Tuesday, January 29, 2008

OUR NAME UP IN LIGHTS...

TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY BITCHES...

I'm celebrating by working an 11 hour shift at work...BEAT

On a more positive note, I also get to pick up my new 37" HDtv tonight...

Monday, January 28, 2008

TUMBLEDOWN - MXPX side project



Everything that MXPX's lead singer, Mike Herrera touches turns to gold musically and he seems to have done it again with his new alternative / country side project, Tumbledown. I highly recommend everyone check out their myspace and take in the music. I'm not normally a fan of country, but there's just something about these songs...

Cloverfield....the movie

So on Saturday night, I went to see Cloverfield with Maureen and as everyone had been saying, it was a pretty good movie. It was shot using handheld cameras, ala Blair Witch Project, and apparently there are some people out there who get sick with the jerky movements of the camera but I didn't really have a problem. You just had to look off screen every once in a while to balance your equilibrium. Other than that, the movie was pretty entertaining and action packed. Contrary to the rumors that you don't really get a good look at the monster, it was shown on camera multiple times at different angles so you get a general idea of the make up of the beast.

Because the movie was done by JJ Abrams, the man who brought the world LOST, Maureen is convinced that she can convert me to the "dark side" as a viewer of LOST, but I've never seen an episode of LOST and I never have up until now, mainly because I was spiting my Mom. Keep in mind that I do things in spite of people because I enjoy it, not necessarily because I don't like the person. So we'll see where that goes...

ALL TIME LOW in Allentown...

On Friday night, myself, Dusty, and Pattitude embarked on a road trip of sorts up to Allentown, to see All Time Low at the Crocodile Rock. This was my first time in the fair city of Allentown (excluding trips to Dorney Park) and it was an interesting experience. It took a little getting used to during the show when each band kept saying things like, "What's going on ALLENTOWN?" and "Hello ALLENTOWN". It's tough hearing anything other than "What's going on PHILADELPHIA". But anyway, the Crocodile Rock had two different bar areas, one right outside the concert venue with an adjacent pizza place, and a little bar area in the back of the venue, where those under 21 were not allowed. You have to keep in mind that the average age of ALL TIME LOW's fans is in the teens so that can be a little trying for people our age. So A+ on the setup and atmosphere of the Crocodile Rock.

For the three opening bands, we spent our time at the bar, going round for round, and even buying a shot from the shot girl walking around, who seemed a little intimidated by us (and no Dusty it was not because of you). The opening bands that we did see were alright. I thoroughly enjoyed Just Surrender, who according to Dusty and Pattitude have been around for a little while and have released 3 albums so far. I'm a little perplexed that I had never heard of them previously, but I picked up their latest CD and it is currently a mainstay in my car. May Day Parade was the final opening band and I didn't really think much of them. The only thing that really stood out in my mind was that one of their guitarist kept doing a stabbing motion with his guitar every 10 seconds even when it didn't correspond with the music at all. And their other guitarist was morbidly skinny and he may have also permed his hair.

While hanging at the bar, the three of us also furthered our plans to start a pop-punk band. Dusty apparently wants to be the singer which works in the sense that he dresses effeminately (he'll admit to it) and he could have a pretty good stage presence. Downside would be that Dusty really can't sing, although he claims he'll be taking vocal lessons from his sister. Pattitude is going to play the bass and handle the duties of screamer as needed. And I'm going to be playing guitar and handling the harmonizing duties. I'm thinking we're going to need another guitarist because by no means am I good lead guitarist, but Dusty and Pattitude think we'll be alright with one guitar so we'll see. We've got someone in mind to drum, but if he's not interested, we'll be heading to Craigs List. So hopefully by the spring things should start to get in motion.

Back to the ALL TIME LOW show... right after May Day Parade's set, Dusty and Pattitude decided to head to the front by the stage to sweat among all the 14 year old girls, but I decided to hang back and enjoy the concert by the supposed pit area. I generally enjoy hanging by the pit area and seeing what the kids are up to these days. Keeping in mind that ALL TIME LOW is a pop-punk band, there really shouldn't have been much of a pit - maybe some people could have done some skanking but instead there were just a couple of morons who kept making space and then doing nothing with the space mainly because there was nothing you could do to the music. Yet another reason why I hate the direction that our youth is taking the scene / concert experience in.

In general, ALL TIME LOW's show was pretty awesome. They've got a ton of songs that you just love to sing along to so that made the concert experience even better. The music selection was on par and they even managed to do two covers: "Under my Umbrella" by Rihanna and "Dammit" by Blink 182. They claimed that it was the first time they had played "Under my Umbrella" but I had read about it weeks ago on Absolute Punk so that was a crock of shit. But, they closed with "Dammit" and that was pretty awesome. It was the perfect opportunity for people to skank in the so-called pit, but nobody knew what to do. HORRIBLE. Other than that, the show was pretty awesome. I found ATL's sense of humor to be a little vulgar considering the majority of kids there had to be 14, but I guess that comes with being influenced by Blink 182. It was on par with my sense of humor, but I wouldn't feel comfortable saying things like to 14 year old girls. Oh man, I feel old for having found something to be too vulgar. GREAT.

Dusty and Pattitude emerged from the front of the stage soaking wet with sweat and Pattitude had managed to get a hold of one of the set lists. Having enjoyed a pretty awesome show, we embarked on our ride back home and even managed to go to the "good" Denny's for a late night dinner. And I was able to discover that my new favorite dish at Denny's, the country fried steak, isn't just a breakfast food; it's also on the Dinner menu. So that was pretty clutch. I always feel like shit after eating something that's as unhealthy as the country fried steak, but man does it taste so good going down.

Oh and a final shout out to Pattitude for making it to and from Allentown without any printed directions. He just took a look at the directions real quick and then we just winged it any time he forgot where we had to go next. Apparently this is something he and Dusty do all time so I guess it's some sort of gift...

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Dave & Buster's Debauchery

So last night, we had a post-Christmas party at Dave & Buster's for the ground crew that works at WMGK... We had free food (mini-pizzas, chicken tenders, taco bar, etc.), pool tables, and $10 game cards for each person. Drinks weren't free, but since I ended up carpooling with some people, I decided to make up for the money I saved by spending it on booze. Needless to say, I ended up drinking a fair amount, even managing to save some money by getting a free soda and filling it with bourbon, courtesy of Gill's flask...haha. To add to the enjoyment of the game room, Gill had managed to get two $25 gift certificates, one we put towards a game card, the other to pay off part of our bar bill. Now, I'm not usually much of a video game guy, but I enjoy some of the shooter games every once in a while. And then decided to parlay the game card into winning tickets to put towards meaningless prizes. And we hit the jackpot... We found a machine that had to be malfunctioning because every time you'd swipe the card the max amount of times allowed, you'd win 500 tickets just for shooting a ball into a hole. So we racked up some tickets and went on a shopping spree. Unfortunately, someone had decided to buy extra large pixie sticks with their tickets and someone decided to dump a good amount of that sugar shit into one of my beers which was extremely disgusting. But since the beer was so expensive, I had no choice but to finish it... horrible. But one of the highlights of the night had to be Joe C doing lines of pixie stick sugar off of the back of Gill's next as Gill was trying to concentrate while playing one of the games... I guess you had to be there to find it as funny as we did.

So you ask what did I end up buying with my plethora of tickets? Well I decided to get everyone some candy, a Homer Simpson doll, Al Lee ended up getting himself a Bartman doll with some of my tickets (not sure how he pulled that off), and then I ended up getting a pink Care Bear for my lady of interest... a pink Care Bear?... yeah I was definitely into my drinks that night...haha

Monday, January 21, 2008

HORSE THE BAND - Earth Tour...

So it looks like HORSE THE BAND, one of my favorites, is booking their own world tour of 40 different countries, without the help of booking agencies and other corporate entities of the likes. And they plan on taping the whole excursion and turning it into a video or TV show and they're looking for help. Maybe I should try to get on their production crew... Some of the countries they plan on touring include, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, and Israel... pretty extreme!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Things are Starting to Look up for the Dolphins...

Bill Parcells continued the revamping of the Miami Dolphins organization today with the hiring of Dallas Cowboys assistant coach, Tony Sparano (not to be mistaken with Tony Soprano, FOHGET ABOUT IT) as the head coach. If you couple that with the hiring of Jeff Ireland, another former Dallas employee, as the General Manager, there's a lot of upside there. Could we be looking at the Dallas Cowboys 2.0, two or three years down the line?... I certainly hope so. Sparano had been the Offensive Line coach for the Cowboys this season, but last season he was calling plays for the offense. And Jeff Ireland was Vice President of college and pro scouting for the Cowboys, so he was pretty integral in the formation of that team. The Dolphins also hired David Lee as their QB coach. You might know one of Lee's best protege's... one Tony Romo, who went from undrafted free agent to starting QB of America's team.

Obviously, I realize that football games are won on the field and not necessarily in the front office, but the Dolphins do own the number one pick in the draft which would best be utilized on a lineman, either offensive or defensive. The two names that stand out in my mind would be: Offensive Tackle Jake Long out of Michigan and Defensive Tackle Glenn Dorsey out of LSU. Dorsey was completely dominant in the BCS championship game against Ohio State and is a definite game changer while Long is a franchise Offensive Tackle that could protect your QB for years to come. Out of the two, I'd rather the Dolphins take Long because I think he could make an immediate impact (see Joe Thomas rookie offensive tackle for the Cleveland Browns) and make life easier for John Beck or whoever else could be their quarterback of the future. Speaking of QBs, with their second or third round picks, the Dolphins need to draft a possible franchise QB and have a competition for the starting job. I'm not entirely sure that John Beck is the quarterback of the future, especially since he's now 26, so bringing in young guy would probably be a good idea.

Optimism is pretty high right now for Dolphins fans like myself...

The Demise of Eminem...HAHA

Anyone that knows me, knows that I've always hated Eminem and every thing that he does. So it brought me great joy to find out that he is a "depressed recluse, eating his way to obesity". This British tabloid even went as far as to compare his situation to the demise of Elvis... gotta love it

Athletes & Presidential Candidate contributions...

So I stole this link from Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy, but I found it to be pretty interesting. It's a list of professional athletes and franchise owners and executives who have contributed money to Presidential Candidates' campaigns. Apparently the max contribution that they could make was $2300. Barrack Obama is the leader getting numerous donations from NBA and NFL players and I found it pretty interesting / disappointing that John Edwards' only contributor was Martina Navratilova... And if you take a look at Mitt Romney's contributors, there's Andy Reid making the max contribution to his campaign...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

TOP TEN HST QUOTES




Thanks to Clavin for directing me to this site that supposedly ranks Hunter S. Thompson's Top Ten Quotes over the years from his books, speeches, interviews, etc. While I will admit that these are all awesome quotes from HST, I disagree with the quotes that were included and how they were ranked. But you be the judge...

Maybe Jessica was at the game after all...

Apparently, The NY Post bought a ticket for a Jessica Simpson impersonator to go down to the Dallas - NY Giants game this past weekend to distract Tony Romo. She had a pretty good seat, 3 rows off of the 50-yard line, so maybe Tony did end up seeing her...HILARIOUS

Monday, January 14, 2008

We're talking about practice... I mean PLAYOFFS

Here are my thoughts / ramblings about this past weekend's NFL playoff action:

-We're hopelessly screwed now that the San Diego Charger's depleted team defeated the Colts who were our greatest hope to ruin New England's perfect season. The Chargers are going to be entering their game with the Patriots with Phillip Rivers, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Antonio Gates all nursing injuries. It's going to be a cake walk for the Pats. I've never hated a team more, except maybe the New Jersey Devils of the late 90's, early 00's.

-After riding Brett Favre to prominent status in fantasy football the last two seasons, the Green Bay Packers are now my default favorite team in the NFL (sorrys go out to the Dolphins and Eagles). The Packers looked pretty unstoppable on Saturday and with the Cowboys losing, the Pack have the home field advantage for the NFC championship. With an invigorated Brett Favre, we have a potential "GOOD VS EVIL" matchup in the Super Bowl: Packers vs Patriots... or even a potentially "entertaining for one half" rematch between the Pats and the Giants

-THERE'S NO CRYING IN FOOTBALL!! I'm pretty sure I saw Tony Romo rubbing his eyes after throwing that interception to seal the Cowboys' fate. Romo is now the NFL's new poster boy for Quarterbacks who can't win the big game and I love it. And T.O.'s cry baby act at his post-game press conference was appalling. STOP TRYING TO ACT LIKE A TEAM PLAYER AND TRYING TO DEFEND ROMO!! You'd have no problem stabbing him in the back the second that you stop getting the ball thrown to you... Hopefully the Cowboys will continue to implode next year and slowly become the horrible team that they really are.

-The one bad thing that will come out of the Cowboys' loss is that we will never hear the end of Tony Romo's Cabo vacation with Jessica Simpson. The coach told his team to take some time off and relax, there were no rules against taking a vacation in Mexico, so he didn't really do any harm. But everybody will want to point the finger at that and we'll never hear the end of it.

-Sunday will be the only time I ever openly root for the Giants. Generally I hate everything about them, but to have them ruin Romo and T.O.'s seasons really made my day. Now hopefully they pop a squat against the Packers so we can enjoy Brett Favre back in the Super Bowl...

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

American Gladiators: The Next Generation

Growing up, I was a HUGE fan of American Gladiators - I even remember the names of the main hosts: Mike Adamle and Larry Csonka. And I love watching re-runs of American Gladiators which currently run on ESPN Classic. So when I found out they were remaking American Gladiators, I was skeptical and intrigued all at the same time. After having watched parts of the first three episodes here are my thoughts on American Gladiators 2.0.:

- Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali are horrible hosts... Hulk needs to take some time off and let his divorce sink in and Laila needs to go back to boxing.

- I found out that at any one time, there are 23 different cameras taping any one scene. So instead of NBC just using the best angle out of all 23, they've decided to switch back and forth from all of the angles, affecting the frame of time, and giving me somewhat of a headache.

- The new crop of gladiators aren't as dominate as the gladiators in the original version. Too many of the competitors were scoring high in the events.

- I enjoy the introduction of fire and water to the proceedings. It's added incentive to win the event. Instead of landing on the pillow soft mats, you're gonna get soaked.

- In the Eliminator, they should have the inclined treadmill and the hand bike at the beginning of the event, not towards the end when the competitors are exhausted. Those are the two toughest obstacles of the Eliminator and with the competitors being exhausted when they get to them, they don't really put up too much of a fight. Basically everyone was falling off the hand bike and everyone struggled on the treadmill... AND where are the penalties for falling off the hand bike or rolling log?? AND why do the Gladiators have no involvement in the Eliminator?? That's bullshit.

- And finally, I've found the female gladiators to be extremely hott this time around. I'll leave you with some pictures of the Gladiators and my thoughts on each of them.

CRUSH

I've got a "CRUSH" on her...HAHAHAHA
She's a MMA fighter which is awesome and she's the hottest Gladiator on there. I'd let her kick my ass any day...

SIREN

She looks like a bad ass but I bet she's got a heart of gold

VENOM

She might be a little too muscular for me but there's still something about her...

STEALTH

That outfit doesn't leave much to the imagination

FURY

That pony tail was left over from the 90's verson of American Gladiators

HELLGA
(Picture not included)
She's the size of a linebacker and her name is Hellga so that scares me...

DAN'S TOP TEN ALBUMS OF '07

If I were a good blogger I would have had this posted before 2007 ended but alas you had to wait until now for my favorite albums of 2007, in no particular order:

Say Anything - In Defense of the Genre
Four Year Strong - Rise or Die Trying
Via Audio - Say Something
The Starting Line - Direction
Circa Survive - On Letting Go
All Time Low - So Wrong, It's Right
HORSE THE BAND - A Natural Death
Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer - Schemantics
Kanye West - Graduation
Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight

HONORABLE MENTION: MXPX - Secret Weapon, The Bled - Silent Treatment, The Color Fred - Bend to Break, Tegan & Sara - The Con

NEW TV son...




So after being fed up with continually being kicked off of the family HDtv in the living room by my sisters and mom, I decided to take it upon myself to buy an HDtv for my room as an early birthday present. Considering that my TV room is the size of a closet and space was limited, I settled on a 37" SAMSUNG 720p HDtv. Of course it was on sale at Best Buy when I tried to purchase it so there were none in store. So I had to settle on having it shipped to the store at a later date. Ironically, the tv is not going to be delivered until January 29th, which also happens to be my birthday...

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Politics Update...

It was an exciting Saturday night in the McHenry household... Myself and Bri grabbed some beers courtesy of Marty (the Saranac Holiday Variety 12-Pack was pretty clutch), and some bags of chips and hunkered down to watch the Pittsburgh - Jacksonville. Well it just so happened that on this exciting Saturday night, there were also going to be some Presidential Debates on ABC, both the Democrats and Republicans. Here are my thoughts on the current Political atmosphere having watching a good part of those debates and having followed the Iowa caucuses... CAUCUS!! (I've gotta yell it after I say it in regular context)

On the Republican side, it seems that Rudy Guiliani is dead in the water and if Mitt Romney doesn't turn things around in New Hampshire, he might be following him shortly. I found Ron Paul to be somewhat intriguing. I had seen all of his "Ron Paul: Revolution" signs hanging up all over I-76 and thought he was just some underground Green Party candidate or something like that but evidently, he's a Republican -- but different from the rest. It was kind of funny seeing the candidates overreact after each innovative idea that Ron Paul introduced. His ideas might not all be realistic, but it's a breath of fresh air. Obviously, I'm a little intrigued by John McCain because he tends to lean towards the middle and is not above bipartisan politics, but I don't think he has enough support from the right wing of the Republican party, which is the majority. Fred Thompson was there because he used to be on television... And finally Mike Huckabee, the current front runner courtesy of the Iowa caucuses...CAUCUS!! He's a Pastor, so he's got the religious right in his corner and apparently he's also got CHUCK NORRIS in his corner as well so that is pretty clutch and smart on his part. Chuck Norris is popular amongst young people and viewers of Walker Texas Ranger so the smart thing for Huckabee to do would be to make Chuck Norris his Vice Presidential candidate. AUTOMATIC PRESIDENTIAL WIN!!! Done and Done.

On the Democratic side, Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico was there just for filler... He seemed to be pretty loose and comical up on stage at the debate. He was trying to push the fact that he was the only one with Executive experience, having been a Governor compared to his opponents who have all been Senators, but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Hillary has a bullseye on her back both from Republicans and Democrats. Obama and Edwards were teaming up against her at times, resulting in Bri commenting that they're "Hulk and Animal of the Legion of Doom"... Bri then insisted that if either Edwards or Obama is able to win the Presidential nomination, they'll be each other's Vice Presidents. Which I disagree on, considering they've been aligning themselves with each other, and more than likely the Democratic party would want a VP nominee who would be from the opposite end of the spectrum than the Presidential nominee... but who knows... Barack Obama is the "Candidate of Change" but Charlie Gibson, the moderator of the debate made a good point in saying that Washington generally likes to keep the "status quo" so a candidate of change might not be feasible... As Obama continued to make his points throughout the debate, Edwards kept aligning himself up with Obama reiterating some of the things that he was saying which I found odd... Before the debate, I had been leaning a little towards Edwards just because I think the whole "Candidate of Change" thing is a crock of shit... but now it looks like I might be back on the fence...

FANTASY FOOTBALL RESULTS...

Alright I was a bit of a liar... I had said that I was going to be continually updating my blog but it's been extremely busy around here lately so I dropped the ball... Nonetheless, I am back yet again and this time for good.

So in case anyone was curious I'm going to run down the results of the two fantasy football leagues that I was in.

In Bri's "Pardon the Interception IV" league, I finished in dead last...DEAD LAST. I was doomed from the start, having drafted Matt Leinart and JP Losman as my quarterbacks and for having the gusto to draft Shaun Alexander as my number one RB. I was almost able to redeem myself with my gutsy drafting of Ronnie Brown, who almost singlehandedly kept my team afloat early on in the season... but alas he blew out his knee and that was the last straw for my team. Of course it didn't help that everyone in Bri's league were fantasy hawks, picking up backup players seconds after the starting player was injured. The majority of the time, I wasn't near a computer when something like this would happen, so I was out of luck. Highlight of the season would have to be when one of my starting RBs, Priest Holmes, decided to go into retirement while he was still in my starting lineup. That sums up my year right there.

In TJ's "Definately Ditka" league, I almost shot myself in the foot in the draft forgetting that QBs get a point per completion and not drafting a QB until the middle rounds - Matt Leinart once again (drafting him in both leagues was supposed to make me look like a genius). But luckily, I made sure to draft Brett Favre as my backup, who just so happened to have a renaissance this year and blew up BIG time... definitely saved my season. I also got a little bold in drafting some unproven rookie RBs (Adrian Peterson and Marshawn Lynch) to accent Joseph Addai and Willis McGahee so I was definitely a genius in that sense. The rest of my team was pretty decent and steady for the whole year and I ended up finishing second in the regular season. Of course in first place was Dusty's Evil Empire of a team, riding Tom Brady and Randy Moss for everything they were worth.

In the semifinal round of the playoffs, I lucked out big time going against Team Loges when Adrian Peterson broke out of his slump to have a decent game leading me to a one point win over Loges. Unfortunately, the team that Dusty was playing, Mooseknuckle, was a moron and apparently didn't pay attention to his team. He played Dusty's team in a week when both Tom Brady and Randy Moss played poor games and all Mooseknuckle had to do was play Philly's Defense (against Dallas) instead of Detroit's Defense (against San Diego). He played Detroit's D, he lost by only a couple of points, and I was forced to play Dusty's team which consisted of Brady and Moss, who both were hungry to break single-season TD records. So in addition to both of them having good games during the championship week, the majority of players on my team decided to take a dive as a whole, and I was blown out by the Evil Empire. Dusty won and continues to gloat about it. For the second year in a row, I finished 2nd in TJ's league, but I still did win some money so you can't beat that...I guess...

Don't worry I'll be even more ready for next season... I'm already starting to devise some plans