Ode to frequent flier miles

I have not sculpted the thoughts in my mind into word form in quite some time now. What can I say? She has been a busy busy summer. I truly have had a great and blessed one. Friends coming down to see me, family coming to visit, Tigers baseball in Camden, trips to the ocean and camping. All of it has been masterful fun and produced more than a few memorable pics to hold onto. No the giant floating duck is not one of them, but I liked it so there he sits.

This past weekend I did one of the more spontaneous and ridiculous things I have ever attempted in travel. At 3pm Friday afternoon I decided I was going to suck it up and make it home for a very special engagement party I needed to be in. That party was in like 4 fours, and I was still in Baltimore. Well I bought a ticket, rented a car (love teh inets) and hightailed it to BWI. I made it home to Detroit by 730p and found out that hey, that special party is NEXT weekend.

Well that kind of thing does not deter my spirit! Oh no, for my Mother and Brother whom were enjoying a beautiful weekend at the house in Ludington, had no clue I was in the state, let alone venturing through the night in a lil PT cruiser to come see them. Needless to say they were surprised as I walked through the door and a good time was had by all as I stayed for a short weekend.

You and yours? I hope you are well. Me and mine? Well.. me… I going to get lunch…

PSme?

OK so thanks to sticky-handed-idiot mechanics, I have no money. I have reverse money. I need to move somewhere a little cheaper than where I live now. That is life though, and I will be better off for finding more affordable living. I will pay my debts off faster, and maybe buy a PS3?

Haha yea right. Ok here we are, a couple years into the console war and I still happily play my 360. I unlike most have not had a RROD occur, and I feel primarily it is because I A) bought a 3rd party fan for it and B) average maybe 1 hour a day if that on it. But here is the deal. On the 360 I have some exclusive games like Halo 3 and Gears of War. On the PS3 there is zero, zilch, nada I am interested in that I cannot have on the 360. Take this CNET list of the top PS3 games out there right now. On that list I think every game, at least the first 7 or 8, are all on the 360 as well.

Yea I know, Metal Gear 4 is exclusive to PS3. Well I just don't care enough to get it. Maybe if something else drew me in that I had to have.. Haze? ahhaa yea sorry I know, big joke. Possibly if Resistance 2 proves deadly, I would ante up to play both of them, but right now? I'll keep passing.

And in the mean time, I really need to stop being so pleased with running down hookers on the sidewalk in GTA4, like a month in and I'm only 60% done with it.

Hey today, Thanks!

Dear Diary

Today was one of those days that come along once in a long time. They test you and make you think you can take no more; nothing worse can happen to make the level of suck go higher. Now I am not talking family death or home foreclosure kind of bad, but frustrating, gnaw away at the human spirit kind of bad.

It really began Saturday, where my hockey performance was deserving of an F. Blowing a tournament was not something I had planned on doing. Well putting my car in the shop for a $800 repair was also not on my list. No biggie though, these things happen, such is life.

All set to pick up my beloved 6 today, I receive a call informing me that “Hey, thanks for that first wad of cash, but you don't get it fixed until you fork out $1,200 more.” Well that did not please me so much. I put off picking it up to the evening however, so when I received my $800 un-fixed car, I would be that much less fuming.

Well nothing could make me fume more than when I obtained said car, I realized I was dumb enough to leave my Oakleys in the car. And guess what. They be gone. Fantastic, $125 shades stolen. Try as I might, I'll never see those again.

Then I am told I was not getting an interview for the apartment I wanted downtown, and oh hey, don't forget after arriving late to my hockey game tonight because 895 was closed, I got a hockey stick stolen too.

At the end of all of this, I feel beaten, bruised, crushed. I have lost a lot of cash and effort today, my spirit is lessened considerably. But ya know what, life could be so much worse. I lost material things and my spirit grows back. Maturity has set in and I have thankful for that, I am happy for better things to come in future days.

I'd still like my Oakleys back though.

I cannot think of a song with lyrics in it about being twenty-six

Once a year you spend an entire day accepting well wishes and gleeful comments from friends and family. That day approaches for me at times as if out of nowhere, and I have a unique habit of not actually doing anything on that day, but systematically destroying my liver the night beforehand.

This year was no exception, with Baby Bop and Wesley assisting in my journey towards death by purchasing a unique and overly refined blend of alcohol for my consumption. Not only did I sample at the very least four continents of hops and barley, but the magical Blue Death from Miami made a return and assured my memory would cease to work from 3am on.

Good times were had however, as I can guarantee you will never hear a more faithful rendition of Beat It than as performed by myself with Bop on back-up vocals.

The day of birth itself? What more could I ask for than my spiritual connection to the Detroit Red Wings being even stronger? Not only did the current owning regime purchase the team on the very day of my birth, but our 11th Stanley Cup was awarded on my day this year. I will forever happily share a bond with Cup number 11.

The rest of the day was as I alluded to, uneventful. A free car wash followed by free thunderstorm and tornado warnings; more of the same ol. I did take time and think about what it means when certain people take a moment from their lives to wish you a happy day of birth and others do not. Almost assuredly, like a royal hierarchy, the closest of my companions extended 10 to 15 minutes of their lives to calling me; while an eclectic collection of good friends and others I never would imagine would stop and say hi, blessed me with a Happy Birthday. Probably the most telling event of all would be of the few women in my life I would classify myself as stricken by, not one found the time to say hello. I’ll have to write that one down somewhere.

All in all, special friends and special hockey players made me smile on June 4th. After all, one should feel special. Only about 15 million other people have that day to themselves.

When being older doesn't equal being wiser

So of the several hockey teams I play for right now, I quit my favorite one yesterday. This is a team that really has failed to live up to its potential, largely due to the quality players on its roster being duped into a bad situation.

Some of the closest friendships I have made in MD came out of pick up hockey with my “Alpha” boys, named after a park we frequent. We were all recruited to play on a team promised to have been middle of the pack the year before, and bringing other good players in to assist us. Well that roughly translated to “A goalie who blows and three guys who hack, whack, and throw sticks but not much else.” Needless to say, despite my boys’ efforts, we ended up 1-2-1 after yesterday’s game and our second game where we should have won.

Now my effort that game was far from my best, and that was the first thing I mentioned post game, but I then also called out the moronic penalties like slew footing, knee to knee hitting, and stick throwing that our “Older veteran” players committed. Well one middle aged stick thrower had enough of my comments then, told me I couldn’t score (leading the team in goals, top 3 in the league), that he had twice the experience I did (20 years in beer leagues does not equate to NARCh, gold level, or college hockey experience) and I had to shut up. Well I did shut up until I walked out, said I quit, and when they played real hockey and not street hockey, I’d come back.

Now I got home, cooled down and immediately sent our captain the text that I was sorry and would see him Sunday. I talked to one of my boys and said I was sorry and would not abandon them, no matter how much I hated the others. Well the brilliant goalie/captain didn’t care and cut me, offering up the nice lie that “The entire team said I had to go.” Well that was nice considering my 4 boys were never asked and immediately petitioned to keep me. I even sucked up all my pride, and said I was sorry, thankfully stopping short of begging. Unfortunately the older “more experienced” guys don’t have humility of their own and chose to let their top scorer go.

Now I feel really bad not because I am off of a last place team, but because I have left my great friends to fend for themselves, and I am unable to help them. To make matters worse, I am in talks to join competing teams. What can I say, the concept of coming back right before the playoffs and lighting that dickhead up in net for 6 goals really sounds good right now.

Sorry Alpha boys, we’ll have our own team next year.

Whats fair in war is not in hockey

So I had my first game with my second in-line hockey team tonight. I've been having a good spring thus far, a resurgence of my in-line hockey career if you will. Towards the end of my MSU days it all finally clicked for me; I understood how to play better, shoot better and that it wasn't all about speed. It's a complete testament to guys like Mack, Howard and the A team that I improved at all. So moving down here and developing my physique and game every weekend has really made me happy on the rink and I've had at least personal success on the high level talent team even though we're 1-2, and I was set to shine in the beer league tonight.

We had an interesting game, we lost 7-5, and I scored 4 times. I had a pretty shitty game, really shoulda banked 8, but I was not mentally in it tonight and I'm sporting a 13 inch bruise on my thigh from a blocked shot last week. I had fun though, these guys are great beer leaguers, good men, fun to be with. And this is what pisses me off.

The referee comes up to me during the game and invites me to play on his team one level up on Wednesdays. I respectfully say thank you and I would be interested, but I'm really broke and can't afford to pay to play more. He said we'll discuss it after the game. So afterward I walk to the score keeper and ask him to jot my number down for the ref, and he responds "Yea, we need to move you out of this league, it isn't fair." Now this is where I am confused and hope its a communication error. If I'm being told I have to leave so this guy gets me on his team since I won't pay more to play, thats bullshit. We didn't even win this game. Granted I can play much better, but thats not the point. Politics may belong in the NHL or even elite in-line leagues, but not in beer league. When I score 10 and we mercy teams, then you can tell me to leave, don't try and yank me for yourself after 1 game. You'll find me missing the net a lot more than you did in this league if you catch my drift.

I wanna get bruised by you

I have not had Mountain Dew in like 3 months. I mean seriously, who remembers when I had 3 a day? I wonder if I'll live 15 years longer now. Or maybe I'll be able to have kids. Either way this one tastes pretty good right now.

I just woke up from a nap so this whole rant will be particularly scattered I think. I have been pretty pissed this last week over some trash talked about me back home by ex coworkers, something I didn't provoke or deserve as far as I can figure out. I just don't get it sometimes. Drama never followed me (outside of the girls I dated) so why would this evolve when I left? I don't care too much, I have no real friends at that t-shirt shop so I don't care what they think of me, but motive intrigues me. I don't know if the rumors arise out of boredom, hate, jealousy? The day or two I flipped over it was a waste of energy as so many friends quickly chimed in to assure me on fbook, friends who while I don't talk to them but 3 messages a year digitally, pop in just when I need them and deliver a cyber high five.

Someone made the comment to me this week that I should be proud of being a self made man. I am very proud of where I am, I am very proud of what I have been through and what my "kids so bright we're gonna need shades" future holds. I however am not a self made man at all. I was never wealthy, but I was overrun with positive role models in my life, it was gluttony at best. My parents, brother, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my best friends, teachers, bosses, teammates, and cats. Seriously, I was taught how to go do the work I must, how to get into and through school, how to develop my skills, get through grad school, and find this job. A self made man has no one and no money, I am a community made man and everything I ever do will be because of them.

Max Bemis can really write songs. I don't know how his brain is wired. Yes he has been hospitalized for mental disorders and flipping out, but whatever drives that also drives his incredible prose. Out of nowhere his lyrics pull u-turns, sharp jabs, or little jokes. I am particularly enamored with the yellow disc out of Say Anything's two disc set, and I think you should be as well.

I was jacking cars when it was still a top down world

Actually my little brother introduced me to the GTA series back when we played video games in his blotchy grey carpeted room, on his little PS1. The glory days of top down car stealing goodness were bliss. How could you imagine the real 3D, damn near philosophically correct version we would be playing now in GTA 4?

I picked it up yesterday, snagging the second to last xbox copy Best Buy had (plenty of PS3 ones abound) and went home to play. I had soon decided this was the best game ever. How soon? I wasn't even done with the opening cinematic sequence. The art and sound design was already bigger than Iron Man will be today. R* just has class when creating.

Now I am not going to review the game, I am not a review site. If you want professional opinions on it, go read the 4 month long coverage Kotaku gave it. What I will do is assure my mother that she was one of the good parents, and these violent games make me giggle like a school girl yes, but they do not turn me into a chainsaw wielding cop killer because I was given common sense at a young age. And second, I want to push all of you to buy it because its awesome and I would enjoy playing cops n crooks with you like I did Billy Bop last night.

Trust me, you'll be seeing the lil IV icon over there on my Xbox Live tag for many a month coming up.

Minutes till inevitability

So I have really fallen for the new Linkin Park album Minutes Till Midnight. I really did not expect this to happen and I think I kind of even mentally positioned myself against such a desire to own another LP album.

It's not that I fell away as a fan from LP as much as I was over exposed. They really wrote what, like 25 songs, and then remixed them into 1,432 other versions over 15 other albums. I just did not dig that.

Well now after hearing Shadow of the Day and falling totally in love with it, I Pandora-ed (I think I made a new verb there) LP and heard a couple other tracks. Valentines Day is really solid and I think the whole album really deserves a lot of cred for exploring a wide array of composition and genres. I again am a fan.

Begin rant.

I have come to the realization I hate so many commercials on TV due to their sound track. Why must some content director's trendy taste be forced on me time and time again in 30 second, re-cut snippets that I'll hear 15 times over my Red Wings broadcast?

Major offenders:

Dockers: California Soul or some shit.
Apple: Ok pretty much everything they choose. I actually like some of the artists but they are run into the ground and pick the worst tracks from them.
Dodge: The two new commercials for their "Journey" SUV. The animated one (what is up with that kid? He has a beard!) And the one with the big slip n slide (which I totally wanna go on)

End rant.

Music, Life, and Jason James

You guys know I lived through the Impact for many a year, it was difficult to leave it behind and stop playing the music for the kiddies. Well they were kind enough to invite me back for one hour and interview me and play my fav tunes. They are always coming up with great new ideas for shows and I was thrilled to be a part of it. You can listen to that hour here on the wonderful Ian!s blog, as long as he chooses to keep it up.

Teenage guide to popularity

So I guess this lil blog, for some ungodly reason, has over 1,000 hits. Cool enough, cool enough to be asked to join this site called VerveEarth. They link blogs based on geographic location. So maybe I'll try and write a little more. Maybe more about Baltimore? Maybe nothing.. hmm lets see.

I'll tell you a couple things. Super computers are cool. I just picked up my custom made 3 ghz core 2, 2 gig ram, geforce 9600 graphics card. I like this stuff.

Something that I don't like? Well maybe I do, but I was very startled by it. 1,000 pirates in the streets of Baltimore this past Sat night. Drunk, very drunk. I don't even begin to know what to think.