Well, the past few weeks have sure been busy. We’re turning our basement into a home theater and have everything unhooked so there hasn’t been much gaming at my house. I could play in my “man cave,” but I’d feel bad for my wife since her 360 isn’t hooked up at the moment. Hopefully, the room will be close to done soon. Our furniture is in, but we’re holding off having it delivered until the carpet is installed, which should be sometime this week. Once the carpet is installed and the furniture is delivered, all that will be left to do is the audio (pre-wiring is done) and some little stuff (floor lighting, movie marquees, etc.). I haven’t decided on an audio system yet, but we’ll still be able to enjoy the room in the meantime. I’m leaning toward a Bose Lifestyle system. Soon, I’m going to post some before and after pictures of the room. 

 

Over the years as I’ve gotten older I’ve been in the not-so-unique situation of gradually putting on extra weight. Being 6’4”, I was able to put on quite a bit of weight without it being noticeable. I’m not a vain person anyway, so I wasn’t really too worried about it until I hit the 300lb mark a couple of weeks ago. I had noticed that I was starting to have a little trouble getting around and just seemed tired all the time, but seeing 300 popup on the scale really motivated me to do something about it. I enjoy life way too much to be dead before I’m 50! I’m not a fan of fad diets and just wanted something that focused on eating healthier. I found this website: www.sparkpeople.com

If you think you need to lose some weight, I highly recommend this site. It’s completely free and the meal/exercise plans are really good. In two weeks I’ve lost 16lbs and went down a jean size without starving myself.

 

I love horseracing. There are two sporting events I always watch: the NCAA tournament and the Triple Crown races. The other day I was surfing for some horseracing news and found a virtual horseracing site: www.stableking.com

It’s a free site and is pretty entertaining, especially if you’re just looking for a distraction during the day that won’t take up a lot of your time. The coolest thing is actually being able to watch the races (even though the graphics are a bit cheesy).

A few months ago, I learned something interesting about Texas Roadhouse. Have you ever noticed that the server will often ask if you’ve been there before? Apparently, if you say no, they bring you a free half-rack of ribs. A former coworker had heard this from a friend and tried it. Sure enough, he got free ribs. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really try it myself because we go to Texas Roadhouse quite a bit and we’re recognized by the majority of the servers. However, the next time I was there I asked our server about it and she confirmed that yes, new customers receive a half-rack of ribs.

 

Fast forward to this past weekend. We were out of town visiting my wife’s mother and decided to go to the local Texas Roadhouse. Since I had never been there before I figured it would be a prime opportunity to score some free ribs. When the server asked us if we had been there before I explained that my wife and I were visiting from out of town. I told her we had never been to a Texas Roadhouse, but we were told it was really good. She promised to make sure our first visit was special. At this point, my mouth began watering over the prospect of some free ribs! What I didn’t know was that Karma was in full effect and didn’t appreciate my lie.

 

The server comes back not with free ribs, but with a free bag of peanuts and a free side of green beans. Peanuts and green beans??? Hell, I could’ve gotten the damn peanuts out of one of the buckets and put them in a bag myself. As for the green beans…well, I don’t think I need to say much about that. The rest of the meal continued to go downhill. My mother-in-law’s salad bowl had dried, crusty cheese on it, the server brought the wrong drinks, and we didn’t get some of our sides. I asked for the manager and told her what was going on. They brought my mother-in-law another salad, brought us the right drinks, and eventually brought us all our food. When they brought us the check, they had charged us full price. Karma was obviously still against me, but I’ve never been one to be controlled by Karma and still felt cheated over the ribs. I asked for the manager again and asked why they didn’t at least knock off the cost of the sides. She said she didn’t see why she should have to do that since she caught and corrected the mistakes. I pointed out that she didn’t catch anything and that it was pointed out to her. I made it quite clear that I was far from satisfied, so she went and got another manager who was her boss. By the time I was done with this manager, I not only received many apologies, but I also got our steaks for free! The manager even gave my mother-in-law her card and told her she would personally take care of her the next time she came in.

 

The moral of this story is…free food is good!

Your kids refer to riding the bus to school as “downsizing”

 

Before you go out, you have to file for a parade permit

 

It has its own gravitational field and has drawn a Geo Metro into its orbit

 

There are two successful Starbucks franchises located in the back seat

 

It doubles as a garage for your Taurus

 

It’s great for soccer moms, since the back seat folds down into an entire field, complete with goals

 

You need a Sherpa and an oxygen tank to reach the driver’s seat

 

Your buddy, riding shotgun, is in a different time zone

 

When you pull up to the pharmacy window, they already have the package of extra small condoms bagged and read to go

 

You get a letter from Hans Blix demanding that it be dismantled immediately

 

Due to new military intel that has narrowed the search down to the inside of your vehicles, President Bush remains confident that Osama Bin Laden will someday be found

 

The fuel gauge doubles as a fan

I went and saw Transformers this weekend expecting the worse, but hoping for the best. "Transformers" is the first movie this year to not only live up to the hype, but to surpass it by leaps and bounds. I walked out of the theater feeling strangely satisfied, something I don’t expect out of a Michael Bay film. It was original enough to separate itself from the Transformers most of us grew up with, but it also did enough to stay true to its roots. There have only been a small number of films that I’ve been to where the audience applauded and Transformers was one of them. Don’t wait for the DVD because this film is worth the price of admission. The plot of the movie is fairly simple: two opposing robot/alien forces are searching for the same artifact from their home world.  The Transformers featured in the move are Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Jazz, Starscream, Ironhide, Ratchet, Bonecrusher, and Megatron. My only complaint is that Starscream wasn’t introduced into the movie sooner. However, I’m a bit biased because Starscream was always my favorite Transformer from the cartoon. That is, until they killed him off in the animated movie… On a side note, I was surprised to learn that if you go to the movies before noon it’s only $5. It’s nice to know that matinee prices aren’t quite yet a thing of the past. Not sure if they all do that, but AMC theaters do. 

 

Last week, I was doing some random forum hopping and just reading whatever caught my eye. I went into the Browser Based Games forum and read about a game called Ogame. About five minutes later I found myself hooked (along with many other 2o2p members) on this game. If you get a chance, check it out.

 

 

1. "I know today's your due date, but Bill just got an 8lb bass and that's a reason to celebrate, too."