I really have been neglecting my blog and my “fans” have been voicing their displeasure. Thus I am going to attempt to get back to at least posting weekly.

This was my first weekend back with my girlfriend in almost 3 weeks so it was pretty low key. We first went to try out Five Guys. The burgers were big and you could load them up with toppings. It tasted very much like Steak ‘n’ Shake which is ironically across the street. It was expensive in my eyes so I would rather go across the street. We followed that up with some good Chilean wine and a movie. We watched Up in the Air which was horrible. It was so boring. The only thing that kept me entertained was spotting all the St Louis scenes.

Saturday was a jammed pack day. We first went to Matt’s wedding couples shower. It was fun even though it rained the whole day so we couldn’t get in any washers. We followed that up with a friend’s birthday party at the Mack. I thought I had been there before but I guess I have not. Needless to say, it was a pretty cool play with a lot of people so it should make my rotation more.

Sunday was a day of domestication. The day consisted of a trip to Home Depot to buy flowers and then plant them at Becki’s. It was fun and everything turned out good. I also planted my “cat grass” in the planted I finally found. I am hoping that it grows and looks good so I can put it on my center island in my kitchen.

In other news, I approve of the Rams draft. It looks like they got some really good late round picks in the wide receiver from Cincinnati and the super athlete tight end. In hind site, they should have drafted Suh first then Claussen second but how were they to predict that no QBs would be drafted in the first round. I am also extremely disappointed in the Lakers. I was really worried after they had a horrible second half of the season but I never expected them to get blown out in a game by Oklahoma.

One of my friends was gracious enough to get us tickets for the regional Sweet 16  games in St Louis last week. Luckily she had a pretty good connection which resulted in amazing seats. As you can see from the pictures, we were in the third row from the press seats. We were surrounded by “celebs.” Most notably Magic Johnson but Steve Maruicci (current Detroit Lions coarch) and Tom Izzo’s wife were all within a couple seats of us in the Michigan St section. We also had all the players families around us. So not bad seats at all.

The games were interesting. I had never been to a tournament game nor a college basketball game that MU was not playing in. A couple things surprised me about the game: (1) the players all looked much bigger than on TV when your at court level (2) the crowd never really gets into the game (3) they didnt serve beer but it is a NCAA game (4) 75% of the fans in the Mich St – Northern Iowa game were wearing purple but the crowd never got loud and intimidating like I was expecting before the game. I expected them to be going crazy when they started on an early run but nothing sustatined to try to rile up the Mich St players. (5) Ohio St does not travel well; or at least didn’t for this game because their section was tiny and I saw little red through the arena (6) not sure if attendance was down but they should of had this game at Scottrade since the attendance was only 13k for Friday’s games. There was a Blues game on Sunday so maybe this was impossible. Also, I would have expected a ton more fans and a better atmosphere if Kansas would have made it like they were expected.

The games themselves were both interesting and close. Ohio St got some bad calls and a cold streak in the 2nd quarter by Turner hurt them. Turner rebounded at the end but couldn’t pull it off. Northern Iowa was clearly over matched and lacked in talent but they were able to hang around because of some timely 3′s and the play of the their big man.

Fun

I had a pretty entertaining weekend. I went to Double D’s to celebrate a friend’s engagement. Another group of people that I knew were also there. It was a fun time. I still am surprised of the crowd and the atmosphere of the new location.

On Saturday, I got some shopping in. I bought a couple fake trees for my place. The coolest one is a 7ft bamboo tree that I put in my bedroom. It was expensive but it fits the room perfectly. The base even matches my bedroom furniture. I hung out at a friend’s that night for his 30^th b-day party. It was a great night and was the first time in a long time that we all hung out. We fit in a little dancing at Big Daddy’s and then made a quick run to Pops to round out the night.

Sports

Pretty big weekend for sports. The biggest event on my mind was the MU – K State game. It turned out to be a great game and helped to ease a lot of the anxiety of the team after some tough road losses to some bad teams. MU now has a 30 game home winning steak which is extremely impressive. It was a good start to Big 12 play and hopefully it continues. I watched bits and pieces of all the playoff games. Thought I would watch more of the Dallas – Philly game but did not. The Blues won their first game under the new head coach too.

TV

Sunday night premiered two of my favorite shows. The first being Chuck which almost did not record because it lost a DVR matchup with Big Love and the Simpson’s 400^th episode special. I moved Big Love to 10:15 and it was all resolved. Chuck showed two new episodes back to back. There is another one tonight. I still do not know why more people do love Chuck. Here is a good synopsis from my favorite Lost writer on the show. All I can say is that it has drama, comedy, romance mixed with hot girls, fighting, and tons of trendy electronic callouts and references. As for the new season, it did seem that they were cutting cost since the show was basically cancelled and brought back to life by their strong fan base. It seemed like some of the CGI explosions looked a little cheesy to me. Overall, the two episodes were good and Chuck 2.0 seems like he will have some new moves. The Accord commercials with the characters were sort of weird. I didn’t know if I was watching the show or a commercial at first. I guess that’s good Marketing.

More importantly was the premier of Big Love. It has been so long that I forgot some of the major plotlines. I totally forgot that Joey killed Roman. It also looks like for now that he will get away with it. It was a very entertaining first episode and through out some very interesting twist to setup the season.

All I can about Jersey Shore is Gym, Tan, and Laundry. Everyone has to have a little GTL in their life.

As with every other year, I embarked on my two week hiatus from work for the holiday break. This year was a little different since I rarely went out and instead opted for a more relaxed feeling with the people I care about.

Movies

I saw a ton of movies over my break. All the summer hits all hit my Blu ray at the right time. I am not going to go into a lot of details but I was disappointed in The Hangover. It was definitely funny but I can think of a lot more comedies that are much better. For example, Old School is 5 times funnier. Maybe it was over hyped. What I did see that was amazing was Avatar in 3D. Going into the movie, I did not know much about it except everyone kept saying how good it was. It was very impressive and would only recommend it in 3D (well worth the $17 ticket). The color, images, and plot was fantastic. It instantly became one of my top 5 movies ever and can see it being my first 3D movie since 3D TVs are already hitting the market.

Fantasy Football

I came super close to do the unthinkable and winning my league. That is a hard concept to grasp because I lost 4 out of the first 5 games but had some good mid season pickups (Miles Austin) and people returning from injury (or getting more time due to teammates injured) that made my team into a powerhouse. Unfortunately, I got distracted in the semi finals and did not manage my team that Sunday morning and loss by 2 points when all my bench people had over 20 points each. I won the consolation bracket and scored my points in the final week than both the teams in the final.

Family

I spent a lot of time with the family. What is funny (or maybe not) is that I think I spent more time in a 30 day period than I do the other 11 months combined. I really enjoyed all Christmas and New Years parties that I went to.

New Years Eve

First off, I hope to never plan a NYE night ever again. Unless it is in Vegas (something I have always wanted to do and just happened to be something one of my Wash U friends did this year but she did it way more than I ever could). After much going back and forth, we went to MoMos for dinner and Big Daddy’s in Soulard for the night. It was my first time at MoMo’s. I was most impressed by the Sea Bass. It was $10 and was equal to a $30 serving at most fine restaurants. Big Daddy’s was also good. Well worth the $55 since they had premium drinks and Red Bull included … hello Three Olives Cherry Vodka and Red Bull drinks (my fav). Like expected cabs were impossible but worst than I thought. I thought it would be easier since we went to a 1 o’clock and all the city bars don’t close till 3 but I was wrong. Thankfully a friend drove us home after a couple hours. I found out today at lunch that I could have gotten a ride immediately from a guy at work that lived next door from where we were.

Sports

I only followed two sporting events closely this break, both MU games. The MU vs IL basketball game was a surprising win. The MU bowl game was a rather disappointing one. I did watch a lot of the other bowl games but no NFL games. It is also nice that the Rams got the #1 draft. I would like to see them get Suh as the #1 then a quarterback for the #33 pick.

Various

• After a couple failed fixing attempts, my Xbox 360 is still broke.
• My friends can be complete idiots at times especially when it comes to hot tubs in the cold.
• I did not catch up on my DVR watching which is amazing since no new shows recorded. Watched a lot of movies instead. I also probably only played an hour of video games the whole 2 weeks.
• No one goes to Wash Ave during a holiday break. Important fact to remember.
• Finally went ice skating at Steinberg Park. It was fun but very cold and windy so we did not stay long. One thing to note is that place must make a killing. Very low overhead since it is outdoors and getting like $9 a person.

Going to hit some quick highlights from my weekend.

• Had a good lunch with some family members Friday at J Bucks Downtown along with them seeing my place for the first time.
• Went to Electric Cowboy in St Chuck. It was interesting. I like the concept but not that they just played slow dancing country songs during the country music portion. The hip hip was all the classic club songs.
• Had a good dinner at Bar Louie on Saturday. Love the dipping sauces for the pretzels.
• Couldn’t fit ice skating in due to the torrential down pours but will try to reschedule soon.
• Watched 3 hours of Jersey Shores. That show is ridiculous. I will keep watching it even though I think I become more stupid after watching it…lol. It just so intriguing.
• Watched Funny People. Expected it to actually be funny since it had so many popular comedians in it but it was not. It really dragged on too.
• Watched half of the new Harry Potter and was bored.
• Had an amazing fantasy football performance. None of my guys did amazing but all except a last minute sub put up 25 points. Got to love the consistency. I put up top points for the week and still have the top D pointer getter in the league along with another guy on D.
• Did not fix my Xbox 360. More to come on that.
• Did get my car back but not happy with the outcome.
• Did get my third patent approved. The extra bonus money couldn’t have come at a better time. Two more to go which are solely in my name so an added bonus if they get approved.

Wow, how can a 5 day weekend go by so fast? I has so much planned for this weekend in terms of getting stuff done and feel like I accomplished barely anything. I look back and wonder what I did with all my time because I didn’t ever sleep more than 8 hours, didn’t catch up on my DVR, and didn’t play any video games (at my house).

I did watch Star Trek on Wednesday along with washing my car which took a good majority of my time. Star Trek was overrated and I think the first hour was boring because they were introducing the characters. I think the next movie could have potential. As far as my car, I spent over 4 hours detailing it. I feel like it is falling apart. I did some sweet super gluing action in the back seat. I am taking it in Wednesday to get it all figured out. As far as the biggest night to go out,  I met some Wash U friends at the new Double D’s even though they don’t call it that anymore. I knew it wasn’t going to be the same when we pulled up and they had valet. It was a karaoke dive bar so it lost some of its allure to me but it was packed beyond belief.  We finished up on Wash Ave which was also packed.

Thanksgiving was all about the Family. We all went to my aunt’s in High Ridge.  The meal was awesome and it was good to see the family.

I did hit up Black Friday but not electronics like I normally do. Instead I went to West County Mall to pick up my jeans. I was really worried about them all week since I paid so much and never had jeans custom fitted. Needless to say, they fit perfectly and I love them plus I got tons of complements all weekend on them. I also picked up a couple shirts but no real deals. We followed that up with a football game in Tower Grove park. I was more sore than I thought from our last game so I was really hurting and pretty unproductive. I also got in some awesome Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. The game is pretty awesome. Think multiplayer NES mario in semi 3d. Matt and I were kicking butt and taking names in it.

I went to the Dads on Saturday for another awesome meal. One thing is for sure…my dad can really cook. I loved seeing Pepper. He was so excited to see me. With all that fun, the best part of the day was the comeback win by Mizzou over KU. Some are calling it one of MUs most exciting games ever. I wouldn’t say that but I cant believe that KU tried passing plays 3 times in a row in the endzone as time was running out….how stupid is that? Saturday night was pretty awesome too. I had a great dinner at Drunken Fish in the CWE followed up by seeing That 80′s Band at the Old Rock House which was awesome. They combined my love of concerts and 80′s musics. I made a brief appearance at Dubliner then decided to go to Pop’s. Killing Vegas was there so got to hear a lot of awesome RATM. The place was more packed than I had ever seen it. There was probably 3 times more people than normal. I also ran into an old friend there too.

Sunday was a relaxing day. What else do you expect after having a late night on the East Side? I slept in really late and then watched Twilight….I know but had to see what the hype was about. I passed out by 7:30.

Wow, what a jammed packed and exhausting 3 day weekend. I could barely get myself up for work on Monday. Needless to say, I did have a lot of fun.

A group of us decided to buy tickets at the last minute to the Party Rock Tour at the Pageant. The tour consisted of LMFAO, Schwazye, Far East Movement, Paradiso Girls, Space Cowboy. Most people (my age) have no clue who LMFAO (or the rest of the groups) even is but they have probably heard their songs before. “I’m in Miami trick” was their first popular song and “La La La” and “Shots” are getting heavy radio play. I didn’t think I knew the other bands but Schwazye has a couple songs that were popular like “Corona and Lime” and “Get U home.” Paradiso Girls was a newer version of the Spice Girls. I guess they have a popular song called “Patron Tequila” but I am not sure if I had ever heard it. They were also just featured in the December issue of Maxim. The other two bands were pretty funny…that’s all I can say about them but all of the 5 groups are part of some popular 2009 songs so I guess the concert was pretty strong in party/pop/rock circuit. Overall the concert was interesting to say the least. I thought I was at a rave with a bunch of 16 yearolds. The 21 and up section was only half full (at max) while the various stages of the main floor had “one in – one out” which I have never seen before at the Pageant. I did see a lot of girls getting dropped off by their moms. What was even funnier was seeing some older regulars of the Party and the Park scene. I sure hope I am not in this scene in 15 and 20 years like them.

Saturday was a long day of enjoying some adult beverages for Mizzou’s final home football game. We had actually been planning this game for 3 months and this was the only game that everyone was available. I stayed out too late and had to be in Winghaven at 8:30 so I got very few hours of sleep. We didn’t get in CoMo and the hotel till about 11AM so we hopped in a cab from the beautiful Red Roof Inn (where we told by the cab driver that a stripper was just killed a couple weeks ago over a drug deal) to the field. We just walked around randomly for a couple hours tailgating and tossing the football. The game was entertaining but I was disappointed in the lack of people in the student section. I was reminded later that night that the students were on holiday break so that explains why there were less people tailgating, at the game, and at the bars. We went back to the hotel for a couple hours then went to Shiloh which was dead then to the Vu because the boys wanted to dance. It was a lot of fun but the Vu is definitely the Buca of Columbia.

We played a football game on Sunday and had a small bbq with some friends. I did not think I would be able to run because I still have some kind of respiratory infection but it didn’t seem to create a huge problem. The newly purchased spikes were a lifesaver. It makes it 10 times easy to play in coverage when wearing spikes. I think I only allowed my guy that I was covering to catch the ball 3 times (max). I also had a pretty good day at QB which really got me thinking about something. I use to be able to throw a great football in grade school and high school but went downhill in college and life after. I’ve had the same issue with a golf club. I could drive the ball so much further in high school than I can now. My new theory on why this is the case is that I have lost a lot of upper body muscle that I gained in college. Most people would say, shouldn’t it be the opposite? You would think but I think it is because I lost some flexibility so some of my quick twitch muscles were not performing up to par. Needless to say, I had a ton of fun at the game but I am extremely sore after a couple collisions and take downs. I can swear I was the only one that kept getting knocked down (except for the time I knocked down Courtney when she got in my way when I was gunning for the Rengler when I was trying to set a block after a pick. My legs are sore but not as bad as I was expecting. My shoulder is super sore from the Rengel take down. I also jammed a finger which is now swollen. As a side note I was told to mention that Courtney is a pretty good player. She had several catches and passing and receiving TDs.

This was a no frills weekend for me because I was sick with something. It wasn’t the flu so do not worry about any H1N1 talk. I never had a fever so this is my reason I do not think I have the flu. I’ve just been really congested and super tired. The bad thing is that it hasn’t seemed to improve in a week.

Needless to say I stayed in both nights….I did not even leave the house once I got home from work on Friday. I was extremely lazy and pretty much lived on my couch. Watched some sports; a bad Lakers loss (but not as bad as Sundays loss), a good Mizzou win in basketball and football, and a good Rams loss (I know its hard to say good but they played well and almost pulled off a huge upset). I also caught up on my DVR and Netflix watching. I watched 3 movies: GI Joe, the new Transformers, and X-Men Wolverine. GI Joe and Transformers were both good. I liked the storyline, special effects, and the amazing sound quality. These were the first Blu-rays that I have ever watched. I think I enjoy the sound quality 10 times more than the picture quality. Nothing is better than being immersed in an explosion that rattles the room. Wolverine was a bit of a disappointment. It was okay to see his storyline on how he was created but then the storied died after that. I was thinking “is that it?” as the movie ended. I was expecting still another hour of a plot.

So nothing really exciting. I am looking forward to the next week though. I am going to Columbia with a big group for Mizzou’s last home game and then have a short work week then a 5 day weekend for one of my favorite holidays because I love turkey dinners.

As a side note, I had lunch with my companies outside photographer who is probably the most interesting person I know. He travels all over the world taking pictures. The interesting thing is that he is always going to places that most people don’t. For example, his next trip is to Columbia, the country. He said you never ride in cars because you will get kidnapped if you do. Instead you either take a plane or a bus to go from city to city. This got me thinking and I really would like to do a trip to Peru. I’ve been talking about it for a couple years now and this is the time to go since it is summer there. He told me some trips to take there like a 4 day hike to Machu Picchu where you pay a guide to basically carry all your gear so you can enjoy the journey. Just something to think about.

This weekend went by so quick. Overall it was a decent weekend. I enjoyed the wins by both Missouri and the Rams which is always a plus. The one disheartening thing is that I am not feeling as confident with Missouri’s team. It is pretty obvious that we can not compete if the defense blitzes alot. I would think the other teams we play would also recognize this.

As for the actual weekend. I decided to stay in Friday and catch up on the DVR. I decided at the last minute that I was going to dress up for Halloween. For some reason, I am not a big fan of Halloween. Not sure why. Needless to say, I went as Brendan Ryan because he has a sweet stache. Unfortunately, mine was not as sweet since the Halloween store was out of the good ones and the one I bought was hard to manage. All my friends had no clue who I was but I had at least two people at Harrys tell me. I tried to get a Ryan jersey but couldn’t find one. The stache and the pulled up socks should have given it away. A straight brimmed hat would have helped but I despise wearing hats. Mike P definitely won the best costume award for being Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. The pictures do not do him justice…he even pulled off the Pedro facially expressions.

Another week, another 3 day weekend….I am joking but it sure seems like I have a lot of 3 day weekends. This weekend was bigger than a normal weekend because we had a huge group going to see Missouri play Texas in the Homecoming game while also having my good friend Matt Rengel’s bachelor party.

Overall the weekend went pretty well despite the fact that Missouri got destroyed by the higher ranked and overly talented Texas squad. I was a bit worried about the weekend because it seemed like absolutely no planning went into the weekend which is not in my nature.

We left in a couple groups. Group 1 got to CoMo around 6 on Friday so we decided to go downtown to eat dinner. After going to a couple places, we decided on Campus (formerly Big 12) since we were able to get a table right away. After we were done, we wanted to play some darts so we tried Quintons then went to McNallys where we able to secure a board. We hung out there for a while then went to some random bar to hear Casey play. He was pretty good and sang all the classic songs I know and love. We rounded out the nostalgic night by hitting the tail end of the Vu. Also, we got extremely lucky and Rengel’s brother was the sober driver for the whole weekend so I and the group owe him very much gratitude. I also thank Casey for letting us crash at his place both nights.

We woke up “early” Saturday and met up with the rest of the group to get our tailgating supplies. From there, we decided to try out luck at finding a spot even though it was only noon and we thought our spot next to Reactor was not available till 4PM. We ended up getting a sweet spot right next to the tennis center. As you can see in the picture, we really went all out. It was the best tailgate we had so far. The weather was amazing. I was wearing just a tshirt most of the day.

As for the game there was nothing good about it. What disturbed me even more was our seats. We paid $75 for our tix and were somehow in bleachers above the $35 GA spots. It was actually the exact same section I sat in for the Nebraska game with my GA tickets. I thought we were going to be in the bleachers on the north end zone like our tickets said but obviously not. What really made me furious was the “fans” (if you really want to call them that) in our section. We had a group of 15 so we took the first 3 rows in our section. The issue was that we could not see the field because of the low seats, the railing, and the fans standing in the GA section. The people behind us didn’t care because they wanted to sit and did not care if we couldn’t see the seats. What made me mad is that they got belligerent (cursed and threatened me which is not cool when there are kids around) and even tried to throw us out and a bunch of other people who were standing. The idea of trying to get someone thrown out because they are supporting their team is appalling. We were just minding our own business and trying to enjoy the game and they ruined it. I basically felt guilty for trying to watch the game so ended up watching it on the score board … not cool after paying $75 for tickets. We ended up leaving at half because of the poor game and the seating situation. These fans didn’t even stand on big 3^rd down plays in the 1^st quarter. How is that possible? Might as well watch the game at home on your TV if your not going to get into the game. I totally equate this to fans that only came because it was homecoming and probably don’t even watch games.

As for the night scene, we decided to hit up Tin Can then the new Shiloh since Quintons, Harpos, and Campus had a huge line. What amazes me is the huge number of new bars in Columbia. There seems to be 3 times the places to go. Is there more people going out in Columbia now? Has the house party scene died? I do not remember all the bars being extremely packed so not sure how these new bars can be full. Smith and I ended the night eating some delicious eggs and hashbrowns at Waffle House. All I can say is that Waffle House needs to get some computers in that place to better automate the ordering system. It was a bit ridiculous.

On a side note, I forgot to mention playing the punching game at Tin Can. Somehow we ended up with zero pictures of this even though we did it for at least an hour. Somehow, all the tall and skinny guys in our group kept getting 900s which was high for the whole bar. Most people we getting in the 700s and 800s….girls were getting 500s and 600s. Smith somehow got a 47 when he actually tried so that is a whole other story. I saw some huge guys that looks liked they could kill you with one punch get mid 700s which is what I got in two punches. I think it is flawed by the angle of attack and the way it records. That’s the only way I can explain it. We did have a couple injuries…one being what was thought a broken wrist but turned out to be just a sprain.

Here is the picture from the weekend.