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26 Sep, 2011

NFL RedZone – Get it!

By |2011-09-26T16:19:28-04:00September 26th, 2011|Sports|1 Comment


NFL RedZone

If you like football and you have cable, you should watch all of the NFL games on RedZone. It’s 7 bucks a month for the Sports and Entertainment package and there isn’t a better way to watch football. For whatever reason whenever I get into a fantasy football conversation I always ask the question, “You watch the games on RedZone?” If the answer is no, you aren’t talking to someone serious about fantasy football. You get to watch action from EVERY SINGLE GAME WITH NO COMMERCIALS! Plus it’s always the most exciting part of the game, when teams are going to score. Where else am I gonna see footage from the Carolina – Jacksonville game and know that the game was underwater and that’s why the stats are so far below what they should have been. Just looking at a stat sheet won’t show you that. Plus reviewing stats on NFL.com is so atrocious that I have to address this issue. I don’t want to watch a video that takes 10 seconds to load about the game when I click the game link. All I want to see when I click on the game center is the stats. No video, I shouldn’t have to click “analyze”, just show me the stats. Without RedZone, this would be my only method of knowing what is going on in other games. However, this way I can actually watch the scores and see if they happened by a fluke play or if they guy is seriously skilled aka Torrey Smith.

I have to take this paragraph and explain from a technical end of things how professional and polished the red zone production staff has gotten. Scott Hanson will reference obscure players names from every single team seconds after the play has happened almost instantly. He’s probably more in tune with the game than the commentators calling it. The way the top fantasy performers numbers show over top the screen is a great addition. The fact that there is 0 downtime throughout 6 straight hours of broadcast makes Scott Hanson the hardest working man on Sunday in my opinion. I’m sure the crew that backs him up deserves a ton of credit also. Top notch production, A++++. These guys have it down pat.

I’m from Philadelphia and if I had to choose a team to root for it would be the Eagles. I watched RedZone over the Eagles game this week. It really wasn’t even a difficult decision. 1pm has become my favorite time of the week waiting for RedZone to start. The buildup to the greatest programming on television is worth the price of admission. It’s 7 dollars a month! If you are anything like me, you are paying less than 2 bucks a week to watch 6 straight hours of football at the highest level that has ever been produced. Stop being a penny pincher and enjoy the experience that is football. If I ever have to sit through another game on Sunday with commercials, I’m going to be disappointed. Football isn’t the same without RedZone and I would really appreciate it you agree with this post, liking it because this rave review should at least convert 5 people to RedZone.

26 Sep, 2011

Acura TL – The “New Car” Makeover

By |2011-09-26T09:23:17-04:00September 26th, 2011|My Brain|0 Comments

I leased a “new” car about 3 weeks ago. Basically, I ended my lease on an 09′ Acura TL a few months early and moved into a new 12′ TL. My monthly payments were reduced and I only had to put down 500 bucks which wasn’t much money up front. Another big benefit from doing this is because my front windshield took a hit and had a crack in it which they didn’t charge me for. Also, the brakes on my 09′ car were starting to go which would have cost me 200 bucks. All in all, I thought the timing was perfect and I was happy to get a new car. Funny thing is the 12′ car is the same as the 09’s car.

The salesmen say that this 12′ model gets better gas mileage and is shorter up front but I can’t tell the difference. All I notice is that the tank is a few gallons bigger and now I get more miles per tank, the gas consumption is the same for all I know. The interior is identical as the 09′ model and even the control panel and all the buttons are the same. They could have sold me a 09′ car, called it a 12′ and I would have no idea. Am I making an issue over nothing? In 3 years the developers at Acura didn’t feel the need to change a thing to their best selling vehicle. I feel like I got duped. Fortunately I didn’t think the old car was that bad so I’m not really complaining as much as I am explaining. Just very interesting.

25 Sep, 2011

Lets talk Football

By |2011-09-26T08:58:33-04:00September 25th, 2011|Sports|3 Comments

I know much how Laura loves these football posts. I’ll start with how Primetime performed in the Manayunk sport and social league. We had a double header that started with a game against a team that was supposedly 2-0. Baker at the helm moved the ball on the first possession for a TD and the team never really looked back. Bake was spreading the ball nicely to different targets like Kope, Ck4, Jkash and Gusto for gains. The defense wasn’t especially good but this team wasn’t either. I’m not sure what the final score ended up being but it was a bloodbath. An interesting injury during the game was when Anna deflected a ball with her hand and it ended up bending the finger backward. I heard it wasn’t pretty but I never got a good look. *Here’s a good look.

The 2nd game was a little closer than it should have been. Kope had 2 really nice picks to start off and that brought his season total to 4. Big Steve also recorded the first sack of the season towards the end. The game got to a 1 score game after they caught our defense sleeping on a female play where they used the girl as the QB and surprised us. On a big 3rd down play, Bake through a great pass to Kope who got it down to the one yard line. Barring any mistakes, this game was wrapped up. HOWEVER, Bake forced a pass to Kope and it ended up being bounced up and picked. This gave the other team a chance to score with :33 seconds. They failed and we won the game by a score to improve to 2-0 and well on our way to defending the championship.

My fantasy games are basically over and I will go 3-2 this week. Kenny Britt going down will effect my future but this was a pretty good week for me in terms of scoring. I picked Gronkowski off of basically every waiver wire and am reaping some benefits. I also have RUN DMC, Calvin and Wes Welker on a couple of teams so this week bumps my scores nicely. I will lose at the hands of a Schmidt for the 2nd time in a game that I put up an average score but just got beat by a team that couldn’t miss. 3 of my other games were me putting on a complete beating. I scored the most points (so far) in 2 of the leagues for weekly totals and pretty much never trailed. The other game I lost is with a team I think is good but just can’t seem to score enough points. I don’t mind losing in games when my guys do well and I just get beat. But games that my team puts up a stinker make me feel like I’m mismanaging. I’ll be 3-0 in one league, 2-1 in 2 leagues, and 1-2 in two. With Britt going down, two of my 6 stars this year are going to be injured (Charles and Britt) for possibly the season. Miles won’t play this week and Roddy, Run DMC and Jimmy Graham are all making me right so far. Britt and Austin were 1-2 in receiving points coming into this week and McFadden will lead all rushers after this week. Ok, Laura, I’m sure you didn’t read this far but this post is over.

23 Sep, 2011

Happy Madison Sucks!

By |2016-11-01T23:31:17-04:00September 23rd, 2011|Movies|7 Comments

I want to go over how bad Happy Madison, Adam Sandler’s production company, has become. I watched Grown Ups last night and this was the biggest piece of turd I have ever seen. Talk about not funny one liners being the entire plot of a movie that tries incredibly hard to be funny. When you try too hard, it becomes not funny. Add in a bunch of actors past their prime and you have a complete toilet of a movie. David Spade is so lame in this movie that I felt bad for his life. Aside from Tommy Boy, he’s never been good. Rob Schneider isn’t funny and making his character eccentric doesn’t make it funny. Chris Rock is the least athletic black guy ever. I couldn’t find a laugh in this entire flick. I would usually let one Sandler movie slide because he’s becoming an icon but after further review, Happy Madison doesn’t make funny/good movies. It’s the same old shtick but 10 years after it was first funny, it’s just not anymore. This was the most boring movie I’ve seen in a long time and creating this blog entry doesn’t let enough people know how shitty his career is turning. Let me go through a few of “Happy Madison” productions in the past few years:

Paul Blart – Mall Cop
The House Bunny
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry (Jessica Biel Bra Scene, Yes Please!)
Click (Sam cried)
Anger Management
Joe Dirt
The Animal
Little Nicky
The Hot Chick
Deuce Bigalow

I left out Mr Deeds, Benchwarmers and Grandma’s Boy because I liked them but there are still another 10 shitty movies on that list. Happy Madison doesn’t create good movies. They are a marketing machine that takes your money and does a half ass job making movies. Adam Sandler wasn’t always bad but he progressively got worse as he got more famous. Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore set the stage. The Wedding Singer and the Waterboy fell off a bit but Big Daddy might have been the pinnacle. After Big Daddy came the creation of Happy Madison and that was it. No more plots, no more story, just stupid ideas to try to make people laugh. It became about the money at that point. Adam Sandler, I’ve made fun of your ugly kids in the past and now I’m dogging on your production company. Nothing against you bro, but these movies are half ass and awful.

23 Sep, 2011

Cherry Coke Vs Wild Cherry Pepsi

By |2011-09-23T16:22:01-04:00September 23rd, 2011|My Brain|3 Comments

Edit *The picture of this can is old and the new one is much better looking with one cherry and a dark blue / red mixture. Pretty plain but better than the picture here.

Ordinary coke doesn’t thrill me. The only time I order coke is when I’m too lazy to make the person I’m ordering from go through the choices. Rarely will I purchase just a coke because I want it. However, I have a different level of acceptance for Cherry Coke. When I order this one combo for lunch it comes with a free soda and I will always choose Cherry Coke. Now, just the other day I was in CVS and decided to buy a 12 pack of cans of my favorite soda, Cherry Coke. Naturally they are out of but had Wild Cherry Pepsi which I begrudgingly purchased. As the case with many things I do in life, the results have found their way to my blog.

Cherry Coke >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Wild Cherry Pepsi. Now the taste is virtually the same but Cherry Coke has significant mental advantages. The Coke can gives me that cherry feeling. The red is the main color and I’m being overcome with cherries over the city landscape. It makes me associate the cherry flavor with coke which is something that brings me joy. The nice calligraphy of the letters make me feel like I’m drinking something fancy. Pepsi has this blue swirl thing going on and it doesn’t make me think cherry. It makes me think of hypnosis and how I’m trying to be brainwashed into drinking their soda. Also what’s the deal with “Wild?” Why is the Pepsi wild? Is it off its lease? Is it going to do something I’m not expecting? It just gives me the creeps. Cherry Coke also has the edge in taste by a cunt hair. For some reason the Pepsi has a funny after taste that makes me think about why it tastes funny every time I sip it. And the #1 reason why I prefer Coke over Pepsi, it sounds better. The C-C flows of the tongue whereas I have a C-P which just seems wrong. If anyone from either company reads this I think I’m giving some fine feedback on which product I prefer from a marketing standpoint. Pepsi should change all their products to double P’s. Pepsi Punch, Pineapple Pepsi, or my personal favorite Popular Pepsi. You’d drink it because it’s popular. How do you know it’s popular? It tells you. It’s not surprising to me that Pepsi is continually losing market share to Coke. If Pepsi started with the slogan, try our Popular Pepsi Products, it would turn the tides. Anyone else a Cherry Coke fan?

23 Sep, 2011

Fall’s Openers Fail

By |2016-11-01T23:31:09-04:00September 23rd, 2011|Tv|0 Comments

I’ve watched 3 season openers this year of series that I usually don’t watch. The Office, Tosh.O, and Workaholics. Let me start off by saying that I thought all 3 were brutally horrible.

  • Let’s start with the Office. I understand that I’m not an Office die hard and maybe I’m missing some inside jokes, but I maybe cracked a smile once during the episode titled “the list” and that was when Stanley was telling people to shove it up their butt. I want to point out why I think this show is terrible and why morons like it. When Jim tells Dwight to throw him the phone and he speed pitches it at the wall. This isn’t sophisticated humor. This is try to get a laugh by being retarded. Another example of this retarded humor is when the Daryl said “all I got was this soda.” How stupid is that? I really, really, really hope that was an inside joke that I’m not aware of because that is not in the least bit funny. Pam is just the whiniest character who I can’t stand. This is probably the 3rd or 4th episode of the Office I’ve ever seen, and I have no interest to watch any more of this season, or the show.

 

  • Tosh.O season opener is beyond bad. This is probably the least funny show, that people think is funny, on Earth in 2011. The clips he shows can’t save the show because even they aren’t funny. He brings on this little black man who reminds me of Beetlejuice from Howard Stern to do some rapping for 5 minutes. It was one of those “feel bad for this guy because he’s really not that retarded and we’re paying him a lot of money for him to perform a shitty song.” I don’t even think that Daniel Tosh is that annoying but the show is just horrible. The one skit where the guy pretends to be the Dr was honestly some of the worst television I’ve watched. Aside from Tosh talking to the students in line format, I thought the show was the biggest waste of 30 minutes and want watch another.

 

  • Workaholics was the best show of the 3 but that’s not saying much. I was hesitant to think this show was funny during the first season but it sort of grabbed my attention. The plots were always kind of dumb but the characters were relatively humorous. They had some funny one liners and the chemistry between the 3 lead characters was entertaining. This season opener though was really dumb. With a dumb premise of thinking that their tax money paid for a dinosaur in a park that they decided to steal, it then got re-stolen by some high school kids who then overtook their house and threw a party. A few funny lines was all that carried this episode, my favorite being Adam saying “that was such a Tommy move” when he named the dinosaur Reptar. I still have some hopes for this show but it did not get off to a good start.
23 Sep, 2011

Secrets to Success by The Beatles

By |2011-09-23T00:40:09-04:00September 23rd, 2011|Music|0 Comments

I’m sorry you guys are catching me in a Beatles phase and that’s what I’m writing about. I’ll do my best to share some insights I take away when reading about the group. The Beatles redefined the 60’s like no other musical group in the history of rock and roll. “The way a band interacts musically – the indefinable, unpredictable alchemy of personalities, styles, habits and tastes – is more important to the sound of a band than virtuosity (technical skill). The Beatles meshed. And the world meshed with them.” Everything the Beatles did during this time span was groundbreaking and yearned for from society. Their music had the simplicity and authenticity that appealed to everyone. The combination of the Beatles look, sound, and personalities were the perfect chemistry to create something that isn’t attainable by a single artist which is proved by their solo careers. Think of the most popular GROUP in 2011. The Black Eyed Peas? Pearl Jam? Linkin Park? The musical landscape has changed and we’ll never see another Beatles in our lifetimes. Comparing Lady Gaga or Katy Perry (arguably the most popular acts of 2011) to the Beatles is a joke. Katy sings about “Last Friday Night” and Gaga about being “Born this Way” (a significantly better message than Katy). The Beatles sing about romance and all the emotions that come along, plus their lyrics are purposeful and their harmony’s perfect. This isn’t saying that everything produced today is complete garbage but the talent of the Beatles extends passed autotune. The Beatles are #1 group of all time and there is not a close 2nd place. Sorry Kesha.

When I think about the stardom these rockers achieved in their early 20’s I know I’m not blessed with the skill set of the Beatles. It’s said that rockers create their best music in their 20’s and after that it’s all downhill. When I was 23 I barely knew how to live on my own. These guys were creating music that was loved by millions of people and basically dominated an entire decade. I still can’t get over the group aspect and how it propelled them past anything any individual could accomplish. These weren’t 4 super humans as individuals but when put together as a group, they became geniuses collectively. If I could choose something to go back in time and witness, it would be the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1966 at the height of Beatlemania. I don’t think that I’ll ever be as fascinated as much by another group as I am with the Beatles.

Below are a few of my personal favorite songs.

Written and sung by Paul in 1965 about a man trying to convince his girl that it’s not worth fighting over silly arguments. When Paul and John sing together they are speaking the narrators thoughts. Paul solo is just the narrator talking to the girl.

Sam and I know this song from the Juggler Chris Bliss and it’s really one of my favorite songs of all time. I’ve never really paid that close to the lyrics but just the transitioning in and out of the 3 songs together makes it awesome.

A song from Rubber Soul that is just a cool song about someone finding out the truth about their partner.

Get Back, a good song but a great video to watch to understand the transformation of the group. This is 1969 which was close to the end of the group. The attire and look has changed dramatically from the tight knit, black suit group that started back in 1962.

I’d be curious is anyone who read this post actually listened to these few songs and altered their opinion on the Beatles.

22 Sep, 2011

Memories Induced by Smell

By |2011-09-22T16:24:24-04:00September 22nd, 2011|My Brain|0 Comments

An unusual thing happened to me today that made me think of this topic. I went to the gas station to buy some potato chips, Herr’s in the blue bag, and decided that the new car smell from my new car was gone and I needed an air freshener. I usually just buy the vanilla but I’ve ventured into some strawberry and watermelon of late and today I decided to buy the vanilla. I immediately open the package all the way and turn my car into the typical taxi cab aroma. Oddly enough, this smell brought me back to when I was 16 years old and used to drive a 2 door Nissan 200sx. When I was young, my car always smelled like this vanilla flavor and today completely reminded me of those days. I still can’t believe that was over 10 years ago when I first started to drive but I really enjoyed driving around in that coupe. A mysterious story goes along with that car that involves my brother Jeff and how he somehow managed to take a turn too sharply and drove up over the curb and totaled the car. He swears there was no foul play involved and to this day denies everything but in the back of my mind I still feel like this is one of those things that he’s taking to the death with him. To make this post better I tried to think about certain smells that trigger memories but I didn’t come up with any. It’s one of those things that you have to take a whiff of the odor to really get the experience.

22 Sep, 2011

Matt and Kim Suck!

By |2011-09-22T16:10:36-04:00September 22nd, 2011|Music|7 Comments

I wrote earlier that I wasn’t going to pay for insertnamesucks.com anymore so I decided to take some posts and move them over to this site. Mainly the ones that get the best comments which I’ll also transfer. I’ll also update the entry as I feel needed.

Here’s wikipedia’s description of Matt and Kim:
Matt & Kim are a dance punk duo residing in Brooklyn, New York City, New York. The group was formed in 2004 and is composed of Matt Johnson (vocals/keyboards) and Kim Schifino (drums/vocals).

I have news for you, they aren’t good. They have some popular songs being “Daylight”, “Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare”, “Cameras”, and now “Block after Block”. They all sound similar and are all equally bad. There are moments when you think you like the songs but they are quickly eclipsed with the realization that you’ve just fallen into a trance by their plain, redundant music. The songs sound like synthesized bullshit. Understand that these are their most popular songs so I can’t even being to imagine how bad their other “worse” songs are. I give this band no credit at all and instantly turn off their music when it’s played. Sadly, I’m sure there are millions of people out there who like Matt and Kim. I don’t wish anything bad upon them but I just write to say that all their music sounds the same and it’s not a good sound to start with. The video below is sort of interesting but I found myself focused on the crowd of gawkers and didn’t even notice that there was a song playing. I think this should be reason enough to reason that their music isn’t that worth listening to.

22 Sep, 2011

The Beatles Experience – Doing it Right

By |2011-09-22T01:03:00-04:00September 22nd, 2011|Music|1 Comment

I read my review of the Beatles in this short entry and just smirk a little bit. While the facts are correct, I really knew nothing about the Beatles. I’ve listened to some of their songs but that was the extent. In the past two days I’ve spent hours reading through the history of the Beatles music. The start of the book focuses primarily on the music with the personal, business and everything else secondary. It’s fascinating how much I can enjoy reading about a topic when I’m not forced to do so. Plus in 2011, you can learn in a complete, all encompassing way that wasn’t available a decade ago. I have all of the Beatle’s albums and music on a hard drive. While I read through the years (63-70) of producing albums, I’m simultaneously listening to each album. When the book describes certain songs and what to listen for, I have the ability to hear exactly what they are referring to. Plus the book makes references to other artists (whose music I also have) and I can listen to that as well. I’ve developed such an appreciation for this band that I was starting to develop an emotional attachment. To be alive during this period of time had to be such a spectacle and there are so many stories that come along. The Beatles shaped music to what it is today. No other band will influence music like the Beatles.

Traveling album to album and listening to the development of their music is really something that I’ve enjoyed thoroughly. How the simplicity of the lyrics on Please Please Me and With The Beatles compared to their later works on Revolver and Abbey Road is truly worth experiencing. Plus understanding how their first few albums were put together in a matter of weeks compared to as long as they wanted once they achieved success. It all plays into their sound that they were producing at that time. Learning about the greatest group that ever lived seems like something that I’ll be able to hold with me for the rest of my life. It actually makes me want to learn about other historic groups like, Bob Dylan, the Stones and Led Zeppelin. One of the funniest things that I took away was that their name “the Beatles” is a pun with the word beat that I was just completely overlooking. I feel much more satisfaction from learning about the Beatles than I do watching the entire Soprano’s season. It makes listening to current day artists hard to appreciate. The Beatles are the creme de la creme and no one else comes close.

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