The 347th Annual Davie Awards

when comparing this year's results to last year, there are several things that stand out. this year had a much larger crop of good movies and cds, but the number of quality video games seems to have declined. x-box games were especially slim. there were several good computer games this year, but those were still mostly sequals. this year saw a lot better albums than 2004, and the selection of quality movies was a lot bigger too. now, without further delay...

The 2005 Davie Awards

best movie: batman begins

runners-up: walk the line, revenge of the sith, serenity, der untergang (downfall), wedding crashers

i'm pretty hard-pressed to not pick revenge of the sith because of my own bias, but walk the line and batman begins were both better, with batman begins edging out walk the line. serenity was great (probably better than revenge of the sith, but like i said, i have a star wars bias); very entertaining and well-acted.

overall top 10 movies

1. batman begins
2. walk the line
3. revenge of the sith
4. serenity
5. der untergang (downfall)
   
6. wedding crashers
   
7. kung-fu hustle
8. king kong
   
9. munich
10. wallace & gromit: the curse of the were-rabbit

best cd: system of a down - mezmerize
runners-up: weezer - make believe, nine inch nails - with teeth, moby - hotel, team sleep - team sleep, billy corgan - thefutureembrace

i'd known for awhile that mezmerize would top the list. its a great cd, and every song sounds different and unique. it's too bad that system of a down's second release this year, hypnotize, was not as impressive. make believe is the best weezer album to come out since pinkerton, and the only album that really challenged mezmerize. with teeth was less than perfect, but it did have some really strong songs on it. still, it should have been better. moby made a solid return with hotel, and team sleep's self-titled was a good, original album. billy corgan's first solo album had some weak spots, but also had some really strong songs (including a bee-gee's cover).

best album by a someone who's almost a senior citizen: robert plant & the strange sensation - mighty rearranger

this isn't a great album, but i was happy to find that it is actually pretty good. the biggest surprise has to be how well plant's voice works on the album. who would have thought that he could still sing? definitely worth hearing.

most mediocre cd that should have been great: audioslave - out of exile
runner-up: foo fighters - in your honors, system of a down - hypnotize, jimmy chamberlin complex - life begins again

after audioslave's great first album, i was was really looking forward to out of exile. it's not that its a bad cd; it just should have been a lot better. the same goes for in your honor. the rock cd and acoustic cd on the double-album are both made up of pretty good songs, but none of the songs sound very unique or different from each other. hypnotize was a pretty good cd, but something of a let-down after how good mezmerize was. jimmy chamberlin was one of my favorite drummers from the 90s, and i was hoping his album would be pretty good, but... it's kinda boring.

best pc game: sid meier's civilization IV
runners-up: grand theft auto: san andreas, day of defeat: source, f.e.a.r., darwinia

there was no competition here. civ IV wins this award hands down. sid meier took a step back in the development of this game, deciding only to help guide it instead of being in charge. but it is still the strongest entry into the series, which says a lot. in fact, that would automatically make it one of my favorite games of all time. san andreas was fun, but parts of it felt like the same old gta. dod: source was lots of fun, but there isn't a lot of game there (it's multiplayer only). but it is the best multiplayer game to come out this year. f.e.a.r. is a great shooter, and really really creepy, so much that it is sometimes hard to play. darwinia was a lot of fun, and probably the most original game this year. i also want to throw out an honorable mention for oasis, which is a lot of fun, but feels too simple of a game to be included with the others. but the fact that you can easily just play if for five minutes at a time is great.

best x-box game:jade empire

there wasn't any real competition here. the game was made by the same people who made knights of the old republic, and jade empire used the same formula, but improved upon it. making the combat completely real-time is the best improvement they did, which should be fantastic in the next kotor game. but don't let the fact that there was no competition fool you; jade empire deserves this award.

best song: system of a down - "lost in hollywood"
runners-up: weezer - "this is such a pity", team sleep - "11^11", billy corgan - "tilt", nine inch nails - "only", jimmy eat world - "disentegration"

it was really close between "hollywood" and "pity", but since weezer didn't win best album, i decided to go with the latter for best song. it is a really good and unique song; for some reason they didn't turn it into a sequal.

best song that for some reason wasn't on the actual album, but would have been the best song on the cd if it had been: billy corgan - "tilt"

this was the best song from billy corgan's tracks for thefutureembrace, except that he cut the song from the album and used it as the i-tunes exclusive track. the fact that this wasn't on the cd is a big disappointment.

worst song: gwen stefani - "holla back girl"

is there even any need to elaborate on this? what an awful song. i can't even think of anything else to put with it.

best chad johnson touchdown celebration: endzone putting green
runners-up: riverdance, cheerleader proposal, football cpr, santa clause, "what do i do?"

they were all pretty hilarious, but his tiger woods impression had to be the best.

things from 2004 that i missed until 2005

best cd from 2004 : the killers - hot fuss

had i listened to this cd in time for last year's awards, it probably would have won best album.

best game from 2004: sid meier's pirates!
runners-up: burnout 3, the chronicles of riddick: escape from butcher bay

i was hoping the the remake of pirates! would come close to recreating the fun of the 1987 classic from my childhood. not only is it as good as the original, it's probably better. sid meier has a special talent for making games that are more addictive than crack.

best movie from 2004: hero
runners-up: eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, the life aquatic with steve zissou, house of flying daggers, shaun of the dead

all of these are really great movies. each one could have made a case to be one of the runners-up for last year's best movie, but none would have displaced the incredibles.

things i missed that might have made it:

pc games: call of duty 2, quake 4, star wars battlefront 2, gun


x-box games: burnout revenge, mercenaries


movies: harry potter & the goblet of fire; the chronicles of narnia: the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe; hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy; syriana

2006 preview:


pc games: half-life 2: aftermath, star wars: empire at war, battle for middle-earth II, UT 2007, s.t.a.l.k.e.r., company of heroes, sin episodes

next year looks to be a fun year for pc games. aftermath is scheduled for release at the end of april, which will be fantastic. empire at war will hopefully be the first real-time strategy star wars game to get it right. will 2006 be the year that s.t.a.l.k.e.r. is finally released? i'm getting tired of world war II games, but heroes looks like a great rts entry into the genre. the sin episodes will be episodic content distributed periodically over valve's steam. steam was great with its exclusive content in 2005, and i think it will only get better as 2006 goes on, with other releases on it like the award winning wwII mod red orchestra.

movies: x-men 3, flags of our fathers, casino royale, miami vice, superman returns

the x-men movies have yet to disappoint, so hopefully the third one will keep that going. flags is clint eastwood's movie on the battle of iwo jima. i don't know much about the movie, but i hope it's good. i'm interested to see how daniel craig will as james bond fare in casino. he's no clive owen (my personal pick for the new bond), but he's a lot better than some of the rumored actors. miami vice may have colin farrell, but even he has to be better than don johnson. jamie foxx is great, and michael mann has made some excellent movies. i'm actually not very optimistic of the new superman, but i do like the idea of kevin spacey as lex luthor.

winded is the sailor

great, nothing like losing my post when i was halfway through and having to start over.

yesterday was a really exciting game, although the outcome was obviously disappointing. although austin, justin and i may only be 2-1 together now, we're still 3 for 3 at picking good games to go to. i read somewhere that it was the second highest scoring first half in an nfl game. i think penalties hurt us big time; both the penalties that were our faults and the ones that were complete BS. that offsides penalty on the colts' first series after we stopped them on third down hurt us big time. instead of making them do three and out deep in their territory, the came down and scored, and repeated that the next four times they got the ball. on the other side of the coin, there was that completel crap like the pass interference call on third down that would have forced them to settle for a long field goal. apparently when the receiver trips over his own big dumb feet, that's a penalty on the defender. i know, i didn't know that either! good thing those brillant nfl referees are around to tell us these things.

but it was the colts and not the refs that beat us. manning was just on fire and we couldn't stop him. our defense in general was just poor. we were okay against the run, but we didn't stop it much when we really needed to. tackling was horrendous, as was pass coverage and pressure. our running game and offensive line did way better than i thought they would, so i have to give them credit for that. and chad was just unstoppable. i am glad that we hung with them as well as we did, but i wish it would have turned out different. oh well, the colts had at least better beat the steelers this week. they owe us that much.

ufc 56 on pay-per-view saturday night was excellent. matt hughes dominated, st. pierre is one of my new favorite fighters (even if he is french-canadian) and of course, rich franklin dominated. in fact, i couldn't believe how easily franklin destroyed his opponent. i expected him to win, but i didn't actually expect his opponent to be knocked out cold (thanks to daniel for the video). priceless.


the ohio state - michigan game was also excellent, and this game had a happy ending. i was worried for awhile, but it was great to see the buckeyes come back late in the game and put a winning drive together. too bad michigan state couldn't beat penn state.

walk the line was great. i had high expectations for the movie, and it lived up to all of them. joaquin phoenix made a great johnny cash, and even did an excellent job with his vocals. i think some of the reviews i read saying that he didn't sound like cash are just flat out wrong. reese witherspoon was also really good, which shows how talented she can be when she's not in something that is complete crap.

jess' birthday on thursday was a lot of fun. i know she really had an exciting time. first, the lady she babysits for had her baby on thursday. so the birth of xander richard ryan alone would have been enough to make it a great birthday for her. then, we went to pf chang's for a late dinner, and met none other than tj houshmanzadeh coming out the door. jess got his autograph and a handshake, which made the day even better.

so that was my weekend in reverse order. hurray for thanksgiving. tim and elly are coming home too, so that will be fun. by my count i get three thanksgiving meals, which is always a good thing. i had my first day of newton training at work today. that's good because i don't have to be on the phones and i get more money and bad because it's really, really boring.

down on santa monica where tricks are for kids

so penny arcade has started up their annual child's play charity for different children's hospitals around the nation (actually, around the world now). it's pretty crazy how big this thing has gotten. i think the first year they just did it for their local hospital in seattle, then last year it had spread to four hospitals, now there's a ton of them across three countries. i've always thought this charity was a great idea; not only do you get to help entertain sick kids, but you get to stick it to the man by showing that all the popular beliefs about how detrimental video games and gamers are to society is a load of crap. so go help out if you can. speaking of penny arcade, they have a spiffy new layout unveiled today too.

walk the line comes out this weekend. it's going to be great. actually, there's a lot of good stuff going on this week. jess' birthday is thursday, and we're celebrating it with her family and friends on friday. then there's the ohio state - michigan game saturday afternoon, and the rich franklin ufc fight on pay per view that night.

then the best part (except for jess' birthday of course!) is going to the bengals - colts game on sunday. although i'm worried about how we'll do, it should be a lot of fun. that, and the justin-austin-me combo is still 2-0 on bengals games. those have also been two of the best bengals games in the past 15 years (upsetting the 9-0 chiefs and beating the browns in the second highest scoring nfl game of all time). here's hoping we can pull off another upset of a 9-0 team. it's not going to be easy. peyton is obviously amazing and edgerrin james has been rushing like a champ, 2nd only to shaun alexander in rushing yards, and already has over 1,000 yards this season. all aspects of our defense will be put to their toughest test yet. and i'm also worried about our offensive line. indy's improved defense rests on their d-line, so we've got to give palmer time and open holes for rudi.

tried to save a place from the cuts and the scratches

finally have the picture of austin and i mop bucket jousting from navs fall conference. we'd been there all of ten minutes before we did this, ending up with the two of us in pain and two bent plastic brooms.

hear happiness standing on downstream

so i never update anymore. soon i'll be turning into doug or austin and updating once a month. i just don't feel like i have much to say. this was never supposed to be a "this is what i did today" thing. and as far as sharing my thoughts and opinions, i don't know that have i have many of those lately.

i could talk about the bengals, but that's nothing new. i could talk about how much i love civilization 4 and how it eats up too much of my time, but i just did. i'm too burnt out on politics to care anymore. i could talk about how much i don't like my job and i'm actually looking forward to getting laid off, but then i wonder if i'm just being ungrateful for a really well-paying opportunity that is the reason i can even afford to have an apartment. i could talk about how i don't like classes, but then i'd just be reminded of how lazy i'm being this quarter.

maybe i should talk about how poorly i use my time. it seems like work and school eat up the majority of it. then when i do have time, i usually squander it on here. i've spent way too much time playing civ4 or day of defeat: source or just sitting online and not doing important things. my room is a mess and there's a number of things i've been wanting to get done around here. there's plenty of things for school i should be reading, and i've been dying to get more into brennan manning's ragamuffin gospel. in fact, i've got a reading list a page long, half of it books i own but haven't read or finished, the rest just other things i've really been wanting to. just reading the bible would be great.

so i'm going to get off of here. austin asked to be in my post, so i'll tell you that we're going to go play the next level of halo together on legendary. after that maybe i can read or put away some clothes.

ten ton bricks laying on my head

ugh, i feel like i've been hit by a truck. no work for davie today. there's no way i can go in and talk on the phones all day. i just need to drag myself to my one class and then a study session this afternoon.

just like you imagined

the biggest thing i hate about the sudden change in the the weather is its detrimental affect on my health. sure enough, a few days after it got cold and rainy i got sick. going to the navs fall conference probably didn't help either. my throat hurts and i'm afraid that's going to get worse because i can see some sores showing up. plus i think my forehead is going to explode from all the pressure between my eyes. i know i didn't get sick from the conference though, because i could feel it coming on when i was there, and jess started getting sick at the same time. i want to write more, but i'm way too exhausted.

civilization IV will by mine by this weekend. goodbye grades and social life...

all things change

once again, go vote for odell thurman for the nfl rookie of the week and vote for carson palmer for the fedex air award of the week. you can vote for thurman multiple times. and while you're voting for palmer, go ahead and vote for shaun alexander for the ground player of the week, since he's kept my BitterOldMen fantasy football team cruising to a 6-0 start.

this is a call

the bengals has a satisfying comeback yesterday. it was good to see us be able to win from behind. unfortunately we can't always afford to start that slow, especially with pittsburg next week. palmer had yet another near-flawless game (setting a ranchise record and tying an nfl record, too), rudi pounded away with the ball and broke off the big runs when we needed them, and chad abused the titans secondary. chris perry also looked excellent; they definitely made a good decision to draft him last year. it was good to see the defense once again get some nice turnovers after a couple slow games, and the thurmanator's (props to justin) touchdown was especially nice. they still let up way too many rushing yards, which is going to hurt us against jamal lewis or willie parker/jerome bettis. we also had a lot fewer penalties, but they were still painful ones that came at the wrong time.

so daniel craig is the new james bond? he looks like he could be a good choice. certainly better than some of the other rumored possibilities, although i still think clive owen would have been a good choice.

there are a slew of good-looking pc games coming out this week. i'll have to pick up quake 4. the ign review wasn't quite as great as i would have hoped, but i still think it will be a great game. f.e.a.r. is getting excellent reviews, and the demo was pretty entertaining, if not too short. i'm not huge on scary games, only because i'm a big wuss, and the demo alone was really creepy (even if they do blatantly steal the girl from the ring). age of empires has always been a great RTS series, and the third entry looks even more impressive, but i haven't been into RTS games much in awhile.

then there's the king of them all: sid meier's civilization iv comes out next week. i guess i can kiss my grades goodbye.

there are two colors in my head

yeah, the bengals' loss tonight was pretty disappointing. obviously there were plenty of things we could have done better and need to improve upon. but i have the sneaking suspicion that come tomorrow, people are going to start with that "oh man, its the same old bungals" crap, which is just asinine. those "same old" bengals would have never gone 4-0 in the first place. they never would have led the league in defensive takeaways. people can call it a fluke all they want, but i don't know of many "flukes" that last a quarter of the way into the season.

don't get me wrong, we have a million things to fix after tonight. the run defense has more holes that a cheese grater. are guys still don't know how to wrap up and tackle someone with the ball. we still have way too many stupid, costly penalties. but let's not forget that winning a primetime game on the road is one of the hardest things to do in football. listen to how crazy the jacksonville crowd was tonight. that's nearly impossible to overcome. and yet when we were down by two scores, palmer and chris henry hooked up on two huge plays. that drive brought us within two scores. then we got the ball back and organized another impressive drive down the field, only that this time we were a victim of bad luck. that's right, all you gloom-and-doom, fair-weather, "same old bungles" fans, in the end all it came down to was a stroke of bad luck. no horrible mistake by the bengals. no forced pass that resulted in an interception. maybe some bad blocking, but that's it.

we still have a lot of improvements to be made if we want to make the playoffs. but i'm still happy with what we've done. i'm certainly not going to let one close loss change my whole attitude on the season. yes, we should have won and we didn't. yes, it was our own mistakes that cost us the game. but for some reason so many other bengals fans are never going to be satisfied until the bengals are perfect. i'm happy with them just being successful. right now we're still first in the AFC north, and in the end that's the only thing that matters...

my poor brain is gonna pop

i've been pretty busy lately. taking a couple classes in the morning, then going to work, and then coming back for either more classes or something else (like navs) is going to be pretty hectic this quarter. i'm not liking it much so far. at least my classes don't seem to hard. work, on the other hand, has been pretty awful. its just way too stressful trying to deal with these people. its a pretty sad commentary on people's priorities when they get so worked up over laundry detergent and dish soap. although i'm not one to talk about having one's priorities in order. regardless, i'm hating work right now, and part of me is even hoping they'll start laying us off soon. i don't want to be ungrateful, but it sucks. anyway, i need to cut this off and get some sleep before i go back to the grind again tomorrow.

we've got fun and games

man, what a great game. what a complete team effort. i don't think i've seen the offense, defense, and special teams all look so good at once. most teams don't get it together that well, let alone the bengals. sure, they weren't perfect. far from it. a franchise record seventeen penalties was absolutely horrible. especially when they cost us an awesome 80-something yard touchdown pass from palmer to perry, and two more fumbles by the defense (you suck, david pollack). but the fact that all those penalties never really put us in any danger is a testament to how well the rest of the game went. our offense is really turning it on. palmer's interception in the endzone was a poor choice, but other than that there are few complaints. nine different people catching passes on an offense is unreal. so is forcing seven turnovers on defense (nine without penalties). the defense started out looking a little poor against the run, but quickly forced a fumble and it was all downhill for the viking offense from there. at least until the last three minutes, with our second string in. not getting the shutout was a little disappointing, as was kitna not getting to play. there was no reason for palmer to play the fourth quarter at all. still, nothing bad happened so its okay. the bears looked scary today, but we'll hope that they're the ones having a fluke, and not us. it should be a good game.

i live in an apartment on the ninety-ninth floor of my block

well here we are. i'm pretty tired from moving and unpacking things today. it's going to take awhile to get used to all the noise and the lack of air conditioning. a big thanks to mom for helping out so much with getting things, packing, and unpacking; it definitely was a major help. and thanks to dad, jess, rob, and doug for helping out with the moving on saturday. but now i'm too tired to say anything else. maybe we'll have people over soon...

i take you where you want to go

this will probably be my last post till i get moved. go vote for odell thurman for the nfl rookie of the week for week 1. it says you can vote up to ten times, but i think i voted even more than that, so why not?

no alarms and no surprises

this is it... tomorrow i'll be out of here and into my apartment with austin, living above the might happy wok II. i think i've got about everything packed. obviously my computer is not; that is probably one of the last things to get packed up tomorrow morning. having today and tomorrow off was nice. hopefully i can get things situated at the apartment before i get back to work on thursday. not looking forward to school in a week... it would probably be good if i had my work and class schedules figured out. four night classes would be awful.

the screen is us and we're t.v.

tim and elly have the pictures from the wedding that were taken by the photographer up on tim's website, but since most of you probably won't go visit it, i thought i'd share some of my highlights with you all.

i'm not sure who told the wedding photographer that i was obsessed with smeagol, but he made sure to incorporate it into his pre-wedding photos, which i thought was good of him. look at how crazy my eyes are. just holding a ring makes my body go into gollum mode. i can't even control it.









here's me entertaining the crowd with my hilarious and insightful toast.








and here's tim and elly's response. they're good at pretending i'm funny. that was probably when i was talking about how tim told my parents they should name me "treetrunk" when i was born.

and here's a nice picture of jess and myself at the reception.
if any of you are still interested in seeing more of the pictures (i promise most of them aren't of me) you can see them here on tim's webpage

owning a home with no silver spoon

austin and i got the lease signed for our apartment. its at the corner of vine and daniels, above the happy wok II restaurant. yes, we live above a chinese restaurant. its awesome. i just wonder where the first happy wok is. we move in on the 10th, which is a week from saturday. now we need to see what kind of furniture we have and what we need to get. and of course, any volunteers to help us move in would be greatly appreciated.

no one sings me lullabies

one thing i've been slowly but steadily trying to reign in is my horrible reliance on materialism. i spend way too much time looking for new things i want, and then convincing myself i need to get whatever new cd, dvd, or video game i think i need. and its really because i just enjoy the feeling of having new things. once i get something, its not even uncommon for me to hardly use it. for example, i still have a lot left to play in jade empire and san andreas, and yet i found myself wondering over the past couple weeks whether or not i should buy battlefield 2. i don't spend much time playing the games i already have, and yet i almost came close to convincing myself that i need to get that game. there's way more important things to use my money on, like stuff other than my own personal comfort and amusement. speaking of which, go help out all those poor folks in new orleans. the pictures on the news were insane. the whole place looks like its underwater.

i need to stop spending so much time at the computer. between sitting at one all day at work and then coming home and using it more, my back is killing me. although my back also hurts just about every morning when i get up, so that can't be helping.

you say the hill's too steep to climb

that pretty much sums up the whole huggins situation in a nutshell.

oak tree you're in my way

today wrapped up a busy week at work. we had less people on the phones this week, so instead of having 2 1/2 hours of available time a day, we usually had the lines backed up with people on hold. i don't mind being busier than we were before, but going from around two hours of available time a day to less than 10 minutes is a little bit of an extreme.

i'm seeing less and less reason to buy an xbox 360. i'm not sold on any of the next-generation consoles at this point, but the 360 just keeps slipping further down the list. there's really no way i'm going to shell out $400 for the premium system. its got too many things i don't need, like a headset for online play (no microsoft, there's still no way i'm going to pay you monthly to let me play your games online. i'll stick with pc games when i want multiplayer fun online) and a media remote controller. it does come with the 20gb hard drive that you need to play games from the original xbox, but that's something i think should have come standard with the system. but the $300 version, or the "crippled" version as someone else put it, is simply too bare bones to be worth getting either. plus, there really aren't any exclusive games that i know of that seem worth getting. halo 3 can rot for all i care, i can get any new games in the kotor series on pc, so a new jade empire game is the only thing i can think of that i would miss out on. most other games i've seen are also coming out for pc, so i'd just stick with them.

i've been reading donald miller's through painted deserts that i got a week ago. its pretty good; not quite the same style as blue like jazz or searching for god knows what since its more of a story, but its still good nonetheless. i also got it shipped to me before it actually came out since i ordered it through that website, so that was cool too.

austin and i are talking about trying to find a two person apartment by september since everything else fell through. we'll see if anything happens with that.

after everything i've done

the bengals looked merely okay in their preseason opener against new england last night. granted, preseason games aren't the most reliable measure of how good a team will be, but it was disappointing to see the defense get run all over like they have been in the past two seasons. odell thurman made some good plays though; i stil think he'll be a stud this year. palmer was also a disappointment. they've been raving about him and chad all preseason, but he still seemed to be making the same mistakes as last year. i also wish we'd gotten more looks at chris henry. and i don't think i even saw tj once.

on the bright side, our running game looked stellar. rudi absolutely tore through the patriots. he was finding holes and breaking tackles like a champ. chris perry was looking like he might have been worth that first round pick last year. not only did he do well running the ball, but he looked really impressive in the short passing game. we'll see how the rest of the preseason goes; hopefully they'll get it together before they open in cleveland.

i can tell you what they say in space

for all you possible mothers out there, here's some advice for the future: please don't eat gain powder detergent. i don't care how good it smells or what kinds of cravings you have. don't eat it. detergent is for washing clothes, not for freakin' eating. and if you do eat it, at least don't call the phone number listed on the package to ask if its going to be harmful after you've been eating for the past three months of your current pregnancy.


in other news, glorious football season is finally upon us again, which means its time for all kinds of wonderful fantasy sports. austin already created a fantasy football league, but i went ahead and created groups on yahoo for pro pick 'em, survival, and salary cap football. the password for each group is davie.

the survival football id # is 5563.

the pro pick 'em group id # is 2684.

for salary cap football, you'll have to create a team first. once that's done you can choose to join another group. the group # is 4933.


these groups are open to whoever wants to join.

counting all the hands i shook

tim and elly's wedding was this past saturday, and it went great. the ceremony wasn't too long, i didn't lose the rings (and avoided the temptation to do a smeagol impression in the middle of church), and the reception was a lot of fun. my toast at the reception went a lot better than i expected too. one of the best parts of the reception was when elly was tossing the bouqet: first she tossed it up so high that it went up into this indent in the ceiling where some lights were and there was no way to get it down. then, she threw a backup bouqet and it went over everyone's head and landed right in the lap of shocked band member. but she was single, so it worked out okay. and i lost count of the number of times someone made a comment about my wedding in the future. one at a time, people. in case you forgot, i'm still just twenty and in college. anyway, the happy couple flew back to new brunswick yesterday, and should be on their way to maine as i write this.

it was really good to see all the family that i haven't seen in forever. i got to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that i haven't seen in awhile, so that was a lot of fun. the best was meeting my three year old twin boy cousins, paul and michael. they're absolutely crazy. i can't remember the last time i've gotten so much excercise as i did playing with them over the weekend. but it's always fun to have someone smaller than me (besides christy and my mom) around to beat up on.

i sent out emails at work today to try and find people that can switch hours and take over my thursdays so that i can take tuesday-thursday classes. of course, if i get my scheduled straightened out the way i want it, will there even be classes open for me to take?

so i just took a call from shelbyville, illinois. does that serve to answer the longstanding mystery as to where exactly the springfield from the simpsons is located? will we ever know?!?

i shot a man in reno just to watch him die

odell thurman signed with the bengals today. its about time. the defense will be the only thing holding the bengals back this year (barring injuries to the offense), so they desperately needed to get thurman and david pollack signed and into training camp. season starts in a little over a month, i can't wait.

so did anyone know about the family guy movie that was coming out later this year? i think its coming out straight on dvd, but i hadn't heard of it till daniel told me he downloaded it (of course daniel the pirate would have it). its pretty hilarious. i'm also surprised how restrained it is, considering that they could have put pretty much anything they wanted in it.

the cincinnati enquirer had a nice article on grandpa. it was good to see the relatives over the weekend.

so who wants to write a wedding reception speech for me?

my tapeworm tells me what to do

things i hate: the ignorant, witch-hunting media; frivolous asshat lawyers; retailers who cave under the pressure instead of standing up for the video game industry which allows them to exist in the first place, and the gamers who purchase from their stores; and politicians who spend all their time on big important issues like babysitting what we can play in video games instead of focusing on things that really matter, like terrorism, foreign policy, the economy, and education. especially when one of the said rich, elitist politicians hurls partisan insults around like candy at a parade, and then turns around and attempts to make it look like she's an optimistic, middle of the road, kind-hearted individual looking out for you and me.

you should have never trusted hollywood

burkee has been back in town the past couple days, so its been really good getting to see him. its been over a year since the last time he's been back from the army. we're getting breakfast with him early tomorrow morning before he flies back to germany. he's doing well, except he's getting deployed to iraq in a few months which isn't the best news.

i finally picked up san andreas, which is really good. basically a bigger and better vice city, which can't be a bad thing. except that it has a way of sucking in all my time. i also need to get back to playing jade empire.

finally got to hang out with jess tonight for the first time in awhile. we're just both really busy, and its only going to get worse in the fall when i'm going to school and working 20+ hours. her family's leaving for the bahamas this sunday, so i guess i'll have plenty of time to play video games and cuddle with austin next week.

with a feeling so pure

i survived my first two days on the phones. the real test comes monday, when i'm out there on my own, without a "mentor". yesterday was fine, i didn't have any real bad calls. except that i kept getting dryel calls, which i'm not trained on, but they fixed that for today. oh, and i had a lady who kept calling me "ma'am". that was funny.

today i had a real angry lady complaining about tide with a touch of downy, mad that it left stains on her laundry. she didn't want to hear anything i had to say, and wanted us to remove the "awful" product from the market. she eventually asked to speak to a supervisor, so my mentor took over. then there was the guy who was all angry because our tide high efficiency costs more than regular tide. gee, who would have guessed that the detergent for an expensive, top of the line washer would also be more expensive that normal detergent for normal washers. go figure.

i did have one call today that was hilarious. an old man called and was complaining that the gain detergent didn't clean his clothes, so i put him on hold for a minute. when i came back i started reading my information to him, but i stopped because i could hear him snoring on the other end. sure enough he'd fallen asleep, and i had to hang up on him when he wouldn't wake up. funny stuff.

that's when I reach for my revolver

i haven't posted anything very political in a long time. mainly it has to do with the fact that i've grown tired of nonstop backbiting and finger pointing. all too often "politics" is nothing more than sleazy accusations and name-calling. on both sides of the fence. however, this article about corrections to common mistakes/lies about iraq caught my eye. i despise our horrible partisan news sources (one way or the other), so anything that counters blatant lies passed off so flippantly as facts is positive in my book.

how did we ever get by without you?

one week of training left at p&g. the idea of getting out on the phones is still pretty intimidating, but there's no way to get good at it without just doing it regularly. working less hours will be nice, as will sleeping in more than i do now. but the nice fat paychecks will be missed.

batman begins was as good as everyone said. very possibly the best movie so far this year.

bengals tickets tomorrow. who dey!

there's always room in life for this

today begins the second annual dave's national ice cream appreciation month, which means i get to eat ice cream every day for the entire month. then i'll top it all off again on the last day by nearly overdosing on an entire quart of ice cream in one sitting. mmm, i can just feel the diabetes now.

saw war of the worlds last night with daniel, austin and rob. overall, i liked it. great effects, good acting by tom cruise, very tense at times. certain parts of it good have been better, like how the resolution could have been explained a little more thorough. tim robbins was definitely one of the main highlights. i give the film 3 1/2 out of 5 davies. now i still need to see batman begins.

i got jade empire last week. the only reason i would bought it, since i'm not much of an RPG fan, is because its made by the Biowagore, the same people who made knight of the old republic. the game also got some very good reviews ,so i thought i would be worth checking out. i haven't been able to play it since sunday, but so far its very good. it feels exactly like kotor, meaning it has the same easy accessibility for anyone who's not into RPGs. in fact, this is probably the easiest to learn yet. the story seems like its going to be just as good, too. the most improved feature is probably the combat system. instead of kotor's turn-based fighting, jade empire's combat occurs in real-time, with you doing the fighting. hopefully i'll have more time to play it this extended weekend.

now i'm going to go eat me some ice cream...

somewhere in the vasoline

tim left for new brunswick this morning. it doesn't really feel any different yet, especially since he'll be back for the fourth of july.

my head has been feeling terrible all weekend. i think its a combination of a cold and really bad allergies, but i've been wanting to drill holes in my forehead to drain all the mucus. i can't breathe out of my nose at all and i keep coughing nonstop. plus my head feels like it got hit by a truck, so i haven't really been feeling like moving at all. no wonder i've felt tired and groggy all weekend.

weekends are way too short. i'm already not looking forward to another long week of training.

the embers never fade in the city by the lake

billy corgan's solo album was released today, and was accompanied by an announcement in the chicago tribune that he wants to reform the smashing pumpkins. it's a pretty surprising statement, but it's also seemed like he hasn't been satisfied with anything he's done since the pumpkins (like zwan). here's hoping he gets chamberlin to join him, and that they can go back to the glory days. you can see the actual ad corgan put out in the mtvnews article.

i'm a walking shade

the bengals two-game ticket packs go on sale july 9. according to Bengals.com, there's been a big response to the packs, and therefore they don't know if they'll even sell single game tickets if they sell out through season tickets and two-game packs. so my question for you all is, does anyone want to get a two-game pack with me? or another option is for people to split the cost, so that one of them goes to game A and the other goes to game B. i'm guessing the cost will probably be around $110, or whatever the cost of two games would come to. so what do you guys think? our options are:

PACK A: Sept. 18 vs. Minnesota Vikings (Reg. Season Home Opener), and Oct. 23 vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
PACK B: Oct. 2 vs. Houston Texans, and Oct. 30 vs. Green Bay Packers
PACK C: Nov. 20 vs. Indianapolis Colts, and Dec. 24 vs. Buffalo Bills
PACK D: Nov. 27 vs. Baltimore Ravens, and Dec. 11 vs. Cleveland Browns

personally i would lean towards pack C, then A, and then either B or D. the other alternative is to wait and see if they sell single game tickets, but there's less likelihood of getting a good game or good seats. for more info on this, you can look here. so let me know what you guys want. like last year, i'd be willing to buy them for everyone who wants to go, but getting money ahead of time would be really appreciated considering the cost.

i'm so tired, my mind is on the blink

i'm three days into my training as a consumer service rep at p&g. it's getting better as we get into it. orientation the first day was painfully boring, yesterday was a little better, and today was much more interesting now that we're starting to learn the programs we'll be working with. of course the program they're teaching us that is used to record the details of each call is being replaced in october, so this will be useful for four whole months, and then as soon as we start to get used to it we'll have to deal with learning a whole new program. oh well. i've only gotten to know the other twenty or so new hires a little. there's only 3 other guys, and half of the people seem like they're either in or recently out of college, while the other half are middle-aged mothers getting back into the workforce. oh, and riding the metro is always an adventure.

we got paired with CSRs yesterday and listened as they took calls, which were hilarious as usual. lots of old people with way too much to talk about. i saw jen yesterday, and almost got paired with her to take calls, but the girl in front of me went with her instead. and she has a picture of robby in her cubicle. how cute. tomorrow we start learning about some of the products we'll be taking calls on.

i'm still trying to get accustomed to the schedule. even after working full time at the park from 7-4, the 8-4:30 five week training schedule takes up almost twelve full hours of my day from the time i leave to catch the bus to the time i get back to my car and get home. i'm probably going to be very anti-social for the next 4 1/2 weeks.

i've been listening to a lot of new music lately, including the newest cds from audioslave, moby, foo fighters, and system of a down. 2005 has actually been a little disappointing musically; while there's been a plethora of good bands coming out with new albums, all of which have been well done, but none of them have been downright outstanding. just good. continuing with that trend, billy corgan's first solo album can be listened to here.

down every inch of her spine

i never blog enough anymore.

its that time of the year again. time for yahoo fantasy football. we're going to do things a little differently this year; instead of ranking players and letting yahoo autodraft them, we're going to do some kind of live or offline draft. i know it will be hard to get everyone together at once but we'll work something out. i haven't created a league yet, because i wanted to see who was interested and what suggestions everyone has on how to do the draft. so let me know.

we took a step backwards in trying to move to clifton. the landlord for the place we were seriously looking at ended up being pretty shady and uncooperative, so it looks like we're going to pass on that house. we've still got some other options to look at, so we'll see how it goes.

work at p&g starts monday, which means i'll be working full time for a month till training is done. goodbye free time.

man or animal, i don't care at all

there are some things in this world that just genuinely frighten me, and this is probably at the top of the list.

edit: here the link to hot or not to vote for mister handsome.