Lets Pump Some Iron!!!

As I sit in my room trying to figure out what to do on my day off, I come to the realization that right now there are a lot of things to be pumped up for in my life.  Some of them are just in production while others are set in stone.  Let me explain:

• Casino Trip - Since I had such a positive trip to the casino a few weeks ago, I have decided to make another trip out there.  My father said he wanted to go because he scooped up $100 in gift cards to Michael Jordan's restaurant and wanted to spend them.  So I didn't lose last time I went, I don't need to drive up there and dinner is being paid for?!?!? There is no reason I wouldn't you be super pumped about this.
• Lost - Tomorrow is the coveted 100th episode of Lost, tv's best show.  I know first hand (Dirk), that this season has been hard on some Lost viewers but you can not doubt the creative talent this show has in direction, production, acting and writing.  Last weeks episode was a recap show of one of the many story lines.  This episode did get some heat from fellow bloggers and friends of mine, but I think it was just leading up to an explosive 100th episode.  Mark my words, this episode will be amazing!!
• Weather - This past weekend was so beautiful.  Saturday I had to work but it was closely followed by a good game of tennis.  The sun was beaming down her strong rays upon us and all we could do was smile.  This weather quickly carried over to sunday where I participated in the American Heart Association walk at Brewster High School for my job.  Even though I got roasted like a pig, I still enjoyed the walk on the gorgeous day.  If this is what we have to look forward to in the months to come, I really don't know how I'm going to make it through this summer with only 2 weeks vacation.
• Fish - No, not the kind you eat.  Common' guys, you know I can't eat fish!!!  I'm talking about the fish you have in a fish tank, the ones that swim through the water like a knife through warm butter.  I've wanted a cool fish tank for a while now but never pulled the trigger in getting one.  Well, let the research begin.  By the beginning of the summer I will be swimming with the fishes.  

In Festy Wii Trust

Things That Annoy Me For $400 Please, Alex

Birds

When birds are in trees or picking at McDonalds bags on the side of the road, they are bearable.  It is when they are in their natural environment that annoys me, in the air.  I don't know about you, but whenever birds are flying over me all I can think about is one of them dropping a marshmallow colored turd on my head.  I am constantly clinching my shoulders upward, as if that actually does anything, all while keeping an eye on those winged creatures.  It really puts me in a frustrating position because it makes fun situations like a wiffle-ball game or a BBQ a lot more stressful. 

Birthdays

Let me be a little more specific, Pre-Birthdays.  By all means, invite me to your party or shin-dig and throw me a reminder about a week in advance.  But please don't give me a day to day countdown of your stupid birthday.  "Hey Chris, did you know its my birthday on wednesday?...".  "Yes I do know that.  I know that mainly because you reminded me yesterday, the day before, put a countdown on your away message and posted a comment on the Facebook wall of your entire friend list".  I don't want to go through this with everyones birthday.  I have my palm pilot with everyones birthday I need to know.  If your not in there then you better try harder and not by telling me 20 times about your birthday.

Pickle Juice

I would say that this is probably one of the weirdest picks on my list.  Lets set the record straight.  I like pickles.  I can eat them out of the jar or on a sandwich and burger.  But for some odd reason, if I take the last bite of the sandwich and its mainly bread and pickle juice, I might as well have never eaten because now the sandwich is ruined.  There is really no redeeming qualities about pickle juice.  Plain and simple, it just sucks.

Short List

1. Erasable Pens - Just write in pencils
   
2. Left Golf Clubs, Scissors, Guitars, etc - Become a righty, everyone else is
3. New Jersey - NY's ugly step sister
4. Transvestites - Just pick one and run with it
5. Paula Abdul - I would say dumb as bricks but that would be an insult to bricks world wide
6. Political Correctness - America needs to take the stick out of her ass
7. Smelly People - When you fart and smell, its all good but not when your unaware of your smelly scent
8. Punching Bag - Any one want a punching bag?
9. Cops - Not the ones that protect and serve but the ones that try to catch me riding dirty
10. Nicolas Cage - See IMDB - Friend or Foe? post in March 2009

P.E.T.A. Bread

It seems like almost everyday I run into another story about someone's pet.  "Did I tell you what Oscar did the other day when I walked in the door?" or "You wont believe how cute Cheesy is when he is running around in his hamster ball".  No matter who talks to me about their creatures, I just don't understand the love they have for a pet.  I'm sure they feel the same about me, not knowing how such a kind hearted person like myself can be so cold towards animals.  Fortunately, I'm the one with the blog so you animal lovers can get an insight into the head of Festy.

Communication

I am no genius for pointing out that there is a communication barrier between pet and human.  Just like most of human to human interaction, without some sort of mutual communication, a real problem can occur.  Thats how I feel with every run in I have with a dog.  No matter how many times I walk away from it, or how many times I tell it to leave me alone, the mutt keeps coming back for more.  For someone who has a dog and has already developed a mutual communication, it is very hard for you to understand where I am coming from.  I don't want to meet someone and then try and develop a form of communication with them.  It's the same with dogs, if I can't talk to you when I meet you, then our relationship is doomed.  Sorry dog.

Mind

To go along with communication, it is very hard to determine what's on the pets mind and that is very scary.  For this, I turn to my expertise in the field of felines.  Cats are the most boring pet in American Households to date.  All they do is walk around quietly, nuzzle up against your leg when your not paying attention and stare at the window meowing until they try to randomly climb up the closest wall.  What I feel most dangerous about these cats is the fact that they can attack at any minute, from any direction, without being detected.  I've stared into the eyes of a cat before and I couldn't get any emotions out of her.  She just stood there with her tail straight up like she's about to attack her prey.  Luckily enough for her, I retreated sparing her life if she tried anything.  These are the things you have to worry about when knowing what's on your pets mind is out of the question.

Pointless

I've touched upon barriers with cats and dogs but I can see why people have them.  Cats can be cute and cuddly and dogs can be playful and smart.  But some pets are just plain dumb to have and they go under my pointless category.  Any pet that goes in a tank, that is not a fish is pointless.  Gerbils, hamsters, mice, snakes, iguanas, turtles, all pointless.  Name one fun thing you can do with any of these pointless things that you cant see while searching on the internet.  "Ohhhh, I have so much fun watching my turtle Michelangelo walk around my living room going 0.0038 MPH".  There is no way you have any level of enjoyment watching that.  Same things with gerbils, hamsters and mice.  When they are not in their cage, they are running around in a stupid plastic ball like an American Gladiator.  Again, not fun.  Fun would be spinning that ball around like a dreidel and then letting poor little Harry try and find his way back to his dumb converted fish tank.

In Festy We Trust

Disclosure

No matter what I have said in the past or what my actions might have said for me, I sincerely do not wish harm on any animal.  But as an act of precaution, I always have my guard up ready to defend myself if harm shall seek me or someone I love out.

Murphys Law

 

Greetings-

 

The following will be one in a series of articles I plan to contribute festys blog chronicling awesomely bad movies and maybe some other things I decide to rant about. Until festy forces me to get my own blog. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

 

We’ve all been there. One night you come home from a long night of barstooling, you find yourself watching a movie you know is bad, but you know every line to. All of a sudden the sun is rising and you’re still watching the same movie until the end. These movies can be marked by a number of characteristics-

 

1. Terrible nicknames
2. Quotes that are meant to be serious but end being hilarious
3. Over the top action sequences
4. Poor acting

 

Awesomely Bad Selection #1

 

The Fast and The Furious

 

Nicknames-The Mad Scientist

 

Quotes-“I live my life a quarter-mile at a time”

 

Action sequences-Last scene involving a drag race jumping through a train

 

Poor acting- Every Asian in that movie couldn’t act. Paul Walker wasn’t anything special either.

 

I saw this movie when it first came out in 2001. I didn’t have much movie critiquing skills back then. Over the next few years I would catch it whenever it was on tv. Lately it has been on a lot due to the release of the 3^rd sequel in theaters. I found myself watching it and appreciating how awesomely bad it really is. The action sequences are fun, the characters are enjoyable (especially jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez in scantily clad clothing) and the dialogue is always entertaining. Vin diesel might not win an oscar anytime soon, but he can carry a film on his shoulders. Hopefully he can get back on top after a few bombs.

 

Not a cinematic masterpiece, but one that you might find yourself watching next time its on tv and theres nothing else on.

 

Be Well

 

-Murph

Casino Trip '09

Well folks, it only took about 3 and 1/2 months for Casino Trip '09 to take place and it was well worth the wait.  Luckily I had off on saturday which made the departure time to Mohegan Sun a lot more convenient for everyone.  So, we leave Mahopac around noon time in the pouring rain.  It wasn't until we got 15 minutes to The Sun that it stop raining which made the trip a little annoying.  But we got there with no problem and that is all that matters.  Like any functioning democracy, we huddled up before hitting the casino floor to decide on a plan of action.  The Plan: 2 hour gambling session, meet for dinner, 3 hour gambling session, leave for home.  Pretty standard plan of action for any day trip to a casino.  We broke the huddle and away we went!

My first stop was Let It Ride table.  I had a pretty lame table, nobody was really talking.  When I would congratulate someone on a good hand they would barely smile.  The table was boring and painful to play at.  Thankfully, that changed when my new friends Nicky and John came to sit down next to me.  Now your probably thinking, Nicky and John, who are these characters?  They are bikers from New York and had the spark this table needed to become alive again.  They were smokers, like all my biker friends are, and that was the main controversy at the table.  We had an idiot dealer who was not very friendly and when ever people smoked, he would complain about.  But John was not having any of that especially in the smoking session.  "You hear this guy? (nudging me on the elbow) Who the f*** is this guy?"  Yeah, pretty intimidating, I know.  So when the dealer left for break, John told him as he was walking away that he should go suck on a respirator to get clean air.  It was quite an experience that I wish more people could be a part of.  Chip count: bought into table with $200 and left for dinner with $200.  EVEN

Feeling pretty good at this point, I headed up to Michael Jordan's Cafe, the meeting place for dinner.  It was already known how great this dinner is going to be prior to even stepping foot in the restaurant.  For an appetizer we had BBQ Chicken Spring Rolls with jalapeno ranch dressing.  OMG!!!  Words can not describe how satisfying these rolls of spring were to our already hungry stomachs.  It was the perfect amount of crusty spring rolls mounted on a double layer of BBQ sauce and jalapeno ranch dressing.  My complements to the chef.  I must say that my dinner choice was not solely mine.  I heard what Simone was ordering and quickly changed it over to what he spotted, the Knife and Fork Ribeye Steak Sandwich.  Bottom layer was a piece of toasted garlic bread with melted swiss cheese.  On top of the garlic toast was a healthy piece of ribeye steak with a layer of mushrooms and onions.  Oh, but thats not the best part.  On top of the garlic bread, swiss cheese, steak, mushrooms and onions was a layer of onion strings.  It really tied the sandwich together.  Appetite count: came to the table really hungry and left completely satisfied.  AWESOME

Post dinner, we hit the tables again and I went back to the same table game, Let It Ride.  I was very swingy again.  I was down and then made a good run back up.  Two hours later I had found myself back to the same $200 I bought in for.  At that point, I had got up from the table for a few reasons.  1.  I have been teaching Dirk how to play the game and he was interested in playing  2.  I was getting pretty bored at that table  3.  I wasn't making much headway in my bankroll.  I have still be playing with the same $200 I started with (when you break even at the casino, it should really be considered a win).  So Dirk and I were at that table for a little while until we decided to hit up the Video Poker scene.  What a dumb idea.  It wasn't dumb because I dropped 40 bones on it, but because it provided about as much excitement for me as a wrist watch exhibit at a museum to an amputee.  Dirk didn't mention his excitement level at this point but I'm sure he was on board with me.  Chip Count: bought into table for $200 and left with $200.  Bought into video poker for $40 and left with my dignity.  Down $40

Something I like to do before leaving the casino is hitting the roulette table.  When I am losing it is a quick way to win back some money (obviously if you get lucky).  When I am winning, I don't feel bad spending more money on the table.  So I threw down one of my $100 chips and played for a while, hitting some numbers and missing a bunch.  As fate would prevail, I lost the money after about 30 min.  I could have walked away at that point down $140 but I was there to gamble and gamble is what I did.  I pulled out the second $100 chip and went off to the races, not alone.  Dirk jumped on the ride with me calling me a evil temptress, but if it wasn't for this evil temptress, he would not of had a positive run on the roulette table.  So your welcome Dirk Hartog.  So we played countless spins of the wheel, hitting numbers after numbers.  The good thing about roulette is when you have a bankroll that if you lose $100 or $200, you can still put up more money and make it back relatively quickly.  I play the same numbers every spin: 13,14,17,18,21-24 combo and 31.  Two of these numbers came out a bunch of times, 13 and 17 and those are the ones that made the stop at the roulette table so profitable.  Chip Count: bought into table for $200 and left for home with $500.

Overall, I won $260 at the casino yesterday ending my 3 time casino trip losing streak.  I am happy to say that I am back on top of my gambling game and I hope to stay on top for a while to come.

It has come to my attention that a number of my faithful blog followers were a little concerned about my absence from last weeks posting.  I assure you that I am alive and well.  I can only promise to make it up to you all by double posting this week.  So stay tuned.

In Festy We Trust