A Quick Thanksgiving Wrap-up

I'll keep this short. Last time I was here, I talked about a part one, part two thing with coffee and beer. Well, I suck at blogging, apparently, and I never did the part two. Sorry, I'll write that up in the near future. Hang in there, "everybody"!

Anyway, I drove up to my moms in Michigan for a couple days, and it's great. Everyone needs to get away for a little while, and this was my chance. Thanksgiving is/was great, and I ate way too much food. It ain't Thanksgiving unless you're in pain. So that happened. Got to see our good friends Chris and Cindy and their baby. That ruled hard. Always nice to see some folks from back home. After dinner, played Scrabble and a family card game called Push, which is basically Phase 10, but only five phases...it's great.

Loads to talk about, but I believe you get the idea of what's up. I'll be driving back to Nashville this afternoon, right after the lunch feast of leftovers! That's about to happen, so with that, I'll leave it until tomorrow morning, since I'm a weekend blogger now, right?

Happy Thanksgiving errbody!!!

Get Your Drink On pt. 1

I guess I'm a weekend blogger now...Didn't mean for that to happen.

Anyway, what's up, America? What's up Canada? What's up, Earth?

I'm up, and that's okay, I'm used to it by now. Sleeping in is overrated. I got shit to do, damnit.

There are two things I enjoy that are better when done correctly. Coffee and Beer. These are two things that make me happy, and they are things you begin and end the day with (typically). Coffee comes in all sorts of varieties, and several different types of packaging. Most people drink coffee that is pre-ground, canned, and cheap. That's okay, I did for a long time, too. I'm not knocking anyone who drinks Maxwell House or Folgers out of the can. In fact, if that's all you ever drink/drank, that's probably the way you like your coffee. Hey, that's all I used to drink, too. Gradually, I started drinking coffee from places that specalize in that sort of thing, and also eventually I started weening myself off of loading the cup with cream, and then sugar, until one day I just started drinking my coffee black. Then I went to grinding my own whole beans, like, the bag of beans you get from the grocery store, like the "preimum Folgers" or the Dunkin' Donuts brands.

I realized I was starting to really enjoy all the different kinds of coffee out there, and all the good coffees that are available. There's so much more than just a cup of stale, shitty canned coffee. There's a whole world of wonderfully roasted, fresh, whole bean coffee out there to find, and taste, and enjoy. It ain't really about the wake up juice aspect of it that it used to be. It's about tasting the deliciousness of it. Though to be honest, if I don't have that morning cup of joe, I want to kill the innocent. So you better get outta my way if I'm haven't had my coffee yet.

I enjoy the world of coffee, but I do it in the comfort of my own home, because it's so much cheaper than going to some uppity coffee shop somewhere, of which there are thousands. Not that I'm opposed to coffee shops, but everyone associates them with Starbucks, and everyone loves to have a "coffee drink" loaded with sugar, cream and bullshit. Not me. I'll take a cup of coffee, black. Love it. I get my beans from Whole Foods lately, because they freshly roast their shit right there in the store, and it's days old, not weeks old. It's awesome. Now to try other places that roast their own, because there are a few here in town. It's fun. It's something to do, ya know? Drink a cup a coffee, cuz it tastes good.

Sorta like drinking a beer...

see ya tomorrow.

The List

Alright, so I feel like I'm having a harder time jumping back into this thing after this newest six-day hiatus, but let me do my best.

Back in 2008, when working as a Slot Tech, there was one particular night where I had access to a computer, but no access to the internet, for whatever reason. This was probably because of my boss at the time. Whatever the case, I had to find a way to pass the time. I spent a good amount of time creating a list. The list of my top 50 favorite albums of all time. I worked hard on the list, making sure I had everything in it's right place. I did it because I was always saying things like "this is my favorite album ever!" when in reality, it probably wasn't. But I wanted to actually spend time figuring out where the albums fell in my personal rankings.

Well, that list is now obsolete, because I have gotten sick of certain albums, and have had some amazing new music enter my life in the past two years. So I am going to make a 2010 version of the list soon. I think I want to share it with the readers (you people (what do you mean, "you people)), as well. I also think I should share the 2008 list, even if you just want to glance over it, see what landed at the number one spot...number 42 spot, perhaps?

I don't know, I just do this for fun. Not to say the albums are the Greatest of All-Time!!! or whatever...more of a personal ranking of the music that I have connected with over the years.

Please enjoy looking over the 2008 list.

Have a nice weekend.

Save Me From the Daylight

Man, I like this daylight savings time. This one is the good one, where you get an extra hour of sleep, weather you're working in the morning or not. It helps even more when you do have to work the next morning, like me. The only people it really doesn't help all that much is the people who have to work midnights. They just have to work an extra hour, and I suppose it's up to the management if they want to pay the employee the extra hour worked. Because technically, they only worked eight hours. That's what the time card says, anyway. We were lucky enough at the casino that they did pay the extra hour. Here at my current employer? Not sure.

But for those lucky folks like me, who work the weekend, this is the best day of the year. You get an extra hour of sleep. I actually went to bed pretty early last night as well, so I got extra extra sleep. I honestly don't feel that much better than normal, I guess. But just knowing I got like, nine hours of sleep before my early Sunday shift? That's never happened before, I don't think.

It's also a great time of year if you like to party at the bar, because those stay open for an extra hour, too. Here in Nashville, the bars say open until 3 a.m. anyway, so make that 4 a.m. on a night like last night. I recall taking advantage of the time change a few years ago, when my brother and Jesse Smith and I went out, and stayed out until the extra party hour was expired. Good time, I think. I don't know I was pretty drunk. Pretty sure I had to work the next morning, however. This is where the extra hour backfired. I had used the hour to party instead of sleep. That was a rough morning, if I'm not mistaken. Still, if I was able to remember it, the partying, that must mean it was worth it. Good times.

The only other drawback I can think of from this time change is that it will start getting dark here in Nashville at around 5:30 today. That's just depressing.

Vote for Twofeathers

I really wanted to write the exact same blog post Big Dave wrote, but it's all been done now. I do want to talk a bit about my experience with voting in Tennessee.

Yeah, I voted. It was awesome. It's always a pleasure to vote in America. We have that right, and weather you care or not, that's important. We're not touched by the fact that people can't voice their opinions in other parts of the world, or that certain people weren't able vote in this country until relatively short time ago. That's okay, people. You do what you like, I suppose.

I noticed something happen while I was voting. The list for the choice for Governor was quite extensive, even if the television had only really told me about two candidates. After I cast my vote for Governor, I proceeded to another part of the ballot. It should be noted that this was an electronic voting machine, which I had never used before Tuesday, so that was fun. Anyway, I went to the next part of the ballot, and I wasn't really reading what the column was for. I didn't recognize any of the names on the list, but I liked the name of one candidate, one Carl Twofeathers Whitaker. I said, what the hell, sounds awesome, so I punched the box on the screen next to his name. Doing this, it erased my original vote for governor. Turns out, his name was on the continuation of the original governor list. It was pretty unclear, at least to me, that the list was that long. I could have just not been paying that close enough of attention, and cast my vote for Twofeathers. I was able to switch it back to who I wanted to vote for.

Anyway, turns out that Twofeathers came in third place in the state. Makes me think that several other people had made the same mistake I had done. I noticed that it had changed my vote, and I would have to say that someone no one had ever heard of coming in third, that would be a pretty good indicator that I am correct, and either of the two "major" candidates lost some votes because a lot of folks were simply not paying attention.

Weather or not this swayed the election is doubful, because it was a massive defeat on the part of Bill Haslem. But still, it was pretty funny that I noticed that happen while voting, and then to find out he came in third place.

haha.

Not Available for Rent

I don't know if you know it, but I'm not much of a movie guy. I just don't like the prospect of sitting in front of a screen for an hour and a half to two hours at a time. I just don't have that sort of attention span. But everyone knows someone who's a huge movie buff.

So anyway, those people that are big DVD collectors, they don't make much sense to me. I like to watch a movie one time, and if I want to see it again, I'll seek it out. But owning a copy of a movie just seems like a huge waste of time for me.

This is where rentals come in. Most regular, sane people get their movies, at least sometimes, via some sort of rental service. Some people use "on demand" services that are provided via cable or satellite providers. Others, like me, use Netflix, weather it's "instant Netflix" or the regular old discs in the mail deal (of which I do both). The real old fashioned way is to go to your local video store and rent a movie. This third option has seriously declined in recent years, mainly because of the services I mentioned above. That's all fine and dandy, but it got me thinking, what about video games? Sure, there's a service out there, called Gamefly, that rents video games through the mail, like Netflix, but I think it's pretty expensive and not really worth it, if I remember correctly.

I was thinking about this because we had tried to go to our nearest Hollywood Video to rent a game or two, and the place was closed down. There is just not a whole lot of places in town to rent a movie, or more importantly, video games, anymore. There was a Blockbuster on West End Ave. that closed down and is a Pinkberry now. I know of one Blockbuster, and I don't really want to go there, because I hate Blockbuster. But at this point, if I want to rent a video game, what choice do I have?

Another thing, movies on DVD or Blu-Ray are relatively cheap still, where as video games are at least $50, but usually $60. I can't afford that shit, man. I refuse to pay that. I want to rent, but with the decline in video stores, it dragged the options for renting games down with it. And that sucks.

Halloween

Halloween has always, always been right near the top of my favorite holidays. I have so many great memories of trick or treading around Negaunee, with all the game-planning I would do, usually with my cousin Patrick and a friend or two or ours. We would plan out our route, as to maximize our candy-grab, and we always underestimated our endurance.

You see, Negaunee is set up in the ideal fashion for Trick or Treating in my opinion. It's street, next to street, next to street, next to street, with lots and lots of houses, all of which are egear to hand out the delicious "fun size" chocolate bars. Quite frankly, if any house gave me anything else than a chocolate bar, I was pretty mad that I wasted my time on that house. There's chocolate in these other houses, and you're wasting my time with Jolly Ranchers? Get outta here, man.

But anyway, we would have all kinds of plans to hit Lincoln st, Main st, Case st, Peck st, and Clark st, and if there was time, Cherry st. I don't think we ever made it past half of Clark st, because we got tired or it was just too dark, and everyone had pretty much gone home at that point, and people started running out of candy on the later parts so they had their lights off. We would get a pretty decent haul, but not like some other kids, who would fill half of a pillow case. We never ever got that much, but we would deffinately get way too much for one kid. Didn't matter though, it was about getting as much as you could, no matter if you needed it or not.

Those were some of the best nights of my youth. Everyone in town is out and about, and it just felt like something was happening, and it certainly was. It's Halloween!

As I got older, I would dress up anyway, even if it was just to hand out candy at home. I still wanted to show off how great a costume I could put together. In high school, I dressed up exclusivly as some sort of Pro Wrestling charecter. I was Head Banger Thrasher one year, then I was Mankind, and then I was Kane. One year when I was much younger I was Road Warrior Hawk, and that was a badass costume, thanks to my Stepmom. She put that together amazingly.

And then as an adult, I would dress up every year, with better costumes every year. One year I tried to paint my face up like some kind of skelaton, and tried to wash it off because it looked stupid. It ended up just smudging all the black and white paint together and it turned like a grey mess, and this was the year when all the Anthrax was being sent around, so I just said I had Anthrax for Halloween. It was pretty funny.

I dressed as a Myspace in 2006. I was Tummy T. Togo in 2007. I was a Weatherman in a Hurricane in 2008, and that won me $100.

Last year, I took a pass on costumes.

This year, I wore my wife's beer maid costume from last year, and it was a hit at the party I went to last night.

Halloween is always a blast, no matter if your young or old. I hate when people have a problem with adults dressing up for Halloween. It's still fun to do stuff for this amazing holiday. I don't care, I just like to have fun with it. I'd say Halloween is my favorite holiday, but Christmas still rules for several reasons. But it certainly is up there. Probably number 2 on the list.

Happy Halloween!