Lots of Junk

It has been so long since I posted to the blog, I quite honestly cannot recall all of the events of the past few months and in some ways this has been preventing me from updating. Mostly I have been lazy, tired, and working entirely too much...but here is an attempt to sum up the lack of updates in photos.

I will start with a quick glimpse of our Christmas gathering at Mom and Dad Elek's home...Jimbo can hardly contain himself he wants to open all the presents on the floor and is probably really bummed out with the number he drew.

Mom Elek making a ton of delicious food. We never go hungry when we come home.

A couple photos from Mom and Dad Elek's house on Christmas day. Rachel and Josh could not get away from Chicago and work for the week so we hooked up via webcam and opened gifts together.

Dad got a new putter, he was really excited about that.

After Christmas Josh, Rachel, and Norah came up to Madison for New Years and stayed for a few days. It was great fun just hanging out together and it has been so long since I played video games with my younger bro.

Plus we ate some good food, made a birthday cake, and some of us got a little tipsy, though I won't post those pictures. You know who you are and which photos I am referring to!


The beer in Wisconsin is so very good. I have never had such great locally brewed beer, so much to choose from, here is Josh toasting a local beer at the Great Dane.

Marisa and Norah having more fun than anyone really should be allowed to.

Our beloved Bailes is getting even more silver and white hair in her coat, it makes me sad to see her getting older but we still love her companionship and cannot wait to bring home our new addition for Bailey to guard and protect. She still keeps us safe, and when I am off at work it is great to know this Shepherd is home keeping a watchful eye.

Here is the back of my head, this is the view you might get if you stopped in my office at Raven. We are working hard putting polish on Wolfenstein.

It is still snowing in Madison, and Bailey loves to come outside and run around while I clear the drive with the snow blower. Madison is crazy about making sure you have your sidewalks clear of snow. From what I understand you have 24 hours from the first snow to clear the sidewalk or face a fine.

Marisa has not been feeling the best lately, lots of morning sickness, but she is being a real trooper. It is difficult at times seeing her feeling so nauseated but there is nothing I can really do to take away the nausea. I just try to get home and make dinner, do the dishes, so on and so forth.

Marisa was never really a big fan of soda or Ginger Ale, but these days she drinks more of it than I can ever recall her drinking. Hopefully the Nausea will be gone soon.

This coming week we have our second appointment, hopefully we will get to see an ultrasound or at least hear the babies heart beat.

More coming...the blog is not dead.

Free Beard...or...Beard Free

So as part of some camaraderie at work I didn't shave for about 3 weeks while we have been driving forward tying up lots of loose ends on Wolfenstein's Single Player game.

Technically I am supposed to wait another week and continue to grow the freaking beard, but I need to get photographed for a passport and quite frankly the beard was starting to drive me nuts.

Since I don't normally grow facial hair more than 3-4 days I thought this was an occasion to goof around and take some photos.

Below are some photos of me trying out different facial hair setups...


All really exciting stuff I know, I mean it's been months since I last posted so I figured I had to give a glimpse into just how exciting life in Madison can be.

Oh and by the way, Marisa is pregnant and we are going to have a baby. Poor Marisa will now have to take care of two children as the above photos prove.

I refuse to grow up.

Jeremy Gets Hitched, Part Three: Wedding Day

My guess is that Jeremy and Charlene have returned from their honeymoon by now, so maybe they will get a kick out of these pictures.

I am sorry it took so long for me to put the final batch online, you see uhh Fable 2 came out last week, and it has been consuming significant chunks of my free time. I need to do research you know. I just have to know what the current buzz is in the industry.

Anyhow, here is the last batch of pictures. I will try my best not to bore anyone that still bothers to read this drivel.

Here are Jer and Char just after Charlene came down the aisle. I don't know if it was wrong for me to be snapping photos since I was in the wedding party and all, but I figured no one was watching me anyhow so I shot away.

The wedding party was mostly made up of family with the exception of Jeremy's best man and Char's Maid of Honor, here are some pics as we were waiting to get our photos taken.

I found this next grouping of pictures to be pretty hilarious, Josh and Rachel asked me to get a quick photo of the family before Rachel's parents (Two Saints!) took Norah for the day. They instructed me to get the picture quick while Norah was still looking at the camera, and here is what I got.

I especially like the shot of Rachel snapping her fingers trying to get Norah to look in that direction...meanwhile Josh tries his best to maintain a straight face.

So after the ceremony we all piled into the limo and did a bunch of driving around, needless to say we were all crammed in and did our best to stay cool on a rare 80+ Saturday in October. One of the stops we made was the Browns Stadium down by the lake. It was a real treat to go there, and all of my brothers are die hard Browns fans so for them this was exceptionally great.

Here are Jer and Char alone in the seats.

Here are a bunch of other photos from the Browns stadium stop.

Our next stop was the Union Club where I uhh...had a few Martini's, and err...a few...beers before dinner. We didn't have a ton of food in the Limo, though Jeremy's best Man Kenny had breakfast prepared for us, well really his mom prepared all the breakfast; regardless by the time we got to the Union Club I hadn't eaten in god knows how long. So the worst thing I could have done was jump right into the Dirty Martini's.

Which is of course what I did, the reality here is that I didn't get too many other photos until later in the evening when I realized I hadn't taken many pictures at all.

Thankfully the entire time I was having a real blast seeing all of the family and friends together in one spot. A lot of the Elek's from Lorain came in as well, and I was really glad to see my Aunts and Uncles from Dad's side that we don't get to see too often.

I also got the chance to partake in some drinking with Captain Curtiss who attended along with Jeanelle. Marisa and I were so glad to see them, it had been far too long. There are a few people in this world, other than immediate family, who I can just relax and be myself around and it was great to just hang out with Andy and catch up. It was like no time had passed at all, and we got entirely too drunk together.

Well, at least I know I got a little tipsy.

Here are a few shots I had the brains to take during dinner. This was before the bartender starting making me the 3 olive dirty Martini's because "that's how Sinatra took his."

Here are some photos of all the dancing, the Union Club was one of the most beautiful places I have had the privilege of attending a function. It really rivals some of the places I saw in Chicago.

As you can see I really liked the led's in the hardwood dance floor, what a fantastic idea that was. When Jer and Char danced and those lights came on, everyone clapped. It was really an awesome moment.

To wrap it up, a few more pictures I took once the lights came back on and we all had to head out. This part of the night is always my least favorite because it's time to pack it up and go but I don't want it to end.

I wanted to go to another bar, but I think the rest of the people who were with me are getting too old for that sort of thing.

Jeremy Gets Hitched, Part Two: Rehearse

Okay, here I am cramming in some time for part 2 of Jer and Char's wedding weekend here, Marisa and I are really busy trying our best to get this house in order. Since we decided to continue to rent we realized that we have yet to actually unpack much of what we had in Cleveland and Chicago. For about 10 years now we have been saying, we'll do this when we finish school, and we'll do that when we finish school. Then since we moved here we have been saying, we'll do it when we buy the next house...blah blah blah. I think we are just getting sick of waiting on things, at least I know to some extent I am.

However with the current crap going on in the economy I am just not willing to bite and buy a home yet. Oh well, looks like we'll just have to do our best to make this house a home, and we should be able to, the house is nice enough with way more space than we would ever need.

So on to the wedding...On Friday we all got up at a fairly decent time, Bailey woke me up bright and early so she could go outside and take care of some business. She always loves my parents back yard due to the woods being right there. she'll just run back in the woods and come back with some type of stick or blunt object worthy of heaving to the back of the yard.

Other than that we all ate breakfast, ran errands, I got a haircut from Lora, and we basically burned time until the rehearsal dinner which arrived a lot sooner than I expected.

We all headed to St.Anne's Parish on Coventry and Cedar, a church I had driven past on many occasions, but never had the chance to visit. Wow what a beautiful church, that church reminded me that Cleveland really has some distinctive old neighborhoods with amazing examples of early 20th century architecture. It really made me miss our old neighborhood, I don't necessarily love the big box neighborhoods that are going up these days, but everyone has their own tastes.

Here is an interior shot of St. Anne's

We all got there a bit early and met the priest and just generally goofed around. The actual rehearsal was like every other rehearsal I have been to, a sort of organized chaos with all of the wedding party goofing around while the bride and groom try desperately to get everyone to pay attention.

Somehow it always works out and things go without a hitch, I recall my own rehearsal with Jeremy, Jim, and Andy all fooling around...I made sure not to pass on the tradition as I watched my little brother squirming in his shoes.

Here is Jeremy carrying his bouquet as well as what I will assume is a man-purse...unless of course Char already has him chasing down her every whim?

This next set of three photos I found to be really funny. I am not entirely sure what Norah is doing, just sorta hanging out with Grandma Elek and being a goof ball I guess.

I'm not too sure, but Grandma Elek better watch out, that little girl might be taller than her and Aunt Katie pretty soon if Norah keeps growing at this pace, heck she might out-pace her mom and dad soon as well!

So we got all kinds of information and good instructions on how to do walk, how to stand, not to chew gum, watch out for Char's dress, and so on and so forth. Here you can see Jeremy handing out some more instructions while Char stands by...

Uncle Jimbo goofing around with Norah, they were having a pretty good time.

Norah was of course pretty popular, here she is again with Aunt Marisa.

I don't go to the Catholic church too often, so I am not sure if it was wrong for us to sit up on the stage area, or whatever it is referred to as. Either way we did here are Rach and Char sitting around while we waited for the rest of the crew to arrive...as well as some other photos...
After the church we packed it all up and headed down to the west bank of the flats for the rehearsal dinner at the Rock Bottom Brewery. Jer and Char provided all of us with a very delicious dinner, I had some chicken with mashed potatoes, awesome green beans and a salad. Marisa's pork chops looked really good. I forgot to mention the one or two Martini's as well as a great pumpkin ale beer which I heartily enjoyed.

The Rock Bottom served as a really cool place for a rehearsal dinner because we had the upstairs section just above the main bar area, so it was private but it still had the vibe of the restaurant below.

Jer and Char handed out gifts to all of us, we each got Browns T-shirts and big Browns glass mugs with our initials on them. Here are Jer and Char exchanging the gifts they gave to each other just after dinner.

Upstairs they also had a Nintendo Wii which quite a few people played, here are some fun photos of Dad and Jimbo playing.

Perhaps the most fun with the Wii was to be had by Rachel, she was going nuts running all over the place jumping and diving and grunting. It was hilarious. Check out these pictures, both Rachel and Josh are playing, you can see Josh in the shots, but Rachel is just a blur as she dives after a tennis ball.

There was a bunch more to keep us busy here are a few more photos from the dinner...

It was pretty late when we got back to Robley Lane and I was pretty tired. I knew we had a long day ahead of us so I tried to get to bed a little early and get some much needed rest before the big day.

By the way, thanks for the great eats and drinks Jer and Char.

Jeremy Gets Hitched, Part One: RoadTrip

There are a ton of photographs from the weekend prior's wedding celebrations, and I really don't have time to do an enormous update, so I will do 3 quicker updates to get all the photos out there.

So Marisa and I both took off of work the Wednesday prior to the wedding and got the house together, picked up dresses, tuxedos, and other misc. items for the weekends activities. On Thursday morning we drugged up the Bailes and piled all our junk into the car. Thankfully Marisa convinced me we needed to get one of those big carrier doo-dads for the roof of the car so that we could bring the Bailes along for the trip.

I wouldn't say that Bailey has been sick lately, more like she is just really tired of being cooped up in the house for 6-8 hours at a time, and when she starts to get bored like that she just up and stops eating. This of course leads to her loosing a bunch of weight and getting entirely too skinny. With this in mind we thought it might be better to take her along with us, especially since I think she prefers my parents home, with all those other dogs and all the people, to our home here in Madison.

Regardless we piled it all in the car and headed off to Chicago to pick up Josh and Rachel. We arrived in Chicago just as Rachel was wrapping up her day at work, and Josh was finishing his morning classes. Josh and Norah met us out front and we went up to their apartment to get everything ready for the trip.

After some more packing and potty breaks we hit the road...

Here we are all piled in the car, Marisa, Tim, Josh, Rachel, Norah in her car seat and Bailey all the way in the back with a few miscellaneous small bags of stuff.

I don't know why Marisa always tells me I look mad...I mean look how happy I look in that photo...oh btw do you see the most excellent trip food there in the middle? Yeah that's right it's just not a road trip without a bag of Combos to hold you over to the next rest stop.

The ride to Cleveland took a little longer than usual, but I don't think anyone cared too much. We had plenty of time to catch up and listen to Norah's awesome baby CD's, which Josh did his own interesting renditions of...which I won't go into too much detail on, other than to say they are hilarious interpretations of the actual meaning behind nursery rhymes.

Here is the crew pigging out at one of our stops to get some chow...notice our drunk dog sitting under the table looking for scraps even in her disoriented state.

Josh and Rachel in the back during one of the Nursery rhymes, I was going to make fun of Josh for the old man neck collar, but then when I used it I thought wow this thing is pretty great, even if you look like a dork wearing the thing. However I still wouldn't be caught dead with it in the airport.

Norah was a fan as well...

Four "Jailbirds" waiting for the girls to come back from the restroom...

Here are a few other shots I took while we were riding in the car, the sun started going down just as we were leaving Indiana and I was starting to get a little bit restless so Rachel and I switched spots, I think for the first time since I sat in the back while Marisa test drove the V70 I sat in the back seat. It was kind of fun sitting back there on a road trip, reminded me of being a kid in the back of a big silver Chevy wagon heading down to Florida for a summer vacation.

Just as we were getting off of the Ohio Turnpike Norah decided it would be great to fill her diaper with what can only be described as a substance so retched and so vile, even the devil himself would flee to his lake of fire before the odor.

Honestly it was so bad Marisa had to pull the car over to the side of the highway just before the tollway (of course where we were out of any kind of danger from passing vehicles silly) so that Rachel could change the diaper.

Norah was pretty proud of the commotion she raised, here she is trying her best to waft the stench in my direction...

We arrived safe and sound in Cleveland later that night on Thursday, everyone was pretty tired and glad to get some sleep before the rushing around of the next two days.

Hopefully I will get some time in the next day or two to add the next set of photos from the rehearsal dinner. We have been running around like crazy trying to get some of the loose ends tied up here before the cold Wisconsin winter arrives.

Looks like I am going to be purchasing my first snowblower this winter. I can't wait to stand over it, fire the thing up and shoot snow into the air. Then I will deadpan tell Marisa "That thing blows" just like I did when we got our first vacuum cleaner, "That thing sucks."

Holy Crap...here we go again...

Okay, so I normally try not to bring any kind of political ramblings into the blog, but I just could not resist especially following the crazy Katie Couric, Sarah Palin interview as well as the debats on this past Friday.

This image pretty much sums up what I thought of McCain in the debates. Pompus, arrogant, and out of touch. He didn't even seem to look at Obama one time. I got the distinct impression that McCain feels like Obama is somehow below his character.

I can recall meeting one of the upper execs at EA back in the day. The experience felt quite a lot like the image above, I looked the guy in the eye, and he stood there and looked off to the side like he was bored by my presence and handed me a dead fish for a handshake.

Sorry to all of you Republican loving readers of the blog, but I just cannot stand the pompous, entitled cowboy attitude any longer.

Those interviews of course being followed up by Friday nights debate, in which I don't think John McCain looked at Barack Obama 1 time. I could not help but wonder, if McCain cannot bring himself to look at the opponent in a political race who happens to be from the same country, then how will he treat the leaders of another country in a potentially difficult negotiation where there may be even more on the line?

Regardless of your political stance, I don't think there are any words that can explain away the bumbling answers Palin gives when questioned on her comments about having foreign policy experience due to the relative proximity of Alaska to Russia...



Here are a few more eye opening segments when she interviews with Charlie Gibson on 20/20. Does this mean anyone can become a part of a presidential candidacy, I don't hear anything here that impresses me...in fact it is really freaking scary!









Especially frightening are the comments about never second guessing anything Israel does, and possibly having to go to war with Russia.

Here is Saturdy Night Live's take on the interview, really funny any way you look at it. I know there are some family and friends who read this and might be offended by my negative portrayal of Governor Palin, but seriously who can deny the mess she has created with the interviews so far?



I thought that was pretty funny, and honestly if you think that the Saturday Night Live skit miss-represents Governor Palin, then I encourage you to see the rest of the Couric interviews. I was completely blown away when she told Couric she would get back to her on McCain's past economic representation.

She seems to be in over her head...of course if McCain kicks it 2 months after election day, we can count on having the cutest President of all time.

There is so much more I would love to say here...but there is just so much going on, and all I hear is FEAR!

FEAR!
Terrorists

FEAR!
The economic crisis

FEAR!
Chinese expansion

FEAR!
The Russians!...AGAIN!

A friend recommended I check out this documentary on Fear and politics. I found it to be a bit biased but also very informative. Much of what was said makes me think a little bit more about the information we are fed on a daily basis.

Link

In any regard, I know some of you who read this blog might strongly disagree with my opinions here and that is fine. I think that is the beauty of our system, we are allowed to disagree.

Of course if you want to get an idea of just how free you are, I encourage you to go to the airport then tell me you don't feel like we are living out the events of a Ray Bradbury Science Fiction Novel?

At least you are safe right?

Weekend Trip to Cleveland

If you were to speak with Marisa or myself and ask us how the last few months have been going one of us would tell you that more recently I have been working hard, pushing towards each subsequent milestone at work, Wolfenstein is coming along nicely, and Marisa has been enjoying her time at her newer job at the Hospital.

Things have been rather busy with each weekend being pretty full with things to do, and each day having its own goals and tasks to be accomplished. We had pretty much decided to wait on the idea of purchasing a home here in Madison, last weeks headlines all over the news proving our intuitions correct...looks like the housing market is going to take a bigger step down before it begins any kind of upward climb.

We figure it is cheaper to continue to rent and save a considerable portion of our income rather than sink it into a home which might only go down in value for the next year or two. I am sure there are plenty of folks who could give me some kind of logical mathematic reasoning for buying a house now instead of waiting, tax write-offs, blah blah blah, but common sense tells me that there is no better stability in this market, and in the video game industry than a savings account.

I can still recall my mortgage banker trying to convince me to do a zero down loan, and then hearing a financial adviser tell me to switch my mortgage we had in Cleveland over to an interest only loan about 3 months before Marisa quit working and went to Case full time for two years.

This guy had it all figured out, if I went to an interest only loan, then I would have lots of money left over each month to invest in his recommended stocks, as well as money to upgrade all those things that needed work in the house. Because of course your home is never going to go down in value...years and years of increases in home values had proved it. Something in this smelled bad however...and of course after doing some research I found out it was going to cost me $2k to refinance, and guess who was going to get some $$ from that transaction? You guessed it...the financial adviser. Not to mention I could not understand the logic of having this ridiculously large amount of debt just looming over our heads, and never once paying down the actual debt. I really wonder just how many people were duped into throwing aside common sense to go on the advice of these so called experts.

Of course my home did go down in value, and we sold considerably lower than what we paid for the home, not to mention all the painting, repairs, carpet, floor refinishing etc. we did.

Needless to say I am totally baffled by everything that has gone down in the financial sector these past months/weeks. I cannot begin to say that I fully understand the whole of it, but having gone through my own home-buying experience during the "boom" and then selling during the "bust" I can see first hand where it all came from. I am just thankful Marisa and I erred on the side of caution.

Enough of that crap, I hope that doesn't sound like I think I am some kind of fiscal genius, god knows I am not...more like just really shocked by what has happened.

So this past weekend I was happy to be given a nice long 4 day weekend by Raven. The team has been working pretty hard as I said, and Raven and Activision decided we needed a little break to get some rest and come back fresh.

It timed up really nicely with my trip home to hang out with my family for Jeremy's Bachelor Party weekend. I caught one of those teenie tiny jets out of the Madison airport and flew into Cleveland where I was picked up at the airport by Jeremy.

These tiny jets drive me nuts, there is so little space in them and wow can some people prove to be exceptionally rude on them.

It was nice to have the 30-40 minute car ride to my parents home alone with Jer. We don't seem to get too much time to talk, and he was filling me in on things with his new job at Swagelok. It sounds like he really enjoys working there, and I feel good knowing my little bro is working at the same company as Andy Curtiss. Both Andy and Jeremy are engineers, with Andy having been at Swagelok for about 10+ years now. I can still recall picking Andy up at work to go out drinking, him wearing the same kind of outfit Jeremy was wearing when he picked me up.

Here we are in the car riding home, goofing off...

We arrived home a little later where my mom was busy getting the place cleaned up and ready for a full house of company for the weekend. I think I have become convinced as I get older that family and friends are perhaps the most important things we could have going in our lives, and getting together with my family proves it true each time, even though we all talk really loud, and sometimes we even yell at each other in our goofy way.

Here's my dad with his first grand-daughter...

Jer and Norah on the couch, Norah rocking the Browns PJ's she loves so much.

Jim got in later that night, and we all just sat around catching up on what everyone has been doing. I think everyone was pretty tired, we mostly headed off to bed early and for the first time since I can recall I got into one bed, while my brother Jim got into the opposite bed in the same room. It was a really surreal moment reminding me of all the years the two of us shared a bed while growing up. Sometimes I wish I could have understood how important that time was.

I wish I had done a better job of appreciating all of it.

Sorry this post is so sappy...sheesh.

Here are some more photos from the next morning, we all got up early and got ready to go golfing, which I had not done in 4-6 years...I think. Gosh I have no idea how long it has been really.

Jeremy and Kenny his best man

We went and played at Wicked Woods out in Russel, perhaps the nicest "cheap course" I have ever played. Of course, I haven't played alot...the first holes were pretty rough because I was feeling pretty stiff and not very confident in my abilities to, uhm...hit the ball in a forward direction.

There weren't enough guys for complete foursome's so we had a couple groups of three, I was paired up with my cousin Chris and Cap'n Curtiss. Here they are sipping on some of the goodies Jimbo had ready for us.

Some more photos from the trip, Uncle Howard and my cousin Scott having a good time, we followed the two of them and Uncle David...

Chris pretty much carried Andy and I through the back nine, for some reason the breakfast of Beer and Beer seemed to handicap my already stellar game...oh did I mention that we got a lunch of Beer at the turn...

This picture pretty much sums up Jeremy's condition after 18 holes of golf, he was hilarious in that ridiculous hat.

After we headed back to Mom and Dad Elek's place and pigged out on brats, pasta, and salad. Of course there was plenty of beer and booze as well. Jim handed out all the prizes for the typical golf outing shenanigans, and we played a couple games of Texas Holdem.

Andy and Jeremy "feeling no pain."

The next morning we were all pretty darn tired, I think you can tell everyone was up pretty late and got the minimum rest needed to operate.

Of course the shining ray of brightness in the morning was Norah, who seemed to have gotten a really great night of sleep. Here she is getting another bath in the kitchen sink...


Of course things came to an end entirely too soon, but I have to say I was happy to get back home to Marisa and Bailey as well. I miss my family and friends, but I always get really anxious when I have to fly out of town and leave Marisa behind. Maybe it has something to do with that two years of leaving via jet...who knows.

So that was the weekend in a nutshell, we are returning in 2-3 weeks for the rest of the festivities, so hopefully we will get to see some of you then.

Monopoly in Madison

Last weekend Josh and Rachel came into town so that Marisa and Rachel could go out and get sized and have their dresses altered for Jeremy and Charlene's wedding. They decided to make a weekend out of it and stayed Friday and Saturday night, leaving in the afternoon on Sunday.

We all had a good time just hanging out and relaxing. We didn't really go out and do too much as Norah wasn't feeling too hot. As a matter of fact I think the only place we really went was the dog park, and a custard stand.

Norah really seemed to feel much better when we got outside in the sun or took a quick walk up to the drug store. Below are some pretty cute photos of Josh and Norah at the park, we took Bailey there while the ladies were doing their thing with the seamstress.

Here they are sitting in the coolest climbing tree I have seen in some time.

I just had to jump up and climb it, Bailey was so funny running around the base of the tree and barking at me while I made squirrel noises.


Later that night after dinner and some custard we played Monopoly. We were all pretty surprised when Rachel told us she didn't like to play Monopoly and when she was a young girl her family did not buy properties or build houses and hotels. I guess they just rolled the dice and went around the board collecting $200 for passing Go each time.



So we all had a good laugh teasing Rachel about not playing the game by the rules...however we soon were no longer laughing as Rachel was obviously cleaning house and she managed to take us all out o the game very quickly. It was so much fun playing with Rach because she got so excited when she would land on Chance or Community Chest. I never saw anyone get so pumped while playing Monopoly.

As you can see we got pretty goofy during the game, I have some other videos here that are absolutely hilarious, maybe at some point I will get more of them uploaded. Needless to say we were all up pretty late and had alot of fun.

The next morning we all got up a little late and just sat around waiting for the Browns game to get started. I was happy to have Josh here watching the game with me, even if the Browns stunk it up.

But the highlite of the afternoon wasn't part of the Browns game, for me it was when Norah got her bath in the kitchen sink. So hilarious, she was splashing and having an all around great time. She didn't even get upset when Rachel rinsed out her hair...

As I write this out the Browns are doing their best to blow up against the squeelers...too bad really...it looks like the Browns just don't have the tight discipline they need to get the job done. All around things look sloppy from play calling to clock management.

Ah well...

Metallica Punched Me in the Face

If you are like me, and you really love to listen to old Metallica you might have been disappointed by some of the more recent releases from the band that defines Metal. Now I am not going to say I didn't like their most recent releases, because I actually did. I will even admit to liking many aspects of St.Anger even though I felt like they whipped the album together.

After finding Mastodon I had pretty much given up hope for the future of Metallica. I expected any St.Anger follow up albums to be flashes in the pan that had some cool riffs, but very little long lasting appeal.

Normally I would have known for months that a new Metallica album was coming, but recently I had just lost interest and was more or less waiting for the new stuff from Mastodon and Iced Earth. Then the other day my brother Jim called and asked if I had heard the new Metallica on the radio. I don't really listen to the radio anymore since both cars have jacks for the iPod, and the radio is filled with lame songs that pretty much all sound the same...so needless to say I had not heard any of the tracks.

Then I fired up iTunes last night...I saw the new album there on the main page and a little glimmer of hope appeared when I listened to the samples. I said to hell with it and bought the album.

Well, all I can say is I have heard about half of it so far, and I look forward to any excuse to get in the car and blast it. I don't know where these guys got their energy from, but the album is a pure thrash metal style rampage.

I am totally stunned and oh so happy to have Metallica back. This is no Whiskey in the Jar, this is Dyer's Eve and Damage Incorporated.

Buy it, get in your black Grand Am and blast it...start with the song All Nightmare Long.