Here's what I had to deal with when I woke up this morning:



Story to follow.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:38 PM

Ouch! This guy should have had some Velcro sneakers.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 11:56 PM

Had a real good weekend this past week. Not too much partying but just enough. Friday I went to the Billy Goat after work for some drinks. Stayed till about nine and then headed to Karyn's house for a late dinner and a few more coldies. Thought about heading down to the Majestic for some more brews around 11:00, but I thought it better to stay in since I was scheduled to work at 9:00 AM on Saturday. So's I hit the sack.

Got up in plenty o' time for work on Saturday morning, but I was delayed at 7-11 and wound up being about 5 min late. Had two employees call in "sick" so I was there by myself for the day. With a good nights sleep and two cups of coffee behind me, I was actually really productive. Got caught up on paperwork and filing and started doing some prepping for the coming month where we will be extremely busy (especially for February which is normally one of our slower months).

My dad had slept here at the shop on Friday night because he worked till 5 AM and had a mid-day appointment. After I was done at 1:30 or so, he took me to lunch over at Zia's on the Hill. Had a really good lunch special; charbroiled chicken breast in a white wine lemon-butter sauce topped with prosciutto ham, provel cheese, broccoli, red peppers and garlic. Came with a side salad that I added some Kalamata olives to, and a side of white cavatelli. Tried a Peroni (an Italian beer) and headed on my way around 2:30.

Went back to Karyn's to relax for a bit and take care of "the three S's". At around 6:30 PM we headed down for our dinner reservations at The Billy Goat. Once a month or so they do a fixed price gourmet dinner on a Saturday night. As much as I go there for lunch and drinks, I thought it was about time to go to one (although I actually worked one a few months ago). This one seemed logical because I could take Karyn since she would actually eat almost everything on the menu (she's a picky eater, sorry babe). They were calling this particular dinner "The South City Wedding Dinner". Of course it was their gourmet take on it. You can check out the enitre menu here for yourself.

We left the Goat around 9:30 PM with bellies so full I could hardly sit down to drive. We then headed towards "Off Broadway" to see "The Formula Kid" a band fronted by the amazing Drew Johnson. Drew is a Granite City native and a Webster University grad with a major in Jazz Studies. He's been playing solo acoustic stuff over at the Billy Goat for years now and I'm blown away every time. I have his first album with his original band "The Drew Johnson Band" and I still can't get enough of it. I've tried to convince some of you mo-fo's to come see him at the Goat when he is there, but you're all to lazy to ever come down.

At any rate, a friend of ours from the Majestic, Nate Williamson plays keys in The Formula Kid, so we finally got some people to come out to see these guys. I think we were all told 12 strong from the Majestic crew by the time they started the show. The rest of the house was pretty well full too. The band was amazing and tight as hell. Some of the newer songs they played sound like they could be serious radio hits and I'm constantly puzzled as to why they are not at least on local radio. Drew's voice has always been great, but Saturday night he was spot-on and the backing instrumentation and vocals only made it that much better. They did two nice covers; the first was a relatively obscure Beatles song (at least to a casual fan) called "Hey Bulldog" and the second, the song they closed with, was "Fortunate Son" by CCR. Drew posted some pictures on his blog if you are interested.

After The Formula Kid finished I went over to chat with Drew and Nate a bit and congratulate them on a great show. They gave us some free tickets to their next show on February 18th which is actually at The Pageant. It's a local music spotlight show featuring four or five local artists showing up "on the radar". Let me know if you are interested in attending (I have about 20 tickets and can get more if needed).

At this point in the evening it was only about 11:30 PM. None of us were sure what we should do next. Some of us headed out and went back to the Majestic immediately, others (Karyn and myself included) stuck around to hear what the next band sounded like. Bad idea. They were a female punk band trying their hardest to "be punk" but not very hard to "play music". Apparently from what Emily (a friend from the Maji and girlfriend of Nate) said, the lead singer was puking in the bathroom about 15 minutes before she went on stage. She was Courtney Love-esque in her mannerisms such as spitting on the stage, yelling at the audience, and oh... playing fucking horrible music. Man I hate punk rock with every ounce of my being.

So we headed to the Majestic quickly for a few more drinks and then called it a night right at 1:30 am. All in all a great day.

Sunday was lazy. I woke up around 1 PM at Karyn's and made myself some biscuits & gravy and some eggs. Mmmm tasty. Since Karyn had to work all weekend, I played nice guy and clean up around her house while she was gone, all the while watching some classic 80's movies like Ghostbusters and Clue on Showtime. When Karyn got home we made some more grub and watched LOTR-ROTK.

Unfortunately this might be my last weekend like that for a while as we will soon be getting slammed at work. We've got stuff going on every weekend for the next month or so. Hopefully I'll at least be able to make the Superbowl party.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 11:06 AM

Hahaha! What a clever son-of-a-bitch. John continues to impress with his new John Mayer Trio. They just released the video for their first single "Who Did You Think I Was?" Instead of going for a flashy, style over substance video with dancing girls, parties, hot cars, big sets and lots of pyrotechnics, John went for a more subtle approach. Very subtle. (You'll have to click the video link on that page for yourself.)

The video consists of this...

A record playing.

That's it! Just a 3 minute video of a record spinning! Nothing more. What a great idea. He's basically saying "Helloooooo, people! Let's focus on what's really important in music... The Fucking MUSIC!"

Of course MTV and VH1 would never play this on the air because they SUCK MONKEY BALLS, so I'm sure Sony/BMG/Columbia made them do this other version for television purposes. (Again you'll have to click the video link on that page for yourself.) Oh well. At least the second version is pretty stripped down too.

BTW, While looking for these vids, I stumbled upon John's MySpace page.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 2:14 PM

I'm a Porsche 911!

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite,and you know it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 3:03 PM

Sounds like the name of a new movie doesn't it? Well no one is actually suing Jesus, but Luigi Cascioli, a lifelong Italian atheist is suing the Rev. Enrico Righi, a priest at a small town Italian parish.

He suing him on the grounds of "so-called "abuse of popular belief" in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and "impersonation" in which someone gains by attributing a false name to someone."

From the article:

Cascioli says that for 2,000 years the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people by furthering the fable that Christ existed, and says the church has been gaining financially by impersonating as Christ someone by the name of John of Gamala, the son of Judas from Gamala.

He also asserts that the Gospels the most frequently cited testimony of Jesus' existence are inconsistent, full of errors and biased, and that other written evidence from the time is scant and doesn't hold up to scholarly analysis.

Legally speaking I think he actually has a case. Do I think that he'll win? Hard to say but highly doubtful in the land of the Catholics. Interesting nonetheless.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 12:39 PM

Anyone remember the movie "The Wizard" from the 80's with Fred Savage about the kid who goes cross country to compete in a massive video game tournament? Well that concept is finally coming to life via Direct TV. I know that you can already compete via the internet on console systems like Xbox and Playstation 2. The difference here is that Direct TV will actually be televising the competitions. And not just watching guys play games on a couch either. Direct TV has actually developed "new technology that allows for the placement of cameras within an actual video game," by manipulating some code within the game software itself. So it will be covered like a sporting event. Player bios and interviews, overhead cameras and instant replays. Not that I would ever actually watch that sort of thing.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 12:09 PM

My friend Nate (aka: The Human Torque Wrench) sent me this hilarious video clip of a practical joke that the boys at the man show pulled off. Funny stuff.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 12:08 PM

Here's a fun little time waster that I'm sure most of you have seen before in some form or another. The object of the game is to move the red block around without getting hit by the blue blocks or touching the black walls. My best time so far is 34.7 seconds.

Reportedly, the US Air Force uses this to test fighter pilots in training. They are expected to go for at least 2 minutes. Give it a try! Post your best score in the comments.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 12:04 PM

If you're interested go check out some photos of the interior and exterior of the new Busch Stadium here at John Sebben's baseball page.

Hat tips to Scott at Cardnilly for the link.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 5:04 PM

Strange but true. One single pre-cooked inedible St. Louis style Toasted Ravioli for sale on eBay. Huh? Sad thing is it has 4 bids.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 3:32 PM

Eventhough it's almost over, I stumbled upon this funny website honoring the Year of the Cock.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:40 PM

Looks like this Memorial Day weekend Karyn and I could be taking a trip to the deep south. The very deep south. In fact out of the country south. The boys over at The Billy Goat were courteous enough to invite us on their annual trip during their week off.

This year they are headed to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, just across the water from Cozumel. We would be leaving on Saturday, May 27th and returning on Saturday, June 3rd.

They've arranged with a travel agent for an all inclusive 7 night stay at the Hotel Riu Playacar (check out the link for all the info). It's a pretty damn nice resort with tons of free sporting activities, pools, private beaches, and the best part... all food and alcohol is included in the price of the vacation and available 24/7 at the resort. Another cool feature is that there are two other Riu Resorts (the Riu Tequila and the Riu Yucatan) where your vouchers for food and drink are just as good as they are at your resort. That means that all the restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and other facilities (pools, gyms, etc) are at your disposal for free.

It won't be cheap. $1200 bones will be coming out of my funds for this trip, but that just about covers everything except incidentals. Airfare, lodging, food, drink, and most of the entertainment and sporting are covered in this price. Me thinks that's a pretty stellar deal though. Especially since this is my type of vacation. No driving, no standing in line, no kiddies to deal with at theme parks, no cooking, no schedule to keep, no working to do anything on any level. Just food, drink, beaches, and fun with some good people. I'd better hit the gym and start working on the bod.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 10:51 AM

Just did a quick cleanup of the sidebar and took down some "no longer active" links. "April in TX" has stopped blogging for good and "K-Dog" and "Chris in CU" have both been inactive for two months. So all their links are gone (unless they resume blogging).

I took one of my St. Louis Blogs off the list because A) I never read her blog, B) she rarely writes anything of interest about "the Lou" (or about anything of interest really), and C) she likes Clay Aiken way too much. No offense lady, just not my cup of tea.

Sadly, I finally took "Velvet" off my list of favorite night clubs and restaurants. Over two months after they closed their doors, they finally took down their website. It's a shame too, there was a really cool trance track on the site I enjoyed listening to that I don't know the name of. Guess I'll have to ask my bro.

Lastly I reluctantly removed the hilarious ramblings of Justin at "What Green Tastes Like" from the Funny Shit section. He hasn't posted since April of '05 so I'm assuming that it's safe to say he's abandoned blogging.

Soon I'll be doing housecleaning part two and actually adding some links for the new year.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 9:42 AM

As of the writing of this post, since around the start of the New Year I've had 393 hits on my blog (not including my own visits since GoStats blocks my IP address from registering on the counter). Yet I've managed to only record 5 comments. Is my writing that boring? Am I not posting about stuff that interests you folks? Or should I go back to my old ways of posting about religion and things that would inspire a nice debate and produce over 20 comments? Let me know people. Leave me some feedback. I feel like I'm writing to no one here.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 10:32 AM

I should definitely try out for this. Yes that's right, the 2006 US Air Guitar Championships are staring up soon. Better start practicing my imaginary chops.

Oh, and if I'm really good maybe I'll get to play with this toy.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 4:07 PM

I'm not quite sure that totally withdrawing from Iraq immediately would be such a great idea given how deep we are into this war now. But that doesn't make this joke any less funny:

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 3:43 PM

Any of you kids out there that are fans of "The Family Guy" will get a kick out of this music video from the "The Family Guy Live in Las Vegas" album.

Because Firefox and Opera are not up to HTML standards that Microsoft has implemented, the "auto-play" function in the code is not recognized. At request I've taken the video down for this reason. If you still wish to see the video, follow the link above.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 2:06 PM

This weekend at the Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas, Samsung debuted the worlds largest plasma TV at 102". One day later Panasonic topped it by adding another inch at a whopping 103" diagonal measurement.

I suppose that's pretty cool, but what's really cool is the new SED ("Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display") technology that will soon blow Plasma and LCD monitors out of the water. Here's what the article has to say about it:

So how does it all work? SED sets use 6,220,800 electron emitters - or one for each color per pixel, to be precise - which cause red, blue and green phosphors to glow. That may not mean much to most, but the results will definitely matter. Toshiba's CES 2006 SED sets featured the deepest black levels we have ever seen on any television, including CRT - and these televisions are as flat as any plasma! Consider this: the typical plasma set sports a contrast ratio of 3000:1, but Toshiba's prototype SEDs offer a whopping 10,000:1 contrast ratio for truly unparalleled color and accuracy.

Sounds pretty bad-ass. But what I'm waiting for is this shit. That's right folks Ultra High Definition Video. Also known as Super Hi-Vision, the format boasts a 7,680 x 4,320 pixel resolution, a 60 fps frame rate, and 22.2 channel surround sound! That's 10 channels of standard surround sound, 2 sub-woofers, 9 channels from the ceiling and 3 more from the floor! 18 minutes of UHDV consumes 3.5 terabytes of data! Some viewers got motion sickness when viewing the test video images due to the fact that the image was so close to reality. I can't wait!

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:17 PM

Whoa! I didn't even notice but I suppose over the holidays I passed the 20,000 hit mark on my counter. Thanks to all my loyal and not so loyal readers over the past 2.5 years!

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 11:42 AM

Britney Spears "baby-daddy" Kevin Federline (or K-Fed) has just put out a rap album. The first single titled "Popozão" is plastered all over the web. Popozão is Brazilian Portuguese slang for a big sexy ass. I think in America however it means "worst song ever". To make your ears bleed, check out the song here.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 9:58 AM

Hope everyone had a Happy Christmahannukwansakah, Merry New Year, and a Joyous Festivus. Now that we're almost a week into the new year of 2006, and the Chinese year of the cock is slowly drawing to a close, things are getting back to normal again. Not that things around here were ever all that far off from normal. I only had one extra day off the day after Christmas and that was about it. But I was certainly partying quite a bit more than usual with all the family events (5 during Christmas weekend) and with all the out of town buddies coming back in, not to mention new years eve and major sporting events to boot.

Christmas was purty good this year, although I wasn't feeling very well and I had three family functions to attend that day. Started in the morning at my parents house, then Karyn's family in the early afternoon, then over to my maternal grandparents house in the evening. I was stuffed and tired by that point so I was pretty low key there and ended up going home early.

Got some pretty keen presents for the holiday. Some good Cd's (Mars Volta, My Morning Jacket, Paul McCartney) and DVDs (Field of Dreams, Oceans 12, Crash) of course, a 500 count WSOP chip set, a Texas Hold'em table top, 512 MB of RAM for my 'puter, an Ipod listening station, a bunch of cool books (RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Money-ball, Three Nights in August, Busch Stadium Memories), new clothes, and some gift cards and such.

Went back to work on Tuesday after visiting relatives out of town on my only weekday off. Kept busy at work that week prepping for our big New Years Eve production at Harrah's Casino and our slightly less big and less profitable New Years Eve production at the Majestic. My evenings were spend visiting with friends from out of town like the L-Train, C-Naffs, B-Sharpe, the Offermans. (Bryan, Jess and my bro are all trying to get me to play "World of Warcraft" now.)

The week passed quickly and on Friday evening, a bunch of the guys met at the Maji to start setting up for the NYE party and to play a little poker as well. By 12 AM I was tuckered out and passed out on a bar bench for a quick nap. I left soon after that passing up the opportunity to have my revenge and take my shot at another poker game. At least I got some good sleep though.

NYE began with me making sure I got plenty of good food and water in my belly to prepare for the coming party. I then spent most of the rest of the day burning party mix Cd's with various "jam's" so we could all shake our tail-feathers later that evening. Trust me, attempting to please 80 different music tastes is not an easy task. But I think I succeeded. After getting some clothes together I headed down to the Maji for a quick "fluff and buff" of our setup and then over to the hotel to do the "Three S's".

The party went off almost flawlessly and was better than years past. New faces in the crowd. Live music (thanks to Flicker, Todd's band). An almost flawless DJ mix (courtesy of my bro and I). Better lighting and decor (compliments of Production Support Services, Liam, Chris, Georgia, Frenchie, and myself). An ice sculpture shot luge (Thanks to Paradis and Dan). And of course a great overall job all around by Pete, Megan, and the rest of Majestic. Twas a glorious evening. Lot's of drinking and dancing and loving. I love New Years Eve.

Anyway, after cleaning up the next day and then sleeping the rest of the weekend. Things are finally starting to get back into full swing. Although there's still a bit of holiday spirit lingering around. At least until the Christmas Tree comes down and I spend all my gift cards.

- these thoughts flowed through Jeff's fingers @ 1:24 PM