Happy Easter Everyone!

Hope you find more colored eggs than anyone else!!

By the way... did anyone find the hidden "Easter egg" I posted on the blog last week?

I don't think you'll want to miss it.

I announce the winners AND who got the "Grand Prize" tomorrow.

See ya then!

Winter's Heart

Ok, so I completed reading Robert Jordan's 9th book in the Wheel of Time series and I see what everyone's beef was back in the day.

This book could be summed up in 4 words and you wouldn't miss a thing. Seriously. That's how much DOESN'T happen in it. Fans waited over 2 years for the release of this novel felt cheated after reading it I bet. And whoever Jordan's editor is should've been fired for even allowing this book to be released.

Jordan moves each character (all 40 of them) one inch from where they were in the prior novel. He drolls on about things unimportant to the story and basically sold this to the public as a cash grab.

For me reading the books it's different. Because I can go on to the next book and continue the story but for everyone else who was reading this series back in the day, they must have thrown their hands up in disgust and walked away knowing it'd be ANOTHER 2 years before anything else came out.

Overall I still love the story, but now I see what everyone was telling me about all those years ago.

BOOK PLOT SPOILER: Rand cleanses the saidin.

There you go. That's all that happened. Now you can skip this book and move on to #10.

My Letter to Todd Breitenstein

Dear Todd.

In 2009 I was shown something that would revive my love of board games for the first time since I was a kid. It was called, Zombies!!!

I remember playing it for the first time with my mouth open half the game, in amazement at how awesome it was. The simplicity alone made was a welcoming treat!

Once my friend left that day, I went online and bought EVERY thing you had available for that game. (expansions and 2 bags of each zombie!) I remember the day the box arrived at my doorstep. I could hardly contain my joy when examining the thrilling contents within.

I immediately invited my friends over in what would be several months of playing playing Zombies!!! Every Friday night I had 4 to 12 folks over a week playing the game with me. It brought great memories and wonderful times for us all.

Last year I attended Dragon Con for the SOLE reason to meet and thank you for this game. I met several celebrities at that con that week, but my wife laughed when she saw you were the one I was most excited to see. Tripping over my words and acting like a kid meeting Santa in the the Mall at Xmas time. 

You were great the whole time, offering me 2 free promo cards (upon my request) thanking me for my patronage, answering all my "nerdy" questions, signing my copy of the board game and even taking a picture with me afterwards. I was SO stoked! It's the only thing I could talk about the whole trip home!

The week after you canceled your tour due to (in your words) it being a "weird" summer. I didn't know what you meant but a few months ago on your site I heard why. You had cancer.

I prayed you'd recover and checked your website every week for an update...and this week I got the heartbreaking news.

You passed away.

I just want to say "Thank You" again. For rekindling my love of board games and allowing my Xbox 360 to become the world's most expensive DVD player. Thank you for bringing me closer together with my friends and thank you for this game.

You'll be missed my friend.

Sincerely,
                  Matt

Remember Wee-Sing?!

Hi Folks!

Remember Wee Sing videos?! My sister used to watch them all the time when she was little. I remember being so annoyed by them because that's all she would watch ALL DAY LONG! But now when I see them on YouTube, I'm having fond memories...which is bad.

Check out a clip here to see what I'm talking about.

Does anyone else remember these videos or is it just me?!

Best Cartoon Worlds to live in

So what cartoon worlds would you want to live in IF you couldn't interact with the stars of that show. After some careful thought, here's what I came up with.

5) Laff-a-Lympics

How fun would it be to watch these cartoon legends compete?! Growing up I was a die hard Yogi Yahoo-ee fan. But now seeing that Hong Kong Phooey is a Scooby Dooby, I may have to jump ship. And of course watching the Really Rottens lose epically every week would be interesting too!

4) Dungeons and Dragons

Although a little dangerous I'd love to see what I'd become in this fantasy cartoon world. Whatever it is, I'm hoping I would be able to level up quick!

3) The Jetsons

From medieval times to the future, the Jetsons world would be awesome to live in! My own spaceship! Every walk way a treadmill robot slaves and all sorts of robotic arms to wait and serve at my every beck and call!

2) Muppet Babies

A world where your imagination takes over? Heck yes! Think of all the awesome things you'd be able to do and nothing to do all day but daydream?! I'd play for the Mets, become a movie star and star in Survivor! The possibilities are endless.

 1) Ewoks

Come one. Are you really surprised? I'd LOVE to live on Endor! Maybe I can't hang out with Wicket but there's plenty of other Ewoks to be friends with and who knows? Maybe I can escape off planet and tour the animated Star Wars universe?!

K....I'm going to go daydream now.

How bout you? Got any other ideas for cartoon worlds you'd like to live in?

"Deadly Briefcase" scene

Here's a clip from our Dinner Theatre show going on right now. This night was particularly special because I secretly brought HUGE panties into the scene without telling the cast.

Here's what's going on with the story, Dt Chan (me) is trying to help Ms Lucy retrace her steps the night of the crime.

She never saw it coming, hence her expression when I whipped them out.

Too good!

Ranking the Holidays

In a recent discussion I had with someone we ranked our favorite holidays from first to last (dealing with the Big 8)

I'd like to share my thoughts on this with you today:

#1 Thanksgiving Day

No surprise here if you've been reading my blog over the years. Thanksgiving to me, is the perfect holiday. No running around worrying about gifts, decorations and parties. Just having a great meal around family. Although Black Friday is beginning to ruin it, it's still my favorite time of the year!

 #2 Christmas

Well duh, it's right up there. Of course! Who doesn't love Xmas?! And I know it's #1 for everyone else but for me it ranks close second. I don't have to tell you why Xmas is so wonderful you already know. So let's move on to the next one.

#3 New Year's

When going over these I was even surprised this one made it up so far. But with all the excitement of the upcoming year and the reminiscing of the past I think it's meant more to me over the years than in times past.

#4 Easter

I think what makes this one so high on the list was all the good memories I had growing up and what a big deal Easter Sunday was to us. I used to LOVE coloring eggs in class the week of, Easter Egg hunts are THE BEST when done right and who doesn't love them Cadberry eggs?! Ooooh... my mouth's watering for one right now!! Great holiday!

#5 Halloween

I'm guessing this would be on everyone's second favorite holiday list but it could be third in some cases. Halloween for me is at a respectful #5. It's a fun holiday no doubt and we all get to dress up and have fun. The scary theme is fun as well and if you have the right "haunted house" to visit each year this is probably higher on your list. We don't have any good ones anymore in Monroe, hence it's #5 ranking.

#6 Valentine's Day

Yikes! No love for this holiday it seems. But I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who thinks this way as well. It's never been a top holiday for me and I think being at #6 on my list is good enough. This is a commercial holiday to give you another reason to buy things. I don't mind showing my sweetie that I love her, but I'm not sure I need to set a "special" day aside for it.

#7 St Patrick's Day

Believe it or not, this one actually ranked #3 on my list years ago. Oh how the mighty have fallen in past years. It's a fun holiday if you have a place to celebrate and years ago we had one in the restaurant Bennigans way back in the day. There was karaoke, good food and MUCH socializing which made this one of my top three! But then they closed and every other placed sucked so now it's stuck near the bottom of my list waiting for the right time to return to it's past glory. Again, depending on what you have going on during this holiday determines where you'd rank it.

#8 4th of July

Ending my list as the "worst holiday" is this one. I've never enjoyed this holiday. Some grilling, nothing really going on and a few pathetic (and usually 2 hours delayed) fireworks from the city of Monroe...which I haven't been to in years. This holiday is a dud and I shouldn't even consider it one of the "Big 8" anymore. No fun at all!

So what would be your ranking of the holidays?

I'm interested to find out...

Hellos and Goodbyes

Goodbye AT&T! I glad to FINALLY be rid of you after so many years! You sucked as a carrier!

Hello Verizon. I've heard a lot of nice things about you, I hope this relationship goes well.

Hello Android phone. Yes the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be out next month but I figured the s3 would be just fine for now. It's a great phone and I really don't need any more bells and whistles than I already have. Since you're my first smart phone I'll hardly use you for anything more than texting and making calls.

Don't worry folks, no number change. Just my phone and carrier.

You can now send PICTURES to me over the phone. I can also take pictures and video on this one. (wow, welcome to the year 2001 right?)

My favorite website

I know this is geeky but I have to talk about this site! It's every Star Wars nerd's DREAM! I check it every week looking up the most random things I can think of at times and they have it!

I've even contributed some of my massive EU knowledge to help expand a few articles as well for them. Now I'm pretty sure most of you won't be running to check out this site after this but this site is one of 2 links I have saved as my "favorites"

If you love Star Wars, or need a random question answered about a character, thing or event from that universe, then this site is for you!!

Path of Daggers

Just finished Book 8 of the Wheel of Time series and here's my thoughts so far.

I now know what everyone was talking about when they say the series slows down to a crawl in the later books. Jordan's mistake is having too many characters that he wants you to care about. Trouble is, caring about 40 different characters isn't easy to do. Especially if you're only giving them about 30 pages each in your stories.

This series works better when you have only 3 or 4 story arcs to follow. But with SO many arcs I keep getting lost at who's who and what's going on. The problem was, Jordan had too much time to complete these novels and the editor didn't have the guts to tell him the truth about these later books in the series.

Either way, I'm content to travel to Book 9 where I will see what Tony's talking about when he said he "threw the book across the room" after reading it.

C-ya!

Spring Training Review

So here we are getting ready for the 2013 season and the Mets are right where I expected them to be.

Johan Santana's 31 MILLION dollars of awful right now. It's his last season...ever. So I guess there's some light at the end of the tunnel there.

Our outfield could be the worst in the majors right now, with our highest paid player being Bobby Bonilla who hasn't played in over a decade!! (he's on the Met's payroll for back-pay)

Duda is a DUD and if it wasn't for the Marlins I'd say we'd be living in the basement this season.

Thank goodness the Marlins are run by crooks who don't care about baseball!

So I'll strap on my cap and hope for 3rd again this year. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Alien Easter (3)

Alien Easter (2)

Alien Easter (1)

CANCELLED!!

Finally, Lucasfilm's decided to end this show. (2 seasons too long) I'm not upset about this news in the least. I've been saying this worn out show should have stopped after season 3 but it drug us around for another 2 before somebody finally took it out of it's misery.

I'll admit, all the episodes in 4 and 5 weren't bad. In fact, a lot of them were good. But Clone Wars has been going on FOREVER and I for one feel it's time they move in a new direction for a TV series.

I'll admit this was a shock at first hearing. The Mouse could've made a pretty penny bringing this show over to Disney XD. But what's done is done and now I'm done to watching 3 TV shows on a regular basis! (and Dexter's last season is this year too!!)

May the Force be with them.

Happy St Patty's Day!

Don't bother wearing green and slap anyone who pinches you for not!

Crown of Swords

Just finished Crown of Swords and here's what I think so far. It's still rolling along nicely but Jordan packs SO many characters you have to keep up with it's frustrating trying to remember who's who. At this point I know about 60% of the characters.

There's a glossary in the back of the book but it's not helpful since Jordan only describes the main characters of the series and not the 30 other side ones.

Again (like the last book) Jordan hurries toward a climax in the last 15 pages which makes it really rushed. I hope this isn't his pattern for the rest of the series, because the rest of the content is great!

On to Book 8!

Vacation 2011

Here's the last of the pics we took on our trip that year.

For some unexplained reason this band was playing in the streets of Downtown Disney. No idea why they were dressed that way but when in Disney....

And here I am behind the wheel driving to our family vacation....I don't know why Megan freaks out whenever I'm behind the wheel.

K, so that's all the photos I had from our trip. Sorry it's taken almost 2 years to follow up on my promise to do so but let it never be said I'm not a man of my word!

Have a good weekend everybody!

Sea World 2011

Time to show off a few pics from our trip to Sea World!...and yes Charity went with us there too...(sigh)

A pic with a trippy looking penguin.

Me in Antarctica (Sea World)

Adventure Seeker trying to find his way out of the mysterious caves! (with an exit sign in the background of course)

Honestly, we only stayed a day at Sea World and there wasn't much there to take pictures of, so here's a few from our trip to Down town Disney.

What they can do with Legos these days is amazing.

No telling how long it took to put these together!

K, that's all for today. The last of the pics I'll wrap up tomorrow!

Universal Studios 2011 Part 2

Us with Scooby Doo.

The Penguins of Madagascar.

Megan with Jaws.

Megan as Lucy.

Me with Bullwinkle.

Megan with Beetlejuice

Curious George

 

Me with a dinosaur. It's funny cause when I showed this to my little nephews I remember them asking if the T-Rex was real. 

Old Sea World  photos tomorrow.

Universal Studios 2011

We also went to Universal Studios on our trip (as you saw in the videos years ago) Here are some of our pics from there...

I'm getting my "nerd" on in Harry Potter World.

Us with Captain America.

Me in the Fantastic Four car.

With Shrek.

With Marmaduke.

With a big bomb.

With Woody Woodpecker and...girl? Looks to me as though they just added eye brows and a skirt and decided to make up a girl version of his character. Weird.

More Universal tomorrow...