Youtube clip dump #3

Here’re a couple of tearjerkers for you…

This first one I caught a mention of on the ESPY awards last night… Basically this college girl hit her first ever homerun and when she missed touching first base and went back for it, she tore her acl and couldn’t walk. Two members of the opposing team picked her up and carried her around the bases.



This next one I guess was featured on The View this morning. The Jewel heard about it from her mother and after telling me about it, I looked it up...

In 1969, these two guys bought a lion cub at a department store in London. They named him Christian. After a couple of years Christian got too big for them to care for, so they worked it out that he could be sent to Kenya and be reintroduced into the wild. A year after that, they wanted to go visit him. They were told that there is no way Christian would remember them. They went anyway. Here is a short video of their story and then their reunion… Try not to cry too much… After you watch this video, read more about Christian’s story here…

Youtube clip dump #2...

Dr. Horrible’s Sing A Long Blog is a 3 part series available on iTunes. It is cheesy, campy and all kinds of awesome. It stars How I Met Your Mother’s Neil Patrick Harris and is written/directed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Joss Whedon.

Harris stars as Dr. Horrible, an aspiring super-villain, whose attempts at villainy are constantly thwarted by his nemesis, the heroic Captain Hammer. He must take his efforts to the next level in order to get into the Evil League of Evil while also mustering the courage to talk to Penny, the girl at the Laundromat. And it’s a musical!

Here’s a preview:



~

On e of my all-time favorite comics was Richard Jeni, who unfortunately killed himself a little over a year ago. I was very fortunate to get a chance to see him live a few years ago. Here are a couple of my favorite bits:





~

That second clip about Michael Jackson reminded me of the following bit by Katt Williams. Warning: Depending on your level of tolerance, this bit may contain some strong language… It’s also funny as hell…

Work stuff...

I think if it weren’t for weekends, there would be a lot more workplace shootings… One can only handle so much stupid, but once Friday afternoon arrives, it’s like, well, I only have to put up with stupid for a few more hours then I don’t have to look at them for two whole days. Three day weekends come around just in time for those occasions when two days off just isn’t going to cut it.

A typical work week:

Monday: I’m too tired to really give a shit. Whatever you say…
Tuesday: Ok, what’d you say?
Wednesday: You know that’s the most retarded idea you could possibly have.
Thursday: But you’re implementing it anyway…
Friday: ARGHHH! 3 more hours… 2 more hours…1 more hour…
WEEKEND!

Rinse
Repeat

~

On a related note, there have finally been new developments regarding the job at the Jewel’s company that I interviewed for a few weeks ago. She cornered the hiring manager to find out if the job had been filled or not since I have not received any communication as to whether or not I was getting it. The manager told her that the req. had actually been put on hold until they decide if there is even enough work to justify hiring someone. She did tell the Jewel that if an offer was going to be made, I was the one who was going to get it.

The Jewel seems to think this is good news because you never know, just because they’re not hiring now, they may soon, and my name is at the top of the list. I seem to think that this sucks ass… I’m certainly happy that I didn’t totally bomb the interview like I assumed I would, but it’s really discouraging that something that I wanted really badly (and continue to want really badly – see above…) was so close, but ultimately unreachable.

I’m not going to give up all hope yet. The Jewel says that it’s slow right now because everyone is on vacation, and in a month or two, once everyone is back to work and things are in full swing, the workload will pick up and they’ll figure out they need me after all. Seeing as they’re a defense contractor, I’m hoping we invade Iran or Canada or somewhere soon to help boost military spending… I need a new job!

Let's hear it for the boy...

There’s this guy named, Gabriel Greenberg, whose older sister died in the 1980’s as a teenager. He has a bunch of her stuff, and now, 20-something years later, this is all the memories he has of her. A few years ago he was looking through it and came across a cassette tape of the Footloose soundtrack. He became obsessed with this soundtrack and what it undoubtedly represented to his teenage sister in the 1980’s. I mean, this could have been THE soundtrack to the 1980’s and who would understand that more than a teenage girl? So he listened to it over and over and somehow found a connection with his sister through the music.

Gabriel Greenberg has a childhood friend who is a musician by the name of Thomas Bartlett. He heads up the band, Doveman. Greenberg told his friend his story and asked him to cover the album. Now why he would do this, I don’t know. I’d think that he could get a closer connection to his sister through the original songs that she undoubtedly tapped her feet to when she listened to it. My only guess is he was looking for a more melancholy version of those songs that she loved.

Well he got it. And knowing the backstory to it, I find it all very touching and emotional and awesome. Unfortunately I haven’t found where I can download the songs yet, but you can read Greenberg’s story in his words and hear the streaming songs here…

Scenes from the last row…

My company made me sit through a big meeting run by our president yesterday. It was held in a banquet hall; I was there along with 200 of my closest co-workers. We have these things about 3 times a year and my job at them is to try real hard not to fall asleep. I think the whole purpose of everybody in the company being required to attend is that we feel involved or something...

Whatever… Here are a few things thoughts I had yesterday in between catching myself snoring…

I like to get to these things early. I can get the seat I want and not have to worry about walking in late and getting stuck stepping over people for a crummy seat in the middle of the row. I get there early and get myself in the back row on the end, right where I want to be. So I’m sitting there and someone who I don’t work with and barely recognize, but she works somewhat in the same vicinity as me, so I guess we’re best friends, sits down next to me. Now, I don’t know much about her, but I do know that she’s one of these chatty Cathy type people. I hate people like that. I don’t care about your family. I don’t care about your car problems, I don’t care that you don’t want to be here. Just shut up. What was ironic was that a few minutes later, another lady, that pretty much fits the same description, actually grabbed an extra chair from the back of the room and slid it up on the other side of me. So now I’m not even sitting on the end of the row, which I specifically got here ten minutes early to be able to do, and I’m in between these two blabber mouths. Atleast I won’t have to worry about falling asleep…

Just as this thing was about to start, I hear someone behind me. I turn, and another lady, this one I don’t recognize, pulls up another chair right behind me. I’m so dumbfounded, I can’t even believe what’s going on. I purposely get here early to avoid exactly what is happening. How I don’t run screaming from the building is beyond me (but really not that hard to fathom, seeing as I’m pretty much boxed in at this point). What made this even worse was that this woman, now breathing down my neck, was sporting day old cigarette breath. Now I’m no prude. And I can appreciate the smell of a lit Marlboro along with other former smokers… But smoker’s breath, unless you’re smoking, never smelled good. Apparently she’s practicing for a dance recital too. Either that or she has a nervous leg disease which prohibits her from sitting still and stop tap tap tapping her foot on the wooden floor… For pretty much the entire presentation…

I don’t like to use the word douchebag when describing someone, even though it’s a pretty common occurrence within the anonymity of the internets, but I wracked my brain and couldn’t come up with any other word to describe the two douchebags sitting in front of me. I think these two guys thought they were at a high school assembly or something, giggling about their peers and just basically looking like totally jackasses…

What didn’t help with at least one of their jackasseryism was the quarter inch square diamond-looking earring one of them was sporting. Now I say diamond-looking, while I don’t know for a fact that it wasn’t authentic, it’s pretty safe to assume that something the size of that, if it were in fact real, wouldn’t be worn by this turd, seeing as it’d cost more than he makes in a year. And please guys, if you’re a dude, and you’re wearing a rock as big as my pinky knuckle in your ear, either be a professional basketball player, or have at least one endearing quality that will make you appear to not be such a douchebag. Seriously, you might as well be playing dress-up with your grandmother’s fancy jewelry…

Prop Bet Update…

My WSOP Main Event prop bet has become a freeroll for me with Allen Cunningham being eliminated last night. As much as that makes me happy, I’m also a little (very little) sad to see one of the last big name pros eliminated so late. I am very happy to see some big names still in it, especially my last two horses, Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow. To me, those are two of the greatest players of ALL TIME and to see them both still alive with ONLY 79 players left while starting with 6,844 is simply amazing.

But aside from that, my prop bet took a huge swing in my direction now that Cunningham is out. I am set to win the $5 bet for the highest number of players to make the money, with my two horses Hellmuth and Matusow vs the Case Ace’s lone money maker, Cunningham. Since Cunningham is out now, I’ll scoop the $5 bet on the total money won as well as the $5 bet for the highest finishing position. The only thing left to see is if I win is the final $5 for making the final table ($10 if both of Hellmuth and Matusow make it – also known as ESPN’s wet dream table…).

~

Held game two of the Way Cool Super Fun League this weekend. After my horrible finish in game one, I really needed to turn it around to earn some points for some much needed chips for the final table in December. There were 6 of us playing for $10 a piece plus a $5 bounty to the person who knocked you out. I started out really slow and actually stayed that way for most of the night. I was simply not getting any cards. A lot, and I mean A LOT of 82, J4, Q6 type hands. Very disappointing. I limped in with a few suited gapers and actually hit some hands that were good enough to pick up a few chips to stay afloat, but no real confrontations or nice pots won for at least the first hour or two. Finally the blinds were creeping up enough and my stack was hovering at a position where waiting around wasn’t good anymore. I needed to pick some hands and do some pushing. Which I did for a while. I found some tiny pairs and some medium aces and just pushed with them. My ultra tight image was enough to win some blinds and limps.

I was able to make it down to the final three by doing this before I actually had to start showing some hands. The other two players I was with were both very aggressive, so I knew that once I found a hand I liked, I’d have to push to their raise and for the most part when I did this, they would lay it down to me. Finally I found AJ suited in the bb. The dealer made a raise, the sb folded and I pushed. He hmm’d and haw’d for a while before finally calling with A7 suited. I can’t quite remember if it was that hand where I knocked him out or it was sometime later, but that pretty much doubled me up and I actually took over the chip lead. If it wasn’t then, it was shortly after where I took that player out and I was heads up.

The other player that I was up against is easily the most experienced live. Or at least he carries himself like he is (very confidently moves chips around). His father is the poker room manager at the local casino. I use that as an excuse to be intimidated by him, but I really shouldn’t be. He’s aggressive, but I found that he can be moved off hands when facing similar aggression.

Anyway, we spar back and forth for a while, the aggressor taking the small pots. I get him rather dominated in chip count when a hand that I can not remember very well comes up. I think I had something like A8s. He raised preflop and I call. He moves what he has left in blind before the flop (which was probably a little more than double his preflop raise. The flop comes down 8 high so I call. I can’t remember for the life of me what he had, but I had him pretty much crushed. He had Qx, and I remember after the turn he needed a Q or a T to win, and the river brought the Q.

So that doubled him up, and we went back to aggressively taking pots back and forth preflop. Finally I was dealt pocket jacks. I raised preflop and he called. That should have tipped me off right there because the majority of our hands were either raise fold or raise reraise fold. The flop came down 552. He checked I bet he called. Again, this really should have told me what I needed to know, but I didn’t listen. The turn was a blank and he checked again. I don’t remember if I bet and he moved in or if I just moved in at that point, but regardless we got it all in on the turned blank. I was somewhat afraid of him turning over a five, but not really since he called a raise preflop, but he didn’t have a five. He had what I least expected him to have and that was pocket deuces. He flopped a full house, slowplayed it to the turn and left me with two outs… Which I missed of course putting me out in second. I did earn some much needed points for the league, so I’m happy about that.

After the tourney I joined the cash game that 4 others were splashing around in and I proceeded to get ridiculously lucky throughout for the rest of the night. We played dealers choice and some of the games included wild cards where I made five-of-a-kinds twice taking pots from a royal flush and another five-of-a-kind, getting paid off on both. A very good night indeed.

Adoption Day…

I’ve had a dog my entire life. When I was very young we had German Shepards that remained outside dogs. Later on, we brought them in to be inside dogs. Most recently it was George who I talked about a few months ago in this post . I always knew that I’d have a dog as an adult, but I never was in a living situation to get one. After I moved out of my parent’s house until November of ’05 I only lived in apartments.

When the Jewel and I first got together, I told her that someday I’d have a dog. She wasn’t very eager about it. She said she had a dog when she was young, but was allergic, so they had to get rid of it. I’m not one to buy into the whole “allergy” thing, and besides they have pills for that sort of thing, don’t they? So my plan has always stayed the same. Someday, when we get a house, we’re getting a dog…

In November 2005, we finally did get that house. And looky here, there’s a fenced in back yard. We decided that we’d wait through the winter because who wants to mess around with housetraining in the winter, right? I did do some research though. Looked around for breeders and breeds and got my mind in the game. It didn’t take too long to figure out that breeders charge big bucks, so we thought we’d go the SPCA route. It’s hard to find puppies through the SPCA, but that was fine. I had decided that since the Jewel really had no dog caring experience, and I was never the responsible one for the dogs growing up, it’d be a good idea if our first dog was an adult who probably had some idea as to what her needs and wants were and would be able to hopefully communicate those needs and wants to us should we forget them…

In late June we took our first trip to the SPCA. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for. The Jewel wanted either something huge like a Saint Bernard, or something medium sized. The first one I saw that interested me was this big labradoodle type thing. Part labrador retriever, part poodle. These are bred just for the allergenic person in mind. All the great fun traits of the retriever, but they don’t make you sneeze like the poodle… What could be better? We took it for a walk around the yard. This one was young with lots of energy and ended up dragging me around. We decided that we just didn’t have the time or energy to tire out such an active dog. There was nothing else of interest to us then, so we left to try again another day…

A week later we went back. As we walked through the kennels looking at the dogs we came to one that was about halfway down the row. The tag over the door read “Rosie”, and underneath it said, “Beagle”. “We already have a lot of Rose’s in our family,” the Jewel said. “We can change the name,” I said. We peaked inside. She was curled up on the cot, but when we looked in, she lifted her head up at us. She got herself up and came over to the door and put her feet up on it, looking at us. I swear to god she asked us to take her for a walk. So we did…

We took her outside where they had little park-like area. She was pretty easy going. She sniffed around and was interested in everything, and she didn’t pull. We got to a bench and I sat down. She sat down next to me. And we just looked around. The Jewel and I talked about her. She seemed like a real calm dog. She wasn’t pulling me. She was safe. But I was looking for one who’d like to play. George was a player. He’d bring you a tennis ball and you’d throw it and he’d go get it and bring it back. I wanted a dog that wanted to be somewhat active, but nice and calm when she’s not. We weren’t sure what to do. We went back inside with her and told the people there we were interested in her. There was a special room there where you could take a dog and there were some toys and some chairs and you could sit in there with her, so we did. We went in and sat down. She got right up on the couch at first and sat there (getting on couches is something she’s never shy about). The Jewel and I just sort of stood there and looked at her. There was a colored tennis ball on a ledge. I picked it up and bounced it once, and would you believe this dog lit right up, jumped down and begged me to throw it. So I did. She ran to get it (as much as she could run in such a small room) and brought it right back to me. I turned to the Jewel and said this is the one. The Beag said throw it again, so I did…

This all happened on a Thursday. She’d have to get spayed before we could take her home, so we wouldn’t be able to pick her up until Saturday. Which we did. That was two years ago today.

I think even the Jewel would tell you that my persistence to get a dog was the best thing I ever did. The Beag has done nothing but bring joy to our lives, and I really hope she feels the same way about us.

Happy A-Day, Kid… I know we picked you. But you kept us…