Monday, June 27, 2011

When Did I Turn Into Such An Old Man?

So, the reason why I say that will be explained below.

My Wednesday ended up not having anything of note that I’d talk about, so I’ll skip ahead to Thursday the 23rd. I ended up having an interesting day. I won’t talk about the traffic I had to deal with at times on the way to and back from my destinations. As I tend to say, it’s the usual idiocy. I went to Premium Outlets in Orlando on International Drive. I didn’t walk around the entire joint like I did the last time I was there two months ago. Still, I went into various stores and even bought items from a few of them. So, it was a fine time there, and plus it was a nice walk at that open-air location, despite the warmth.

After that I drove to that shopping plaza just east of the corner of Sand Lake and Dr. Phillips Boulevard to try out a new (a few months old) restaurant called Twisted Burger. I found it out via a Groupon offer. Their offerings fit the name of the place. Of course, me being me I got the regular cheeseburger with no toppings on it. The gimmick with that half pound burger had cheese baked into the burger. Wacky. It reminds me of the one time I went on vacation with my old man out East somewhere; I think it was somewhere in the backwoods of New York back in I think ’96. It’s hard to believe that was literally half a lifetime ago. Anyhow, at that small restaurant there was also a burger with the cheese baked in gimmick. My dad commented… “Doesn’t it all mash together when you’re chewing it in your mouth?” Good point. This burger here, it was pretty damn tasty. I also had a chocolate milkshake and believe it or not, fried Twinkies. It’s not just a staple at county and state fairs any longer. I recommend everyone go to Twisted Burger if you’re in the area. After that I stopped by the nearby Pinkberry to try out their new salted caramel. That’s a tasty treat.

My Friday was a lazy day, so I’ll get to Saturday. Now, this is the reason why I’m turning into an old man. I don’t mean to sound emo* about it, but it’s true. I thought about going to downtown Orlando to have a good time, whether it be seeing a movie there and then going to you know where, or something along those lines. Instead, I just didn’t feel like it and I did something else instead in the afternoon so that I could do nothing in the evening. Lame, I know. At least I managed to find something interesting to do Saturday afternoon, and it gave me more than what I was expecting in terms of things to talk about.

• Sure, I’ve had a few emo moments in the past; most people do, though. For example, that same messageboard I’m a part of where that girl tried to “seriously harm” herself… there are some major drama queens there! There’s a lot of whining about people allegedly getting disrespected and all that sort of poppycock.

It was rainy out and as I’ve said many times before, when the weather is like that in this part of Florida, driver IQ’s drop even lower than usual, and never had that been more true than on this day. I either saw or was a part of like 5 or 6 near-accidents! From people cutting me off to zooming across a few lanes at once to exit the 408 toll road to getting tailgated to people speeding by me when the roads were wet *and* it was still raining at the time… sad to say, this sort of behavior is expected with the typical Florida driver.

What I did in Orlando was that I was on the east side to see what was shaking there (things haven’t changed, as I figured) and I went to that MovieStop by UCF to check out what they had. I got a few cheap DVD’s… while there I had to deal with the likes of a customer being kicked out because he “was being belligerent” and loudmouthed kids who weren’t being adequately controlled by their dad. Yelling little kids is usually a big turn-off for me personally, so having to constantly hear that while looking for a DVD to purchase wasn’t something I predominantly enjoyed. After that, I returned to Friendly Confines for the first time since early April to see how things were there; again, it was the same old, same old. That’s fine by me. I didn’t have to deal with any wacky/bad customers there, so that was a relief. It was also nice to see some familiar face employees there; people there tend to work at that establishment for a long time.

Sunday was boring so I’ll say that I’ll be back on Tuesday the 5th. Who knows, I may do something on the 4th or not. Not much is planned for this upcoming week, but as usual, I’m sure I’ll find something to chat about.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Frozen Pizza Is The Root Of All Evil

If you’re wondering where I got the title of this blog post, it relates to something I saw on a sign for a Domino’s Pizza on my way to see the Tampa Bay Rays, but I’ll explain everything in order from Friday the 17th to today.

This past Friday I decided to finally go to a Rays game, as I haven’t been to Tropicana Field in about 10 months time. It is interleague play time, so that’s why they played the Florida Marlins. Florida started off the season fine enough, but for whatever reasons, they went down the toilet and as of now, they are 2-19 this month! That’s in the territory of all-time bad for a team in Major League Baseball in history. Anyhow, I drove there and stopped in Tampa to eat at a place I hadn’t heard of before called Yogurt Mountain. It’s yet another self-serve joint; there are so many of those self-service yogurt places around. I had blue cotton candy and not surprisingly, it was pretty good. While driving to the game I passed by a Domino’s Pizza which had a sign proclaiming that frozen pizza is the root of all evil. Funny, that coming from a place selling Domino’s, given its reputation. Oh, and on the way there and back I dealt with some particularly frustrating traffic, but I won’t rant and rave about that. It’s the usual idiocy, for the most part.

I had dinner at the stadium and I sat in a different seat than usual. I decided to do a one time only thing and sit in the lower deck; it was by the outfield and if you’ve been there before, it was directly behind the Bullpen Box which has seats and chairs and buffet food; it’s for groups only. As for the game, it wasn’t the most exciting I have ever seen in person, but it was still fine-enough. There were some home runs and that’s always good. Florida wasn’t good so they lost 5-1. The most interesting part came in the 8th inning; a Rays player ripped the ball and delivered a hit that scored some runs. It turned out odd, though, as the ball rolled to the aforementioned Bullpen Box. One of the fans there picked up the ball. That’s a no-no, as the ball was still in play. Via the rules and where the runners were, it ended up still scoring two runs, so the fan didn’t end up ruining things. Still, whether he was asked to leave or he decided to leave on his own accord, security talked to him and stated that he did something he shouldn’t have, and a few minutes later he and his own family left.

There isn’t too much else to say about my day or the time at the ballpark. It was nice to return to good old Tropicana Field. I was glad I was able to On the way back I did the usual when I’m in the area and I stopped off on Exit 10 on I-4; usually the gas there is pretty cheap. It wasn’t this time but I still filled up at the Flying J gas station for tradition, and I went in to use the men’s room and to get something to drink.

My weekend was a-wash. I was thinking about doing something, but the weather was pretty nasty both days in Clermont and around Orlando. I know, not cool to admit; it’s true, though. I was happy to stay home and relax.

Monday, I went with someone to Steak ‘n Shake as we hadn’t been there in awhile. The food was good and their new Key Lime milkshake is aces. Oh, and there also was people getting mad at me concerning some dude who I hadn’t heard of before this day passing away due to his stupidity AND he took his pal’s life too. I’m not going to rehash the whole thing, but I still say it’s stupid to drive (likely) drunk, not to mention allegedly going 130 miles an hour. Driving at that speed on any public road is bad enough. I’m not acting this way just because I’ve always thought of Jackass as a God-awful worthless pile of horse crap*; if some actress lady I find to be great did the same thing, I’d be upset with them too.

* BTW, that Bam guy… a totally loathsome creature; I never watch that garbage but I still have heard some of the things that ass has done to his own parents! What a terrible human being. I’ll never understand why people find this fecal matter to be entertaining.

Anyhow… that’s all I did on Monday. Yesterday, I went to Winter Garden Village and bought some stuff from Best Buy; that was as exciting as things got. I should be back Monday afternoon. I have some things in mind as to what to do between now and then, so the next blog shouldn’t be a dud.

Monday, June 20, 2011

The Scorpions Make It Clear Where The Hammer Hangs

If you’re wondering where I came up with such a wacky title, it relates to something on Twitter. Friday night I saw a trending topic that said “Scorpios rule” (which makes me laugh given that I realize how fictitious horoscopes are) and I commented that I wished the trending topic was The Scorpions Rule, as I think they’re a cool German band. Well, some Twitter bot replied and in German provided a link to a German article about a recent show they did. Google translated that page into English, and as always it’s not quite right so you end up with some hilarious phrases, including the idea that they know where the hammer hangs and even better, “Tight leather pants, her long hair blowing in the wind, the guitars they stretch into the sky-this is from a classic hard rock show.” In the past I translated a German article about a Dolph Lundgren movie (of all things) and the phrase “unrelenting action hammer” came up. I need to read translated articles more often.

So, the only highlight of Monday was going to Denny’s. Laugh if you must, but at least I went there with someone I know, and the restaurant was only a few miles away from where I live. I hadn’t been there (or to any Denny’s) in a long while. It suddenly hit me like a lightning bolt that I should try them out again; I looked at their menu online and saw a wide variety of items. Sure, it’s more about variety and quantity rather than quality, but I might as well enjoy it with my pal. While we were there, that other person had a pancake-based meal and I had the Super Bird meal, which I remember having there before. It was fine-enough. However, their milkshake/orange juice combo that’s a limited time only thing… that was pretty sweet. It was like a creamsicle! That was a win right there. Sure, the service could have been faster/better and there were some annoying customers around, but the price was right and both me and the other person enjoyed the meals overall.

Tuesday, I ended up at Downtown Disney at Walt Disney World. Before that, I went to Pinkberry to try out their new watermelon flavor; it’s good stuff. Sometime soon I’ll have to try their other new flavor, salted caramel. After that, I went to Downtown Disney. BTW, on the way there and back, I had to deal with some traffic that really got my dander up. I mean, I was pretty mad. For the most part, it was the usual Florida stupidity. Anyhow, I walked around Downtown Disney for a bit before going into the AMC Theatres to watch a film. No, I haven’t tried out yet their new Fork & Screen gimmick they have that is one section of the 24 screen joint. It’s like the Enzian in that you order food and you get to eat it while watching the movie; you get to eat it on a table that is connected to your chair. I haven’t tried that out yet. Instead, I watched a special screening of the first Lord of the Rings movie. The next Tuesday you can watch the second one there, and the Tuesday after that, the third film. Believe it or not, I haven’t read those books or seen more than clips of all three movies before this day. No lie. I just never cared to read or watch anything from that franchise. But, when I found out this deal I decided to try it out. It’s the extended editions of all three movies, so that meant what I saw on Tuesday was the longest film I have ever seen on the big screen, at almost 3 ½ hours long.

My opinion… that franchise just isn’t for me. Sorry, but it’s true. It looked and sounded nice, but the plot and the story just wasn’t for me. Talk about overwrought, overlong, and confused. Maybe it makes more sense with the other two movies… I won’t be seeing them anytime soon. If nothing else, I can read about what happens in those two on Wikipedia! At least there I can save money and not have to worry about things like people walking into the auditorium late, walking in and out constantly, and other annoyances.

By the way, does it make me a horrible person that I have little sympathy for some guy from Jackass I had never heard of before dying in a car crash driving a fancy Porsche while likely speeding AND drunk? I never cared for that intelligence-insulting drivel and while I feel bad for his family and friends, I have little sympathy for the driver there. I mean, he also killed someone else and that alone is why I feel the way I do.

My Wednesday and Thursday were totally uneventful so I don’t need to get into what I did there. Instead, I’ll tell you that I’ll be back on Wednesday (it may not get posted until the evening, but stay tuned for that) to tell you what I did between the 17th and the 22nd.

Monday, June 13, 2011

It’s Awesome A La Knight Rider

I am referencing this ad* for an Australian beer which is definitely marketed for the “hip” Internet crowd, but hey, it’s great. Any commercial involving a beer doing various things to become awesome-including a monster truck DeLorean, the Knight Rider theme, and a ferret-is A-OK by me. Besides, Knight Rider is one of the few shows I distinctly remember watching as a little kid. At the time I thought it was marvelous. I haven’t watched it as an adult to see if I still think it’s marvelous. After all, I also dug Alf as a kid, and in hindsight… not a good decision.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNQa5HCUYCQ

Before anyone asks, in reference to the blog I posted on Friday, I still don’t have an update on that one young lady, except that I believe she’s still alive. Like I said, if I find out sometime in the future (it may take many days to find out, if I ever do get an answer) her status, I’ll mention it.

Anyhow…the rest of Monday was not noteworthy at all so I’ll get to Tuesday. It wasn’t the best of days for me (don’t ask why; it wasn’t anything serious) so I made the decision to go to good old Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the big NBA Finals game. As with the other games in the series, there was a lot of sloppy play (it’s not like when I watched the NBA back in the good old days of the 90’s. Not to sound like an old man on the porch who yells at young people to get off his lawn, but it really was better back then); still, the 4th quarters were pretty exciting in terms of coming down to the wire. The fact that Dallas won the big game made me happy, as I am not a Miami fan at all. That made up for the annoying Miami Heat fans there, who were loudmouth whiners, for the most part. LeBron James folding like an accordion under the pressure was pretty hee-larious too.

Wednesday was nothing-happening, and the only interesting thing I did on Thursday was watch the next NBA Finals game at home, where once again Dallas won, and once again I was happy. Also once again, LeBron James ended up folding like an accordion, and that filled my heart with glee. Then, late at night I had to talk to that one girl, and those good vibes went away.

Friday, I saw a film in the evening. I needed to have a good time, so I went to the Enzian and watched an unrated movie called Hobo With A Shotgun, a deliberately insane and wacky trash film that happens to star a legit actor, that being Rutger Hauer. The movie is definitely out there, but yet I managed to enjoy it. If you ever seen Peter Jackson’s early films, such as Meet The Feebles or Dead Alive, then you’ll understand what sort of movie Hobo is, as it’s similar in terms of style and being outrageous. I also saw it buzzed off of some hard cider I had beforehand, and perhaps that was the perfect way to see it.

Saturday, I returned to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the latest UFC pay per view. It was certainly better than the last UFC pay per view I saw there, or the show they had on Spike TV on Saturday the 4th. The only thing I can think of saying about the night is that I wish I could complain more about all the damn smokers that you encounter when you are watching at the open-air bar. I know, that’s what smokers have to do as they can’t smoke inside, but (and no offense to anyone reading this who likes to light up some tobacco) I think it’s a pretty gross habit and cigarette smoke is not something I enjoy smelling. I could have done without the number of people there that I would put in the “bro” category. There were some loudmouths there too, and I don’t know if I’d put them in the “bro” category or not; no matter what, they were annoying.

Also, while I’ve noticed it on not fight night, when there are MMA fights, there are plenty of pickup trucks or souped-up “ricer mobiles” (as I so politically incorrect put it) in the parking lot. I know people who drive pickup trucks, and I’m sure all of them use them to their fullest of capabilities. I know there are a lot of people who drive pickups just to look “macho” or “tough”, and that is what annoys me. There’s also the stereotype about trucks and people driving them to compensate for something else…I just don’t like those souped-up “Fast & The Furious” vehicles, as generally they just look stupid and lame, IMO. You won’t see me put spinning rims, glowing lights, or any of that dumb poppycock.

Sunday, the only thing of note is that I watched the Dallas Mavericks beat the Miami Heat once again, and now Dallas is NBA Champions. That makes me happy, as not only did LeBron James and his team lose, but Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki finally has an NBA title, and I’d say he deserves it, as in some circles I know he’s underrated. Also, Dallas owner Mark Cuban is quite the entertaining character, being a geek who became a billionaire and was lucky to buy a team and he became a loud and brash supporter of his team. Not everyone likes him but I almost always find him to entertaining, and it’s nice that he has a title too. Oh yeah, and I’ll join most of America in celebrating that LeBron’s team failed.

My next blog will be up a week from today… at least that’s the plan. Depending on what I do the upcoming week, I may have to split it into two. But, even if I do that the first one would be posted on Monday the 20th. I know for certain that the next blog (or maybe two) will involve Denny’s, a baseball game, and possibly some films on the big screen and a night out on the town.

Friday, June 10, 2011

What A Crazy Thursday Night

Boy, this isn’t going to be a happy blog, that is for sure. In fact, it’s going to be rather serious. The reason why I’m posting a special blog on Friday is due to horrifying reasons. Part is this was written today and the first part was written late Thursday night, soon after I mentioned the situation on Facebook and Twitter.

So, I am a member of a forum with people across the world. What that forum is isn’t germane to this discussion. It’s the type of place where you have to be a member in order to read the threads on there. It’s a wacky place at times but it’s also a friendly place. With their profile system you can have friends. I don’t have too many there but one of them, who I’ll call S, (I don’t even know their real name or too much about their personal life at all. I only know the young lady from her posts on there) left a horrific thread on the site last night. She was telling everyone goodbye and right away I had a feeling of the worst there. I then looked at her profile page, where friends can leave comments in a section. I read a discussion she had in that comments section with a pal, and yeah, she was thinking about harming herself to a severe degree, to put it in a particularly delicate way. I sent a few comments her way in that section, saying she shouldn’t do such a thing without bringing up what the exact thing was. I then decided that it would be a better thing to send her a long private message saying that she shouldn’t go through with harming herself. Right before I sent the message, I looked at the thread which started it all and saw that S made another post in it. It was rather angry and it included a picture of her bandaged wrists, obviously a result of her recently slitting them. What an unpleasant surprise that was. I rushed off that private message and then logged off before the shit really hit the fan there.

So, I logged back on today and… as I had a feeling would be the case, that thread vanished*, there was no response to that PM I sent, and all I can do at the moment is hope that the worst did not happen and right now she’s getting help to deal with her personal demons. I don’t know if she’ll ever come back and I’ll find out how she’s doing.

* Although, there is a nice thread up which talks about being nice and helping each other out in times of trouble.

Sorry for this serious depressing blog, but it’s the sort of thing I had to write about, as Thursday night ended up being pretty stressful. I tried to help that lady out; I do know that getting professional help is far better than anything I could do, and if anybody reading this ever needs that sort of help, I implore you to get it before you decide to hurt yourself.

And on that note, I will tell you that if I find out in the future how Ms. S is doing, I’ll make sure to give an update about it. Otherwise, I’ll be back on Monday and it’ll be the usual cheery blog from me.

Monday, June 6, 2011

I Don’t Get It; Is This A Magic Show?

So, here’s what I’ve done since Monday. It hasn’t been too exciting, so thus I won’t be writing too much. That goes for Monday itself, where I had the usual meal that you’d expect from Memorial Day, which is homemade burger and fries. Good stuff. Tuesday was more of the same, so…

I’ll skip ahead to Wednesday, where I spent the evening at Walt Disney World as I saw the 4th Pirates of the Caribbean film. Hey, I saw the first three on the big screen, so I might as well do the same with the fourth, and in 3D on the big screen and fancy sound system they have at that particular AMC. I had a frozen treat there and via the Coca Cola Freestyle machine, a Vanilla Sprite. It tastes exactly like how you think it would, and I mean that as a positive. The movie itself… not so much a positive. Sure, it’s better than that God-awful 3rd movie (At World’s End), but that’s like saying something is better than falling groin-first on a cactus plant! It’s not convoluted and overwrought like the other sequels… doesn’t mean it wasn’t as stupid as the other sequels, as boy did I think it was stupid way too often. I wrote more about it in my movie reviews blog, located at: http://blairreviewsmovies.blogspot.com/

The highlight of my Thursday was helping out that one person by bringing their iPod to the local Barnes & Noble to update their apps, which I did. I also bought a book there. Exciting stuff, I know. Friday, the highlight was me going to the local Walgreens to purchase some new shampoo. I once again got some more Axe products. I know, their advertising and general nature suggests “douchebag”, at least to me. As I’ve mentioned before, the reason why I use Axe is NOT because I’m the Jersey Shore type who lives by the credo of GTL and wears gaudy Ed Hardy shirts*; rather, it’s because they have a variety of different shampoos, body washes, deodorants, and so on and so forth. Diversity is neat, so that’s why I use their products. So anyhow, at that Walgreens they were having a sale on several different packages of Axe products bundled together, so I got two new pairs of shampoo, body wash, and deodorant, even though with the latter two I already have a decent amount of them beforehand. Hey, get clean to get dirty!

* No offense to anyone who watches that show and/or wear those shirts. I know enough people who fit into one or both categories that it’s a good idea for me to use that disclaimer.

Saturday, I didn’t do anything but stay in and watch the free UFC show on Spike TV (along with the other fights on the card that aired on Facebook; I only saw a few of those). Eh, it was fine-enough, I suppose. Lowered expectations helped. I did not attend a local wrestling show up in Sanford that was a reunion show of a former longtime local wrestling fed. I had been to their shows before but stopped going due to reasons too complex to get into here. The last show I was at, some individual named Fish who I had argued with online before (and had some sort of role in the company; even now I have no idea who this clown was or what he did in the company) had Larry Zbyszko (yes, the wrestler who feuded with Bruno Sammartino in ’79 and ’80 and later was a World Championship Wrestling announcer/sometime wrestler in the 90’s) cut a promo against me! At the time I was flabbergasted, but now, I guess I should be flattered that a famous wrestling personality devoted such attention to me. For some bizarre reason, Larry is a pal of all the Toadies. Lord knows why. I have more of a problem with him for that friendship than what happened at that local wrestling show, to be honest. So, I figured that was a good reason not to attend the show. I wouldn’t think anything bad would happen, but who knows for sure.

Sunday, I went and saw The Hangover, Part II, which is where I got the title for this blog post. I figured I shouldn’t use one of the many funny and profane lines, as I don’t want to offend. Once you see the movie, you’ll get it. It’s from one of the more gross moments. As you may have heard, it’s pretty much exactly like the first movie, such as how Home Alone 2 compares to the first Home Alone. Despite that and some behavior from the Alan character that was off-putting, I still managed to laugh and enjoy it enough to where I didn’t feel bad about seeing it. To read more, sometime late tonight I’ll post a fuller review for it on the aforementioned movie reviews blog.

So, that was about it for this week. I’m planning on the next blog on the 13th to be more entertaining than this one, I promise.