I’m like a Spanish book, I’m always 10 years behind everything else (maybe it was just a CB East thing, but our Spanish books were always portraying Mexicans as people who were majorly out of style).  Here I am starting up a blog about 10 years after blogging is cool and today I finally decided to check out the whole Facebook thing. 

I created a profile, uploaded a picture and searched for Jaclyn Deem.  I found her, but it was just her name and a picture, there’s got to be something I’m missing.  Maybe Jaclyn’s Facebook entry is just lame, who knows.  Maybe someone can help me out with the whole site in my comments section.

The whole internet thing is getting pretty crazy.  The world is getting crazy.  It’s just bizarre how you can Google people.  I was listening to a story yesterday about MIT students creating a map in Rome that will show little indicators where cell phones are being carried.  I guess your cell phone is always giving off a signal, this map will show where all the cell phones are and where they are going.  This map could be useful to avoid traffic or to find which night club has the most people in it.  It will be tempting to Google Winston when he gets older, maybe I’ll even be able to track his cell phone signal and watch his travels, like a scientist following a sea turtle.  I will try to let him do his own thing, I always learned best by doing. 

Here’s a great video of a cat checking out a car:

The vacation was excellent.  I remember going to the Outer Banks when I was a kid and I’d just fish the entire time, but now with a wife and a child, I was forced to try out some family friendly activities.  There’s not too many things open and the water was pretty cold, so we ended up at the aquarium a lot. 

Fishing was great, I caught some beautiful fish on the boat, but my sister’s boyfriend Walt stole the show with a huge Red Drum caught off the beach in front of our house. 

I’m super swamped at work, but I want to get some pictures posted:

Walt with the big fish (keep in mind Walt is a big guy!)

Jaclyn with a top notch sand castle

Winston enjoying the aquarium

Relaxing in the hot tub!  If you look closely, I’m naked.

I wanted to post one more blog entry before I headed down to North Carolina for a bit.  We plan on waking up in the middle of the night and driving as far as we can before Winston wakes up.  I’ll try to keep my eyes peeled for interesting photo ops that would look great on the blog, most importantly, I plan on posting a picture of myself holding a big fish that I catch off the beach. 

I’m interested to see how Winston reacts to the beach, I suspect he’ll eat a handful of sand and try to crawl into the ocean. 

They have a pool table down at the house we’re staying at, I think I might to try to set this trick up.

I am getting myself in a frenzy about the new movie coming out about Bob Dylan’s life, I’m Not There.  As most of you know, I absolutely love Bob Dylan, number 1 on my favorite artists of all time.  Well, the movie’s coming out next week and I’m going to do my best to see it while on vacation.  They released the soundtrack, it’s two CDs of artists covering Dylan songs, overall, I’d give it an 8 out of 10, but there’s two songs that really stand out:

Song(s) of the Blog:

Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Ramblin’ Jack Elliot) – An excellent Dylan song, covered by an old raspy man who does an excellent job of pickin’ his guitar.  It’s a Dixie western sounding song, complete with brothels, corruption, and the downsides of excess. 

Mama You’ve Been On My Mind/and a fraction of Last Thoughts on Woody Gutherie (Jack Johnson) – Buy this song right now.  I keep waiting for Jack Johnson to reveal himself as a fluke who can only play the same type of song over and over, but each CD and song he puts out seems to build on what he did previously.  He’s proven himself to be legitimate, his only downside is that his music is ubiquitous, you hear it around every corner.  This song is awesome, but it’s great to hear a portion of Last Thoughts on Woody Gutherie, the song (poem) that pretty much cements why Dylan will always be on the top of my list. 

Since I’ve spent about a billion dollars on my PNC debit card, I received a $50 gift card to Amazon.com.  I used it immediately to buy 2 things:

1.  The Flight of the Conchords (first season on DVD) – I heard about it on NPR and it was hilarious.  It’s about two really absurd singers from New Zealand trying to make it big in New York City.  It’s a comedy that follows these two guys at parties, meeting with their band manager, trying to pick up ladies, etc.  Its filled with lots of desert dry humor with perfect delivery.  The thing that really separates this show from the rest is that they frequently break out into their crazy songs.  I am posting a clip of a song that they break out into at a party. 

2.  A crystal Whisky glass.  There’s no real good reason for me to acquire a crystal whisky glass, but I will try to use it all the time. 

Winston representing with the Edman and Rose!

Man have I been busy!  Luckily, I have two super vacations coming up.  In about 10 days from now, I’ll be heading down to the Outer Banks for a week and in January, I’m going to Cabo San Lucas for a week.  I haven’t taken a vacation in a long time, I took about 4 days off for Winston’s birth, so I’m really looking forward to the time off. 

It’s basically the calm before the storm, we have two vacations, the holidays, Winston’s birthday, and the New Years Eve party that we’re throwing. 

Since softball is over and my fantasy football team couldn’t win a game versus CB East, I am organizing a new initiative.  I’m putting together a Madden league where Andy, Jay, Moose, San Diego Dave, and I will begin competing on a weekly basis.  We’ll have an 8 game season with playoffs following.  We need to organize a conference call to hammer out some of the rules, but we might be starting this Sunday.

Since my life is pretty boring today, I’ll post two of my favorite beer commercials:

If you are a woman or a guy who isn’t a nerd, stop reading here. 

Hello nerdy guys, glad you kept reading!  I am posting my review of Call of Duty 4 for Xbox 360.  I was lucky to get a copy of it last night (1 day before the official release, I mentioned rkdeemreport and they said they could make an exception for me).
 
I’m not going to write a huge review, I will just make a couple of points:

1. This is the best multi player game I have ever played.  Call of Duty 4 has phenomenal graphics, bad ass weapons, incredible environments (lots of bombed out cities from Russia and the Middle East), and silky smooth controls, but what really separates this game from the rest is the beautiful use of incentives. 
2. The incentives in this game range from excelling in a single game to playing the game for months on end, if you put your time in and play the game right, you will be rewarded.  This is a huge shift from previous executions of this game online.  In the past, you would just run around like a mad man and hope you get lucky and take out the other players.  Now, there’s a tremendous amount of incentive for killing 3 people without getting killed, or killing 5 people without getting killed, and if you manage to kill 7 people without getting killed, you get to call in a helicopter that goes around the map and shoots all the enemies.  Last year’s version was all about playing like Rambo and running into the firefight with grenades flying, uzi shooting in all directions, and praying that you hit them before they hit you.   In addition, after each game, depending on how well you play, you receive experience points, these points help you move up rank, from Private to General. 
3. As you move up rank, additional weapons, perks, and accessories become available.  When I say accessories, I’m talking about accessories that really make you a better soldier in the game, like scopes for your gun or an attachment that allows your rifle to shoot grenades.  The more you move up rank, the better toys you have to play with on the field. 
4. You can customize your soldier, you’re not just an ordinary soldier, you can be an assault soldier, a light assault soldier, a sniper, or a heavy assault soldier.  Each of these soldiers has varying strengths and weaknesses, their weapons differ dramatically, and you need to adjust how you play to what type of soldier you end up picking.  If you are a sniper, you do not want to be running around looking for a victim, you need to get as far away from the action and be patient.  It sounds obvious, but this game really does a nice job of making each type of soldier very strong in a unique way.  One thing that makes being a Sniper really difficult is the Killcam.  The Killcam shows the player who killed you, how they killed you, and where they killed you from, so if you take someone out as a sniper, you might want to sneak into a new hiding location immediately.

I could go on and on about this game, it really is exceptional.  If your new to this game or franchise and your worried about getting your ass handed to you, don’t worry too much, the xbox 360 automatically identifies your skill, rank, etc. and sets you up with players who are similar. 

Song of the Blog:
Pressure Drop (Toots & the Maytals) – One of those songs that recognizes the stress your under and tells you how great it will be when you put it all in perspective.  Another great song that does this is “Oh Sweet Nothin'” by the Velvet Underground.

I’m in a rush, but here’s some pics of Winston and his Halloween outfit.