made a B-line for the farm house and called for a rescue. I did my best to leave OBB behind, but he's a resilient bastard.

That's right kids, I've finally done it.....

WoOT! Do Not Disturb baby!

Oh, it's true

Attention Internet Shoppers

If you're reading this blog, then you already probably know that I heart you. In fact I heart you probably more than any casual internet acquaintance should heart another. That being said, my birthday is right around the corner and I just happened to be looking at thinkgeek.com today when I came across this:



I know what you're asking yourself, and yes, that is in fact a RADIO CONTROLLED ZOMBIE! And yes he is in fact being controlled by a BRAIN SHAPED REMOTE!

Now, I'm not asking anybody to buy me one for my birthday or anything. I'm just saying that if the birthday of a casual internet acquaintance of mine who hearted me very much was coming up, I could probably do a lot worse than buying him (or her) one of these. Seriously, the only thing I can think of better than this would be a real zombie with an obedience collar around his (or her) neck that responded directly to voice commands. I'd name him {or her) Stinky.

Mister Bones's Infinite Playlist - Dig

Trying something new out since I've got a fresh start with blogger, and in honor of my recent viewing of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (which was a great movie by the way). I thought I'd share some of my favorite tunes from my favorite artists here on the blog.

For our inaugural post I thought it only appropriate to go with the song that first introduced my virgin ears to the greatest band in the universe, Mudvayne. For your listening pleasure, I give you Dig from the album L.D. 50. Enjoy!

Dig - Mudvayne

Do Not Disturb (Or "Why Does Bill Hate Me?")

I, like most of the Xbox playing world, have been spending quite a bit of time with Left 4 Dead since it's release back in November. Oh yes, two Left 4 Dead posts in a row. It's quite a bit of fun too, but I've got a bit of a beef going with one of the survivors from the game as my Valentine post yesterday no doubt clued some of you in to.

That's right, I'm talking about Bill. Bill, the gun toting, trigger-happy, witch startling simpleton. For some reason this moron absolutely refuses to bypass a witch without startling her. For those not in the know, witches are these majestic creatures found curled in a ball sitting on the floor weeping. When you happen upon one, your best course of action is to switch off your flashlight, crouch low and proceed about your merry way, moving as far in the opposite direction from her as possible. Those unfortunate enough to disturb one will quickly find themselves incapacitated as she wails upon them with her Kreuger-esque nails in a blood frenzy that would make Wolverine shy away.

Of course there's an achievement tied to getting through a campaign (all 5 levels of a scenario) without startling a one of them, and I've been trying to get said achievement for a couple of months. Statistically it should've happened on accident by now, and I've been this close on several occasions. If not for the actions of Bill, or OBB (Old Bearded Bastard) as I've taken to calling him, I would've experienced that rewarding "pop" sound and added the 20 points to my gamerscore long ago. What really grinds my gears is that he frequently waits until the middle or end of the fourth of five levels to startle one. I've gone all "tourette syndrome" on him on several occasions. I honestly have no idea what I could've done to wrong Bill so, but the OBB truly hates me.

"Silly Bones, Left 4 Dead is meant to be experienced in co-op with 3 of your buddies over Xbox Live, and it makes the achievements child's play" you say? Well I wouldn't know about any of that as my internet connection has been dropping me after about 3-5 minutes of play time since before Christmas. Seriously, to call Knology's internet service retarded is awarding it an undeserved compliment. So while the game might be more fun with friends, unless 3 of you want to bring your Xboxes, televisions, and copies of the game over to the Batcave, I'm stuck with achievement hunting with the incredibly stupid AI, including OBB and his stupid fucking beret and never-ending Winston hanging from his crusty, wrinkled old face.

So tomorrow I'll try it again, and will no doubt fall victim to Bill and his witch disturbing fetish, probably just before entering the gate 2A safe room in the airport, forcing me to spew obscenities like an extra from a Judd Apatow movie. Why I do this type of thing to myself, I may never know. What I do know is that when I finally do get that 20 points, I will spend the remainder of my time with Left 4 Dead in expert mode, repeatedly mowing OBB down with my Mac 10, only to heal him and start all over again. Oh the fun I'll have.

The Batcave Returns (Again)