Weekly review

There hasn't been too much going on lately. You probably guess that by the lack of posts. My bowling league is coming to a close, which is a bummer, but I think I am going to join a summer league this year. I want to maintain my good skills. I am going to end this year with an average just under 200. A 199 is awesome in my book. I would say that I am probably in the top ten of my league. A 220 average would be nice, because I would be able to joint the PBA, but as far as a local men's league goes, 199 is not shabby.

Spring always makes me happy. I have a LOT to do outside. The garden is the priority, but I also need to spray weeds in flower beds and put stuff on my grass. I keep playing with the idea of hiring True Green, or something like that, to spray my weeds. The pokey weeds get pretty bad in my back yard. I want to put some lattice around my deck so that the dogs can't get under there anymore. I have some already, it is just a matter of putting it up. I also think I am going to add a flower bed in the front. I will put a rock border around it a perhaps plant a weaping cherry tree and suround it with tulips. I don't know for sure. Maybe I will just cut down the ugly tree we have out there now and put the cherry tree in its spot. The tulips are a must though. I had a bunch at my old house. If I had more time and more money, I would put in a munch of flower beds all around my back fence. Now I get to contend with a chronic back issue too.

Remember when I said my back was hurting? Well, I have arthritus (sp?) in my lower back. Let's hear it for an older person ailment showing itself in my 34 year old back. Awesome. There isn't anything I can do about it other than take anti-inflamatories and asprin. Like I said, AWESOME. The pain hasn't been too bad lately. Still, it makes me less likely to want to do things that require me to get up and move around. Still, I always find a way to get done what needs to get done.

Full tilt

I've played poker online before, both on my computer and on my Xbox, but never for money. Well, that has all changed. Today, I opened an account on Full Tilt Poker. I started out safely, playing only with pretend chips, but today I put in $60 just for a little bit of gambling fun. And fun it is! So far, that $60 is over $300. I really don't know how or why. I am not a great card player. I guess I am getting good cards. Plus, insteadof playing people, I just play my hands. If I have a good hand, I bet. I have been doing pretty well. I did have two hands that really hurt though. One hand I flopped a flush but one of my opponents caught a full house. Then it happened again. Only I had a straight. I started playing Texas Hold'em, and I won a little over $100. Now I am playing Omaha, which is a little different. It is played like hold'em, but you get four cards to start out. It is wicked fun. You have to use two and only two of you cards, plus the five community cards, to make your hand. Basically, you look at your four cards and see how many hands you could make. What can draw into a straight, or a flush? If you have enough good combinations, you are usually good to go. I usually play if I have 4 or more good starting hands. For example, if I have A, K, 2, 5, with two hearts and two clubs, I have two flush draws (the hearts and clubs) and four straight draws (A-K, A-2, A-5, and 2-5). It is a lot to keep track of. When people are betting, the pots can get really big. Fun times.

BSG Bummer

Well, BSG is all done. The show finale was this past Friday. I must say, I was a little bummed to see the show end, but am glad that it is over. The last season was pretty weak an the finale was pretty lame as well. The show started out great and sustained for several seasons, but this last season had the feeling like they were just throwing eposides together just to fill up the last season. The last few episodes were full of flash backs that made no sense and seemed pointless to the show. There was one good battle scene in the finale, but then the show just kind of gave up on itself. The questions were never really answered. Oh well. The one thing that I really wanted to know was, what the hell was Starbuck? She died, came back, found her own corpse, and then vanished again. Wasn't she supposed to be lead the human race to their doom? It made no sense to me. I guess if you think about it, the way the show ended,with the flash forward to the colonist's future being our present, maybe Starbuck did lead the people to their doom. If "all this has happened before and all of this will happen again" then the human race must be in some sort of loop that repeats. They advance their technology, build the cylons again, get killed by the cylons again, kill the cylons again, and then start all over. Again. I guess the BSG people wanted to make a statement about how technology would be our doom.

I Bowl With Teenaged Girls

Well, not really, but there are similarities. First, let me tell you a few rules we have as a team:

1. We play poker. $1 ante the first two games, $2 ante the last game. If you get a strike or a spare, you get a card. If you bowl a turkey (three strikes in a row) you get a bonus card. If we all bowl a strike in the same frame, we all get a bonus card. If you bowl a gutter ball on the first ball of your frame, you must put an extra dollar in the pot. The person with the best had at the end of the bowling game wins the pot.

2. We kind of do a beer frame thing, where if everyone but one person gets a strike in the same frame, the person that does not get the strike is supposed to buy the next pitcher. We don't really enforce this because we usually only buy one pitcher each per night. So, if the person that gets stuck already bought a pitcher, we let it slide.

3. (the important on to the story) If you bowl below 100, you must go to the front desk and have your name and score announced over the PA. Basically, we want to you "man up" if you bowl like crap. It's a bit of a deturant. We don't normally enforce this one either. It is something we are supposed to do, but when someone bowls under 100, it doesn't always happen. (I never bowl under 100. I get mad if I am below 150.)

Last week, Rick bowled a 97. It was the last game of the night and after, he went straight to the front desk. It was suprising because, as mentioned above, we usually let it slide. Rick is the weakest link on our team, he has had his poor scores announced before, but we usually have to do it for him (which is why we usually let it slide). Anyway, a minute or so after Rick is at the front desk we hear the announcement congratulating JESSE for his 97. Well, Jesse was not happy by this. Going into the tenth frame, Jesse had 8 strikes out of 9 frames. He had a great game going. As expected, everyone in the league started laughing and poking fun......at Jesse. Jesse got distracted and screwed up in the tenth frame. He blamed Rick. Since I am in the last position to bowl, I missed all of this, but apparently Rick and Jesse exchanged words. No blows were exchanged, but Rick basically quit the team and Jesse was not saddened by this. WHAT???? Are you kidding me? I was very much reminded of some of the tiffs and spats that were common back in my highschool days. I tried to mediate, but to no avail. Jesse won't budge, Rick won't budge. Craziness.

Going Dancin'

Ohio State has made it into the Big Dance. After a pretty good season and a good showin in the Big Ten tournament, Ohio State get the nod as an 'at large' selection into the Men's basketball tournament. The Big Ten tournament was pretty fun to watch. OSU made it to the finals after beating up on favored Michigan State. they lost in the finals to Perdue, but that is OK. They showed they can roll with the big boys by taking out MSU, but won't be too cocky. I don't know how far they will go in the tourney. they should make it past the first round, but will likely meet #1 seed Louisville in the second round. If they play as well as they did against MSU, I think the Buckeyes have a good shot at going pretty far in the tournament. I guess we shall see what happens. All in all I am glad they have done well so far and hope they put on a good showing for the little respected Big Ten.

Who Watched the Watchmen? I did. B+

There may be some spoilers!!!!

I went to see Watchmen this weekend. I was looking forward to the movie, mostly because the trailers kicked ass. I honestly had no idea what the graphic novel was about, other than it was a superhero type story. It is set in the 80's and is in a world where America won the Vietnam war, Nixon never left office, and the Cold War is raging. Oh, and there are masked vigilanties that catch criminals. The story does a lot of flashbacks between the current set of heroes, called the Watchmen, and the original group, called the Minutemen. There are connections between to two groups that are really the catalyst of some of the plots. Also, the 'heroes' are only that because they focus their energies on catching bad guys. In general, some of them are flawed people with violent tendancies and contrast greatly when compared to groups like the X-men or Fantastic Four. I guess what I am trying to say it that they have little regard for the life of the bad guy. One of them is a war mongering psycho and another is a sadist nut job. There are others that aren't as bad, but they clearly have an 'above the law' attitude. It was really a very interesting film. There was a twist at the end that you could kind of see coming, but other than that, the effects were spectacular, the characters were interesting, and the action scenes were bad ass. The one thing I couldn't quite get was, why were these people considered superheroes? Aside from Dr. Manhattan, a blue man with the power to do, basically, anything, none of the Watchmen seemed to have super powers beyond the ability to kick ass. Maybe it was all super speed and strength. Other than that, no one could fly, shoot eye beams, or control the elements. It added a neat demension to the film,in that it seemed like these were normal people that put on masks in order to stop crime. I think I want to get the graphic novel so that I can get the whole effect.

Aside from the general goodness of the movie, Watchmen had one of the sexiest love scenes I have ever seen in a movie. Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II go out and do some crime fighting and after, they hook up in their ship. The Silk Spectre II is probably the hottest superhero ever to grace film. I think it is a combination of her hot latex outfit and my latent teen superhero sex fantasies that made the scene so hot. (sorry for that glimpse into myself that may have made you all throw up in your mouths a bit.)

My one beef about the film: Too much blue dong. Dr Manhattan was turned blue in the acident that gave him super powers, and apparently, he no longer feels the need for clothes. When out in public, he would wear a suit or a cod piece, but in general, there was a lot of blue dong when he was on screen. It was CGI blue dong, but still, blue dong. A great update to the movie would have been to make Dr Manhattan a woman! :-) (Sorry. more latent teen perviness!)

BSG Bye Bye

Well, there are only a few episodes left of one of my favorite shows, Battlestar Galactica. The show has been great over several seasons, but I think it is a good thing that it is coming to an end. The edgy, exciting, high speed, kickass show has crawled to a crawl-like funeral march. It's sad really. I have enjoyed the show SO much and now I am looking forward to it being over. I'm not too sure when BSG jumped the shark. Maybe when all of the remaining Cylons turned out to be main characters in the colonial fleet. Last Friday's episode was almost a 'goodbye' episode. Galactica is falling apart and is projected to be useless sooner rather than later. Friday's episode had Adama walking around lovingly carressing the inner supports in a drunken stuppor. I'm really not too sure how the show can end to my satisfaction. Earth was a bust and I don't see three or four episodes being enough time to resolve all of the show's conflicts. Well, I am hoping for the best.

New Glasses, Back Pains, and Guy's Night

I went to the eye doctor last week to order some new glasses. I mostly wear glasses now rather than contacts because I work from home and glasses are easier. I have eye insurance, so it is pretty cheap for me to get new glasses. I think the pair I am getting is $70, including the exam. Without insurance, they would have been over $400. This is the one insurance that is actually worth what I pay. It is a good thing because the glasses I have are all scratched.

My back has been killing me the last two days. I am not sure why. The only thought I have is that I pulled something bowling Thursday. It seems to be getting worse though. Maybe I slept on it wrong or something. I have been trying to stretch and have been taking pain pills, but nothing seems to be helping. Hopefully one more night will make it better.

Tonight it going to be just me and the boys. One of Jessica's co-worker-s mothers passed away and Jessica wanted to go to the funeral in Toledo. So, she is taking Ally up to T-town tonight where they will be staying with my parents. Then, Ally will spend the day with my parents while Jessica goes to the funeral. My parents and Ally will enjoy it, at least. As for me, I wanted to go bowling, but my back (see above). Maybe I will take my .38 and do some target practice. I haven't done that for a while.