Baby's Room is Done!!

It took nearly a million manhours, but the baby's room is finally done. And it looks awesome. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

A Slice of American History...er Cheers.

This is random, dorky, geekdome, but I'm bored so I wanted to post an interesting observation I made the other day.

I was reading my book the Intellectual Devotional: American History the other day -- a cool history book that has 1 page snippets on different historical figures in the history of America --and my mouth dropped when I saw a picture of Jacob Riis. For those of you who don't know - you uneducated nits! - Jacob Riis was a famous journalist and photographer from the late 1800s.

Well, my mouth dropped open when I read about Jacob Riis, not because I was flabbergasted by his super cool contribution to American history, but because of the fact that he looks like Cliff Claven -- a.k.a John Ratzenberger... It's uncanny!

You be the judge!

Entertain Me....Between Football and Baseball Season

Only 30 or so days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training, so I'm spending a large majority of my time reading books, watching movies and playing our new Wii. So, without further delay, here's the next installment of Entertain me.....

Wii (is there anything more popular today?)

It took multiple weeks until I finally gave up on getting a Wii at one of my 20 or so local electronics stores. So I finally broke down and got a Wii on eBay. I've had it for about a week and must say that it's a lot of fun. Here's the games I got for the Wii.

Super Mario Galaxy - Probably one of the best games I've played on any system in 2 years. The last great game I played was Oblivion on the Xbox 360. I loved that game and I'm close to loving Super Mario Galaxy even more. The graphics are great. The controls are tight and it's a ton of fun to play.

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition - This is one of my all-time favorite games on the Gamecube, so I spent $19.99 and got this for the Wii. I've only played this a little, since most of my time has been spent playing SMG. The controls are tough to figure out and the graphics are significantly worse on the Wii than they were on the Gamecube.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - I love Zelda games and that's why I gave this one a shot. Like RE4, the graphics stink on this Zelda. I've played the game for 2 hours so far and just left the first -boring - town in the game. The 30 Year Old Gamer tells me to stick with the game and give it a shot and I'm going to do that.

Mario Kart Wii - Just a great fun game that I'm enjoying with the wife. It's a lot of fun.

Wii Sports - Decent, and a lot of fun to play with others, but the graphics are so NES.

Wii Play - Better than I expected when you're playing with another person.

I'll write more tomorrow about the movies I've been watching and books I've been reading lately.

2007 dulls the pain from 2008...

I said at the beginning of the season (and think I even told this directly to a few of you) that I wouldn't care if the Giants went 4-12 during the 2008 season.

The 2007 season was so awesome and so exhilarating that I didn't have any expectations or hopes or demands for the 2008 season.

If the Giants did well, I would be happy.

Well, when it comes down to it, the Giants did well this season. They were not 4-12. They were 12-4 and the best team in the NFL for much of the season. ...That is, until the loss of Plaxico Burress. I don't care what anyone says, the loss of Burress hurt the team. They were completely a different team after Burress left the team. It made Eli a different QB. It killed the offense.

Yesterday's 23-11 lost to the Philadelphia Eagles left a bad taste in my mouth, but I'm definitely not as disappointed as I've been in previous seasons.

Sure, Eli played horrible yesterday. But I also think that the play calling was simply atrocious. And while the Giants defense played okay, they did not make the big stops that were necessary.

I got text messages throughout yesterday's monstrosity from jealous Redskins and 49ers fans - who shall be nameless - talking about how Eli was horrible and how much the Giants sucked. yada. yada. yada. Sure, they played bad yesterday and yes, I am disappointed by how they ended the 2008 season, but I think this team has a bright future ahead.

...and think that their amazing 2007 season dulled the pain from yesterday's loss a bit.

Giants Ready to Take Down for Eagles

They've had a week off to rest up and take care of all of their injuries. Now, I think the Giants are ready to take down the Eagles today. Chosen One, doesn't think so, but we'll see what happens.

Go Giants!

R.I.P. Xbox #2

I think my Xbox 360 knows that I’ve been shopping around for a new Wii console for the past two weeks.

Tonight, as I was playing Super Bowl XLV against the San Diego Chargers in Madden ’09, my Xbox 360 froze up. When I went to turn it back on, it showed me the dreaded 3 rings of death.

That means it is toast.

I filled out an online repair form and even though it’s out of warranty, Microsoft says it will fix it for free because it’s a prevalent problem with everyone’s Xbox 360 consoles. It’ll take a month to fix it and by that time hopefully I’ll have found a Wii that is backordered everywhere from now until eternity.

This is my second Xbox 360 that has died from the dreaded hardware malfunction. And it certainly will be the last after I finally find a new Wii.

An Exciting Weekend

I had an exciting weekend and wanted to share the news with you:

1) On Friday night, me and the wife went to the Raritan Township Re-organization Meeting where I was nominated to serve on the Open Space Committee - for a 3 year term - and as an alternate on the Environmental Committee - for a 1 year term. I'm really psyched about both of these appointments. Who knows where it will lead?

2) On Saturday morning, me and a bunch of friends went down to AC to play in a poker tournament at Taj Mahal. 164 people signed up for the tourney and the top prize was $3210. Alas, I did not win the tourney, but finished 7th and took home a nice chunk of change. I've played in two tournaments at Taj and made the final table both times. That's some good odds. I was completely focused at the tournament and afterward felt like I was going to fall over from exhaustion. I don't know how the people who play at the World Series of Poker do it. I played for 6 hours and felt like death.

3) I'm happy to extend an offer to Chosen One to serve as my research assistant. Since, I am horrible at research and backing up my claims -- according to the Chosen One -- I want to offer him the astute position as Paper-researcher. In return, I'll offer him a lifetime supply of cocoa butter - insert inside joke here.