Monday, December 24, 2012

A Special Christmas Eve “Blair's An Uncle” Blog

I am going to start off not in chronological order, but that's because something major happened this past Thursday... I became an uncle, to twins! It's the sister I have that lives in Kansas and everyone visited back in the Christmas season of '09, if you remember that far back reading of my time in the cold, cold Midwest. I am real happy it happened as there's been ups and downs in her and my brother in law having a kid, but things went right and now they have twin boys, Connor and Blake. They were scheduled to be born next month but early on Thursday, they decided to come out early. It wasn't the best timing; the plan for a few weeks was that my mom would fly out on that day, in order to help her out. Obviously, the plans are changed now. I know she wished she could have been there when they were born, but that was just bad timing.

Important thing is, the two tykes are doing fine now, they were given some “awww” little Christmas hats and some cute pictures of them have been taken. As I don't plan on becoming a parent myself, my two sisters having kids is the next best thing. As you might expect, my parents are quite happy to be grandparents; it hasn't fully sunk in yet that I am Uncle Blair. That is the highlight of Christmas season, for sure; it otherwise doesn't feel like the season at all due to how different things have been this year with the birth and all that. Me and my dad are still here in Florida and we do have a spot to have a Christmas meal at; it's not like I or him have to try and make an elaborate meal!

Now, onto the rest of the week. This past Tuesday night I went to Winter Garden Village where I spent some time in Best Buy (I did not buy anything) then I went to Planet Smoothie to get a drink. Man, the lady that was working there... I am pretty sure she was under 18 but she had on a shirt that showed off cleavage AND had on a pair of shorts that were microscopic. They barely covered her... but anyway, that was awkward and made me feel like a dirty old man; I imagine I wasn't the only person who felt that way when they looked at her and her rather inappropriate for her age outfit. Then again, Lord knows that isn't the first time I've seen in person a girl under 18 who really should have worn more clothing than she had on. But anyhow, at least the drink I had was good.

Wednesday was dull so let me talk about Thursday besides the whole becoming an uncle thing. I was going to eat at the Red Robin which just opened in Winter Garden Village. I got there and the spot they have it at isn't that large to begin with, so there was a line waiting outside just to get in, and no thanx to that. I decided to go to Uno's Pizzeria, as I hadn't been to one in a long while. The last time, me and someone I know was there and the experience was less than ideal so that's why I hadn't been there in ages. The experience there was fine but it gave me the worst-ever dosage of food poisoning. Trust me, you don't want to hear the details of why this was cleary the worst but it wasn't pretty. That sort of sours me on the place, you know. That's why I did not do much on Friday; the whole end of the world stuff was pretty stupid and even people making fun of it got tired at times. Thursday night was when the apocalypse happened... in my stomach!

Saturday, the only thing I did was briefly visit a Gamestop then I went to a nearby Target where I walked around for a bit and I ate at the Pizza Hut Express they have. That pizza experience was at least better and I had zero stomach issues this time around.

Sunday, I went on over to Friendly Confines to watch the Chicago Bears play against the crappy Arizona Cardinals. They surprisingly started off 4-0 then even more surprisingly lost 9 in a row before winning last week. All of that is unexpected. Chicago won 28-13 and while it was one of the last exciting 28-13 games you could ever watch, at least Arizona's crappiness really helped out and ensured that they would lose. And there were less annoying people around, thankfully. An individual I discussed before-Tugboat-was there, and the last time I mentioned how I was disappointed in him acting like the worst kind of sports fan concerning his team (the Colts); this time it was much better. No whining about stupid things or ripping on his team (which is now going to go into playoffs; the Bears have a chance to make the playoffs but they have to win their final regular season game next week plus need some help). Plus, he gave me a hilarious moment when he left a voicemail on someone's phone and included the phrase, “Yo yo yo, play with my yo-yo!” No kidding. I literally laughed out loud.

My next blog will be next Tuesday, the first day of 2013. Seemed appropriate. I'll talk about what I did the last days of 2012, including what I did for Christmas and what I got myself and what people got me for the big day. I hope everyone has a nice holiday season.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Ravishing Rick Rude, Mongoloids, & The Miami Connection

Here's what I've done since last Monday. That day itself was rather dull; the only thing of note was that I got a much-needed haircut and the joint was dead when I got there so I got it done real quick. Tuesday and Wednesday were dull, except that Wednesday night I did watch parts of that almost 6 hour concert from New York City for Hurricane Sandy relief. I happily made fun of Kanye West's performance as it's Kanye West and he's a loathsome and horrible human being all around. Thankfully, many people on Twitter agreed, where I made comments and retweeted funny statements I came across.

Thursday, in the evening I went with someone I know to IHOP for dinner, as hey why not and plus the last time we were there, groovy 70's music was playing. This time it was oldies and I was happy with that as it reminded me of listening to the oldies station as a kid. Good times. The chicken & waffles was also good times.

Unfortunately, due to the accident I was involved with last month, for awhile at least don't expect me to drive any lengthy distances. Thus, I unfortunately was not able to see a wrestling tournament that has happened each year since '03 known as the Jeff Peterson Memorial Cup, a 2 day tournament involving 16 wrestlers. It is named after a late wrestler who passed away at the age of 21 due to leukemia. I had seen all of them live since '04 (and I saw '03 on DVD) and it's always a great weekend filled with local wrestlers and guys from all across the country coming in. There's plenty of quality wrestling seen and there have been some incredible matches throughout the years. This is also the last JPMC they're ever doing, for various reasons. I really was gutted to not be able to go to it. Sigh. It was in Ybor City and at least at this time it's too far away. It was actually in the same club that I saw the women's wrestling show back in October. You know, the joint which charge eight bucks for a big cup of PBR (still pretty ridiculous, I say).

Anyhow, I wish I could have been there as I definitely have enjoyed those weekends... even the one in '07 that Jared David St. Laurent's toadies tried to ruin with rude comments and even trying to blind me by shining a laser pointer in my eyes! True story. I did not mention that in full anywhere online as I did not want to give them the satisfaction. But that is enough about about a bunch of mongoloids I haven't given a damn about in a long time but I presume they're still the same terrible people that they were years ago (which is a reason why I feuded with them, because they deserved to have their true colors shown).

To get back to a more pleasant subject (and because of that I won't go into detail on that horrifying thing which happened Friday morning up in Connecticut), Friday night I spent watching the UFC event; it was on Fuel TV and then FX and it was live from Australia (it was Saturday morning then afternoon there) and while it was not an event of big star names, it was a quality show as it had plenty of entertaining fights. I only saw parts of Saturday night's UFC on FX show as I had to go to a movie theatre for a special screening. It was of a bad movie from the 80's that a company found a print of and screenings were greatly received so it went on tour, and finally it came to Orlando. It was appropriate, as despite its title most of it takes place and was filmed in Orlando. I am talking about Miami Connection, a hilariously awful film about a rock band of Taekwondo practitioners who do battle with ninjas that ride on bikes, along with drug-dealing bikers. Yep. I saw it on YouTube when someone uploaded it a few months ago (but shhh on that; it was taken down) and I did a review for it on my movie reviews blog; the particular review is at: http://blairreviewsmovies.blogspot.com/2012/09/miami-connection.html

I was happy to see it on the big screen. I know that some already have a backlash against it. Yeah, I agree that there are funnier and shittier bad movies out there and if they got this treatment crowds would likely also go bananas for it, but I don't know why some want to slag it for being overrated as a bad movie experience, but oh well. Of course some people I know who are huge bad movie fans are amongst that crowd... shrugs shoulders. I got there and had drinks at the patio bar they have at The Enzian (the arthouse place I've mentioned a number of times before; they had couches and fancy chairs and tables and food gets brought to you. I then waited in line to get in. Turns out, some of the film's stars were there; it was Grandmaster Y.K. Kim (a legit master at Taekwondo; he runs Martial Arts World in Orlando, and in fact a van load of his students were there to watch the film), the guy in the film that looks like Oates from Hall & Oates (or Ravishing Rick Rude; more on this late 80's wrestler later) and the black guy in the movie. They spoke for a bit before the screening. Then, everyone watched that funny bad movie and it was a grand old time. There was much cheering and laughter. Afterwards, Kim signed posters for free and of course I got one.

Sunday, it was off to Friendly Confines to watch the Chicago Bears play against their hated rivals, the Green Bay Packers. Considering how riddled the Bears have been by injuries by this point, I wasn't expecting much and indeed they lost 21-13. There were some questionable calls from the referees-and I usually don't complain about that stuff like most sports fans do-but even if they were perfect, the Packers still would have won. I am certain of that; they just played obviously better than Chicago. The Bears fans there acted like mongoloids (to use a term I saw someone I know use on Twitter yesterday) but enough about those annoying people. Even the people I sat by who were obvious bros (one kept on calling the other “brah”; yep, brotastic!) weren't as annoying. I did laugh in the game when after a sack, a Packers player impersonated Ravishing Rick Rude; you know, if you remember him from the good old days of pro wrestling, he would swivel his hips; well, that's what that player did and it was amazing. After that I stopped by Total Wine & More for a bit and I got some random things before returning home.

I'll be back a week from today; not much is planned yet but as always I should have something interesting to write about; hopefully not a lot of it will be complaining, but that unfortunately tends to happen when you live in The Sunshine State.

Monday, December 10, 2012

The Blog Where I'm Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime

Yep, I am referencing the Paul McCartney song that many people seem to loathe. Last week I was walking around the neighborhood and a car passed by blasting that song. Not surprisingly the car was a newish Mercedes and the driver was a middle-aged white guy.

Here's what I've done since I last posted my blog on the last day of November. That day I didn't do anything, but the next day I did go back to Winter Garden Village to visit some other stores (including World Market) and I did get some random items. Sunday, I finally returned to Friendly Confines to watch the Chicago Bears play. The drive there and back was the usual... meaning, plenty of terrible Florida traffic! Yeah I did get mad at it, as usual. Hell, I even saw a near-accident in the parking lot as some dumbass pulled out without looking and almost hit TWO moving cars. Good one, Troglodyte. Unfortunately, there was no shortage of Trogs there on this day... and they were mainly Bears fans. Do you need to yell stupid worthless comments at the game after %nearly every single play%? Some people think that you do, and I quickly got irritated with it. To make me feel better I had some beer and that's quite rare for my afternoons there. They had some that were discounted as they want to get rid of it so I took advantage of that.

The alcohol helped me deal with the people there and the game itself. Chicago ended up losing to Seattle; I wouldn't be too mad about it as Seattle is quite good, but the last two Seattle drives that caused them to win, the Bears D was real bad and that was disappointing. At least the Bears had some good moments themselves. Also, a former employee was there visiting. She worked there when I first started going to FC and I hadn't seen her in like a few years. At least I got to briefly chat with that nice young lady.

Sunday night it was determined that due to how things turned out, Northern Illinois University (from a smaller conference) got a big bowl bid and on January 1st they'll be playing a big college football game in Miami against Florida State University. Boy I got pretty tired pretty quick of so many people whining and bitching about how NIU shouldn't be there, especially from that loathsome Troglodyte network known as ESPN; I even got that crap from some people I know on Facebook. I'd much rather see an underdog play in one of those big bowl games (which has happened a few times before) personally and I've always thought that way. I am not sticking up for NIU just because I grew up 30 miles north of the campus or I know quite a few people that went to college there.

Monday I had to go up to Leesburg. It was related to the crash last month but don't worry it wasn't a big deal and now I can fully put that behind me. I also stopped by the city's Lake Square Mall, a joint that is less than happening, to say the least. At least I stopped by a smoothie place in the mall and I got the treat known as the Peaches & Cream Delight, an appropriate name for sure.

I did nothing Tuesday and Wednesday so let me skip ahead to Thursday. I had free time so I went to Universial Studios, Citywalk in particular. I ate at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville as it's been too long since I've been there. Their cheeseburgers (in paradise) are as great as ever so let me mention what alcoholic beverage I had; it was known as Shipwrecked and it was basically a mango-flavored drink along with some other fruits. Very good. I then went to their AMC Theatres and I watched Skyfall again, this time on their IMAX screen. Yep, the movie is still real good. The alcoholic beverage I had at their bar was a holiday-themed beverage known as the Peppermint Shake; it had vanilla ice cream and peppermint schnapps, among other things. Needless to say I thought that was quite tasty.

Friday and Saturday were dull so let me skip ahead to yesterday. I went to the good old Friendly Confines to watch the Chicago Bears play at the Minnesota Vikings. There was a big snowstorm going on in Minneapolis so thankfully the game was in a dome stadium... one I was in back in the mid 90's to see a college football game. I wouldn't mind going back to the Twin Cities... if nothing else to visit the Mall of America again. Anyhow, the Bears played like crap and lost 21-14 in a game that wasn't as close as the score says it was. That was disappointing.

So was how too many of my fellow Bears fans acted. Real immature and dumb. Some of the dumb ones even argued with each other over things too asinine to even bring up here. And there were other meatheads there too... sigh. At least the food there was as good as usual and other games were going on, a few of which ended up being pretty exciting. But I tell you, some of those people there, I wonder when it was last that they showered or laundered the clothing they had on. There were some pungent odors going on, including from one guy who briefly sat by me. I swear his stench singed my nose hairs! Despite all the complaints it was nice being there and enjoying the atmosphere, even if I wish there was less stupidity there. I am disappointed with how the Bears are playing, sure, but I have seen FAR worse Chicago teams in my lifetime, for sure.

I'll be back a week from today. I could be doing some real exciting things but nothing is set in stone quite yet.