I landed in Vegas a few hours ago. Since I was unsure of my ability to make it there the rest of the trip, I went straight to In N Out Burger before even checking in. Ummmm mmmmm.
I’m staying at the Exalibur, and it’s as horrible as I remembered it. I haven’t been in here in years, but nothing has changed. There is one positive though, some top-notch art in the bathroom.
I got the new gun yesterday on the way to playing in Jersey, where we hooked up with Denny Bruce for some good games. It’s now January and it was 73 degrees there. If I wasn’t so focused on playing paintball instead of snowboarding, I’d be seriously depressed right now. Try to go ride is absolutely pointless right now unless we travel somewhere off the east coast and that probably wouldn’t happen until spring so I guess I’ll just keep on shooting people. Anyway, I had picked up a starter gun that I thought would last me a few months and I’d upgrade, but I made it a month. We walked in, they had one of the two brand new models I was looking for, and next thing I knew I was putting some serious damage on my credit card. We headed over to field that was pretty empty because it had rained the day before. Since this was the warmest weather I’ve played in, I had some pretty thin layers on and I left there with my torso looking like 50 Cent’s gunshot wounds (besides the fact I’m white and have a good layer of fat running over my six pack now) – completely covered in welts. Tara got bunkered and took a shot in the ass from about 3 feet away from a gun that was set way too high, and has a round bruise about 4 inches across with a bunch of round rings inside it. She was kicking ass with her new pink gun racking up some kills, and the best part of the day was playing a series of back to back two on two matches with her and I against Adam from work and Denny, no refs.
This gun is all time, down to the "white trash NJ bass boat metallic flake" hopper.
This photo doesn’t even do her bruise justice, it’s a lot darker now…
I’m a plane to the CES show in Vegas right now, gearing up for three days of chaos. This show makes the SIA show look like a regional trade show it’s so huge. There’s nothing like walking around miles of show that make you feel like you need to update every single electronic device in your house.
So I spend a bunch of time wrestling with this fucking website of mine and I get it to the point where everything is on the money. No major quirks, things are looking good, and it’s getting late. Because I hate the piece of crap Internet Explorer, I never use it. At the last minute last night I check the site to make sure it works in IE and a big chunk of it appears halfway down the page, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Anyway, for now hopefully you’re looking at this in Firefox or Safari or something. Apparently my trial and error form of coding doesn’t quite cut it today.
Now for the quick catch up… We made our way to Nashville a few weeks ago to hang out with the Birches. 4 days of playing the Nintendo Wii and picking up kids pretty much crippled my right arm, but it was a lot of fun. We hit the famous Hatch Show Print, swung by Griffin to check out Alex’s new office and world of iPod accessories, hit the Loveless Cafe, and pretty much anything else (besides the Jack Daniels factory) that Tennessee has to offer.
We had a moderately mellow Christmas and New Year’s, everything went pretty smoothly. No complaints…
Tara’s birthday was on the 28th, famously shared with another person screwed with a birthday too close to Christmas, Christian DaBica. We decided to head into NYC and spend the night since we don’t get there enough, and stayed at the chi chi SoHo Grand. My parents and Tara’s mom and grandmother came in to surprise her for dinner at Asia de Cuba, which was exceptionally good. Somehow it seems like every time that I’m in the giant city of New York, I run into people I know and this trip was no exception. We were stoked to run into the Capozzis roaming around SoHo. It was great to see them, it’s been a while. They are the next batch of VT transplants to land in Oregon, taking the roundabout way by living in SoCal first…
We’ve been playing a bunch of paintball, trying to make an every weekend thing. It sucks you in just like snowboarding. I’m already working on getting a second gun, and Tara just had the most badass pink gun show up today, so tomorrow is going to be another good outing. I knew I was getting a starter gun I’d upgrade pretty quickly, but I didn’t think it would happen in less than a month. We picked the right year to dive into this, it’s now January and is going to be 68 degrees tomorrow. Every weekend we’ve gone has been epic weather, good thing we haven’t been trying to go snowboarding.
We watched Chuck Liddell hand out another slaughter to Tito Ortiz. Good fight.
Speaking of riding, we’re heading up to VT next weekend with hopes of getting out, but it’s not looking too good. If anyone is left in VT, get in touch because we want to hang out. Woot woot.
I finally bit the bullet and I’m working on incorporating real blog software into my site to make things a little easier. I should hopefully have everything up in a few days… Maybe someday I’ll update the pile of photos I have ready to go too.
It’s November right now, and it’s going to be 68°, sunny, and shoulder high today. Not surprising, I’m about to to blow out of work for a half day today.
Last weekend was the overly-long-awaited paintball weekend. We managed to bring an army of about 27 people for a full day of running in the woods. It lived up to everyone’s anticipations and then some, and we’re already planning the next one. For some reason, it’s been 10 years since the only other time I’ve gone, and now my only decision is whether to buy a gun now, or hold out the 2 short months until Christmas and have Tara get me one… This photo is of my best shot of the day, slaying one of our IT guys.
So it’s been a little while… Looks like this is going to be one of those recap updates that makes everything okay. I’ll need to see how much I can remember from the last month. Picking up where I left off, we went to see Social D in Atlantic City. Though they’re good no matter what, the lame House of Blues venue, essentially the TGI Friday’s of show venues, combined with a lame Atlantic City crowd made the show okay but not great. We decided to pick up some tickets for the sold out Philly show on eBay a week or so later and it was well worth it. Social D was on fire and played one of the best shows I’ve ever seen them do, and Supersuckers opened up for them and kicked ass as well. It’s hard to go wrong seeing any band play Philly…
We headed up to NH for the Merriams’ baby shower. We drove up and it was quick – leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday. As all baby showers should be, men were not invited so Brent and I had to go surf while Karen opened her gifts. We got some great sunny weather and I got to break in a new wetsuit so it was all good. Tessa and Seth showed up, who are always great to see. It turns out Brent and Karen got a surprise early visit from their new baby a few weeks early and they had her last Thursday. Maielle Karen Merriam is one good-looking newborn, wooohoooo.
The beach was a little nuts. It was stormy right before I got there and the waves were big. There was ocean schrapnel all over the beach, the most unsettling being several baby sharks that had washed up. That’s one of the things I live in denial about when in NH, even though they closed some beaches in ME a month or two ago after seeing some sharks. There was also a collection of crabs, lobsters, un-identifiable creepy fish, and even a stingray which I’ve never seen that far north.
The baby was good news in a month of horrible news. Three different close friends of mine had horrible things happen in their lives, all which involved the deaths of loved ones. All I can say are my thoughts are with everyone. On top of all this, one morning on the way to the gym I had a run-in with a deer. Even though we live right outside of Philly, where we live is like driving through the zoo. I was cruising along, luckily not too fast, and saw a deer running straight at me from the side. We saw each other just in time, and I skidded and turned away from him as much as I could without going off the road down into a river. Since he saw me, he tried to jump over my car but didn’t quite make it. He slid across my hood all Starsky and Hutch-like and took off on the other side. He left me with a dangling mirror and $800 worth of scuffs and scratches on the hood It could have been a lot worse though and the carnage was pretty minimal. When I called my insurance company they asked me if the deer
had an owner.
It seemed as though Quake was starting to lose some of its excitement at work, but along came some updates which included a batch of new levels. There are some serious addiction issues now which are affecting people, and most of my co-workers get really irritable or just plain start to freak out if we don’t play at the usual times (lunch and end of the day.) Bring lunch to work daily is now a given, since there’s now no time to run out and get something. We’ve got about 6 or 7 people playing, which leads to constant carnage and a shitload of smack-talking. There’s even a Stanley-cup like crown (actually a black and white printout of a crown) that gets passed around to the victor. The scene is stupid obsessive, and almost exactly like this scene from The Office. In fact, now that we’re playing teams it will probably be no different than the
last part of this clip.
Since shooting co-workers in a virtual world isn’t enough, this weekend is a big paintball weekend. I’m guessing about 30 or so people are going and
it’s going to be good. There’s been surprisingly little smack-talking leading up to this, probably because people aren’t looking to provoke.
eBay’s been sucking lately which is good because I don’t have time for it anymore. Everybody wants a deal and I don’t like to give deals, so I’m laying somewhat low this winter. We’ll see what happens if I get a little more motivated.
My work schedule was starting to make me fat the way Burton did, so I’m back on the wagon eating well and getting my sorry fat ass into the gym. I’ve been swimming regularly forever, but had pretty much slacked on lifting. Tara and I have been getting on it for the last few weeks and getting in there. This generally involves pounding an extra large coffee right before going, rocking out on Slayer / Hatebreed / Pantera til I’m nuts between that and the caffeine, doing far more than I would have the energy to do naturally, and then feeling like I’ve been hit by a bus for the next two days. Then we start it all over.
I drove with my parents to a wedding outside of Syracuse for a second cousin that I never, ever see or talk to. I really went just to keep my parents company, and it was a complete waste of a weekend. It was a dry wedding to top it off, and we stayed in the hotel that was “recommended” in the invite. Somehow everyone else knew not to stay there, but we didn’t get the memo. It was kinda cool to see, just not to stay. It hadn’t been updated since about 1970 and if we were in VT it would have seemed perfectly okay and not so disturbing. 10 hours of driving, no alcohol, and a shitty hotel. What a weekend. The room did include a coffee pot that connected to the wall.
Went to a Halloween party. Tara and I were Crockett and Tubbs, I was the white Tubbs. We ended up with some pretty good outfits sponsored by Goodwill. I wanted to be Arsenio Hall but I couldn’t figure out how to do the hair.
American Hardcore premieres in Philly tomorrow. Looks like it’s going to be a good flick. Borat comes out too, which I can’t wait to see. Oh, and we went to see The Departed. Best movie I’ve seen in a long time in the theater. Great plot, great cast, lots of violence.
I flew back from San Francisco last night. While I was watching Lost on my iPod, I realized the people around me didn’t look anything like the people on Lost, and I would have been in for a much different experience had the plane crashed on an island.
I’m gearing up for Social Distorion tomorrow night in Atlantic City. Can’t wait, one of the greatest bands ever who manage not to get lame over time. Chris Yeaton is joining us, so it’ll be a good time…
Uncategorized |
chuck | 
January 7, 2007 6:14 am | 
Comments (0) 
