Monday, March 26, 2012

Pepsi Next, Will Ferrell, & Midgets Driving Cars

This wasn't the most exciting week I had but still, a few things happened that provided enough entertainment for me. Here's what I've done.

Monday was a dull day (aside from watching the ISU basketball team playing on TV against Stanford; once again they went into overtime but this time they lost) so I'll skip past that. Tuesday was the busy day of the week for me. I decided to go to the one remaining Larry's Giant Subs in Orlando, which is on Narcoossee Road close by the Orlando International Airport. I had never been on that road before despite living near Orlando for almost 8 full years now (believe it or not, both to the claim and the idea of me living down here for that long) and I'll only go there once in a blue moon due to how far away it is. Still, it was interesting to be on that road and to have their delicious subs, and indeed it was still delicious.

After that, I went to The Loop in Kissimmee, a place where I only go to on rare occasions and for the first time in a few years I went to their movie theatre. I went and saw something that was rather unusual, which is Casa de mi Padre, a film that stars Will Ferrell and is a Spanish-language movie that has English subtitles. That's right, old Will only speaks Spanish. I'm one of the few people around my age who has never found Ferrell all that funny. But, the movie sounded so strange, I had to check it out. Turns out, I was the only person at that screening and the movie was only funny when it made it obvious it was supposed to be a low-budget production from the past; you know, obviously fake backdrops, fake sets, and that sort of thing. As usual, I wasn't amused by the humor of a Will Ferrell production; you know, jokes where the punchline is that the joke is going on way too long, awkward humor, that sort of thing... I've never been a fan of it. Still, it was nice to see something that was at least different and out of the norm; a noble failure, I suppose.

Wednesday was boring so I'll mention that on Thursday I went to Wal-Mart and I found something I had not heard of before: Pepsi Next. It's the beverage with less sugar and calories, but it's not diet soda. Think of the old Coca Cola C2 or something that I only faintly remember that came out around the same time, which is Pepsi Edge. I only remember that from looking online, while C2 was much more memorable, with those famous rock songs plugging it in commercials. I think I had C2 one time and didn't really care for the taste. Next tastes OK but I'd rather have the regular unhealthy soda.

Friday was dull but at least I did a thing or two during the weekend. Saturday night I had free and plus I had to get myself dinner, so I returned to Buffalo Wild Wings for the first time in a month. I watched the evening college basketball game and I had the usual there of the Boneless Buffalo Wings and I also had some good old Pabst Blue Ribbon. Nothing too interesting happened there... except that I saw a midget lady walking around. I don't mean to be offensive by using that term; I'd just prefer to use that rather than “little person” or “vertically challenged”, as that sounds condensending to me. Anyhow, later in the night I saw her get into a Chevy sedan and drive away! Of course I knew that there are setups where people that height can drive regular-sized cars but I had never seen any of them get into a car and drive away. That was not only the highlight of the day but the highlight of the weekend. As the only thing I did yesterday was go to Winter Garden Village and walk around for a bit, I feel safe in making that claim.

I know, what a rather lame and short edition of this blog. I'm mainly waiting for Friday where I take off for my South Florida adventure, where I'll mainly be on my own and if I happen to be able to at least briefly chat with some people I know who are also down there for Wrestlemania weekend, then that will make me happy. I'll try not to have too high expectations as it will prevent any disappointments, but it may happen anyhow. Besides, I'll need some fun, as just this morning I found out that a great uncle had passed away. Sad to say that in the past year or two some relatives of that stature have passed away, and that is unfortunate.

As for the next blog, I'm pretty sure I'll end up having to do it in two parts due to all the activities I imagine I'll be doing down there. In that case it'll be posted Tuesday afternoon the 3rd and Wednesday afternoon the 4th; I'll either be getting back real late on April 1st or if I can bum a hotel room that night-not likely but who knows for sure-then I'll be back the next afternoon. Either way I'll be dead tired and no way would I want to spend all that time writing in a hurry, so I'll be back in 8 days no matter what.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Bear Bites Woman In The Rear, & Other Sordid Tales

Yes, I actually saw that phrase displayed on the screen when I was channel-surfing and came across a local news station. They were reporting about an incident that happened in an apartment complex in the suburb city of Longwood, and believe me I got a huge laugh out of that headline.

Here's the spillover of the things I wasn't able to say in the last blog due to length reasons.

I am still enjoying the iPod Touch. It's mainly an app machine and that's fine with me. I don't really have any games on it but curiousity finally got the better of me and I downloaded all the free versions of Angry Birds. Now I can see why the game is so popular, although I am surprised that it was the game which by happenstance became a mainstream hit.

As of late I've seen some really bad drivers on the road. I won't get into all the details but there were some real nincompoops I've seen. For example, last Saturday when I went up to Sanford I was on a 2 lane road not that far from home. There was a car stopped in the road as they had their turn signal on and they were waiting for traffic in my lane to pass before they could turn left. It turns out the car behind them was not paying attention (I didn't see them talking on the phone so they must have not been paying attention) and as they were a ways back they had to slam on their brakes once they finally saw the car was stopped and as I had my windows open I got to hear the tires squeal and he literally smoked the tires but I didn't hear any collision take place so he was real lucky. There were other cars a little behind that idiot so they almost crashed themselves; I am shocked more accidents don't take place in this state.

My Monday proved to be dull so let me skip ahead to Tuesday. I had free time so I went to Downtown Disney to see a film; it was Chronicle, something that I wasn't sure about but after hearing strong praise from reliable sources I finally saw it. It was much better than the teenybopper crap I was expecting when I first heard about it. It's really good and also pretty dark. After I left there, I went to Kissimmee as I wanted to eat at Larry's Giant Subs for the first time in awhile. Of course I get there and that location is now closed. Figures, the places I enjoy end up closing as there aren't enough people like me. See, the great Pac-Man Cafe, Twisted Burger, and now this place; they have another location in Orlando but it's way out in the southeast by the Orlando International Airport (an area I generally avoid and it's far away) and who knows if that location is still open either. Sigh.

I instead drove north and ate at a place that is thankfully still open and was doing pretty good business while I was there, which was the Lime Fresh Mexican Grill. It's a good place with good food. After that I went to Pinkberry for the first time in awhile and had half original and half blood orange, which is a great combo.

Wednesday through Friday wasn't too exciting; however, Thursday I went to McDonalds to partake in the Shamrock Shake; good stuff. Friday, I went to Wal-Mart and picked up some items I needed, and Saturday I went to Firehouse Subs for lunch mainly to get something from their Coca-Cola Freestyle machine (I got Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, which is also good stuff; if they ever bring back Dr. Pepper Berries & Cream I'll be a happy man. Then again I still wish that one day I could have Dr. Pepper Red Fusion, Mountain Dew MDX and Pepsi Summer Mix, but I'm not holding out hope for that), and me going out to that place and wearing a green shirt was as exciting as my St. Patrick's Day is.

So, I'll mention that I've had some odd dreams as of late. Dreaming about the old chocolate lab that I had as a kid is one thing; I can't quite explain why another one was about me bicycling in the Philippines. I'll also mention that I now know for certain I'll be in South Florida (the area around Miami) the weekend of the 31st of this month as this year Wrestlemania is in Miami and while I'm not expecting to go to that-as WWE has been HORRIBLE for like the past 10 years now-I do know I'll be at some shows that smaller independent wrestling companies are putting on which should be of high quality. Besides those events I'll visit some familiar haunts which I usually visit when I'm in that area, and I'll check out some cool eateries too. I'm looking forward to that as I haven't been there in almost a year. As people I know will be around there the entire weekend I am sure I'll have a great experience and hopefully that Wrestlemania Weekend will go better than the one I had in 2008 when that big show was in Orlando and aside from the pair of shows I saw the weekend was pretty poor.

Sunday, the only thing I did was go to Winter Garden Village and I picked up some things at Barnes & Noble.

I'll be back a week from today with a new blog. It should hopefully be more eventful than the past week I had. I plan on seeing a movie or two and I'll try to enjoy this really nice weather.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Tete-a-tete's, Kim Jong-Il, And Sprinkle Cookies

Oh, what a fiery blog this is going to be by the end. Wednesday was a blah day for me but Saturday ended up not being so good... aside from a fine-enough night of wrestling action and the return of delicious fudge AND sprinkle cookies.

Here's what I've done the preceding week.

Monday was pretty dull. Tuesday, though, I had some free time. I wasn't quite sure what to do but I decided to go to the Mall at Millenia, as I hadn't been there in awhile. Largely it's the same old same old there. I walked around for a bit and went into a few stores. I was going to eat at the Cheesecake Factory but it was too busy there so I left there and for the first time in awhile I experienced the taste and sensation of BJ's... Restaurant & Brewhouse. I had my usual there, meaning the Berry Burst Cider drink and a pizza, but I got the smallest pizza because it was real cheap at the time; I thus had enough room to try for the first time their special treat known as the pizookie; appropriately enough it's a cookie shaped and baked like a pizza. I got the Oreo version and it's pretty damn great. After that I went home but I stopped at Winter Garden Village for a bit.

Wednesday the only noteworthy things I did was go to the West Oaks Mall to go to Lenscrafters to tighten the screws on my glasses (sometime this year I need to get an eye exam as it has been WAY too long since my last one) and on the way back I stopped at a Big Lots and picked up a few items for cheap. It wasn't the best of days for me. I'll spare the details but it was bad traffic and some other things. I can talk about the old West Oaks Mall. Wow has that place fallen on hard times in the past few years. It seems like the opening of the open-air Winter Garden Village (not that far away) really doomed that area; I mean, most of the stores around the mall have also closed down. Inside the actual mall, many of the spaces for stores are now unoccupied. Now there's really no reason to go there anymore, especially compared to back in the day. Leave The Memories Alone...

Thursday the only highlight was me going to Wal-Mart to pick up a few items. Really, not exciting at all. Friday I stayed at home as I just felt lazy, so instead I'll mention a few random things before I get to the weekend. The first one happened back when I got the iPod Touch at a Best Buy, which happened to be on East Colonial in Orlando (not in the best neighborhood either). When I got back to my car, I saw that there was a Dodge Grand Caravan parked right by me... and the sliding door was open, and yet no one was in the car! No kidding. I had no idea why the door was open but I was there a few minutes opening up the iPod and no one returned to the minivan and the door remained open. I didn't quite know what to do so I just drove off; hey, it didn't look like there was anything real valuable in the car (like a purse or anything of that sort) so I didn't feel too bad doing that. Still, only in Florida... and yet just two days ago I saw the exact same thing! I was in the parking lot of Tilted Kilt up in Lake Mary (more on that later) and it was raining at the time and yet I saw some random car that had its passenger door obviously ajar; see why I always trash about the state of Florida now?

Also, on Twitter I saw quite the odd sight: a guy with a gimmick account of Kim Jong-Il found me and pointed out my Twitter name to a Chicago-area guy, and referred to me as “that n***a”! I swear this is true. It turns out that Chicago-guy was someone I had talked to a real long time ago but I still knew who it was so it was all good. I don't know who the other guy was but that account referring to me as the N word... that did get a retweet!

Saturday, oh what a day. I ended up stopping at the Altamonte Mall for a bit before going to the Tilted Kilt for the first time in months and then up to Sanford to see a wrestling show and see some people I know. It was rainy weather the way up there and the way back, and what I've said before about driver IQ's in wet weather lowering even lower than usual was proven true. I walked around for a bit at the mall before heading on over to the Tilted Kilt, which had a ridiculous parking situation that turned me off. Still, I went in as I needed to eat food right away. I had a well-needed mixed drink and I had my usual of a burger and fries. While eating dinner I had a biker woman (many bike-riders were around at the time) sit close by me-yes, my theory of attracting undesireable people like moths are attracted to a flame is still true-and right away she was pretty nasty as she was impatient and wanted to order food RIGHT AWAY. What a tete-a-tete, and what an awkward moment that was; I'm glad I was drinking at the time! Thankfully for the rest of the time she was more normal... at least as normal as she can be.

I then went to the wrestling show in Sanford, and like I said in the past it's more these days me meeting up with people I know than anything else; I don't mean that to insult the wrestlers on the shows as most of them I do enjoy watching them compete a lot. It's just that they-like pretty much all pro wrestling promotions these days-have no idea how to book and properly use the wrestlers and create storylines that people give a damn about. Yes, ALL promotions across the world seem to be doing it wrong, at least in my opinion. No wonder why MMA has done so well in recent years. Well, with this Sanford promotion they also seem to book random guys for random shows; there's not too many storylines and it seems way too random to me. Sure, I realize there are issues with the promoter which have been made public online (when they shouldn't have; really, I shouldn't know this info but I do); I'll be nice and not mention them. It's just that the promotion often doesn't make too much sense and I'm not a fan of that thing.

The show itself was still entertaining with some quality matches; still, I don't know when I'll be back to their promotion. You see, one thing was different this time. Instead of the usual people at the table taking and giving out tickets, there was two random assholes (the perfect term for them) who did that. As the doors opened many minutes after they were supposed to (a common thing at most independent wrestling shows across the country, unfortunately), instead of just having the doors open and people file in like everyone does, these Troglodytes decided to act like this was Mako's or another nightclub and a few people were let in at a time but then you had to wait for like a minute before other people were let in! Why in the F*** this was done I don't know but I really wanted to spit in their faces, that's how terrible they were at their job, AND they were rude too. It took WAY too long to get in the building and I'll lay it on the line now... as long as those new guys are still there doing a horrible job at letting people in and handing out/taking tickets, I do not want to go to that promotion ever again. Honest. It's either them or me! So who knows when I'll be back there. And yes, I am pretty sure the people in charge will end up hearing this statement sooner or later.

Oh, and some associates of Jared David St. Laurent were there; thankfully there was no issue with those individuals. At least the show was fine (although during one segment, an African-American wrestler was referred to by some bad guys as “boy”. Yes, in 2012! They didn't need to go there) and once again the real-life wrestling couple of Jesse Neal and Christina Von Eerie were there, meaning her delicious treats were there, and that's no euphemism. She had her delicious cookies and fudge there once again, and that was very good news. So yeah, what a day I had on Saturday.

Sunday was a boring day, so I'll mention that I'll be back a week from today with a new blog. Hopefully it'll be cheerier than this one. I do know that I'll talk more about my iPod Touch then, and yes I have finally played Angry Birds! Even I can enjoy that game. I also should have some other things to talk about for next week.

Monday, March 5, 2012

The Blog Where I Apologize For Party Rocking

Yes, I'm referencing the song Sorry For Party Rocking from the wacky electro-rap group known as LMFAO, best known as those two weird dudes who performed with Madonna for like 2 minutes during the Super Bowl halftime show. I know a lot of people hate them but I have no issue with them and in fact if you're at a place like Mako's drinking a few brewskis, then their party songs are the perfect backdrop. Plus, I'll always be greatly amused by the fact that one is the son and the other is the grandson of Berry Gordy, of all people.

Alright, so this will be a nicer and not so downbeat blog, unlike the last one I posted. I won't refer to any kids as little dictators (even though that's something I did in the past on my old wrestling blog, and whenever I said it, it was well-deserved) nor will I bemoan and complain about various things like I did the last time.

One thing I should have mentioned in the last blog was that because I was out and about on the 25th I missed the big UFC show that took place in Japan. Sure, I taped the bouts they had on FX and watched them the next afternoon but I ended up seeing the pay per view another way; of course I'm referring to purchasing the replay of the pay per view a few days later, as what else would I be referencing... point is, I did end up seeing it and it was a hell of a show.

Monday was pretty dull and Tuesday I only went to a local Best Buy to pick up some things that someone I know requested me to track down-with monetary compensation-so let me skip ahead to Wednesday night and... Walt Disney World. Heh heh heh. In case you didn't hear, for Leap Day the Magic Kingdom was open for 24 hours straight. No kidding. And I know there were varous people who were there the whole time, meaning they were up for more than 24 hours straight; that's rough and no way could I have done that. I got to the parking lot of the Transportation & Ticket Center, waiting to go to the Magic Kingdom a little before 8, and I left that same parking lot after 1:30 AM.

As for my time there, it was a popular event. I'm sure now that Disney is kicking themselves for not trying this years ago. If I would have known that they would be doing fireworks at 8 as I was on the ferry to the Magic Kingdom, I would have left earlier; what ended up happening was that once I disembarked and got on Main Street, I went to the usual shortcut at the Crystal Palace to get to Adventureland. I don't even know how it happened but everyone got stuck in the mother of all clusterfricks and people could hardly move for who knows how many minutes. I wish I had an explanation for why it became so packed but I don't. Finally I was able to follow some people who made their own path and I got out of that hellacious situation. It wasn't a good start to the night but after that things improved. I went on some rides I hadn't been on in far too long, like the Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain. I wasn't able to go on Space Mountain (WHOOOOOO!) as the line was always real long for that. I did a few other things, ate some food... and oh yeah, because I heard it was closing at the end of this month, I went on the Snow White ride. It's fine as a dark ride, although I noticed that in it the dwarves get real short shrift, barely appearing in it at all. But anyhow...

Thursday, I decided to make my return to Friendly Confines in Winter Park, as I saw they literally had new menus and I wanted to see if they had new items on the menu too. Turns out, it looked as if the menu was largely the same, with some new items offered up. I had the usual there and it was the same old good time there.

On the way back I stopped at a Best Buy and I did something I thought I'd never do... I bought an Apple product, and an iPod Touch at that! I mainly got it as an Internet machine for the times that I am away from home and I need to log onto Facebook, look at Twitter, or need to look up needed info. I had the cash I was given as a birthday present to buy one (in white) and after downloading a variety of apps, I think it's pretty rad. While I'll always be bothered by the usual Apple annoyances of making some things way more complicated than they need to be, an app where I can ID any song I hear playing that I don't know, another one where I can listen to a plethora of different radio stations, and yet another where I can look up gas prices; it's a really cool device I'll get a lot of usage out of. For now at least I'll still use my Sansa player to listen to MP3's but if that stops working then I'll make the transition.

Friday through Sunday were dullsville. I didn't feel like doing much at all. I did watch some MMA on TV and I had to multi-task on Saturday as I actually watched all 10 hours of The Godfather: A Novel for Television on AMC while watching mixed martial arts at the same time and also doing stuff online. That Godfather thing was the first two movies edited in chronological order and some added scenes; it originally aired on NBC in the late 70's and it rarely gets shown on TV. Those movies are awesome and the added scenes are cool (although also found on the old DVD boxset and now the Blu-Ray boxset) but the second movie works best in the way it's told with the ascension of Vito with the downfall of Michael being told at the same time.

I'll be back a week from today. I only have a thing or two planned for the upcoming week but as always I know I'll stumble into doing a few other things.