Trekkie correction...

Jen said...
Are you sure he said VULCAN? Cause, I *am* a Trekkie geek and StoVoKor is the Klingon heaven :p

No, you are correct I'm sure. He didn't say that phrase. I think I get that word in my head and like I said, I know nothing about Star Trek. They dress like Klingons so yeah, "Klingon death metal" would be the phrase. Sorry Trekkie geeks like Jen :P hehe

Bad mental image, beware.

We won all 4 points in league this week against the #1 team...the team with the "bitcher" too. He was pissed off and it was funny as hell. We are in 3rd place now.

I will share this with you since I had to have the image burned into my brain and I can't suffer alone. I was talking to my dad saying we were on our way home from Victoria's Secret (I had a gift card to use) and he asked if you could buy black bras there. I said yes since most styles there come in a black. He said his girlfriend was looking for a black bra that wasn't padded. I said as long as she doesn't have huge boobs, she should find what she's looking for there. He blurts out "No, she's a 'B' cup". Oh lord, I didn't need to know that. He then adds "I know a lot about her.". Oh god, stop. Images of 79 yr old porn blaze through my mind. I don't think most 79 yr old women wear black bras...I mean, they are kind of hard to pull off. I mean by that, they show through any light colored clothing. Anyways, I think I am entering territory I don't want to be in so I will just end this with a *shudder*.

Today would have been my mom's 77th birthday. She died when she was 70, 2 weeks before Sky would have turned 1. They were driving back to Oregon from visiting us when she had her final heart attack at a rest stop in Nebraska. Not to be a downer or anything, just acknowledging her birthday.

Another 15 minutes of fame?

FunkyB sends me an instant message last night that said he knew I was at Raw right now and that we seem to attract the "U-S-A" chant. I believe he is correct thinking back to the baseball team across the street on Ohio Ave that mixed the chanting with car horn honking, the soccer team next door on Chickasaw...the list goes on. The chanting started that night and an immediate "look" was exchanged between Mau & I then I realize the loudest individual I hear in our section happens to be my own kid *rolls eyes*...figures huh? Skylar was more than happy to jump on the chanting bandwagon no matter what was being chanted. He belted out a few "Molly sucks!", "Rosey!" and "Batista, you stink!" copying the little girl sitting behind us.

It was a slightly surreal experience. I had no idea what to expect. It looks pretty exciting on TV but the commentary helps. You get no commentary (the guys are there, you just can't hear what they're saying), you can't hear the refs or trash talk and commercial time leaves everyone sitting there doing a sort of "da dum da dum" or getting up to use the bathroom. Don't get me wrong, it was really cool being there, just very different from watching it on TV. It seems they mic-ed the audience right around the ring because I watched a little of it when we got home and it sounded like everyone was going crazy in the audience yet when I was there, it seemed like everyone was pretty calm for most of it. Of course some wrestlers got quite a welcome and some moves sent the whole crowd into a frenzy but mostly it was pretty chill. The only terribly loud part was when Kane came out. FunkyB warned me it would be loud but I nearly jumped out of my seat when his pyrotechnics went off. I wasn't expecting him to appear out of the darkness like that and I don't know why not. Another strange thing was it started at 7:45pm yet Raw doesn't start until 9pm. Reason being, I found, was that they filmed about 4 matches before Raw that were for Sunday Night Heat...the girls, Benoit and some guy, and my favorite, the Hurricane. Hurricane and Rosey's was the best match all night in my opinion. It was a tag team against these guys that were supposed to be gay (my guess anyways) with these pink boas that did these dance moves. It was absolutely hilarious. I'll have to watch Sunday to see it again. They did a special match at the end, after taping was over, for Cincinnati. The highlight being Rick Flair getting his wrestler's panties pulled down so his ass was hanging out while he fought. It was great. We left in the middle since we wanted to beat the crowds leaving and Skylar was asleep in his seat by that point. I don't think we made it on camera too much since most of the angles used were to the right of where we were sitting (left on TV). It was cool though and I would definitely go again. I'll let you know how my many pictures turned out.

I put in a call to my friend, Ward, in Portland and found out some cool stuff. His Vulcan death metal band, Stovokor, is still going strong. They got a call to go to California to be in Trekkies 2. There is a section in the end of the film about Star Trek themed bands and they are one of the bands to be profiled in it...in my opinion, the best one but I'm biased. He mentioned it was playing on Showtime this month so I flipped around while on the phone and found it on right then. I recorded the last half hour since that is the part they appear the most in. His bands always seem to get a lot of recognition. Resist was one of the better known anarchist punk bands of that time and now Stovokor is in a movie? Impressive. He explained what Stovokor means but I'm not a "trekkie" so I didn't fully understand it. Really, I'm not...I have no reason to lie, I'm into enough other geeky things trust me. Ward's reply: "It's never too late to learn.". I suggest checking out Stovokor: http://www.purevolume.com/stovokor. Ward is "KhR'ELL", the guitarist. He mentioned their desire to do a split 7" with a band called Hatebeak that has a parrot as their singer. That was enough reason for me to check them out.

Possibly our 15 seconds of fame...?

Mau told the server at the restaurant we were at it was my birthday. Not the usual restaurant we go to for birthdays. My face immediately turned a very bright shade of red, which was a fact they incorporated into their very long song along with my age...21 Mau told them :P

I am entering the grips of the devil in the form of online poker. No, I am not giving out credit card numbers (yet), just playing with play money. I am finding it hard to read the other players when you can't see their faces so playing with real money is scary to me. I am afraid of developing bad betting habits playing with fake money though for when I have to take Ed out in real life. Well, like last night.

Mau got another job today...something fairly decent finally. He'll be working at FedX so, unlike serving, he'll actually get a paycheck. He'll stay serving for when he's not working the other job...yay, dual jobs. He's very happy to finally get a real job though after 8 months of not having one and countless interviews that never pan out. The only down side is having only one car and his hours require me to take Sky to his bowling and such. I would walk but it's a bit too far and I doubt a bus in this city would get me close without having to go downtown then out to the suburbs then back to where I want to go in roughly 3 hours (translate to: Cincinnati public transportation sucks ass). It's only a 5 minute drive and at 9am, there's no reason to make things harder.

My aunt died a couple days ago. This was my mom's real sister, not one of her steps. She had had alzheimer's for awhile now and got lost last year for a few days. I got a call from my sister. Happy Birthday and death in the family calls rolled into one. I haven't heard from my dad which is odd. It's pretty much a traditional phone call on February 10th since it's both of our birthdays. Hmmm.

My present this year will come on Monday when we attend WWE Raw. I thought Sky would dig it. I didn't think of it early enough to get good seats...it would help if I was actually following it lately but I haven't been. I would have seen that tickets were going on sale. We got OK seats I think. I have never been to the US Bank arena so I really have no clue but the point is we will be there for the live event so it should be cool. Watch for us on Monday...we will be in the section just up from the floor seats on the opposite side from the wrestlers' entrance (I know, I know) holding up a sign that says "Don't trash the 'Nati". It's a local slogan so we figured it would be fitting and much less stupid than just writing the name of a wrestler or your own name with an arrow pointing down, right? I did say LESS stupid. There was much less thought involved in the decision than I let on. I asked Mau "Should we make a sign?" He replies "Duh!". So I ask "What should the sign say?". He yells "Don't Trash the 'Nati, of course!". End of discussion.

Goings on this week...

We won 3 games in league last week. This week we played Keith & Mary Jo and won all 4 points. After this week, we might possibly be in 3rd place. We are slowly climbing up the list but we still have quite a few weeks to go to the end.

Melissa & Alan came over Saturday night so Melissa could do my hair. Alan was fine as long as he could watch boxing on a television set. Melissa whipped through my hair and fixed what the last hairdresser messed up. I got it much shorter and it looks a lot better now. I think she will be my official hair stylist from now on. Once we were done with hair stuff, we checked out many games on the Xbox Alan brought over.

We took Kali to the dog park finally. Had I known what it would be like, I would have dressed differently and prepared the car for a very muddy puppy doggy. The park is awesome but, as the snow melts still and isn't warm enough to dry it up, it is a big mud pit. I walked to the middle like I was wearing an expensive wedding dress and was covered in mud. It got worse as the zillion dogs in there ran by splashing everyone with more mud. I stupidly wore a cream colored sweatshirt and white running shoes. Poor Sky had about 5 dogs jump all over him so he was covered. It was a small production when we got home to get doggy into the shower and clothes into the washing machine then scrub off shoes with a brush. We might put off going back until it dries up a bit but Kali had a blast and we found out she can outrun most dogs.

We are trying to get a larger group together for a poker party on Saturday night...interested? Let me know. We have played quite a few 3 or 4 person games with Ed and/or Ted lately but I wanted something kind of special for my birthday, you know? A good 6-8 person game. Cake and/or cupcakes will be served in addition to the usual snackables, drinkables and smokables if that makes it more tempting. On that note, the Shuffletron 9000 is working out nicely. It is slightly quieter than the Shufflematic 1200 but pretty much the same otherwise. Disclaimer: Those are made up names by us and not meant to infringe on any copyrighted crap by companies that would choose to name their shufflers those lame names. Also note those names change from game to game and in game regularly.

The car passed Echeck! We took it in for a diagnostic and they fiddled with some loose wire under the hood then shoved some expensive wire doodad under the dash and the engine light was off and they said it was good to go. $400 to replace the secondary air pump filter my ass. The guy at this place said the guy at the other place didn't bother to check the engine with his hands but I'm sure would have gladly took our $400 instead of telling us what was really wrong with it (or rather, what wasn't wrong). This could possibly be the first time I wasn't totally dicked by a mechanic in my life. Let's reflect on that thought for a moment. Moment being over, the engine light does keep coming back on periodically but then it goes off after fiddling with the wire. Most importantly, it passed the retarded scam test and I got my tags.

The GameCube has died. #%^(&$%^^^! Just in time for NBA Street V.3 :-(

Whew!

I finally got the taxes done! I started the Fed ones at the beginning of January using what I figured I would have made to at least get my schedule C and SE done since that is the amount that kills us every year. I absolutely hate that self employment tax...it can lick my you know what. I got my 1099 and Mau's W2's so I finished what I had started, changing the figures I already had slightly and somehow got it down to us only owing a measly $200. I know, it is hard to believe but I put in a call to my dad and went over the figures with him and he thought it seemed to be in order. What helped us this year is Mau having more tax taken out of his checks and me actually making a couple of my estimated payments. Last year we got screwed because they didn't take enough Fed tax out of his unemployment checks. My goal of course, by getting this done early, was to give us enough time to come up with the remainder before April 15th. I still have to figure what we owe state and city but those are minor compared to the big one. What is remarkable is the fact I did them myself this year, saving us money on an accountant, and I got us from owing about $2000 down to $200? Wow. So, anyone need theirs done? :-)

I have successfully twisted my ankle again in the snow. Sky & I were going off curbs the other day on the snowskate and since then it has hurt. Playing heavy songs in DDR isn't helping matters I'm sure.

Mary Jo brought over a card shuffler she bought us. I thought that was so nice of her...AKA she rocks. It will get a lot of use with our gazillion illicit poker games going on and making it nicer for the person who becomes "permadealer" first in the games.

An interesting fact: I am the same height as a sperm whale's penis but I weigh about 20 lbs less. A disturbing image I know but something to think about. Cable is educational.