Sports Silliness

The last few days have provided some funny sports stuff.  Let us take a look at a few of them.

Haha, very classy Rice!  Probably the only thing I will remember about them all season.

World-class athlete...running is hard!



Seriously, what the hell is Morgan thinking?  Does he really want a piece of Pujols?  That man would destroy him.  Also, I would love to see Fielder and Pujols fight.  Plus, if Morgan was so serious about fighting, how is it that Prince Fielder is able to lightly jog run full speed over to grab Morgan?  That was one of those:  "oh shit, I hope someone grabs before I get my ass beat."

And then Morgan decides to go to twitter...

Calling Albert Pujols a woman...wow.  Very clever Nyjer!  I also see that spelling is kicking your ass, especially "where vs. we're."  What a joke...



Things I learned from the Sidney Crosby press conference:
-His brain is like a Ferrari
-The etymology of the word concussion...it comes from Latin!
-Christmas is a celebration
-90% is better than 89%
-Sid needs to buy polo shirts a size bigger...he looked like he was about to explode out of that and start screaming "SID ANGRY!!! SID SMASH!!"
-According to the ladies, Sid is still sexy.
-Vestibular perception
-Sid is not retiring.  Or at least, do not bet on that.

Wow, just wow...these uniforms look like something you would see in Grant Morrison's Invisible.

The Pensblog and Archer

If you read the Pensblog, then you have probably seen some Stephen S.'s artwork, if not click here and check some of it out.  He has gotten a job as an illustrator for Archer, which as you know, is one of my favorite shows.  Buy some of his artwork so he can move to Atlanta...

Also, here is a funny video of the show.

Pens vs. Sabres Pt. One

For Christmas I bought my brother and his girlfriend tickets to a Pens game.  The game we got to go to was Friday night against the Buffalo Sabres.  The game was awesome (it was only my second game, and the first one was a loss), the Pens came back from a 2-0 deficit and won 3-2.  Allow me to take you on the journey...

We had talked about getting there pretty early so we could walk around and check the arena out, and maybe do some shopping at the Pens store.  Unfortunately, Adam could not get out of work early enough, so we did not get to the Consul Energy Center until about 6:45.

Our seats were pretty similar to the seats we had last time.  The reason for this is because I got the tickets off Brent Johnson's wife (Danielle is Lindsey's cousin).  We got seated and watched the last few minutes of pregame, and then the puck was dropped.  We were pumped.  Then Gaustad goes down and scores during the first 17 seconds of the game.  That kind of sucked.

Okay, no big deal.  Unfortunately the Sabres scored again around 7:00 minutes.  As the period came to an end, I started to wonder if I was just bad luck for the Penguins.  We went looking for a bathroom during intermission and we discovered a neat item.  Sprinkled around the place are some family restrooms (I am guessing for parents to take in small children).  There were lines for every regular bathroom, but nothing for this one.  So, I went on in.  It was fantastic (especially if you are someone who gets a little stage fright at a large public restroom).

The second period started out with Fleury in the goal right in front of us.  Adam made the prediction that all the goals would be scored at the opposite end.  After the way the game started, I figured we had nothing to worry about.  Then the Pens decided to start dominating.  They pretty much kept the puck on the Sabres end the entire second period (I think there were like six shots for the Sabres in the second period).

Dustin Jeffrey started it off by scoring around three minutes into the period.  Then it just got better.  Kennedy scored to tie it up and Matt Cooke put one in to take the lead about forty seconds later.  Needless to say, we were now completely pumped.  I took some video of the game, check it out.

Oh sorry, that is a video of my friend Jason's adult league hockey.  That was not the Penguins.   Anyways, the third period saw the Penguins pretty much dominate again and we saw Malkin get hurt.  That sucked.  The Pens came away with a victory yet again.  Very awesome.

Fans were encouraged to bring their Terrible Towels to support the Steelers.  At the end of the first period (or was it the beginning of the second period?), they played Renegade, which got the crowd pumped up.  You can see the towels twirling.  We did not forget our towels.  Nope.  Some idiot did not carry them around and then get them inside the girl's apartment we were staying, only to set them down for a second and forget them.  I swear.  That would never happen.

At least we looked good in our jerseys.  We had the goal of getting a picture of the four of us at the game.  We failed at that one too.  I am pretty shitty at the whole picture thing.

This is part one of a two part post.  Who knows when the second part will come though...

Monday Morning Stuff

It is Monday morning and I am awake.  I worked third shift on Saturday and accidentally slept until 4:00 p.m. on Sunday.  I ended up falling back asleep at 10:30 p.m. and waking up at 3:00 a.m. and I have been up ever since.  This means you get some kind of rambling mess today.

Football
The Steelers beat the Ravens in a game that gave me a nervous breakdown.  To be down 21-7 to the Ravens going into halftime is not a good thing.  Then the team came out in the second half and just dominated.  The defense was absolutely amazing.

I noticed that immediately after the Jets beat the Patriots, a lot of my friends started posting comments on facebook saying that the Steelers were going to the Super Bowl.  We still have a very tough game coming up next Sunday. 

It has been nice to hear the nation media folks actually saying good things about Ben.  I heard a couple different radio shows where they said he was up there with Manning and Brady as the best in the league and that he is better than those two at certain aspects.

Game of Thrones
There was a new preview for upcoming series on HBO.  Check it out.

The Game Begins

Hockey
I missed the Pens game because I was asleep, but they beat Boston.  I am getting so pumped for the Feb. 4th game versus Buffalo.  Lindsey, Adam, Lora, and I are going to have a great time.  Speaking of hockey, I hate this commercial.  Is it because I want to take a shovel to Ovechkin's face?



Links
James has a new blog.  He is a much better writer than me, yet he never posts.  Maybe he will try and change that...


The Pirates made a huge move over the weekend

The world will be ending soon, call the crazy people up and let them know.

Alright, that is about all I have for today.  I need to shower and run some errands.  Seriously, I have errands.  I am getting old.

Droid X

Friday I decided to go look at new phones, since my new for two was up.  Lindsey just got a new phone and I was starting to feel a little jealous.

I was rockin' the LG Dare, which at first seemed like a really cool phone.  It was all touch screeny and sexy like.  Then after about a month I came to a realization:  this phone blows.

When I bought it, there were supposed to be apps that would be coming out, but then that never happened (seriously, if I would check facebook online, it would say to download the app for the Dare, but then it would say not found...).  Also, I started to notice that I was not adapting to the touchscreen keyboard.  In fact, I was downright terrible with it.  Then a coworker got an iPhone and I asked if I could try to keyboard.  Guess what?  I could type on that one.  So, I reverted back to texting the old fashioned way, using the key pad.  "Hey whats up?"  Or in that language:  "4433999SPACE944287777SPACE887111".  Jesus Christ that is time consuming.  But, if I used the keyboard, it would end up looking like "heu  qwhjats uop?"

Lindsey bought the Blackberry Torch and seemed to like it, so I did a little research.  I found that the Verizon Blackberry really was not as nice as her phone.  Also, it seemed like Droid was the way to go.  Which one though?  I read a bunch of reviews, and then I remembered that Greg wrote about a Droid recently and then again here.  I went to the store with the intention of just looking (even though my mind was pretty much made up).

Needless to say, just looking did not work out so well.  I played with it for about eleven seconds and decided that I wanted the Droid X.  I have used it a good bit for the first two days (I worked third shift, what else was I supposed to do, just kidding Work Overlords if you are reading).

The big fear I had was the keyboard, but it is big enough and the letters are spaced far enough apart that it is quite smooth to use.  I also was worried that I would not really put much use to apps (I make fun of the iPhone folks all the time).  I was completely wrong about making fun of them and now see that my life is better because of apps.  I have wanted either an mp3 player or satellite radio for my car for awhile now.  Well guess what?  I can use my phone now.  I can use Pandora or listen to ESPN Radio.  Also, it doubles as a GPS (in case I ever go somewhere).

I love that there are apps for my fantasy sports through Yahoo, I have not downloaded them yet, but I hope they allow me to check my teams (I cannot imagine what else they would be for).  Instead of going through ten screens to find the Pens score, I can just hit the Pens app and I know that they beat Boston 3-2.

The best thing though?  Bubble Breaker (or whatever it is called)!  This came with my old Motorola Q and I seriously played over 10,000 games.  It actually kept track of how many games you played, when I got jumped and lost the phone it had been around 4,000 and then on the second phone I played another 6,000.  It was so much fun.

Needless to say, I am definitely diggin' the new phone.  Also, I really enjoyed this commercial when it came out (I wonder if it influenced my decision?)

Monday Funday

Lindsey and I had off Monday, and we decided that we had not been out drinking in a very long time.  We decided to go out to the YP in Ebensburg, which is not a bad bar.  The plan was to watch the Pens game and the Auburn/Oregon game.

We got there for the start of the Pens/Bruins game and ordered some beers and food.  The girl tells us that they will probably be switching to the football game, but she will keep the Pens on the TV towards the back.  These four old guys show up and set themselves up so they are facing the back TV and they are here for the football game.

When the national championship game starts, she switches the games as she said she would.  Needless to say, these guys were pretty pissed.  They were making comments about her being a bit of a retard.  It was mean, but really funny since it made no sense.  She could have made everyone happy by just letting it go.

The Pens game was hard to watch because it was so far away from us, and I got pretty into the football game.  All I know is that it was 2-0, then it was tied and then like two minutes later the Pens were losing 4-2.  Ugh.  Plus, I wanted Oregon to win. 

Other than that though, we had a great time and got pretty drunk in the process.  Don't we look so cute in our Pens jerseys?  The four older guys were pretty entertaining all night, they just kept busting on each other and making comments about Oregon's snazzy shoes.  I would join into their conversation at times, but it was just more fun to sit there and laugh at them.

The top photo was taken by the bartender with Lindsey's camera, the one to the right was taken with my phone by me.  Do we look somewhat drunk?

2010 In Review

Instead of recapping the entire year, which is never any kind of fun, I will just go over some of the highlights of 2010.  It was a pretty damn good year.

-I finally bought a laptop, which has pretty much been the best investment ever.  Sitting on the couch while writing these posts is much better than sitting at a desk.  Speaking of posts, 2010 was my busiest year with over 300 posts.  That is kind of exciting (or lame depending on your POV).

-I went to a bunch of sporting events this year.  A few in Pittsburgh, a couple in Altoona, and one over at State College.  I also got to enjoy tailgating for the Blue/White game and the Temple game.  I even made a trip to Washington D.C. to see the Nationals and Pirates play.  Speaking of awesome sporting events, I experienced two firsts:  my first Pens game and my first regular season Steelers game.  I also got to see Stephen Strasburg make his minor league debut against the Curve.

-This was also a very sad year since two of my favorite TV shows ended:  Lost and 24.  I actually did a couple of special things to commemorate such great shows (even though 24 constantly pissed me off with some of its stupid story lines).  My Best of 24 was pretty cool (at least I thought so), yet none of you jerks commented on it.  Also, I was so impressed with my Lost GOTW and the amount of work I put into it, and again, no one really noticed.  I think it caused me to die a little inside that no one said how awesome it was...

I will post it again for your enjoyment, only in a slightly smaller version.  Do not strain your eyes too much trying to enjoy all the hotties.

-There were plenty of great TV shows in 2010.  In fact, this year was a much better television than movie year.  Mad Men, Always Sunny, Justified, Boardwalk Empire, Treme, True Blood, Sons of Anarchy, Archer, The Walking Dead, and The League.  Also there were plenty of enjoyable shows like Warehouse 13, Eureka, White Collar, Human Target, and Supernatural.  I am sure I am forgetting some.

-Speaking of movies, what all did I see this year?  Iron Man 2, Inception, Kick-Ass, Hot Tub Time Machine, The Social Network, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sherlock Holmes, The Chronicles of Narnia:  Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Daybreakers. I really feel like I went to the movies more than this, but I guess I did not.  I think there were a few movies I saw that were just crappy and I did not care about.

-I will not list all the books I read over 2010.  It was not nearly as many as years past, I think my total was only thirteen.  Granted, five of those books were around 1000 pages each, so it was probably about the same amount of reading as previous years.

-The biggest thing to happen in 2010 though was the changes in my life.  I met Lindsey and we moved in together up here in New Germany.  She makes me incredibly happy and I feel like a better person because of her.  If she is reading up to this point, I hope she knows how much I love her.  Sorry to the rest of you for having to read a little personal stuff.

-Now on to the best of list...

Best Movie:  This is a tough one, it comes down to Kick-Ass and Inception.  Many people will say The Social Network was the best movie, and I definitely thought it was good, but I look at it from the stand point of which movie will I watch more than once?  Which of those movies will I stop when I see they are on HBO and watch them from wherever they are in the film.  I would have to say that award goes to Kick-Ass.

Best TV Show:  All those great shows listed above, yet it comes down to two:  Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy.  I could not wait every week to watch these two shows.  And I usually watched the episodes again during their reshowing.  SOA was great, but did not compare to last season and at times I felt like the Tara storyline was dragging on.  MM does not have the action, but it just holds you in it's thrall each week.  It is hard to explain to people why it is such a good show.  Anyways, that was the best show in my opinion.

Best Book:  Only three of the books I read this year actually came out in 2010.  I think the best one of that small group was Are We Winning?  It was a great book and I pretty much recommend it to any baseball fan.

Best Comic Book:  I will not lie, I have not read many comics this year.  In fact, I stopped getting individual issues and decided just to get trades.  Of everything I read, I would say that The Walking Dead is still the best on-going series I read.  Maybe 2011 will be a better year.

Anyways, that is my thoughts on 2010.  Who knows what 2011 will hold for me...

Apartment Decorations

Before the Penn State/Ohio State game, I went to Target to buy some frames for the posters I ordered so that I could finally decorate the living room.  Allow me to give you a quick tour of what the place looks like.

On the left is a skyline picture of Pittsburgh and below that is Brent Johnson's goalie stick, signed by the entire team.  That was a gift to Lindsey, you remember the relationship, right?

This was actually Adam's idea, to put the skyline like that and then angle the stick below it.  I definitely like the way it looks.  On a side note, those skyline pictures with a frame are pretty damn expensive.

Here is a closeup of the stick.  You can Sid's autograph, as well as Lindsey's Family Lounge pass when she went to a Capital's game when Brent played for them.

As you come through the front door, above the the light switch is a picture I received from Dick's Sporting Goods for free.  It is of the inaugural game against the Flyers (which we attended).  In the lower left corner is my ticket from the game.

To the right of the Steelers poster is a Pirates poster.  My original goal was to get all three team logo posters, but I could not find one for the Pens.  I guess Sid and Malkin is just as cool.  Originally I was going to have all three on the main wall behind the TV.  Unfortunately, that would not work with 45 foot DVD rack.

So what do you think?  We plan on putting more Pittsburgh sports stuff around the living room, but as of now, it is a great start. 

In case you were wondering, I ordered the skyline picture from Citiscapes.  I just want to let everyone know that if you ever thought about getting something like this for your own place, you should definitely get it from here.  It was about $40 cheaper than anywhere else, plus the frame is quite heavy duty.

My Birthday

It's been a few days since my birthday and I guess that means I should write about the adventures of the day.  I had a great day.  It started off with my mom, Adam, and Lora all going over to State College to enjoy a movie.  We went to see The Social Network.  This is significant because it was the first time my mom had been to a movie since 1999 (she went to see Star Wars Episode I with Adam and I).

I really enjoyed the movie.  It was very good, especially when you consider the subject matter:  the creation of Facebook.  I find it funny that so many people think that Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed as a jerk.  I wonder what that says about me?  It is the type of movie that I would have no problem watching again on HBO, but I would never go out and buy it.  Know what I mean?

After the movie we went over to Champs for dinner.  I had the always delicious Cajun Chicken Cheese Steak and a few Peroni's.  I had never tried Peroni and I really liked it.  Who knew Italian beer was any good?  When the waitress (I think her name was Stacy, so that was what we shall call her) asked for my ID, we had a fun exchange.

Me:  Today is my birthday (as I look for my ID)
Stacy:  Oh?  How old are you?
Me:  I just turned 21.
Stacy:  Really?  Like last night, or tonight at midnight?
Me:  Ten minutes ago.  That was the exact time of my birth.
Stacy (now looking at my ID):  That is really cool!  Did you go out?
Me (taking my ID back):  Did you actually look at my ID?
Stacy:  No, I just looked to see if it was vertical or horizontal.  Haha.
Me:  Here, look again.
Stacy:  Oh, hahahaha. (clearly confused)
Me:  You are the worst ID checker ever.  I am 30.
Stacy:  Oh, (now looking at in depth).  OH, HA!

She flirted with me a bit more (yeah, I have a girlfriend, but flirting with a waitress is a wise thing) and at the end of meal, she brings me out a cake.  I tried to get her to sing happy birthday.  She then brings the check.  She did not charge me for my meal or for my first beer.  I had no idea that Champs had that policy, she could have just said I got a free beer or something.  Hell, the free cake was a nice touch.  She definitely went above and beyond to make my birthday feel special.

After that we went to my mom's house to watch the Penn State game.  I do not want to talk about how great it was to watch PSU beat the crap out of Iowa how shitty it was to watch PSU get beat down by Iowa.  After the game, a few of us went out to the Pub.  That is when things go way downhill.

My girlfriend was supposed to meet us there after work.  By the time she got there, I was in full on blackout mode.  I have one memory of how I got there.  Tommy (a bartender from another bar) bought me a shot.  I am pretty sure it was a Three Wisemen.  I do not like whiskey at all.  As soon as I drank it, I could feel it hitting me.

When my girlfriend did finally arrive, I was a wreck.  Adam and Lora convinced her to take me home.  I went to bed and I guess in the middle of the night I woke up and decided to pee in my garbage can.  Is there anything to really say about the night?  Obviously it is a great night when you pee in a garbage can.

I also received some great gifts:
-Money
-Pirates hat (from Lora), which was too big, but I exchanged it for the correct size.
-Penn State shirt (from Adam), I have a degree from the school and yet almost no clothes from there.
-Superman/Batman:  Apocalypse DVD (Adam again)
-Batman Silly Bands (Adam)
-Comic Books (Kacie)
-Pens tickets (Mystery girlfriend)
-I Love Jesus shot glass (Lora)...I really wish I would have taken that shot with this glass.  I bet I would not have blacked out.
-Family Guy DVD (Adam)...apparently it was a banned episode.  I may watch it tonight.

Thank you to everyone who made turning 30 such a great time!

My First Pens Game

Remember last week when someone posted an insane GOTW?  Well she took me to the Pen's opening game at the new arena.  This was my first game ever.  Allow me to say that it was simply amazing.  If I had money, I would definitely want season tickets.  Everyone says that there is nothing like going to a live game and those people are absolutely right.

Those are the pictures I took with my phone.  Pretty awesome, eh?  If you want to see some better pictures go here and if you want a recap of the game, which was exciting even though the Pens lost, then go here.  You may be wondering how my girlfriend got such awesome seats.  Well, it turns out that her cousin is married to Brent Johnson and we got to sit where the families sit.  Pretty damn awesome.

People keep asking me what I thought of the new arena, but in all honesty, I have no opinion.  It looked really cool, but I have nothing to compare it against.  It was much nicer than the Wells Fargo Center, which believe it or not, I was at the first Sixers game played there.  Pretty crazy.  I guess I have to go to another arena and then use that as a comparison.

It was funny to hear some of the season ticket holders bitch about things.  That is Pittsburgh folks for ya, never happy.

I do want to make fun of the guys sitting behind me.  They made me laugh all night long with their great commentary.  Anytime the Pens got the puck, they immediately said "shoot it boys" or "stop passing boys and just shoot."  I guess it is just that easy.  Calling them boys every time is what really did it for me though.