Spring is in the air

I haven't posted on here in quite a while, mostly because I've been so busy. I'm playing in a band now with my roommate, and we've been practicing about 2-3 times a week. We've got about 25 songs or so under our belt, and we're hoping to play a gig in a month or so.

Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean that nothing has been going on...

Here's a few things that have happened since I last blogged:

1. The Reds kicked off their season

I absolutely love this time of year, because it means a fresh start for the boys in red and white. This year is a little different than most, because a couple of overpaid players (Dunn and Griffey) are gone. Dunn is with the Natinals (no that's not a spelling error) and Griffey is with the Mariners.

Seeing Griffey back with the Mariners is quite a beautiful thing. It would be like Brett Favre going back to the Packers, or Michael Jordan going back to the Bulls.

Adam Dunn playing for the Natinals is also a pretty amazing sight. It's kind of fitting that Dunn, the guy who doesn't hustle, and strikes out more than Henry Rowengartner, is playing for the worst team in baseball.

Even though the Reds season is only 20 games in, we've already seen a pretty good picture of what we're going to get this year:

1. Good starting pitching.

Harang, Cueto, Arroyo and Volquez have all looked pretty good thus far. Arroyo has only had one bad start, and so has Harang. Volquez and Cueto are very young and are still trying to work on some control problems. (Cueto seems to be turning this corner a little quicker than Volquez.)

2. Clutch performances from the bullpen.

After 20 games, theres only been one blown save between Rhodes, Weathers and Cordero. These guys will almost always make you sweat when they pitch, but more often than not, they're going to get the job done.

3. Bad, bad, bad hitting.

Votto has been the only bright spot on this lineup. He's absolutely hitting the cover off the ball, and is close to tops in the league in RBIs. If Brandon Phillips can follow his lead, this team will be very dangerous.

Bruce started off slow, but seems to have found his stroke back. He's already hit 5 HRs, and he's improved his defense a little, too.

With all things considered, it doesn't look like the Reds will be able to win more than 80 games. Hopefully, if they're still in contention at the All-Star break, they'll make a move for a right-handed bat.

2. The Bengals had one of their best drafts ever.

Going into this draft, the Bengals had A LOT of positions to address. None, however were more important than the offensive line. I'm sure all of you remember this from last year. The Bengals don't want that to happen again, so they drafted Andre Smith (OT from Alabama) 6th overall. Despite all the doubts in his character, this was a great move. Smith is an absolute animal on the football field, and he knows how to slap guys around.

In the second round, Rey Maualuga surprisingly fell to the Bengals, and they pulled the trigger. This guy is a beast of a linebacker, but I'll let you see that for yourself. You'll probably want to mute the death metal background music.

In rounds 3-7, the Bengals had an abundance of picks and capitalized on them. They got great value in positions such as center, tight end and defensive end. They even drafted an amazing punter in Kevin Huber from the Bearcats.

All of these picks are going to make this fall football season a lot of fun to watch. Hopefully Bratkowski steps back a little bit and lets Palmer call the plays. If this happens, the Bengals could make a splash in the AFC North.

3. Clear Channel lays off 1530 Homer employees

I've been listening to 1530 Homer the Sports Animal for about 3 years now. Their lineup, for quite some time, ahs been Alan Cutler 6-9am, Mo Egger 9-noon, and Lance McCallister 3-6pm. They have some clown's syndicated show from 12-3 everyday, but that doesn't matter.

Clear Channel cancelled Alan and Mo's show, and told Alan he was done with the company. Mo is now moved to 700 WLW with Jim Scott, and will fill in occasionally on 1530.

I doubt that all of you listen to Cincinnati sports talk radio, but I do. I listen everyday, and this is incredibly sad to me. All I can say is that I'll miss listening and calling in, and sports talk radio will never be the same.

If you want the full story, here it is.

Jaws and April Fool's

I haven't posted anything in a while, because I've been incredibly busy with moving, working and playing the drums. That's right, I said playing the drums. The guy who has been playing guitar for years is switching gears.

Don't get too excited though, I'm not that great. Yet. Right now, there are 12 year old kids who are better on the drums than I am. Probably better than I will ever be.

Okay, on to other things. It's only March for another day or so, which means that the basketball madness is coming to an end. Thanks to Michigan State and Villanova, I've ripped up my bracket, burned the shreds and scattered the ashes over the Ohio river.

This tournament hasn't quite felt the same without seeing the UK boys in royal blue. This was largely because their athletic director made a terrible hire 2 years ago. Billy Gillispie. 'Who?' you ask. Billy. Clyde. Gillispie. Anyone with 'Clyde' as a middle name can't coach basketball. End of story.

UK did the right thing and showed Billy G the door as soon as the season was over, instead of waiting around like UC did when they wanted to fire Huggy bear.

Now that Clyde is out of Lexington, the Wildcats are looking for a new man to run the show, and it looks like John Calipari is going to be the guy. They offered him 100 Billion Dollars and he said he needed to sleep on it. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Sleep on the new pillows that UK will give you. They're filled with $100 dollar bills, and the pillow cases are made with sheets of gold.

I was actually in Kentucky last Friday to see my cousin Adam before he leaves for the Army. I gave him one piece of advice. Keep your mouth shut and your butthole closed.

Besides talking about the Army and his plans of being a paratrooper, we went fishing for a few hours with our uncle Jason. It was raining most of the day, but it stopped once we started fishing. Jason threw a line in and pulled in a bass within 5 minutes. It was going to be a good day.

I was catching a few blue gills to start, just using Jason's old Zebco pole, which, if you know anything about fishing, is a terrible rod, not much better than a mickey mouse pole. After reeling in 3 or 4 blue gill, something took my bait and ran with it. The reel was screaming, so I jerked it, and the fight began. I got it closer and closer to the bank (we were fishing in a pond) until I finally pulled it out. An 18 inch largemouth bass that rivaled the size of a great white shark. It was the biggest catch of the day, and I didn't let anyone forget it.

As some of you may know (thanks to Facebook), my birthday is on Wednesday. Thats right, April Fools Day. And this year, all I want is to hear about everyone's favorite April Fool's Day prank to play on someone. Oh, and a pair of slippers. Honestly, I don't see how there is any better holiday than April Fool's Day. You get to be a complete jerk to everyone by playing tricks on them, and you get a free pass. People might get mad, but they won't hold a grudge. How often do you hear people say 'I'm so mad at so and so for pulling the prank on me on April Fool's Day.' Never.

So, please, post your April Fool's pranks on the comment section.

I will leave you with this great collection of the greatest plays of the year by King James. Because, tomorrow night, I'm driving to Cleveland with my buddy Matt to watch the Cavs/Pistons. We will both be witnesses.

He is the best player in the NBA. Period. If you don't agree, you are either in denial, or you don't know anything about basketball.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week everyone!

-JY

Boat Songs

I saw the "I'm on a boat" video by Lonely Island for the first time a few days ago, and it was so funny that I decided to post it on the blog. But, to be fair, I'm also posting the "Boats 'n Hoes" video by Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, since that one came out first. I started a poll, to let all of you vote for which one you like more. I'm not going to tell you which one I'm voting for, but I'll give you a hint. T-Pain is in it.

Double Doubler & Gandalf the Grey

I haven't posted in a couple weeks, mostly because I've been a house-body. If you don't go out, there's nothing exciting to blog about! However, that was not the case this weekend.

Friday:
I got off work at 8, and headed downtown to meet up with Buckeye (his real name is Matt, but our friend Mike dubbed him the nickname 'Buckeye' since he went to OSU.) Buckeye and I got some food, then met up with Ted, Mike and Kyle to play the 'all you can bowl' from 11:30-2:00 at Cherry Grove Lanes. I started out hot with a 192, but failed to reach that mark the rest of the night. None of us really bowled spectacular, but there was a girl 2 frames down from us that put up a 259. We were watching her as she had a perfect game through 7 frames, but in the 8th frame she left the 10 pin, thus ending the chance of bowling the elusive 300. Still an impressive game, though.

We got back to Buckeye's place around 3 am, woke up the next morning, and hit the road for Kalamazoo, MI.

Saturday:

We were going to Michigan to pick up a car that Ted's Dad fixed up for him, and we probably didn't all need to go, but we thought it'd be fun to road trip it up there.

We took our time getting up there, stopping for lunch, and getting gas. When we filled up for gas, I bought 4 $1 scratch off tickets (cleverly named the Double Doubler), one for each of us. One of us won $5 (I can't remember who, but I know it wasn't me) so we cashed that in for 5 more tickets. The four of us went on a pretty long winning streak, and kept cashing in our tickets for more tickets. There's a term for this. Gambling addiction.

Our streak finally ended, 50 tickets later.

We hit the road again, and started making pretty good time. Right up until we stopped at a rest area.

Mike, Ted and Buckeye went to the bathroom while I waited in the car. About 5 minutes later, Mike comes out laughing his head off, and he could barely get a sentence out. But here's what I gathered from the situation after talking to Ted:

Mike was washing his hands and Ted was finishing up at a urinal when an older gentleman walked into the restroom (probably in his 60's). The man started chatting it up with them, then unzipped his pants, and put the snake through the hole to do his business. Now, most guys stay pretty focused during this process. Head down, both hands on the trigger. They might still talk a little, but they keep it to a minimum.

This, however, was not this guy's style. As Ted was washing his hands, the man turned to him and Mike, and continued talking, while his wrinklebeast was still hanging out, in all its glory.

Mike and Ted both knew it was there, but focused every muscle in their body towards looking the man directly in the eye. They slowly backed away, fumbling towards the door, and left.

After everyone piled back in the car, the man walked out of the bathroom. We started to drive away, and I rolled the window down so Ted could give him a wave. He did. And the man waved back, with a big smile on his face.

We made it to Kalamazoo around 5 or 6, played some Wii, then went to dinner. Later that night, we played some cards, and this was when Mike came up with a nickname for the man at the rest stop. Gandalf the Grey (from Lord of the Rings). There are several perverted connections to be made here, but instead of telling them to you, I'll just let your imagination run wild. After cards, we called it a night(after making a midnight run for 4th meal), because we had to wake up at 7:00 drive back to cincy.

Sunday:

With only 4 hours sleep or so, we hit the road at 7 am. We split up on the way back, since Ted had to drive his car. Buckeye rode with me, and Mike rode with Ted. We decided that the drive home wouldn't be complete without stopping at the gas station in Anna, OH, that sparked the hot streak of scratch off winners. We bought about $10 worth, and started scratching away.

Our luck wasn't quite as good as before, but we were still getting winners, and of course, cashing them in for more tickets. When I walked up to cash in $16 worth of winners, I decided to change it up a bit, and get 8 $2 tickets called 'The Luck of the Irish'. I had a pretty good feeling about it, seeing as I'm half Irish, and St. Patty's Day is less than 2 weeks away.

My first ticket was a dud, but my second was a $100 winner. Fighting the urge to get 100 $1 tickets, I cashed it in, and split the money with my gambling partners.

We got home around 2:00, played some golf, then I headed to my basketball double-header. Unfortunately we lost both, and I'm pretty sure I got dehydrated after the games.

That's pretty much my weekend in a nutshell (a rather large nutsell), and if you've made it this far, you deserve to be rewarded. So here's your You Tube Video of the week:

Fighting a sidewalk...with my face

It's a little after 11:00 in the pm on Sunday, and I am so tired that if Erin Andrews walked into my room right now and asked me to play spin the bottle with her and Rachel Nichols, I would say no. To help you understand my exhaustion, I'll give you a rundown of my weekend.

Friday:

I had to work until 8, and then I met up with Kyle at his place. We watched the first half of a movie called 'Choke,' and then went bowling. They had a special that let you bowl from 11:30-2 a.m. for $15, so we did that. We bowled 8 games, and it didn't even take us 2 hours. Unfortunately, I was having a hard time channeling my inner Ernie McCracken that night, so my high game was a 157. But, I beat Kyle every game so that made me feel better. The strikes weren't coming easy for me, but I had one incredible spare in our 4th game. I left the 7 pin (this is the pin in the far left corner for you non-bowlers) standing from my first ball, and I wanted to have a little fun while trying to pick up the spare. I stood next to the computer screen by the chairs (about 20 feet or so from the foul line) and slowly rolled my ball down the lane. It couldn't have been going faster than 4 mph as it steadily crept toward the 7 pin (80+ feet away). Kyle and I watched it for what seemed like an eternity, and he died laughing when the pin fell. Dead center shot. Yeah, I'm that good.

So after bowling we went back to Kyle's house to finish 'Choke,' and it was hilarious. Sam Rockwell plays a sex addict/con artist, which makes for some excellent plotline. The movie was based on the novel Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, who also wrote Fight Club. Since I am a professional critic, I'll go ahead and give this movie a rating. B+

The movie ended around 3 am and I was home and asleep by 4. My dad was in town and he wanted to meet for breakfast Saturday morning, and I had to do it early, because I needed to make 2 deliveries (an elliptical and a bike) before I went into work at 10am.

Saturday:
I met dad and his gf for breakfast at 7am, after getting a little over 2 hours sleep. Then I made both of my deliveries, opened the store, and worked until 3. I immediately went home and slept, but only for about an hour, because I had to meet J Steve to jam, and then head to Dayton with Mariella to see Kevin (Kyle's twin brother.)

Dayton was well worth the trip. Mariella and I hung out with Kevin, his gf, and a lot of their civil engineer friends. (I'm convinced that UD only offers 2 degrees. Accounting and Civil Engineering.)

Mariella wanted to check out this place called the masque, so the 3 of us went (her, Kevin and I). When we got there, it was apparent that a large majority of the crowd was of the homosexual nature. Kevin and I took full advantage of this and jumped on the platform in the middle of the dance floor. We were dancing like it was 1999. Kevin did his patented strut, and I was basically bobbing my head to the beat and flailing my arms around. Even though both of us suck at dancing, we got our point across to every gay man in the joint. Kevin and I were a couple. This insured that we wouldn't get hit on once by a guy, and of course, we didn't, for the entire night.

After watching a drag show with Mariella and dancing with some girls (to wash the scent of gay off of us), we decided to call it a night. Kevin made the decision for us to walk home, which didn't turn out so well.

The sidewalks were completely covered with ice and it didn't help that I had drank a few juice boxes. Normally I am an extremely coordinated person, but that was not the case Saturday night. I took one wrong step, and faceplanted on the cement. So, today I look like Roy Jones Jr. after he got lit up by Joe Calzaghe. Except I cut my right eye, and Roy cut his left.

Hopefully my eye heals quickly because it's already getting old hearing people ask "What happened to your eye?" 189,702 times a day. I think I'm just going to start making up a new story every time someone asks me. This could be a lot of fun. "I pissed off an old lady and she took a louisville slugger to my face."

If you have any wonderful stories that I can use, feel free to post them under the comment section.

Oh, and as I promised, I kicked off the 'Prank of the week' or POTW. BK was the first victim. Here's the prank:

BK and I were working our usual Wednesday shift together, and during one of his lengthy conversations with a customer (the kid never stops talking. never.) I yanked his phone. He was texting some high school girl that he was supposed to take to a movie in 2 days. (We'll call her jailbait, or JB for short.) So I quickly go into his contacts and change her phone number to mine, and erase my name in the phone. I put his phone back, and the mayhem began. He comes back to his phone and sees that he has a message from jailbait. It reads 'I have to be honest with you. I think we should hook up Friday night.'

The look on his face was absolutely priceless. His eyes lit up, and a big smile came to his face. I was hoping he'd immediately show me the message and start bragging, but that didn't happen. He replies, and I flick open my phone. 'No.'

No?!? Ok, this gave me all the proof I needed to close the ongoing case of BK's sexual preference. He likes the sausage.

I was still having a little fun with this, so I sent him another text. 'What if I got one of my girlfriends to join us?'

He didn't get excited by this message like he did the first. His fingers were blazing at a mile a minute and he wrote a freaking novel of a text message, when 'Yes' would have done just fine. Here's what he said:

'I don't think we should do that, and I dont think this is really jailbait texting me, blah blah blah.'

You don't need to hear the rest, trust me. I probably could have went on with this for a while and convinced him that it was JB texting him, but I didn't have the energy. So I showed him my phone and the messages he was sending to me. He called me a few choice words and I simply reminded him of the comment he wrote on my previous blog post.

"I am not easy to trick F%#* you man!!!"

Seriously man, keep your eyes and ears open, and your butthole closed. These pranks will be a lot more fun for me if I actually have to try.

I'm a Nigerian Prince

Ok, I know you're probably itching to hear the meaning of the title to this blog post, but calm down. I'll get to it. I'm gonna start my blogs like I usually do, by chronicling (is that a word?) the most eventful night of my past weekend. This weekend, it was Friday.

Friday:
I was dying to go see Griffin House at Southgate because he's definitely one of my favorite musicians, and even though I've attended over 100 concerts, I had yet to see him. And believe it or not, up until friday I was under the impression that Griffin House was just the name of the band and not his actual name. My bad. But anyway, J Steve and I went to the show and it was unreal. Griffin did covers of "I fought the law," and "Twist and Shout" that brought the house down! If you haven't listened to or heard of this guy yet, do yourself a favor and click the link I made at the beginning of this paragraph. He's a Cincinnati native, and he's one of the greatest lyricists I've ever heard.

So during the concert, there were 2 girls in front of us taking a picture of themselves. J Steve thought this would be the perfect oppurtunity to pop his head in the picture and make a face that resembled a child molester. The girls looked at the picture after taking it (which I notice girls like to do, but guys honestly could give a crap less about) and immediately realized that the creeper behind them found a way to get into their photo. So they turn around and start a conversation. Genius J Steve. Simply genius. This is the stuff legends are made of.

After about 5 minutes of talking to the girls, it was obvious which one of them was the fun-loving beauty and which was mother hen. And it didn't take long before mother hen decided to step in and pull her friend (who was literally hanging on J Steve) away. Maybe she was drunk or maybe she was jealous that she wasn't as hot as her friend. Either way, J Steve was sadly cockblocked.

Even though the concert was the tits, the real adventure started after we left. I had to piss so badly I was seriously considering raining a golden shower all over a plant on the street. But I didn't feel like spending my night in a 5X5 cell with convicts, so I drove to the nearest White Castle. It was after midnight, and this particular White Castle had the entire crew of bone thugs n harmony hanging in and around the establishment. Honestly though, they could have all been waving guns around and it wouldn't have stopped me from running inside to piss.

So one of bone thugs' crew walks into the mens bathroom right in front of me, and i saw that it had a toilet and a urinal. He took the toilet, and I snuck in behind him to take the urinal. He starts to do his business (number 1) and I'm trying to unbuckle my belt in a frenzy. This is when he realizes that there is someone else in the bathroom and shouts "What the F!@K?" I run out and jump in the womens bathroom. Empty. Thank God. I let the flood gates open, then make a quick exit to my car and tell J Steve we should leave. Quickly.

This little encounter has sparked much debate from my friends. Some think that this type of bathroom is meant for one person, and just gives them the option of what to use. Others think that it can be shared. I'm not sure where I stand, but I know where I stood in that moment. If you have an opinion on this matter, feel free to comment.

Ok, now that I've wasted way too much time on a bathroom story, I'll explain my title.

I recently decided to sell my beautiful 1994 Ford F150 pickup truck, so I posted an ad on craigslist for it. $2000. An absolute bargain. So much of a bargain that "Mike Duncan" aka "Craigslist Scammer" emailed me about it. Here's his first email:

"Hello sellerI saw your item listed on craigslist and am interested in buying.Please let me know if it is still available andyour final price for the item.Thank you and looking forward to your quick response to my inquiry.Contact me for any infoRegards Duncan"

I left everything intact, and didn't change a thing. The mistypes and bad sentence structure are all his doing. So, I replied to this email by saying:

"I can only sell it to you if you're from Nigeria. That's where the truck is located. I'm a prince and my father is the King. He owns the truck and wants to get rid of it."

Mike Duncan was either unphased by this situation or didn't get that I was joking, so he emailed me again:

"Thanks for getting back to me..I still have interest in the item and I want you to get hold of it for me cos I told you that I want to get it for myself as I really need the item..So I will like to see more pics of the item if you don't have don't bother okay,and I will like method of payment to be in Check,cashier check and bank certified check..or Money Order .So as soon as you receive it,I will wait till the payment clears in your bank before my shipping company will come for the pick up of the item in your location.....So I will like to have the following list for the payment
FULL NAME...........................
ADDRESS................................
PHONE NUMBER..............................
So that my secretary can send out the payment in time and its available to cash in the bank or any cashing store around you..I will be looking forward to hear back from you....
Regards Mr Duncan"

At this point I was absolutely flabergasted at this guys stupidity, but a little impressed by his persistence. So, I thought I'd offer him a little advice. Here's my reply:

"Let me help you out with what you're trying to do by giving you 10 ways to make your scam better:

1. Use proper English, and proof read the scam emails you send people.
2. Refer to the "item" your'e buying as the actual item you're buying, instead of just calling it "item." You are supposedly buying a truck from me, so call it a truck.
3. If your scam gets shown in the public, then change it. People know, and they won't fall for it anymore.
4. "Mike Duncan" isn't a very good alias. Too common of a name.
5. Craigslist warns everyone NOT to take checks, so why would I take a check from you?
6. Let's be honest. You don't have a secretary. You're not making any money, so how can you pay a secretary?
7. I heard McDonald's is hiring. Get a real job!
8. It doesn't make sense that you would be willing to purchase a $2,000 truck without seeing it. Set up a face-to-face at least.
9. Make sure you read the replies to the first email you send out. I replied to you and said I was a Nigerian prince. Obviously you didn't read this before you wrote back to me and said you were still interested in buying my truck.
10. Buy a gun. Buy bullets. Put the gun in your mouth, and pull the trigger."


In retrospect, maybe the last part was a little bit too much. But I needed something to really grab his attention.

This is by far the longest blog post I've written. So, if you made it this far, you deserve to be rewarded. Heres your Craigslist posting of the day:

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/mis/1032219202.html

One final thought. I'm thinking about creating a 'Prank of the week' segment. Most of the pranks, obviously will be pulled on BK, because let's face it, he's just too easy to trick.

Tonight was our 4th basketball game in the league at Sports Plus, and I'm glad to say that we brought home the 'W'. It was against a mediocre high school team, but still, we won! I didn't play a great game, but at times I resembled Jimmy Chitwood. But I would like to give a shout out to the one person that reads this blog. You know who you are. Anyways, thanks for coming to the game! You doubled our crowd attendance!

In other news, I saw 'He's Just Not That into You' on Saturday night. Do yourself a favor and save your money. Don't see it. Outside of the lovely Scarlett Johansson, and the cute, loveable Ginnifer Goodwin, the movie was pretty weak. The plot was weaker than Brandon Kisker's jumpshot. It was basically guys cheating on their wives and girls obsessing over guys that never liked them in the first place. No. Thank. You.

After the basketball game last tonight I watched a little bit of a hockey game in which BK's dad and our boss were playing in. I have to admit, after seeing a few 50-year old guys ram each other into the wall, I don't think hockey is the gayest sport anymore. I know give that title to Team Handball. Seriously, these guys are making moves that I did at the basketball courts when I was 5. You don't have to dribble, or pass, or pretty much do anything in team handball. And there is no contact. Congratulations hockey players, you're no longer playing the gayest sport in the world.

And here it is. Your craigslist posting of the day:
http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/zip/1020714606.html
I mean, honestly, who wouldn't want this?!?