Saturday, December 31, 2011

Almost There

It's almost midnight and I am fighting sleep.

Stay awake stay awake stay awake!

Moon Over New Year's Eve

NYE - Breaking with Tradition

It's New Year's Eve.  Tradition dictates that we should eat Chinese food tonight, but none of us are really feeling that.  We might break with the tradition.

A little bit... well, a little bit geographically speaking.

How about we leave China and move off to the West a little bit.  We'll still be in Asia... how about Indian food?

Sounds like a plan!

I hope all of you have a great New Year's Eve.  Stay safe.  It's amateur night out there.  If you go out there is a strong chance of you getting vomit on you... some one else's vomit I mean.  Just stay safe, keep dry, duck and cover.  Have fun and pick a designated driver.

Happy New Year!

Friday, December 30, 2011

Made My Life

My step son just made my day/week/month/year/decade/century/life.

I was saying good night to him and he told me that he wanted to tell me something that he usually doesn't say. Then he said, "I love you!"

Who is the happiest step dad alive right now?

I am!

Then he said that he loved me from the day he met me.

Who is the happiest, luckiest step dad in the universe who thinks he might actually be tearing up a little?

I am!

Drums

My step son got electric drums for Christmas. It's four pads with a foot pedal and (thankfully) headphones. There are 50 preset kits with some seriously neat sounds.

I just set it up for him. He and his sister and I all agree, it's really cool.

Want to Go Back?

San Diego... wanna go back?

Ummmm... YES!

Friday... Almost There

Today is Friday.  It's 9:00am.  We are so close to the second consecutive three-day weekend that I can almost taste it.  8 hours and 18 minutes to go until the work day is done.  Yesterday felt like the slowest day ever, but I know it's going to seem down right speedy compared to today.

I'm not feeling all that well.  Sleep has been eluding me and I feel run down.  My nose is a little sniffly.  My stomach is a little funny.  I'm run down.  My legs feel weak.  I just want to sleep.  If not for being on call for the long weekend I might have actually called in sick today.  But no, I am being a good boy and sticking it out. 

But I'm tired.  So tired that I started thinking that I could use a vacation.  I'm such a wimp these days.  I used to go years without needing a vacation, now every 3-4 months I just need one.  We went to New York for a weekend earlier this month, but that doesn't count.  The last real vacation was our San Diego trip in August.  We had been thinking about going to Washington DC with the kids over April vacation.  That seems so damn far away.  There is also, hopefully, an extended family rent-a-place-and-hide-for-a-week in the works for sometime in the summer.

Jen has the vacation bug too.  How do I know?  She keeps sending me links to vacation packages.  Where?  St. Kits... Bora Bora (is there anywhere on Earth more beautiful?  I doubt it)... San Diego (if we go back again I might not ever leave and that would be a good thing)... how about a cruise on the Mediterranean?  Yeah, the wife and I both have the travel bug.  Big time.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

iPod Classic

It took a few days, but my iTunes library has finally finished loading onto my shiny new 160 gigabyte iPod Classic that I got for Christmas.  It's playing through the dock in the living room as we speak.

iTunes Match is still an option on both the iPhone and the iPad, but when it comes to my musical needs, more often than not I'll go to the old tried and true iPod Classic.

Can you dig the groove?

Why the Bruins are the Best Hockey Team in the Universe

This is one of the reasons why the Boston Bruins are the best hockey team in the known universe right now:



What does it mean?  It means that everyone is scared to death of them.  Was the hit on Ference dirty?  Yeah... a little.  It was worth a penalty, but nothing worse than that... at least as far as the officials are concerned.  But from the point of view of his teammates?  No way.  You don't hit Andrew like that.  You deserve a beat down.

And here's what it boils down to.  It wasn't Shawn Thornton who pummeled Raffi Torrez, it was Adam McQuaid.  Any one of these players will apply the beat down in defense of anyone else on the team.  That's why the Bruins are winning.  The whole team is willing to do whatever it takes to win, even apply a savage beat down in response to a high hit.

Oh yeah, and there's stuff like this too...



Benoit Pouliot was a joke in Montreal last year.  Now with the Bruins?  He's doing this.

I can't imagine the Bruins will keep rolling like this throughout the season.  Eventually something will happen to bring them back to Earth.  But for now?  Damn this is awesome.  21 wins in the last 24 games.  They are just out of control with the whole ass kicking awesome right now.

Go Bruins!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Bruins

Well what do you know, the Bruins are playing tonight.  It's their first game in four months or so... at least it feels like it.

The Bruins record over their last 23 games is 20 wins, two losses, and one overtime loss.  20-2-1.  Holy crap they are awesome right now.  That record is really impressive... ridiculously impressive in fact, but there are a couple of other stats that stand out to me as well.  These stats include the horrible 3-7 start.

They are third in the NHL in goals scored with 119, tied with Philly.  They trail only Vancouver's 120 and Chicago's 122.  That's a nice stat, but check this one out...

They are first in the league in goals allowed with 63.  The next closest team is the Rangers with 72.  That is just sick.  63 goals in 33 games.  Unreal.  That, however, is not the best stat right now.  Check this one out...

Goal differential is calculated as the number of goals scored minus the number of goals allowed.  Simple, right?  The Bruins have the best goal differential in the NHL with +56.  In second place is Detroit with +37.  That is just crazy.  That is a video-game-on-easy kind of stat.  That is just insane.  You put up a sick stat like that and of course you're going to win 20 out of 23 games.

Now I will continue to get crazy.  They do not have any player in the top five in any of the following categories:  Goals, Assists, Points.  The team leader in points is Tyler Seguin with 31.  He's in 30th place in the NHL.  Goals?  Brad Marchand with 15.  He's tied for 18th place in the league.  Assists?  Patrice Bergeron with 21.  He's tied for 23rd in the league.  The Bruins have no one in the top 10 in any scoring category and yet they are still third in the league in goals scored.  What does that mean?  That means that no one player is carrying the offense.  It means that everyone on the team is scoring.  Again:  Insane.  They do have the two best +/- totals in the league.  Seguin at +26 and Marchand with +25.  Oh, and Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, and Chris Kelly are also in the top 10.

What does this mean?  Well, the Bruins won the Stanley Cup last season, and at least up until now they are even better this year.  Nuts.  Just nuts.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Three Words

I just have to say three words:

          Bacon Flavored Chicken

That's all.

Weekend Recap

Well, Christmas has come and gone.  Again.  We are now down to the last week of 2011.  I cannot believe how fast this year went by.  It's a little unnerving.  It feels like we've been running on fast-forward for the last 12 months.

The Christmas celebration began on Friday with a half day off work.  Jen and I cleaned like crazy people.  We got the house ready for our Christmas Eve gathering and were ready (almost) to start the celebrating.

On Saturday Jen started cooking and I finished up my wrapping.  The kids came over in time to help with the last minute preparation before Larry and Nawal and their son arrived and the fun began.  We spent all of our energy cleaning upstairs, so of course we all ended up downstairs.  The kids played some piano and impressed everyone (as usual) and Larry's son experienced the thrill of the two Tonka Ambulances.  One is from the 1970's and it's mine (thanks to Jen) and the other is a new model that belongs to my step son.  All of the kids who come to visit marvel at how awesome they are.

We moved back upstairs and Jen's mother, step father, aunt, and uncle arrived.  Later after Larry and Nawal left to go to Larry's parent's Christmas eve party, the kids father and step mother came over and we exchanged some gifts.  The kids had reached a level of excitement that was unbelievable.  The Norad Santa Tracker was up and running all night and the closer they got to presents the crazier they got.  There was actual, literal, bouncing up and down in anticipation.  It was a blast!

The kids slept at their Dad's on Christmas Eve so Jen and I slept a little bit late.  Jen went to get the kids while I took some pre-gift-opening pictures.  When the kids arrived they were wearing matching feetie pajamas that Santa had given them at their Dad's.  They also got new bikes for Dad's house (so we don't have to truck their bikes back and forth) and iPads!  Woah!

At our house my step son got a lap top, he really wanted one, and my step daughter got a 3DS and an iPod Nano.  Jen gave me a new lens for my camera and a 160gig iPod classic.  The kids and I got Jen a charm bracelet.  There were also mountains of books, DVDs, games, and other fun stuff exchanged in every direction.  The big surprise hits of the morning were Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots and a Lego Harry Potter sticker book.  We only had a couple of hours before the kids had to go back to their Dad's so they could go to their aunt and uncles for Christmas dinner, but we had a lot of fun in the time we had.

Gifts were exchanged with Jen's family on Christmas Eve, and with our immediate family on Christmas morning.  That still left my extended family.  After the kids left with their Dad we filled up the van with yet another big batch of presents and headed to my sister's for Christmas dinner.  My sister's whole family, her, her husband, and both kids, were all sick but they put on a great Christmas dinner anyway.  My parents were there, along with me and Jen and my brother and his wife and two kids.  It was my youngest nephew's first Christmas and the two older kids are old enough now to really get into it.  We had the obligatory scratching of the lottery tickets followed by gifts for the kids and Secret Santa for the grown ups.  Again, everyone had a blast.  Thanks to Auntie Lisa and Uncle Ken for hosting.

On Monday Jen went to work for a couple of hours, and we went to a Five Guys for lunch.  It lived up to the hype, although the french fries were kinda bland without salt.  Who would have imagined a fast food restaurant that only made burgers and fries and just makes them really well.  I can think of two or three other fast food joints that could benefit by following that model.  Just saying.

The rest of the day was spent in flake mode.  We actually both took a much needed nap in the evening.  I cleaned up my iTunes library on my MacBook and started the long process of loading it all onto my new iPod.  We watched a little Star Wars on blu ray, another great gift that the love of my life gave me.  I uploaded my Christmas pictures and checked out the results of the new lens.  I like them very much.

Today we're back to work for a short week, and next weekend is another three day weekend as we celebrate New Year's.  Unfortunately I will be on call for the whole thing, but we'll have the kids with us so we'll have a great holiday at home.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas too (where applicable) and here's to a Happy New Year!

HoHoHo!

Monday, December 26, 2011

Christmas Pics

Here are some pictures from Christmas day!

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Santa Jenny got me a new lens for my Nikon D90!  I don't know enough about it to know anything about it, but I snapped it on and took a slew of pictures with it.  I think the results look pretty good!
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Ideas

A couple of ideas we had earlier today...

A late afternoon nap on the day after Christmas...  WIN
Waking up after a late afternoon nap on the day after Christmas...  FAIL

Oh well... at least waking up lets us watch the Star Wars blu rays a little bit more.

First Ever Visit to One of These

Sunday, December 25, 2011

You Turkey!

Santa Came & the Kids are on the Way

Bucks

Not only have I officially seen my first antler in the back woods, but I just saw two bucks playing the (rein)deer head butt game.

They locked themselves up and twisted each other around and one flung the other off and the loser ran off like a bullet, clearly hoping the does didn't see.

I only clearly saw antlers on one of them, and they were small. They had two points, tops. Still, it's nice to know that our little herd is a gender mixed community. I expected all the antlers to have been shed by now, and I thought we'd have to wait until spring to see evidence of males. Nope, I saw antlers, kids!

Another Christmas miracle!

Snowing

Slow shutter snow trails.

Christmas snow!

Christmas Miracles

First Santa Claus came and left presents, then this morning two (rein)deer came to visit, and now it's flurrying!

Merry Christmas everybody!!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas Eve

We had our second annual Christmas Eve in Methuen party tonight. Jen's mom and step father came along with her aunt and uncle. Larry and Nawal and their son came, and the kids' father and step mother came too. Food was mowed down, the piano was played, gifts were exchanged, fish Santa was seen on TV, tons of Christmas songs were played from iCloud through our Apple TV, and a good time was had by all of us. It was great to see everyone. I'm glad you could all make it, and I hope we helped kick off your Christmases.

Hohoho!

48 minutes until Santa comes down the chimney, so we have to get to sleep quick!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Hey Rush Fans

P22

Hey Rush fans... Dig the score.

Hohoho

Christmas Kitty

Happy Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve! Santa Claus comes tonight! I hope you've all been good. My readers have a 100% success rate in avoiding coal in their stockings. I expect that success rate to be sustained come tomorrow. No pressure, readers.

Jen and I began our Christmas Eve celebration the best way possible. We ignored the alarm clock and slept until almost 8:00am! It's a Christmas miracle!

Hohoho!

Santa's coming tonight tonight
Santa's coming tonight! *




* Christmas music, Spongebob style.

Bad News

I heard some bad news last night that is going to majorly bum out the kids.

Their favorite Disney Channel show is ending next month. Oh no! What are they going to constantly watch now?

Poor kiddies.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Damn It!

Jen has never seen the Super Best Friends episode of South Park. I went to Netflix to watch it and it's not there. It's not available on southparkstudios.com either. All due to a depiction of Mohamed as a member of a group of religious super heros.

Damn it! I bet it's on the original season 5 DVD though, and I have that somewhere.

I'm on a quest!

Yankee Swap Gift

My Favorite Commuting Day of the Year

Happy last work day before Christmas!  Also known as the best morning commute day of the year!  This is one annual event that I always look forward to.  I went from the driveway to a spot in the parking garage in 42:42.  That might be a record for a commute from Methuen. The overall record is 39 minutes and change, but that was from Tewksbury... I think.

My group at work does a yankee swap each year on the last business day before Christmas.  For the second time in seven years I managed to leave the house without my yankee swap gift.  Fortunately this time it was a kid morning and I just stopped at the house on the way back South from dropping them off.  That allowed me to set the timer in the car as I was leaving the driveway.

HoHoHo!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

It's Not Red! BLASPHEMY!

A Little Progress

I got some wrapping done today.  A nice chunk of the gifts that were still unwrapped have been wrapped... but there is so much more to do.

I'm on second shift tonight and while I loathe having nights where I am stuck on second shift I did put most of the time to good use.  Now, however, it's getting near the time when I have to start thinking about going in to work.

The good news (as far as second shifts are concerned) is that tonight should be the last one I ever have to do.  The permanent second shift staff will officially be up and running starting on January 1st.

Thanks goodness.

Bring it On, Christmas

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

2011

photo by robj_1971
photo, a photo by robj_1971 on Flickr.

2010

2010-12-24&25 Christmas 002 by robj_1971
2010-12-24&25 Christmas 002, a photo by robj_1971 on Flickr.

2009

2009 Christmas Tree by robj_1971
2009 Christmas Tree, a photo by robj_1971 on Flickr.

2008

2007

Nothing

I've got nothing to say today. 

No Bruins games last night or tonight.
No off season moves by the Red Sox (at least none that I know of).
The Christmas shopping is pretty much done.
The gift wrapping continues.
The pre-Christmas Eve party cleaning kicks off in earnest tonight.
Nothing musical going on.

Just getting ready for the holiday festivities this weekend.  That's pretty much it.  Looking forward to the Christmas Eve party, and to Santa's visit, and to celebrating Christmas with the family.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The King

Once again I have cemented my title of Worlds Worst Gift Wrapper.

Hail to the King, babie.

Cats Rule the Internet

If we can judge the state of the internet based on youtube, then it must be said that the internet exists for no reason other than to demonstrate the awesomeness of cats.

More proof:

Bad Omens

This might be a bad day. The signs don't look good.

The trash pick up came and went before 7:30. I hadn't put our one barrel out yet. Jerks.

I just started up the car and immediately heard that evil, terrible, satanic 1-877-kars4kids jingle.

Things aren't looking good at the start of this Tuesday.

Monday, December 19, 2011

How Gibson Guitars are Made

Snow (not real snow, don't worry)

In the spirit of the Christmas season, go to Google and enter the following search:

let it snow

Just give it a try.  Oh, and make sure you leave it up for a few minutes.

HoHoHo

Weekend Recap

That was a seriously busy weekend.

The main focus of the weekend revolved around Christmas.  We went shopping on both days.  Parking was difficult but not impossible.  Surprisingly.  Maybe most people finished early this year seeing as we were blitzed with Christmas advertising before Thanksgiving.  We put up some more decorations, and we all got our special tree ornaments for the year.  Mine is a little saxophone.  Really cool. 

We went to see the Muppet movie again and even though the Chunky's in Plaistow is staffed by idiots we had a good time.  We also went to the kids' piano recital.  They were both excellent.  Everyone was very impressed, as always.  Those kids can play that piano!

On the way home I noticed that the neighbor on the end of our street had put some lawn decorations out.  There were three things that looked like reindeer on the front lawn.  It was strange though because they weren't lit up.  They were just standing there.  As the van came around the corner and the headlights hit the decorations we realized that they weren't decorations.  They were real deer!  Three of them!  Those does saw us coming and bolted down the street at full speed.  One of them was so startled that when she tried to turn and run she corkscrewed herself right into the ground.  We actually got to follow them down the street as they high-tailed it into the woods.  (I now know where the expression high-tailed comes from)  It was pretty cool.  Still no antlers though.

This week the focus will change to preparations for our Christmas Eve family party, and our Christmas day festivities.  It will also turn to stress as the days wind down.  I still have two online gift purchases that have not been delivered yet.  They still have plenty of time to arrive, but I am getting nervous... and in another day or two the nerves will turn to sheer panic.  Then there is always the question... did I miss anyone?  I keep forgetting that I have to get something for the yankee swap at work... and as always, did I get enough for Jen?  Not only that, but will the stuff I got be good enough?  Will her Christmas be a happy one?

HoHoHo and all that.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Tunes

The Peanuts gang is jammin' on our mantle.

YouTube Video


Best Fortune Cookie Ever

Ceiling

Recital Tonight

The kids have their piano recital tonight. They are all excited and hyper and... Well... No they're not, actually, they are sitting on the couch watching Disney shows.

Crappy New Song

Over the course of the last two hours I've gone from thinking this song was okay and good enough to finish to thinking it was really weak, to thinking that I just plain don't like it at all.

Oh well. Now I just have an excuse to come up with something better so that this one won't be at the top of my alonetone.com playlist.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Chunky's in Plaistow, NH

Bad experience at Chunk's tonight. The idiot kid decided to roll a chair in front of my step son after the movie had started. I had never been pissed off enough to give a $0.00 tip... Until tonight.

We won't be going back there again.

Obligatory milk shake pic

Letters to Santa

The kids are sitting at the dining room table writing their letters to Santa Claus.

In a word... Elaborate.

In another word... Expensive.

Deer Update

I've seen between four and six deer in the woods within the last 10 minutes or so. It's hard to get an accurate count because they circle around, and even if they would stand still you usually can't see them unless they're moving.

Still no antlers. Either they only show themselves to me after the males shed them for the winter, or we have a lesbian community. I can't tell which.

On of them was tiny. She looked young enough to still be a little unsteady on her legs, but her coat was dark with no spots. Once again demonstrating how much nothing I know about these suckers.

The only thing I know for sure is that I love that they're out there.

Weird

It's so weird.

Last night I used my iPad as my alarm clock. Somehow I managed to hit snooze every 10 minutes for over an hour. I had to have had my eyes open to see what I was doing, but I don't remember pretty much any of it.

Do you think I might have been kinda tired?

Maybe.

Friday, December 16, 2011

We Need a Little Christmas Right This Very Minute

Jen felt that she was lacking in the Christmas spirit.  She asked if we could hop in the car and drive around looking for crazy displays of Christmas lights.  We found three houses, two of which were on the same street!

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We Need a Little XMass

Epidemic?

Milan Michalek, the NHL goal scoring leader, out with a concussion.
Claude Giroux, the NHL point scoring leader, out with a concussion.
Jeff Skinner, the reigning NHL rookie of the year, out with a concussion.
Sidney Crosby, the best player in the NHL, out with a concussion.
Chris Pronger, one of the best defensemen ever, out with a concussion.

Nathan Gerbe, Mike Richards, Michael Sauer, Kris Letang, Joni Pitkanen, Zbynek Michalek, Nino Niederreiter, Radek Martinek, Brayden Schenn, Robert Bortuzzo, Andy McDonald, Jay Beagle, Peter Mueller, Marc Staal, and Boston's own Marc Savard... all out with concussions.  I got the full list here.

I heard on a recent Bruins television broadcast that the number of concussions is actually down from last season.  I find that hard to believe, although I think maybe the total number is down but the number of all star caliber players with concussions has to be way up.

How do we stop this?  I don't know if we can.  All hits to the head need to be banned.  I think this is out of control to the point where that needs to happen, however it won't solve the problem at all.  Milan Michalek was hit by his own teammate.  Sidney Crosby got bumped up high on a harmless looking play and then later got hit by his own teammate as well.  It could have been either of those plays that set him back, or maybe he wasn't fully healed from last year's concussion.  Who knows.  It's all grey area.

Still... at this rate we're going to be a league of nothing but B-list players.

Lately I've been hearing people talk about the pads the players are wearing.  I guess they are made from a hard plastic, more armor than padding, and that could be causing the increase.  Maybe it's time to go back to pads that are actually pads.  Maybe.  Maybe there's something wrong with the helmets?  Who knows.  All I do know is that it's scary.  Marc Savard and Sidney Crosby seem like the poster children for the issue right now, Crosby because he's the best player in the league and Savard because he's a great player whose career is probably over way before his time.  They aren't the first though.  Pat LaFontaine (sorry if I misspelled that), Eric Lindros, Keith Primeau.  All of them had their careers shortened, or at least derailed, by concussions.

There has to be a way to stop this crap.  There has to be a way to protect these players without taking the aggressiveness out of the game.  There has to be.  Is it the pads?  Is it hits to the head?  Are the players too big for the ice now?  Do we need to play on larger rinks?  What is it?  Someone who knows the game better than I do needs to give us some glimmer of hope here.  I'm tired of seeing players laying on the ice out cold.

Canobie Lake

Canobie Lake looks cool this morning.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

More Mood Music

Youtube is sorely lacking in clips from the Bradford hotel shows.

Mood Music

I was in a pissy mood most of the day.

This is mood music.

Mission of Burma.

335

Steve Howe Guitar Lesson

This is why no cover band I ever played with even dreamed about playing 70's Yes.



Woah!

Symbolism

I don't like getting political on this site.  I don't like getting political at all these days, but I am a little pissed off today.

I just read this.

The war in Iraq is "over."  Whatever that means.  The war that was fought because Iraq had ties to Al Qaeda that didn't exist (funny how that turned out) and because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist (note the pattern) officially ended today with a little ceremony that included boxing up the flag and shipping it home.

I'm conflicted about this, as I am with most things these days.  First I want to say, FINALLY!  We spent almost nine years in a war that was fought because our government lied to us, and when the lie was exposed they re-justified the war with another lie, and when that lie was exposed they just ignored us and kept the war machine rolling.

According to the article linked above:
4,500 Americans dead.
32,000 Americans wounded.
That pales in comparison to the estimated 100,000 dead Iraqis.
The cost of the war?  $800 Billion.  That's Billion with a "B".

On the other hand... well, there are two other hands.  First, it's bullshit.  Yes, the overwhelming majority of US troops will be home by the end of the year.  I applaud that.  I am very thankful for that.  It's a Christmas gift that makes me happy.  Unfortunately we are still leaving armed forces in the country.  The "war" is over, but we're not pulling out entirely.  They are just giving the "war" a new name.  I don't know what the new name is, but it's not "war" so the war is over yippee!  Right?  Bullshit.

The other, other hand is that we've left a colossal mess there.  We never should have gone there in the first place, but now we've got an entire nation of people who have had their lives turned upside down in the name of Democracy thanks to the United States.  People need to come to Democracy naturally.  The United States didn't have it forced onto us, we grew into it.  Egypt?  Libya?  They came to it naturally.  I had no problem with NATO forces helping out in Libya.  The Libyan people chose to stand up to their government and if they needed our help then we had a duty to our way of life to help them.  Did the Iraqi people ask us for help or did we shove it down their throats?  Think about your every day life.  How does it make you feel when unwanted "help" is forced onto you.  Now blow that up to a nation of millions of people and try to imagine the scale of the mess we made.

And now we're just leaving.  Buh-Bye, have a nice life.  Yeah Democracy.  How long before Iraq turns into another Iran.  I am betting it's not long at all.

I'm glad we're finally leaving, even though we've left such a mess.  I would have been happier, much happier, if we just hadn't gone at all.  Unfortunately I got sucked in by the lies just like everyone else.  I wasn't happy about it, but we had to do what we had to do... except we didn't because it was all a lie. 

Welcome the troops home.  Welcome your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends, and neighbors back home where they belong.  Thank them for their service, but never forget that their service was the result of your government lying to you.  Never forget that.

Tis the Season

The kids are singing the Eric Cartman rendition of "Oh Holy Night."

Oh what have I done? I've totally corrupted them, and it's so very funny.

I love them both so very much.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Goal!!!

Remember last night when I said that Rich Peverley's goal was a thing of beauty?

The goal he just scored against Ottawa was a thing of beauty as well.

The Bruins have a 1-0 lead over the Senators.

Go Bruins!

Music Nerd with a Camera Phone

Memories

Remember that time that Jen and I had our first Christmas together and she got me the toy that I had always wanted when I was a kid but Santa had never gotten for me?

That was so awesome.

Bruins and Red Sox stuff

The Bruins played last night against Los Angeles without Zdeno Chara.  Chara has a (we think) knee injury and missed his first game of the season.  The Bruins were so afraid of playing without their best defenseman that they sat their #1 goalie as well.  Oh, and they still beat the Kings 3-0.  They got Paille back from a mild concussion, but they were also without Gregory Campbell who broke his foot in the Columbus game.  The good news is Chara traveled with the team for tonight's game in Ottawa.  The bad news is that GM Peter Chiarelli said this morning that the chances of him playing are only 50/50.

As for the Red Sox, they have finally made a couple of moves after looking like a bloated behemoth since the last season ended.  We've lost our GM, our manager, and our closer.  We have already replaced the GM and the manager (with a circus clown) and now we may have replaced the closer too.

According to ESPN they traded Jed Lowrie and Kyle Weiland to the black hole that is the Houston Astros for closer Mark Melancon.  Melancon had 20 saves for a team that only won 56 games.  I, along with about a billion other Sox fans, expected Josh Bard to step into the closer role, but the circus clown has stated that Bard will get a shot at starting this year.  I'm hoping they aren't putting all of their 9th inning eggs into Melancon's basket.  He might turn out fine, but there is a big difference between being a closer on an abysmal Houston team and being the closer in Boston.  We'll have to wait and see.  I wish him all sorts of luck though.

I liked Jed Lowrie.  He was a decent player who could play anywhere in the field.  He was hurt a lot though.  He might have been the every day shortstop at one point were it not for injuries.  I'd like to say something about Kyle Weiland too, but I don't know anything about him.

The Red Sox also affectively ended the Boston career of Jason Varitek this week by signing Kelly Shoppach.  Shoppach hit under .180 last year, in fact his season average was about the same as Varitek's second half average so clearly it's an upgrade.   Ummm... Either way, Jarrod Saltalamacchia will be the #1 catcher next year.  I sincerely hope Varitek is offered a coaching job somewhere in the organization.  As far as my non-baseball-talent-evaluating eyes can see he's done as a player.  He can probably sign on somewhere and milk it for another year or two, but he can't throw runners out anymore and he can't hit anymore.  What he can do is run a pitching staff.  I would very much like to see him hired as a bullpen or pitching coach.  Maybe not for the big league club right away, but at least place him in the system somewhere so that he can learn the new ropes and be ready to come back to Boston in a couple of years.  Varitek is always going to be a hero around here, and I would consider it a shame if he went to another team.

The Bruins Beat the Kings 3-0

Here are the highlights from last night's Bruins win over the Kings.  The video comes from nhl.com



I want to save this off because the first Bruins goal is puck moving perfection. 

15 Minutes Late

photo by robj_1971
photo, a photo by robj_1971 on Flickr.

I was 15 minutes late to work today. Why? Because I spent 30 minutes in a traffic jam caused by this accident.

I feel conflicted. I very much hope that everyone involved in the accident is all right, but the main reason I hope for that is because I want to blame them for being dumbasses and making me late to work.

Santa's gonna be mad at Robbie.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Monkeys

We started watching The Hangover 2 tonight. We still have 37 minutes to go, but I've seen enough to know that it contains the finest acting performance by a monkey in the history of Hollywood.

I only saw part of the Bruins game, but I watched enough to see Peverley's goal in the first and it was a thing of beauty. I'll post the highlights tomorrow. It was a cycling clinic.

Google+

There was a message on my Blogger dashboard this morning saying that I can link Blogger to Google+.  That way my posts here will show up there.  In order to do it I would need to replace my Blogger profile with my Google profile.  No big deal there.  The problem for me would be that the private blog would also be linked.  I don't want that blog to be linked anywhere. 

I would assume that I would be able to chose which (if any) Google+ circle would see the Blogger posts... I would better be able to set that... but that brings me to why I didn't do it.  I wouldn't let any of my circles see those posts.  If people find this page then that's fine.  I put a link on Facebook, and on Twitter, and yadda yadda yadda, but if they don't find it that's fine too.  I don't want to push this page on friends three+ times a day.

I'll keep my Blogger on Blogger and let Google+ keep it's nose out of it.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Monday Night

Jen cooked a wonderful chicken cutlet dinner of her own creation tonight. It was excellent. The potato side dish, however, spent more than an hour in the oven and was still cold and raw.

This is happening with increasing regularity and is one of the reasons we started replacing appliances. The fridge/freezer was the top priority so we handled that first. We were hoping to get a little more life out of the oven, but tonight we admitted defeat and ordered a new stove.

Later, after watching two or three South Park Christmas episodes I set up my iTunes Match on our Apple TV and tested it out. It worked fine. Another iTunes Match success.

Huge Moon Over 495

Most Valuable Cheater?

Major League Baseball... oh what are we going to do with you.

The National League's newly crowned Most Valuable Player, Milwaukee Brewer Ryan Braun, has allegedly tested positive for using a banned substance.  Apparently the random drug test he took during the MLB playoffs this year found what I believe they are calling synthetic testosterone.  The story leaked to the press before the league had finished it's investigation.  I guess the drill is, when a player flunks a drug screen he is notified and given the option of appealing the findings.  An arbitrator listens to his story and then decides whether or not the league mandated punishment should be dished out.  From what I heard on 98.5fm in Boston this morning, if the player is apologetic, or says it was an accident, or says they used something without realizing what it is, the arbitrator is still going to slap the huge suspension onto the player, so long as the medical evidence is there.

Braun is in the process of appealing the findings, but what is he going to say that is going to overturn the suspension?  It sounds like he has to prove the test was a false positive in order to get the results thrown out.  I sincerely doubt that will happen.  It sure looks like Braun is going to get slapped with the ass kicking (not in a good way) 50 game suspension for the first offense.

And this is the newly named MVP of the National League.  Milwaukee won their division last year for the first time in 239237123 years due to having two star players who carried them.  Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder.  The team could only afford to extend the contracts of one of those two and they chose to extend Braun.  Fielder is now a free agent and should be signing with some other team any day now.  So not only will the Brewers be Fielder-less next year, but they will also be Braun-less for the first 30% of the season.  What a ball buster this is for the fans. 

There is even talk by the baseball writers, the organization that chooses the league MVPs, of re-doing the voting for the National League so that they do not have to go through the humiliation of crowning a newly minted chemical cheater as their winner. 

The question is, was it worth it?  Ryan Braun will lose 50 games next year and have to endure being labeled a cheater for the rest of his career.  At the same time, according to ESPN, his contract runs through 2020 and it will pay him a total of $150 million.  I'm sure that type of money can build a really big wall around a huge mansion to keep the neighbors' shouts of, "cheater" out of earshot.

The whole thing is just gross.

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