19 Days Til 30 - My Brief Life In Team/School Sports

I know, it sounds unbelievable. But, yes, I did actually play sports for a time when I was a kid.

We'll start with 4th Grade. I don't recall what events lead to the formation, but this was the year when a 4th Grade boys basketball team was organized at Queen of Heaven in Cherry Hill, NJ. Not much came of it though since there weren't any other schools in the area that had teams of a similar age range. So it was more or less time spent practicing and playing against one another. It was an OK time, I guess. Any excuse to get kids to spend more time playing together.

5th Grade was when sports became a big deal since guys were finally able to try out for the JV basketball team. And I, just for the hell of it, decided to give it a shot. Since it was the JV team, I think everyone who came out for the team was allowed to play. I mean, I was on the team and I wasn't in anything even remotely resembling peak physical condition. But again, I think it was another case of getting kids together and having them actually engaging in physical activity instead of sitting around and watching TV or playing video games. Since I was on the team, my dad was part of the coaching staff. I'm not sure if he volunteered or got roped into it since I was involved, but nevertheless he was there for every practice and every game. Don't worry, this didn't turn into one of those cliched moments you see in movies or TV shows where the coach's son is treated like the star player and sees a ridiculous amount of game time. It was evident that my basketball skills were... let's say "mediocre" at best. Don't get me wrong, I understood the basics of the game - dribbling, passing, shooting, defense, and so on. But there were plenty of people on the team who were much better than me. That is to say, pretty much everyone else. But I did see time on the court. I wasn't a great player, but I did manage to score a whopping 12 points throughout my starred career. Funny thing, each basket I made was at an away game. Well, maybe it's not that funny now that I think about it. Not ironic either. I guess, if anything, it's... um... a fact. Yeah, I got nothing. I did the JV team thing again in 6th grade and even tried out for Varsity in 7th grade. It's no surprise to me that I was cut after tryouts. Oh well, it didn't really matter to me. That was the end of my time playing basketball.

Being an overweight kid, I didn't wear a "traditional" jersey. Most likely because they didn't carry one in my size. Even if they did, I'd probably have worn a t-shirt under it since I would've been more comfortable that way. That's what I did when wearing my singlet for wrestling, but more on that later. If need be, I'm sure I could just worn a plain blue t-shirt (since our school colors were blue & white) and maybe gotten some iron-on transfers for numbers to go on the back of it. Instead, I was given a different jersey. It was a girls' basketball jersey. No, seriously, I was told flat out that's what it was. It basically looked like a t-shirt but the material was a dark, shinier blue. This is what they found that would fit me? And it was still a bit on the tight side. I don't think any of the opposing players ever took me seriously. But then again, why would they? "Check out this fat kid trying to keep up playing basketball! What is he thinking?" I even remember some punk ass kid from some team saying to me in the bathroom before one game, "Hey, if we win, your ass is grass. If you guys win, your ass is grass". So, let me get this straight; This little prick basically threatened to beat me up regardless of the outcome of the game. Did I say anything to anybody about it at the time? No. I didn't think much about it. Besides, I didn't think anything would happen to me after the game since I wasn't planning on spending any time away from the team and my dad after we were finished. Besides, what was he going to do? Approach me as I was leaving with my dad and try to kick my ass? I'm sure this guy went on to be a big star in the NBA and is making a living off his numerous merchandising deals and... oh, wait, no, I'm sure he's probably just some guy leading an average life who has since stopped playing basketball since it's not how he's making his living. I know I may sound sort of embittered, but honestly, what does one gain by trying to bully an overweight kid you don't know and have never seen before in your life? Kids are dumb, there's no two ways about it. 

I started wrestling in 5th grade as well since a good friend of mine was involved in it. However, Queen of Heaven didn't have a wrestling team. So we were part of the team for St. Peter's in Merchantville, NJ. It's important to note that wrestling and basketball seasons intersected so when I started with St. Peter's, I was still on the JV basketball team at Queen of Heaven. Basketball practices were Monday and Wednesday evenings while wrestling practices were Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I definitely kept myself active during that time, but I was still overweight. At practices, I usually drilled with the coaches or my dad since they were technically the closest to my weight class. Most of the time at matches I ended up wrestling in the heavyweight division since many of the school didn't have guys in my weight class and it wasn't uncommon for me to take on guys who outweighed me by 20 or more pounds or were even older than me by a couple of years depending on the time frame of reference. 

I stuck with wrestling all the way through 8th grade. I guess I enjoyed it more than basketball and was probably better at it in the long run. Though, I will admit, I wasn't that great of a wrestler. I had a lot of factors going against me. For one, I never was a quick kid. Speed is a very important aspect of wrestling, almost as important as strength if you ask me. And lacking that, it wasn't very uncommon for me to end up on my back looking up at the lights as the referee counted the pin. Also, I've worn glasses since I was 9 years old. And, let's be honest, if there's one sport where you cannot wear glasses and safely participate, it's wrestling. So blurry vision while competing, also not conducive to winning. Occasionally I would go to meets or tournaments and not have a single match and end up just sitting around most of the day. I didn't win very often. In some tournaments I would win via forfeit being the only person in my weight division. But I do have one legit win to my name. It happened so quickly that I barely remember it, but at one meet when I was in 8th grade I succeeded in pinning my opponent in the second period. It may be the only win I ever had, but it was via pin and that made me feel pretty damn good! As it turned out, this was also the day where I ended up wrestling in either 4 different matches over the course of the day. With the last two matches coming one right after the other. Needless to say, I didn't last very long at that point. One of the team dads made large wooden pins as trophies for guys on the team who achieved victories via pinfall. I received one of those the following week as well as something an extra, a wooden barbell trophy to commemorate the fact I wrestled a large number of matches at that meet. That was really cool. I still have both of these trophies as you can see here.

After graduating from 8th grade, it was time to get ready for the next step in life - high school. In the fall of 1998, I would be attending St. Joseph's Preparatory School in Philadelphia, PA. And for reasons I still can't quite fathom, that summer I decided I would train to get ready to be on the Freshman football team. Again, I have no clue why this idea entered my head. I've never been a fan of football nor had I ever shown any interest in playing it before. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume my dad had some influence in my decision to pursue this course of action. Anyway, he and I would go to a school in the area and train together. Running on the football field or the track the enveloped the grassy area a couple of times a week. The first practice was on a Sunday afternoon in late August, the day before the first day of school. We all went to St. Joe's to get our gear and get introduced to the coaches. Then practice began with us running from the Prep to Girard College, half a mile away. Once we got to the campus, there was more running. And then, some more running. And finally, the day was capped off with even more running. I was not accustomed to this. Yes, my dad and I had done lots of running at the high school near us during the weeks leading up to this. But that was in the evening when temperatures were beginning to cool off and out near the suburbs of South Jersey. This practice was in the early afternoon and not too far from Center City Philadelphia. It was scorchingly hot out that day. By the end of practice, I was dehydrated and miserable. I cried most of the way home telling my dad I didn't think this was for me. He told me I should calm down and think about it before making a decision. I'm sure he meant I should take a couple of days to think it over, but later that evening at home I said I was positive that I didn't want to play football because I was sure it wasn't for me. I can't help but think I may have really disappointed him with my decision, though I don't think he made any indication one way or another. Besides, no time like high school to start asserting yourself somewhat in making your decisions. I certainly didn't feel like being miserable day in and day out just because I was worried about whether or not my dad would be disappointed in me. 

The first day of school game and I brought my gear with me on the bus that morning. When we pulled up to the Prep, my first order of business was to go to the equipment room to meet up with the coach and return everything. I told him I didn't think I'd be a good fit for the team and, upon returning my equipment, thanked him for his time. So, I was a football player for all of one day. A friend of mine from St. Joe's and I still joke about this since he was the the first practice as well and he also decided that it was not for him that day. "Can you believe we toyed with the idea of being on the Freshman football team", I'd always say. "What in the Hell were we thinking?" That was the first and last time I ever got involved with high school sports. Later that day, I saw a flyer on a bulletin board for a different activity that would change my life forever. But that, my friends, is a story for another day.

20 Days Til 30 - Why Not Join SliceThePie?

Hey there, everyone! Do you like music? Sure, we all do. Would you like to listen to new music, write a review about it and get paid to do so? Well then, check out SliceThePie.com  Just click the link below and sign up using the referral link. There's nothing quite like exposing yourself to new music, plus getting paid to do so as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I promise to have a couple more extensive entries coming up this weekend. But until then, go ahead and click the link below.

http://www.slicethepie.com/?wyd=648985

21 Days Til 30 - It Begins

Here we go, Day 1 of "Operation Mutton Chops". For a bit more of an explanation, see yesterday's post.

Nothing really to show so far, but that's due to the fact I did shave yesterday. We'll see how this goes.

22 Days Til 30 - "Rocky Horror" Rehearsals Have Begun

We're almost through the first week of rehearsals for "The Rocky Horror Show" at York Little Theatre. Things are going well so far. Well, I guess that's to be expected since we're so early in the process. I can't speak highly enough about the people involved, most of whom I've worked with before in one capacity or another. I had actually joked not too long ago that it's been close to two years since I've gotten re-involved at YLT, at some point I'll look at a cast list and go "Yep, I know all of these people". Well, that happened with this show. I should be facetiously prophetic more often.

Monday was a read-through and rough sing-through of the show with last night and tonight focused on learning the music in greater depth. I think everyone sounds pretty good so far, I can only imagine how even better we'll sound as we get closer to opening night.

First dance rehearsal is tomorrow night. We'll be working on "Eddie's Teddy" and "The Time Warp". Should be an interesting and long night. I don't mind, of course. I'm looking forward to it.

Tonight, Lee - the director - told me he'd like me to try and grow mutton chops for the show. This should be interesting. The aesthetic the director is going for with this production is Steampunk, and what little knowledge I have about the sub-genre has shown me that this is a common look for men. We'll see how this goes. A friend of mine suggested I do a time lapse video of the process. I think it's a cool idea, but I have neither the time, patience or equipment to do so and to do it well. But I will document the process through pictures probably every week or so. I'll likely post them on here in addition to Facebook and Twitter so keep an eye out for those.

Guess that's all I have for now. Hard to believe it's almost September and my birthday inches ever closer.

23 Days Til 30 - Movies I Have Seen

So earlier I took a look at the IMDB Top 250 and listed the big name movies on there I haven't seen. Well, why not go with the other side of the proverbial coin with this one; movies on IMDB's Top 250 list that I have seen. Here goes.

Pulp Fiction
The Dark Knight
Schindler's List
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Inception
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
Forrest Gump
The Silence of the Lambs
Casablanca
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Psycho
Dr. Strangelove
Back to the Future
Life Is Beautiful
Citizen Kane
Vertigo
American Beauty
The Green Mile
Toy Story 3
A Clockwork Orange
Lawrence of Arabia
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Lion King
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Braveheart
Chinatown
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Batman Begins
Toy Story
Up
Fargo
The Big Lebowski
Good Will Hunting
The Sixth Sense
Sin City
Jaws
The Wizard of Oz
My Neighbor Totoro
Annie Hall
Finding Nemo
The Terminator
Ben-Hur
Stand By Me
Groundhog Day
The Princess Bride
The Exorcist
Stalag 17
Monsters, Inc.
The Truman Show
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Jurassic Park
Rain Man
Beauty and the Beast

So... there we go. See, I have seen some movies. I'm not entirely hopeless.
 
 

24 Days Til 30 - The Worst Job I've Ever Had

It's a situation I'm sure many of us are familiar with. It's the summer time and you need money. Looks like it's time to go job hunting. And admittedly, not every job you find will be a winner. This is my story.

The summer before my Senior year of college, I went and applied at a temp agency called Adecco. When I went in that day, I was hoping to be placed in clerical jobs. The recruiter said it didn't look like I was qualified of any clerical jobs after looking at my resume. This struck me as odd since at the time I was an English major and spent most of my educational career writing and editing plus I was completely capable of filing, alphabetizing, most of the skills you'd associate with clerical office jobs. The recruiter then asked me if I'd be interested in taking their light industrial placement test. I said sure, though in retrospect I probably should have passed. While the placement test had questions which asked about identifying UPCs, item numbers and bar codes, the job I was eventually given had nothing to do with any of these. I felt as if I had been mislead severely.

I was assigned a temp job at a place called Apex Logistics. It was a large warehouse and the job was 4 days a week from, if memory serves me correctly, 5:00 until 11:00. And what did they have me doing? Loading trucks with mail-order merchandise, especially a multitude of packages ordered from QVC. And no, I didn't know this would be what I was doing until after I came in the first night. So here I am, it's late July, I'm incredibly out of shape and I'm working in a warehouse loading boxes and packages into the back of a truck for 6 hours. This. Was. Hell. On top of this, I was the only person working in my section that had a firm grasp of the English language. The rest of the men working with me where of various Hispanic works and spoke Spanish or, on the rare occasion they needed to tell me something, broken English.

Since I had no idea what this job entailed, I was unprepared for the working conditions. When I left the building that night, I was severely dehydrated. There was a water cooler in the section where I was working, but I obviously wasn't able to make enough trips to it to stay hydrated. I legitimately was unable to spit when I left. It was easily the worst night of my life.

Despite all of this, I decided I'd stick to it and see the job out until the end of the week since that's when I imagined how long my assignment would last. When I went back to work on Wednesday, the first thing I decided to do was find the supervisor just to make sure how long my assignment was. He told me that the temporary assignments are usually ongoing with intent to hire full-time. Yeah, this was not going to work for me. Not just because I'd be going to back school in about a month, but because there is no way I wanted to make a career out of working in a warehouse loading mail-order merchandise into trucks. I know people joke about the uselessness of an English degree, but I knew I was better than this and destined for something better.

Thursday night, most of us were taken off truck loading duty and instead assigned to wrap skids full of boxes in cling wrap. And, as an added bonus, we were told that we would not be dismissed until every skid was wrapped satisfactorily despite the shift switch that came at 11:00. So I was there until well after midnight before being told to go.

So, remember earlier when I said I intended to see stick around until the end of the week? Yeah, this was the night I said "Fuck that" and changed my mind. Friday morning I called Adecco and told them I wished to be removed from that assignment. The representative I spoke to told me this would count as a "voluntary quit" and I might be unable to receive future job assignments from Apex. That was fine with me. I didn't want to deal with the strains of working there any longer.

A week or so later, I got a call from Adecco saying they had another potential job assignment for me. It was a 3rd shift job cleaning industrial paint containers. I couldn't say "No" fast enough. That was the last time Adecco contacted me and not long after that I got a job as a cashier at Weis Market. I think I'm done with temp agencies, or, at the very least, the ones that offer me jobs described as "light industrial".

25 Days Til 30 - Coming Up On "This Is Gonna Suck"

Here's a brief preview of what I'll be watching and discussion on some upcoming episodes of "This Is Gonna Suck".

Oh Sit!: A televised Musical Chairs competition hosted by Jamie Kennedy. There is no part of that sentence that I'm looking forward to.

Sunday School Musical: A long while back I posted a poll asking what movies from The Asylum I should watch and discuss on the podcast. Two movies tied for first place. The first one, Sherlock Holmes, I have already watched and discussed on a previous episode. This monstrosity, The Asylum's answer to "High School Musical", is still waiting in the wings. I know it's going to be painful.

My Bare Lady: I didn't even know this show existed until I stumbled upon it while looking around on Hulu. What's the premise? Here you go, straight from Wikipedia; "United Kingdom-based reality TV show that aired on the Fox Reality Channel. The series followed four American female porn stars as they took acting lessons and performed in scenes from classic drama alongside British actors in London's West End". Let's take a moment to process this, a show about porn stars taking acting lessons and performing in scenes from classic dramas with British actors. Who in the blue hell came up with this concept? This can't possibly be anything but a train wreck, which is exactly why I will suffer through it for the podcast.

26 Days Til 30 - Movies I Haven't Seen

I've seen a pretty good amount of movies so far in my life. But I'm positive there are even more movies that are considered popular or significant that I haven't seen. Naturally, I'm a little curious to see how behind on things I am so I decided to take a look at the IMBD Top 250 list and see which "big" movies I haven't seen yet for one reason or another. This may be a long post since this is a long list I'm referencing, so get comfortable.

The Shawshank Redemption
The Godfather
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Fight Club
Goodfellas
The Matrix
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Se7en
Rear Window
It's A Wonderful Life
Apocalypse Now
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Saving Private Ryan
Alien
Spirited Away
The Shining
The Departed
The Dark Knight Rises
Taxi Driver
Aliens
Gladiator
WALL-E
Reservoir Dogs
Requiem For A Dream
Full Metal Jacket
L.A. Confidential
Some Like It Hot
Princess Mononoke
Amadeus
2001: A Space Odyssey 
Raging Bull
Die Hard
Blade Runner
Scarface
Platoon
The Thing (either version)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Kill Bill: Volume 1
Gone With the Wind
The Avengers
V For Vendetta
Million Dollar Baby
A Beautiful Mind
Black Swan
The Graduate
Rocky
Slumdog Millionaire
Life of Pi
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Star Trek (2009)
Star Trek Into Darkness
District 9
Shutter Island
A Streetcar Named Desire
Rosemary's Baby
Harvey


OK, I think that'll do it. Since this is the Internet, you are now free to make judgments about my value as a person based on the fact I haven't watched any of these movies.

27 Days Til 30 - An Hour of Music With Pandora

So a long while ago I decided to occasionally make some posts on here called "An Hour of Music With..." and then choose a channel on one of my free streaming music apps, listen to an hour of music on there without skipping a song and writing my thoughts about what I'm hearing. Well... it's close to a year and half now since I first mentioned the concept and just now I'm doing it for the first time. Don't judge. I need content to fill this 30 Days Til 3 project somehow. Anyway, here's an hour of music from Pandora. And I'm not choosing a specific station this go around, I'm using the Shuffle function. So who knows what we're going to hear? Alright, here we go!

"Take Out The Trash" by They Might Be Giants: Good start! Anytime's a good time for some TMBG. Not one of my favorite tracks from their album "The Else", but still a good song all the same. Got a very grungy feel to it thanks to the fuzzy effect on the guitars.

"Piano Man" by Billy Joel: An absolute classic! I really don't think I need to say much more.

"Keep On Loving You" by REO Speedwagon: I'm sure it helps matters greatly that most of the stations in my Pandora line-up are of artists and genres I enjoy. So I'm remaining positive that I will get stuck listening to crap very few times. That being said, third good song in a row. Promising hour so far.

"Call Me (Original Long Version)" by Blondie: Aw, yeah! Sing to me, Debbie Harry! And they aren't kidding when they have this labeled "Long Version". 8 minutes long. Wow.

Autographs & Apologies" by Motion City Soundtrack: Still not overly familiar with this band despite being introduced to them a few years ago by my friend, Katrina. I keep meaning to look up some of their stuff on YouTube, but it never seems to ever leap to the front of my mind to do so. I like what I hear in this song though. Very crisp sounding guitars, nice piano and keyboard and the vocals aren't grating like so many bands that have come into popularity over the last decade.

"Set Fire To The Rain" by Adele: And we hit our first roadblock. Still, a streak of 5 pretty good songs become coming across one I hate is pretty good. I'll be glad when this song is done in 3 minutes from now.

"Steven's Last Night In Town" by Ben Folds Five: Ahh, that's much better. Easily one of the jazziest tunes to come from the inaccurately named trio. I actually saw the band perform this song live with Ben Folds using a melodica to play the clarinet part. Good stuff!

"The Man Who Sold The World" by David Bowie: I've heard the Nirvana cover many times, but this is the first time I've heard the original version. Maybe it's because I'm used to the Nirvana cover, but I'm not a fan of the vocal effects that Bowie is using on this song. And maybe this makes me a bad rock music fan, but I can't help it. Chalk it up to being "Covered Up", as TV Tropes would put it.

"Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds: Another classic! I don't think there's anybody who doesn't like this song. BRB, nostalgia is washing over me.

"Disarm" by Smashing Pumpkins: "The killer in me is the killer in you". I guess that's kinda deep. But then again, I never said I was looking for deeper meaning as I listen to these songs. Man, love that string section.

"Wonderboy" by Tenacious D": Easily the most epic of epic songs.

"Party In The CIA" by "Weird Al" Yankovic: Well, it is a parody. But it's a parody of "Party In The USA". ...In conclusion; Go to Hell, Miley Cyrus!

"I Melt With You" by Modern English: All right, some more 80s goodness. I still find it funny that both Burger King and Hershey's have used this song in commercials campaigns despite the song's true meaning. It's about nuclear annihilation.

"Defying Gravity" from Wicked: Nice! Great way to cap off this first edition of "An Hour Of Music With..." I dare anyone to tell me that listening to this song does not pump you up or inspire you somehow. Because if you tell me that, I will call you a liar to your face! Also, Idina Menzel, your voice is a gift from the theatre gods. I could listen to her sing the phone book and be captivated.



OK, that'll do it for today. Thanks for coming back!

28 Days Til 30 - Fall 2013 Movie Season Preview

We're more than halfway through August and that means Fall is approaching. And with each new season that comes up on the calendar, that means a new crop of movies are going to be released into theatres. Much like I did earlier this year when looking at the upcoming Summer movies - which, by the way, I saw none of - I decided to do the same for the upcoming Fall movies using the most recent Entertainment Weekly issue as my guide.

Now I'm not going to cover every single movie coming out over the course of the next 3-4 months, that would take far too much time than I'm willing to invest in this. So I'll be covering the movies which would interest me or that I feel like touching on for one reason or another. OK, on we go!

Metallica Through The River (September 27): The movie is being described as "an action-heavy narrative that sends a roadie on a series of nighttime misadventures while the band shreds through its back catalog in 3-D close-ups". I'll pass, thanks.

Runner Runner (October 4): A thriller that revolves around poker written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the two who wrote Rounders which may be considered the quintessential poker movie. You have my attention.

Bad Milo! (October 4): Here's is the entire write-up of this movie in Entertainment Weekly; "In all seriousness, Bad Milo! is a demon inside Ken Marino's butt". ... I really don't know what to say in response to that.

Romeo and Juliet (October 11): I get this feeling this version will be much more subdued than the Baz Luhrman fever dream that came out in the 90s. Might be worth a look.

Zero Charisma (October 11): Apparently, this movie is about a role-playing game master who worries that he suffers from the titular problem. As long as the writers didn't decide to follow the model of "Let's makes these characters like the ones on The Big Bang Theory because that's how nerds act and people find that funny", it should be worth a watch.

Carrie (October 18): What's this? A version of Carrie where the lead actress is actually close to the character's age? Hell, the fact that a high school student is being played by a 16-year-old and not someone in their mid-to-late 20s is pretty mind blowing! All snarkiness aside, I'm looking forward to seeing this one. The novel is great and the original movie was very unnerving. I can only anticipate what they'll do with this version.

Last Vegas (November 1): OK, stop me if you've heard this one before. Michael Douglas, Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline play four childhood friends who came together in Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Don't think of it as Grumpy Old Men meets The Hangover because director Jon Turtletaub might beat the crap out of you if you do.

About Time (November 1): A young man learns that all the men in his family have the ability to travel through time. Don't make your judgments just yet though, director Richard Curtis says this is "an anti-time-travel time-travel movie". It focuses less on the sci-fi aspects of the concept on more on the philosophical question: What really matters when it comes to time? This unconventional look at time-travel sounds like it's worth a look to me.

Tyler Perry's A Medea Christmas (December 13):  Please, make these Medea movies stop!

Saving Mr. Banks (December 13): A movie about the issues that occurred as Walt Disney Pictures tried to adapt Mary Poppins into a movie? And Tom Hanks stars as Walt Disney? Sold!

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (December 20): I enjoyed the first Anchorman movie. A sequel should be some more goofy fun.

August: Osage County (December 25): I heard great things about this Tony award winning play. I'm guessing this film version will be the closest I get to seeing it. No real complaints about that though, More Broadway plays should get film adaptations so that a wider audience can be exposed to them. 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (December 25): Ben Stiller and Kristen Wiig star in this movie which is adapted from a James Thurber short story about a man who imagines himself in fantastical and heroic situations in an effort to make his dull life seem more interesting. Color me intrigued.

29 Days Til 30 - The State of "Wings Of York"

I figured now would be a good time for me to make a brief statement about one of my various side projects. Around this time last year I decided to start a food blog of sorts called "Wings Of York". As you may have guessed, the focus of this blog would be Buffalo wings. My initial concept was to see how many wings and how many different sauces I could try in York - and possibly other surrounding areas - over the course of a year. But I ended up falling behind in my documenting and, as a result, the blog ended up stagnating with no new updates since February. Needless to say, I'm more than a little disappointed in myself as a result of this.

But I'm not giving up. After this 30 Days Til 30 project concludes, I'm going to do a hard reset on "Wings Of York". Or, to use a term bandied about frequently in pop culture these days, it'll be a reboot. I'll focus more on trying the different varieties of sauces available and won't limit myself to any form of time frame. If it takes me 2 years to try all the flavors that Arooga's has to offer, then so be it! And I won't be doing an ongoing tally of how many wings I've eaten. It's about quality, not quantity.

So, yeah, just wanted to put that out there. Look for the new life cycle of "Wings Of York" coming Fall 2013 at wingsofyork.blogspot.com

30 Days 'Til 30 - What It's All About?

Hello everyone. Welcome to the first day of a month long project I decided to embark on. In one month, I will be turning 30. I can hardly believe it myself. So I thought I'd like to do something interesting leading up to that date. And so, here we are; The 30 Days Til 30 Project!

What I'm setting out to do is create and post a new piece of content here everyday from now until September 18th, the day before my birthday. It may be a blog post of some kind, a new podcast episode or even a video. Whatever it may be, it'll be posted right here for the next 30 days. Taking this into consideration, do I have something special planned for September 19th? Why, yes, yes I do. I'll be taking a break from posting anything here and just enjoy the day. I feel I'll have earned it.

I'm thinking of making one of the posts past the halfway point an "Ask Me Anything..." type of post. And, of course, I'm hoping I am actually able to keep up with this and not fall behind, lose interest or quit at some point over the course of the next month. I admit, I've abandoned a whole lot of projects in the past. And I'm honestly going to try to not let that happen with this one.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy whatever may come these next 30 days!