Cue The Jefferson's Music

Looks like I'm moving on up. This blog is way to unreliable and to be honest.....shitty. It always seems my best entries are never made because the fucking site is always down. With my domain renewal coming due here soon it was time to put it to use. I present my new blog:

The more reliable Now Playing blog at MasterofDVD.com

It's not the final version of what I want but I'm in the process of fixing it up and settling in. Setting up this blog was looking to be a real pain until I realized my domain offered the software and it took about 30 seconds and 2 clicks to get it all setup. Since the blog worked so well once I knew what was going on I figured I would create a forum. I have a few friends scattered around the place or will be in the near future. I'm hoping all these people will join so I we can keep tabs on each other.

I'm even sure excited to have my own RSS feed!

I'm done being geeky and if you need anything else.....you know where to find me.

P.S.

Join my forum!

Is That Your Final Answer?

So what is all this shit about Pluto not being a planet? Instead of having all these nerds looking for alien life or Armageddon sized death rocks they are all debating each other in a sealed room. I guess I have no problem with them trying to classify things a bit better but from what I hear their definition of a planet, while excluding Pluto, now opens up the chance for many more planets to be named. Now middle school science projects will take far more styrofoam balls and now that cute little saying we all learned in school is totally useless. Then again how much of what you learned in science class really useless once you graduated. I honestly think that Beakman's World, Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye The Science Guy taught me more than my high school science teacher and I probably remember their stuff better. The debate might be over but it seems a few folks are trying to get things switched back. I really don't give a shit either way but if they do reach a conclusion maybe they can send out postcards to everyone just we know what their final word on the matter is. Also if they can print a new saying to remember the order than would be great because now My Very Energetic Mother Just Sent Us Nine just sounds fucking stupid.

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My blog was down again the other day. My renewal for my domain is coming up soon and I'm looking into some programs that will help me post my entries on my domain since it is far more reliable. WordPress is free and works on my site but I am absolutely stumped as to half the shit on their page so I highly doubt I will be able to install or use it without some outside help.

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Since the free download of Texas Hold 'Em showed up on XBOX Live Arcade less than a week ago I have played over 1,000 hands. I can't say I'm any better at the game because my bankroll hasn't grown that much. It's a really fun game and it's very addicting. I'm not really into gambling and it has me hooked. The first and only time I went to a casino I think 3 of us split 20.00 and we actually got bored and grew tired of winning and wasting time inside the place. We eventually gave our remaining coins away to some random person who was far more obsessed than we were. I'd never gamble with real money again because it's dumb and when playing on Live I have no self control or common sense when I play.  

As Entertaining Live As On CD....Which Is No Huge Compliment

So the Toby Keith concert is over. I guess I will try to go in some kind of order with this story.

The parking lot/party area there is something else. I've been tailgating before at football games and it's nice that the people last night are bothered by the technology and conveniences that football fans have been using since the 60s. Some of the groups were a bit more refined than others. We scattered some coolers around and set up the small grill. We grill some burgers have our dinner within 30 minutes or getting there. Now we have about 5 hours to stand around and look at each other. It's weird that I stick to mainly soda and all the country fans I'm with drink themselves silly. I'm sure I have a crystal clear memory of an event I would like to forget while I'm sure they all have a cliff notes version of the night. To be honest things outside weren't all bad. The people we went with we pretty cool even if I had nothing in common with them.

The setup at Post Gazette Pavilion is very odd. Outside the gates it's a barren post-apocalyptic wasteland. At any minute you expect Mad Max to drive by but honestly I think he's too refined to be caught dead at this event. Once inside the gate it's like a county fair sponsored by all the US beer makers. They had outdoor bars far nicer than the parking lot, some games, various vendors and bathrooms much nicer than the plastic boxes outside the gates. The only downside is the prices at these stands resemble those at airport vendors. The only beverage that looked good to me was some frozen drink that was 11.00. I went drink-less for the entire show other than a sip of Yuengling which wasn't that bad.

We skipped the soundcheck "band" and walked in while Joe Nichols was on stage. I can't say I know his name or face but I've certainly heard his songs. He really was fairly enjoyable even if he is kinda creepy looking. Then we had to wait longer than I hoped for the main show.

It started with Ford commercial cleverly disguised as a video about how Toby won't sell out to anyone. I might of been the only person in the crowd sober and intelligent enough to catch the irony. Then he did a montage of about 5 songs where he threw in references to Pittsburgh and the Steelers wherever he could. The crowd ate this shit up while I couldn't help f think if the gag on The Simpsons whee the rock star had to look at the town name taped to the back of his guitar to remember what to yell. My view of Toby was obstructed by a large pillar and it would of required me to move a foot either way. My wife noticed this about halfway into the show and made a bigger stink about it than I did. A few more songs were played and finally the man spoke. His slight pause was to announce that he had a movie coming out and then we watched the trailer up on the large screens. He thought brought out of his costar who would of been cute without the stupid fucking hat she wore. They sang a song together and then she sang one solo. I figured the show would be about 2 hours and I was just about right. His patriotic ending was pretty good and certainly the highlight of the show.

I couldn't get into the music very much but I did enjoy the other parts of the night were fine. I'm so tired today from standing around so much that I may just stay home and do nothing. That's a real shame since today was my day to "payback" the wife and make her do anything I wanted to make up for yesterday. 

Alcoholism Really IS A Disease

I stand behind my blog title because I strongly believe that only sick fucks drink beer. My wife, the one exception to my previous sentence, bought some beer the other night. She was having one and talking about the kinds of beer she likes. She mentions how she hates Budweiser because it's bitter and how she prefers Coors or Keystone Light. She pushes the can my direction and like an idiot I take a sip.

I've never had a beer I like. In college I only drank beer because it was accessible. I would drink numerous beers quickly to speed up the process of getting drunk in the hopes that after the first 10 minutes of drinking I'd be too fucked up to taste the nasty swill. I remember putting Pina Colada mix in my beers at a party once because I just couldn't deal with Milwaukee's Best, The Beast!, any longer. Someone mistakenly tasted my beer, I was busted and was "punished" by roommate and his asshole friends. Beer and I have a difficult past but now and then we run into each other and we are quickly reminded why we never hang out. The beer tonight was shit too. Looks like I am forever cursed to overpay for gay little mixed drinks.

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I ordered Arrested Development Season 3 last night. It seemed like a good deal but I will have to wait a bit longer to have it in my hands. Tom came over the other night and watched 6 episodes with me. I've been able to share this show with a few people and all of them have enjoyed it greatly.

Lost Season 2, My Name Is Earl Season 1 and Smallville Season 5 all come out soon. I've got a little cash tucked away that is only to be used for the purchase of some of these shows. Movies and all other shows can take a backseat for a bit because these are all must-see-TV-on-DVD.

Let Them Eat Cake

I come last night to find that I was walking into the middle of a birthday party that my wife was hosting. She had a number of her friends crammed into our place and they all seemed to be having a good time. I take turns between being slightly social and focusing only on my computer screen. Pretty soon it's time to sing the gay little birthday song and cut the cake. The cake is passed around and I skip it since I think it looks nasty and inedible. The rest of the quests seem to enjoy it. Before we know it the one guest is in the bathroom prematurely returning all the food that she ate at the party from the improper end........a nice way of saying she was barfing. When she comes out everyone is asking her what is wrong. She assures everyone it can't be what she drank since she hasn't had much and normally consumes far more at other parties. Then she casually adds that she is highly allergic to egg whites. When asked why on earth she ate the cake she says it just looked good and she had to have some.

It's not a bit part of the story but it might help say that she is a pretty big girl. But size doesn't matter so much when the real problem is gluttony. I would imagine that such a severe and gross reaction to a food item would cause most folks to avoid these irritating items. This option is something this girl just doesn't even considering when presented with a huge slice of something she'll only be keeping down for a short period of time. To add another level of madness to the story this girl's mother was sitting next to her, obviously knew about the allergy and still let her daughter chow down. There is a candy that I enjoy that causes the inside of my mouth to become extremely irritated. It took me one time to find this out and other time to confirm that the culprit was indeed the candy before I swore the stuff off. I'm not better than her, or in much better health than her but I know when to say no to something my body isn't going to get along with.

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Today was a crazy day at work. Everyone seemed cranky and they all took things said to them in the worst possible way. They all seemed to be set off by every little thing that they did to each other so I just stood by and watched them slowly destroy each other. There was one girl today talking about how she just couldn't be mean to people. I told her I find that hard to believe considering she works with some many people who are totally fucking useless. It's not only how I feeling but it is a fact backed up by years of experience.  

Tune In and Enjoy

There are a numbers of things I miss about Orlando. At any moment I think about those things and the fact that I am without them daily fills me with more rage than any man should have. There is no question that I resent moving home and there are days that the only thing keeping me together are the thoughts of moving back there. Today I found a nice little bit of home on iTunes today and it made my day. There are 2 podcasts from the 2 radio shows I listened to all the time in Orlando.

The Philips Phile

The Monsters!!

Two amazing shows on one great station. I did travel a bit more down there and always listened to these shows in my travels. If I was home working on something I would tune into the shows for some guaranteed entertainment. There is nothing ground breaking about these shows but they are like audible comfort foods. 

Longest Entry To Date!

So I was still a bit bummed over the apparent loss of my Clerks DVD last night. Then I started to put up the rest of the stuff I bought and realized how lucky I am and how cool the things I bought are.

I ended up getting the Fanboy and Steve Dave figures to complete my Mallrats set. Fanboy was signed but Walt who played him in the movie so I bought 2. One to open and one to leave sealed to show the signature:

I bought all of the Chasing Amy figures:

I picked up 2 of the Kevin Smith figures. Once again I opened one of them:

I picked up a set of Jay & Silent Bob Cold Cast Statues. They are pretty damn big and heavy:

Last but not least is my statue of Brodie from Mallrats. He is by far the biggest overall and weighs a ton:

The statues are certainly some of the more impressive items in my movie collection but due to their weight I'm afraid to put them on the top of my glass cabinet.

I had my Dogma DVD signed and I asked Kevin for a small favor when it came to my Chasing Amy DVD. I asked him to write "Fuck DVD" on the cover. Why you ask?

When the Laserdisc of Chasing Amy came out DVD was still in its infant stage and was trying to find its place in home video. Kevin figured he would make his stand on the DVD format and proceeded to spout out "Fuck DVD" on the film's commentary track. When the Chasing Amy DVD came out the DVD and LD community wondered if the harsh but amusing comment would be left on the commentary track. It was and a small feature was added to the DVD where Kevin explains his love for the DVD format in a comedic way.

I told him that since my nickname everywhere was MasterofDVD I figured it would be a true honor to have his infamous outburst on my DVD cover. He was happy to do it and I'm proud to have it.

On Kevin's blog he has posted what he thought of what turned out to be the longest singing event he has ever done!

This video shows the incredibly long line but as I commented it fails to show the group of us who were lucky enough to be allowed to stand in front of the store for the entire wait.

To save space I've uploaded some of my trip pics to my Flickr page. Due to all the shit I was carrying I have 1 shot of Kevin and it was taken with my wife's camera. I'll have to get them developed soon but here are the other trip pictures.

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The crew I waited with was a very cool bunch. We chatted for the almost 9 hours we stood there together and dealt with all kinds of annoyances and cray shit.

The crazy black hippie chick who freaked the hell out of us and asked to borrow shoes. I will never forget her, her shoe-less feet or her huge Slim Jim nipples that were far too easy to see under her very thin outfit.

The idiots just behind us who certainly a very bad impression on the residents of Red Bank and the other fans. They were loud, crude and obviously highly allergic to water since they ran like pussies when it started to rain.

The constant questions about why we were standing there. It grew tiring thinking up false information to tell them.

The guy in the orange shirt who I thought for sure heard me mouthing off as he walked of. When he turned and started walking back toward us I figured I would never live to see Kevin.

The sign we made on a blanket that had the words "Eat Pussy!" in shoe polish which is what caused the guy in the orange shirt to be a dick to us in the first place. He couldn't read the sign but he was upset we were blocking so much of the sidewalk.

The fight between the UPS and FedEx guys that I caught the end of.

Getting teased for spending an insane amount of cash I blew inside the Stash.

In The Business Of Helping

 Wednesday, August 09, 2006

People bust my balls all the time for having business cards. I can kinda understand the problem since the cards are just to give my blog address, my site address and my contact info. Tease all you want but those fuckers finally paid off. While in line at the signing I handed out cards to everyone in front of me in line. When my DVD went missing a little bit of me hoped for a miracle. I'm not a religious man but Buddy Christ was smiling down on me for behold the e-mail I just got:

I think you'll be relieved that your clerks X is in good hands. I'm very sorry for the mixup, but I must of picked it up on accident when everyone put their shit on the table after our first little group started to leave the place. However, you're in luck - I'll probably be sending your dvd out at the end of this week to the address on the business card you so graciously gave us. Sorry again, you can finally stop searching for it.

- Chris

Suddenly my day is looking much brighter and you can bet your ass that as soon as I post this I'm gonna restock my wallet with cards. You never know when they will come in handy.  

Unseen and Silent Bob

We are back from our trip a bit early. The heat made the trip much tougher to deal with than I had hoped. We roasted in the car and ran into any air conditioned buildings we could.

The signing event sure had it's good and bad points.. I met a bunch of great people, had a great time in line, got lots of signed items, bought lots of really cool shit and met the coolest director ever. The bads parts were the heat, the constant questions about why we were lined up in front of the store and the worst part is I can't find my Clerks X DVD in the mess of a packed car we have. At first I was more than angry and very upset. While I'm still ticked off I have yet to find it I am going to try and stay calm. I got lots of cool stuff and a number of signed items so I'm not about to let this problem tarnish my entire trip.

I'd love to go into more detail now but I'm still exhausted and we need to unpack. I'll give a few more details on the trip later on.

Motivation In All Shapes & Cup Sizes

Wish me luck on my upcoming trip because something tells me I may need it. The wife is convinced I would be happier without or that she somehow invited herself on the trip. Then there is Tom who I was convinced wasn't going to enjoy himself. He never sounded overly excited and never really thought about what he was going to have Kevin Smith sign. Then today he finds out a female friend of his is going to come out and visit us when we are in Jersey. Part of me in bummed it seems that a girl is what it took to get him excited about the trip but part of me is excited that a girl can get a reaction out of him like that. I really hope that I won't be the only one to have a good time. All the waiting in various lines should certainly be evened out by the signing and the movie. I figure that Kelsey can go enjoy herself while I bake in line and Tom can join either of us or spend time with his gal.

The wife's portion of our vacation went pretty well. With the heat we didn't get to do as much as we had had hoped. We spent a great deal of time in the hotel room and that wasn't a bad thing at all on this trip. There was a fridge and microwave in the room so we got some snacks and just relaxed in the AC. We took a Netflix movie with us as well as some DVDs from my collection I never seem to get around to watching. I also picked up Man On Fire: Collectors Edition and Joey: The Complete First Season. I talked the wife into buying the latest Mario game for her DS. The DS is a great system with some fun games but I simply can't play for any length of time without major pains in my hands.

I just hope the second, and longer, trip goes half as well. 

The Final Countdown

Tomorrow should prove to be the longest day at work in some time. In addition to a grueling shift I am desperately working on catching up on paperwork so that I can go on my vacation in peace. I'm sure that every little thing is just going to annoy the sit out of me but once I clock out it should be glorious.

Each time I turn around our Jersey trip keeps getting longer and longer. I'm not sure I've mentioned it yet but my buddy Tom is going along with my wife and I. While I was out of the room the other night it seems my wife and Tom must have chatted. I come back into the room and I was informed that they agreed that we should leave 1 day earlier and stop in State College to see my family. Personally I would of shot down that idea but I guess I got out voted on this one. We are going to see the sights and check out a few places back home before crashing at a hotel for the night. My wife wanted to avoid staying with my folks as much as I wanted to avoid seeing my family.

It sure is tough to find someone to watch our cats while we are gone. I was going to ask our neighbors but Lindsey seems freaked out by my devil cat and if she should happen to dart out of the apartment I wouldn't want to think about what Lindsey would have to do in order to coax Willow back into the apartment. My wife's friend volunteered to watch them but wanted to stay over here while we were gone. She is fairly harmless so I was going to leave that up to my wife. I was going to password protect the boot-up of my PC if she did stay since she's a internet junkie and I don't trust anyone else with my computer. My wife was almost ready to seal the deal when this girl asked if she could have a guy over while we were gone. Sure she was up front and asked us instead of just having him over without us knowing but we figured we would play it safe and find someone else entirely.