Current Events

08.06.2010

For a commentary on current events, I turn you to Republican Gubernatorial candidate Basil Marceaux and Huntsville Celebrity Anoine Dodson.

The staff here at Russellmania now returns you to your normal interweb browsing. Thank you.

Permalink random

July 2010 Wrap Up Show

08.03.2010

As I just noticed the 'Mania has been update free for nigh on 2 weeks, please enjoy an End of July summary.

I arrived home 2 Saturdays ago to find that it was hot inside the house. Normally when the temps creep near 100 the A/C has a hard time keeping up, so I'm not terribly worried when the indoor thermometer reads 80. Saturday around noon it read 85. I went outside and noticed that the fan on the outside unit wasn't going *whrrr*whrrr*whrrrr*. One of my biggest fears had been realized. It was July and I had no air conditioning. I went and hid at Gina's for the night, but came back Sunday to do some chores. At some point on Sunday it reached 91 inside. Hot. Hot hot hot. Monday the A/C guy came and pumped in 3 pounds of whatever refrigerant they have to use these days and the fan started spinning and the house started getting cooler. For about 3 hours. Then the fan quit again. Tuesday the A/C guy came back and replaced the fan motor. Since then it's been nice and cool inside. Most importantly I learned I won't die if the A/C quits!

Last Tuesday was errand day, one of those errands was to get the 15K mile service on the car. The only thing other than my usual oil/rotate/balance was checking the fuel and air filters, so it wasn't as expensive as I feared. On the way back home the next day I was driving via the interstate and finally got the car over 60 when I noticed my arms hurt. They hurt because I had a death grip on the steering wheel that was wobbling back and forth. Seems I was the victim of a bad balance job. I took the car back to the tire place the next day and they were able to fix it up in about 15 minutes.

Saturday was my social day. Saturday afternoon the kids came by for an Unsanctioned Widgey as part of Evil Mathias' belated birthday extravaganza. Special thanks go to Gina for whipping up some rotel cheese dip which was a big hit. Cheese dip seems to be very messy I learned. Not bad messy, but enough that you need some post-cheese dip cleaning on the stove afterward.

After the extravaganza was wrapped up, I made my way to Huntsville to join the boss at the final game of the season for local arena football team. We had seats down on the floor behind the end zone. Well, there were seats but we didn't really sit. You have to be on your toes when these guys are running around. One pass went over our heads and about 5 of us reached up/back/over for the ball. When I looked back to where I had been standing by the wall there was a football player laying there.

Sunday I made a dent in my washing chores (dishes, clothes, me) before going over to Gina's and watching Brooklyn's Finest. Although I get a lot of movies, the previews of this one led me to think the re-watchability was low. Now that I've watched it, I can confirm that is the case. The movie has a good ending, it just takes a long time to get there.

Now to see if I can do better with the updates in August.

Permalink boardgames rambling

Random Surfing

07.19.2010

I sometimes wonder what leads me down a path of web-surfing to an eventual laugh, guffaw, or snicker. I paid attention to that path this morning, but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

In looking at Amazon's DVD Gold Box deals they listed an amalgamation of 70's TV show first seasons, including What's Happening and What's Happening Now. Seeing those 2 advertised, I couldn't remember if Fred Rerun Berry was dead or alive, so I took a trip to Wikipedia to find out (died in 2003). While reading a about Fred Rerun, while I was there, I saw that he was a member of The Lockers. While reading about The Lockers on their site, I came across the following answer for What is a Locker?:

"A" LOCKER has been ,For decades anyone who subscribes to the Locking lifestyle and is a student of the dance of Locking...

That is the worse definition of anything I have ever seen. The syntax just throws it over the edge of being bad.

This definition can be used for so many other things. "A" NERD has been, for eons anyone who subscribes to the nerd lifestyle and is a student of the art of Nerding. Does Bill Clinton know about this? It could be that this is so stupid it's genius!

Permalink movies/tv/dvd rambling

Widgey Update

07.11.2010

Last week game nite came back to life as the men-folk gathered to play Frag. Wade, the most athletic of us all, succumbed to sitting around and rolling dice instead of doing something constructive, like building a house or running up brick walls and flipping backwards. I'm so proud.

I've been in a board game mood of late, which I don't know if it's caused by surfing Board Game Geek or if I get in the mood and then start surfing the site. Either way, Amazon ends up getting some business out of it the majority of the time. I finally got myself a copy of RoboRally so that Jer doesn't always have to remember to tote his copy out to the boonies. I also picked up a road racing game by the name of Formula D, which is based on a license from a 1991 game.

I took a couple of test laps of Formula D Sunday afternoon to see what I thought. The first verdict is that it's easy to learn. After 2 laps of the "beginner" game I was ready for the advanced rules. The advanced rules require a little more referencing the rules when bad mojo occurs, but it didn't seem like anything a little cheat sheet couldn't fix.

I think this is going to be the next game we try out, although there isn't any shooting. There's not really any crashing, just spin-outs that make you start from a standstill. I may have to pick up a copy of Rush n' Crush and see if it integrates well with Formula D. Until then, be on the lookout for Nascar Naswidgey!

Permalink boardgames

WWE Raw in Nashville, 07.05.2010

07.06.2010

February doesn't seem like that long ago for when Matt and I went to our last wrestling show. Maybe it was because that trip was when I finally made it backstage and it's been an almost weekly topic of conversation during Wrestling Night at Matts? Regardless, Jason and the crew were making another trek to Nashville and once again we took advantage of his generosity. We took extra advantage because Westar Joe tagged along for his first wrestling event!

Although just another show, the fun part was teaching Joe how wrestling fans act. From the Nascar shirt wearing women that are bigger than me to a Ric Flair "Woooo" crossing the arena like The Wave, it was all good. Joe seemed to enjoy himself, but Joe's one to enjoy something new like that. Storylines progressed as normal, and we were in a good little group of people who enjoyed a good zinger. The zingers I remember:

• Calling out Alicia Fox as RuPaul after watching a backstage segment where she acted just like him.
• When Darren Young was getting beat down, Matt was crying "Don't beat the Pencil Troll!!!!

The most important part of this show was that Matt and I learned that our favorite cameraman is Marty, not Rico. As such the Rico Fan Club is now the Marty Fan Club, so we have to change all of the stationary. Between the last televised match and the dark match Marty grabbed his camera and was leaving and managed to walk our direction. Since there wasn't yet a massive roar of the crowd for the dark match I yelled out "MARTYYYYYYYYYY" and actually got his attention to follow up with a "You da man Marty!" for which he gave me a thumb up. I believe everyone should have a fan following. Marty gets us.

Once the dark match was over, Matt, Joe, and I went over and chatted with Jason (mostly about motorcycles). Justin Roberts came over for some pictures and we ended up talking about about entrance sets and Canadian accents. I've never talked to anybody with their own Wikipedia page before. I'm currently in negotiations to see if Justin will be the announcer for the Marty Fan Club.

Permalink wrestling