To Valentine or not to Valentine

So, Valentine's day is coming up soon. A little more than two weeks away. I have been going over in my mind what I should get for Jessica this year. She told me I didn't need to get her anything, but I saw an episode of The Office where Pam told Roy not to get her anything because they were saving up for their wedding, and then she was pissed at him for not getting her anything. I'm not going to make that mistake. I doubt Jessica would get mad if I didn't get her something, but it's the gesture that is important. Even if I just get a card I will make her happy. Still, I think I'd rather go beyond the minimum effort of getting a card. But what should I get her? I've been getting her flowers quite a bit lately (roses for Christmas and more just because) and I bought her a ring for Christmas and our anniversary combo gift. She doesn't really wear bracelets and has errings and a few nice necklaces. Chocolates would be OK, but we are trying to behave ourselves and eat right. I looked on the internet for ideas and there were some pretty weird options out there: Sex games, panties, pajama's, sex books, a million variations of fake flowers and flower shaped items (candies, candles, etc). Still, nothing really caught my eye. Really, Jessica has all that she wants or needs. So, what do I do? I think I am leaning towards flowers again. I guess I'm just not really all that creative.

Flickr

So, I added more pictures to my Flickr page. Mostly, they are pictures of the kids. I arranged my picture files on my computer so that each kid has their own folder. I was adding Alydia pictures to flickr, so that's why there are a lot of her pictures at the top. I have run into a a bit of a snag with flickr. A cross road if you will. Apparently, you can put of all the pictures that you want, but only 200 are viewable by others unless I upgrade and pay money. I'm not sure if I am dedicated enough to do that. Really, do people care enough about my pictures for me to fork out money to have all of them out there? They are just family pictures and some vacation pictures. I have all of my pictures on CDs, so I'm not worried about what would happen if my computer dies. Plus, it seems to take a while to load all of the pictures up. I should be more selective, I guess, but Alydia is too cute to cut out any of her pictures. Well, I guess take a look if you have the time and let me know if the pictures are interesting enough for me to add more.

Poker Poker Poker

I have a few big poker games this week. First, tonight is the conclusion of an eight week tournament thatI have been participating in. First place gets $700. I don't really need the cash, but it would sre be nice. The way it worked out is, over the past few months, there have been 7 games where the winner gets the most points and the other players get fewer points on a sliding scale depending on what place they ranked. Really, no one has run away with the game. Everyone has gotten a failry equal amount of points. Tonight, we get chips equal to the total amount of points we've won so far. I think that, out of eight people, I am 5th or 6th, but there are only a few hundred points separating everyone. It should be fun.

Tomorrow, I am hosting a tournament at me house. I am expecting 10-20 players, depending on who all shows up. It's difficult to gauge the nember of people coming because most people don't RSVP. Honestly, I don't care as long and there are enough people for a good game (8 or more). Last time I played, I got my ass kicked in, so I am hoping that I can have better luck with the cards and can control my gambling nature. I tend to play hands that I should fold. Sometimes it works out when the right cards some up, but if they don't I get killed.

Great BSG episode last night

It was strange watching Battlestar Galactica on Sunday Night. It was kind of nice though. Desperate Housewives followed by BSG makes for a pretty good TV night. Plus, Friday is now free for going out or doing something other than watching TV. Actually, Desperate Housewives was pretty good too, come to think about it.

So, the teaser for this half of the Battlestar Galactica season implies a few things: one, that one of the main characters is going to die and two, one of the main characters is a Cylon that we don't know about yet. Let's consider this, shall we? First, do you think that the person that dies will be the Cylon? It would be a good way to proove who the Cylon may be, since they are reborn into a new body when they die. Honestly, I thought that they were showing Baltar download then Lucy Lawless' model downloaded. There was a BSG marathon on MLK day, and there was a ticker at the bottom of the screen with online comments of watchers speculating who the Cylon would be. I think Baltar is too obvious. Maybe the assistant to the president? I don't see it being a major officer on Galactica though. Maybe Duala? Who will die? I think either Duala or Anders. That will open up more possibilities for the Starbuck-Apollo sexual tensions. Honestly though, I think whomever dies is going to end up being the Cylon. what do you all think?

On a side note, Heroes is supposed to be a "question answering" episode tonight. Apparently there is a list that, if you are on it, you will end up having a power. Or something. Honestly, this show is one big tease after another. I doubt any questions that are answered will just lead to more questions. Still, I'm hooked.

Funniest Damn Thing I Ever Seen

I was flipping through the channels Friday night looking for something to watch, now that Battlestar Galactica has been moved to Sunday nights, and I found the most HI-larious thing I think I have ever seen in my life. Think about that. I grew up with Woody, Moe, Herb and Bryan. We had some pretty funny times together. This, my faithful reader(s?), took the cake, the blue ribbon, and all of the other prizes. I turned the channel to STO (Sports Time Ohio) and saw something I couldn't believe: Cleveland All Pro Wrestling. Picture this: A high school gymnasium (or maybe a middle school gymnasium, as it was very small) with a wrestling ring in the middle, metal blockades to keep out the swarming tens of fans (50 tops), and two lights (the kind from a cheesey DJ turn table that you'd see at a wedding reception) high lighting the wrestler's entrance(covered by a black sheet). I paused a moment in wonder. I couldn't believe my eyes. The amazement turned to mild amusement when I noticed that the announcers were calling out the wrestler's obviously scripted moves BEFORE THEY HAPPENED!!! I began to chortle a little. Still I was about to change the channel from this ridiculous farce of pro wrestling. WWE, it was not. Then, it happened.... the one legged wrestler lept into the ring. I kid you not. My eyes widdened. My jaw dropped. Was I really seeing this? Did Industrial Lights and Magic lend some CGI magic to Cleveland Pro Wrestlers? Nope. It was for real. A one legged man. I guess you could have called it a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. That was not the funny part. He was actually getting around the ring pretty well, and I do not want to poke fun at someone that obviously suffered a terrible accident. The funny part was that he was holding his own. Hopping around on one leg, he was trading blows with the other wrestlers who were acting like they didn't know that they could take him down if they swept the one leg out from under him. I guess it wasn't in the script. It amazed me further when the other wrestlers would pick up the one legged man and body slam him, atomic drop him, and many other moves. I kept wondering to myself if it would make the other wrestlers feel strange beating up the disabled. I guess he moved around pretty well, but still...come on. I also wondered, did they use the easily accessible penis as a handle? My amazed amusement climaxed (no, not THAT kind of climax. pervs) when the one legged man hopped to the top rope and leapt off onto his opponent, knocking him down, and eventually winning the match. Seriously, tears were rolling down my eyes. Now, you may think me a terrible person for laughing at a disabled person, but really, if you are going to put yourself into the situation where you look rediculous while performaing a rediculous showin a rediculous setting ending with rediculous results, and expect people to take it seriously, I am going to laugh. And honestly, I wasn't laughing at the man. He overcame his disability to be able to do something that he obviously loves and I praise him. It was truely amazing how well he could move around that ring. It was just the absurd nature of it all. I have the next CAPW show set to record on my DVR.

Mullet Man

Well, no one wanted to play my game, Which One's the Woman, so I will just cut my losses, show you the provile of the man's 'stache and move on. Also, since Mona likes my butterfly picture, I am posting another one. This butterfly was actually outside at the "War of 18 Holes" mini-golf course (the War of 1812 is the war that Commadore Perry fought in.) W e were able to get inches away from the lil' fella when we took the picture.

Oh, I have put a bunch of other pictures up on Flickr.com. Check them out if you'd like.

American Idol: The Show I Hate to Love

It's that time of year again. Time for American Idol to polute our TV sets. I wish I could say that I am one of the few American's that tunes to something else when Idol is on, but I'm not. I held out for the first few seasons, refusing to jump on the band wagon, but I finally caved a few years ago. I think it was the 'She Bang's" guy (William Hong, I think). I love the first few weeks for the absolutely terrible singers that are hilarious to watch. Plus, I hate to admit that I really like Simon's razor tongue. Not in some homo-erotic sort of way, I think he's brutally funny. I have to say, so far this season, I am not really thrilled with the show. There have been a fair share of people that think they can sing, but really can't, and they always get angry when they don't make it through. I think that the problem is the severe lack of good singers this year. Usually, there are some good singers that catch my eye early. Not yet. At least Jewel was on the first episode for some eye candy. She's is a very attractive woman. Really, I think that the problem so far is the focus the editors are putting on the criers. This is for two reasons: 1. there are SO many criers this year that it is getting old and I stop caring. 2. How can these people put so much hope into their poor talent that they actually bawl their eyes out on TV when they get cut? It's not like they go to Hollywood, get their hopes elevated, and they get cut. You don't have the talent, the looks, or the personality to be a pop singer superstar....get over yourself. At least you got on TV.

Put-in -Bay pics

So, I finally posted some pictures that we took while on South Bass Island (aka Put-in-Bay). I hope that these post the way I want them to. I usually just post pictures any which way they go up. I'm hoping that they stay on the left and that I can caption them.

This first picture is the sun set one of the nights that we were on the island. We were standing at the base of Perry's Monument. For those of you feom NW Ohio, Perrysburg was named after Commadore Perry. He was in charge of a small fleet that protected Lake Erie shores in one of the wars (French/India, I think)






This picture is for a game I want to play called WOW (Which One's the Woman?). You may need to save the picture to your desktop and blow it up so that you can see it better. There are two people in the picture, a man and a woman, and you need to guess which is which. Also, you have to admire the SWEET mullet on the one that is actually a man. I'll post the results on a later date.








The third picture is of the Crystal Cave at Heineman's Winery. It's a giant geode that you can go down into and walk through. Worlds biggest geode, I think. They did cut out part of it so that you can go in and out, but it's still pretty cool. Apparently the crystals are really heavy and really worthless (except for bringing in the tourists). By the way, if you like wine, Heineman's has some good stuf and they deliver. We like the Pick Catawba, Sweet Concord, and Niagra wines.





We went to a butterfly house on the island too. This is one of the butterflies that we saw. There were a BUNCH of them in the habitat. You get to walk through and sometimes they land on you. You need to make sure that they are off you before you leave, because they are not indigenous to the area and would cause damage to the eco-system if they escaped.

I need to look into that web site where you can add a bunch of pictures for free (Flickr?) I could just add all of the pictures at once instead of posting a few at a time, occasionally. We'll see.

Trying to think of something new

I have been pretty one dimensional with my posts lately. TV, TV, TV, and movies. Sorry about that. I really haven't done too much exciting lately. I guess I'm not a very exciting person. I think that comes with the kids. It's hard to get out and about when you have to either drag along three kids or find a sitter crazy enough to watch three kids. Still, I should try to put a little bit more effort into this blog than just recapping my daily TV and movie watching.

POKER UPDATE:

I've been playing in a poker invitational over the past few months. Nothing too big, just some of my poker friends getting together to play on Thursdays for an eight week tourney. Instead of winning money at the end or each night, the winner gets the greatest number of points, second place gets fewer points than first, and so on all the way down to last place getting the fewest points. On the last night, we get chips in the amount of points that we accumulate. I haven't won one of the nights, but have come in high enough positions that I am in the middle of the pack. The last night, we play for the real money. I think first place gets a couple hundred dollars. It's been pretty fun. I'm having a one night game at our house in a few weeks (the 26th if you are interested). I still want to try to get into a big tourney sometime (like at a casino) but need to look into when and where they are held.

I'm drawing a blank on anything else interesting to write about, so I suppose I will cut this short.

Have I Mentioned that I am into Smallville Now?

I'm sorry that my blog has seemed less like a window into my life and more like a TV/movie review page. To be honest with you, TV and movies and my life are kind of intertwined. I's not that I am a looser, I just have access to DVDs all of the time. (I mentioned, I am a DVD whore.) Well, my latest TV series I have been watching is Smallville. It's weird that I like a WB show so much. I used to associate the WB with bad teen Spelling-esk dramas and African American sit-coms that are so silly that the main four networks won't pick them up (Moesha comes to mind). Anyway, Smallville is a really fun show. If you don't know, it is about the adolescent life of Clark Kent, aka Superman. It starts off in his freshman year of highschool. The show is fueled by the meteor shower that followed Kal'el (Clark)'s ship from Krypton after the planet blew up. The kryptonite caused some people to gain strange powers. Clark goes through his days fighting these super powered people and fighting his urges to tell his friends his secret (and fighting his urge to get it on with is hot female friends, like Lana and Chloe).

The frst season had mostly one episode stories where Clark would discover a bad guy, batle a bit with the bad guy, and defeat the bad guy. He'd get close to hooking up with Lana (a hottie, by the way) and flirt with the idea of telling his friends his secret. One of the interesting things about the show is that Lex Luthor becomes one of Clark's friends. If you don't know, Lex becomes Superman;s arch nemisis. Lex and his father suspect that there is more to Clark than meets the eye. They try to get to the bottom of why Clark is saving the day all of the time.

The story takes a weird twist when Clark discovers a cave with old Native American writings on the walls. The writings end up being Kryptonian and lead Clark to some answers about his parents and destiny on earth. I'm not too sure if I liked the fact that there are all sorts of Kryptonian artifacts all over the place that give Clark clues of his past and future. I'm not too familiar with the comic books and all of the Superman history, but it all seemed a little weird. I guess it add a lit of a twist to the show. Especially since Lex and his father are finding the artifacts and are getting close to the truth about Clark.

In the perverse nature of my blog, I will give you the hotties list from Smallville, ranked by me, of course. I am not going to include the guys, but it is my guess that women would find Clark a bit attractive. Anyways, the girls are:

5. Mrs. Luthor (I forget her name)- Lex gets manipulated into marrying a hot brunette who tries to kill him and then disappears. I forget her name, but she was quite attractive. Actually, Lex only hooks up with hot women and there are a lot of them.
4. Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) - Clark's best friend that could be more, but they are scared to cross that line and loose the friendship. She has very pretty eyes. Chloe and Clark go to the Spring Fling dance together and almost hook up, but then Lana gets caught by a twister and Clark has to run off to save her. Chloe realizes that Lana will always be #1 with Clark and gives up.
3. Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) - She would be #1 if I hadn't watched seasons three and four yet. That's when Lois and Alicia entered the picture. She is Clark's high school crush. They go back and forth bewteen almost dating and not dating that it gets a little tiring.
2. Alicia (Sarah Cater) - Clark starts dating this girl after she discovers his powers. She also has the power to teleport. She doesn't last long, since she goes crazy and tries to kill Lana and then gets offed herself, but she is definately a cutie. Great smile.
1. Lois Lane (Erica Durance) - This future Daily Planet reporter enters the world of Smallville in season 4. She has a real 'girl next door' look. (I like that) She is definately far more attractive in Smallville than she is in the old Superman movies with Christopher Reeve.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKFUCK!!!!

If you watched the national title game and know I am an OSU fan, you know why I am saying FUCK!!!!!!Dammit!!! That was a horrible game. It was never close. OSU got their asses kicked. FUCK!!!!!!!! No posts for a while. Sorry. I am in mourning. FUCK!!!!!

One To Go

Tonight is the night. #1 Ohio State will be taking on #2 Florida in the BCS National Title Game. At first, I was confused. I thought that the game was going to be the Fiesta Bowl, but I guess they create a new bowl game for the National Title. Am I just a little dense, or is this the first time they did this. I was a little thrown when I saw that the Fiesta Bowl was played last week. I guess that the hundreds of bowl games that were already played weren't enough for the college football community. Woody's Bearcats needed their match up against Western Michigan in the International Bowl. There is a funny You Tube link in his rescent archives with a song about the Dot Com Toilet Bowl. Well, the important game is tonight. I haven't really looked into the point spread or anything like that, but I believe that Ohio State is favored by a bit. The media is making a big deal about how fast Florida's team in and speculate that the Buckeyes won't be able to keep up. I think that the media is forgetting that we have a wide receiver that is an Olympic hopeful. His name is Ted Ginn Jr and he is an Olympic hopeful for a running event. I guess that they need to talk about something. I'd rather have them say that OSU will not keep up with Florida's speed than have them say that OSU will kick the crap out of the Gators. I liked seeing a Florida Gators linebacker talking smack about Troy Smith. Nothing too bad, just that he wasn't worried about Troy's skills. Say that now, because I have a feeling that, tonight, Tressel is going to tell Mr. Heisman that he can run, pass, and do whatever he needs to to win the game.

Well, I won't go intot he game too much. I am just looking forward to it. There have been a few other interesting things that I have thing about the whole BCS Title Game experience:

1. There is a small town in Arizona that was named or founded by an Ohio native called Buckeye, AZ. They are about an hour or so from Glendale, so they trick out the town in scarlet and gray and try to draw the visiting OSU fans in to by their trinkets. By the way, the only fire engine in town was names Brutus (OSU's mascott).

2. In the town of Buckeye, AZ, there is a guy that makes T-shirts that say 'Ohiozona, Where Gators Come to Die." I thought that was pretty original.

3. The #1 team gets to choose if they are the home or away team. Since OSU has been the away team each time they have played in the Fiesta Bowl, Tressel chose to be the away team for the upcoming game. This way, they stay in the same hotel, practice at the same field, and keep the same routine as in the previous years.

My prediction: OSU 24- Florida 10