1 down, 2 more to go! Fantasy football season is here!

Well, it was long and drawn out, but my bud's over at XBLF survived and we got our picks done for this years league!

It was brutal, but very fun none the less. I'm not too impressed with my picks, but we'll see. I mean c'mon, last year I won with a less than stellar squad. It's just who has the best weeks that matters.

So here's this years first round of picks:

1. E. James - RB (IND)
2. B. Favre - QB (GB)
3. B. Westbrook - RB (PHI)
4. L. Coles - WR (NYJ)
5. M. Mohammed - WR (CHI)
6. R. Williams - RB (MIA)
7. D. Stallworth - WR (NO)
8. LJ Smith - TE (PHI)
9. Washington DEF.
10. B. Leftwich - QB (JAX)
11. P. Dawson - K (CLE)
12. Daniel Graham - TE (NE)
13. Panthers DEF.
14. A. Randle El - WR (PITT)
15. R. Gardner - WR (CAR)

Nothing spectacular, and a lot of guys that I'm hoping still have gas in the tank!

Next draft is Saturday, followed by my call-in votes for next Thursday in the league I won last year! We'll see how it all plays out!

Let the games begin!

Scary's on the move!

Well folks,

This year has turned out to become a great success for me!

I've been working in my industry as a CAD/CAM guy for 14 years now and this weekend all of that hard work has finally paid off!

I started out the month great with the birth of my first son, and now I have an opportunity to take on a new job/career. I'm pushing off 14 years of training on a system that I had become pretty good at to learn a few new tricks of the trade!

The blog may become a bit inactive for a few weeks, but I want to thank all of my friends and family for stopping in and saying hi! I'll get an update as soon as we settle in!

Details on the move will be posted then, with pics!

Wanna see something uncanny?

So Tiffany pulled out my baby book today which, just so happened to have some photos of me as a kid, now I just had to post these. Check out how freaky this is:

This is me at 2 weeks old (Click)

This is Alex, he's now 9 days old (Click)

Me at 3 months old (Click)

Another Alex shot (Click)

Talk about a freaky feeling! Just totally blew both of us away!!

Ahhh, the joys of becoming a father! I get to point out just how much he looks like his daddy!!! Life is good!

Chia seeds! Not just for your pet!!!!

Check this out!

I'm so excited by this that I wanted to share it with anyone who stops by here.

For years, since my teens, I've suffered with horrible stomach problems. Lots of acid and crap like that. Needless to say, I've been miserable with it for going on 15 years now.

I developed an ulcer by the age of 16, suffered with acid reflux, and ended up trying tons of different medications, over the counter and prescribed. I just never found a fix for any of it.

Well, about 2 months ago, a friend of mine at work and I were talking and I told em all about my problems. He's really big in to teas and herbs, all natural cures for everything. So he had my attention. A few days later he shows up with a bag of chia seeds for me. I looked at em and asked just what the hell I was supposed to do with them. Well instead of me explaining it, I'll let the experts:

Chia, is familiar to most of us as a seed used for the novelty of the Chia Pet™, clay animals with sprouted Chia seeds covering their bodies. Little is known, however, of the seeds tremendous nutritional value and medicinal properties. For centuries this tiny little seed was used as a staple food by the Indians of the south west and Mexico. Known as the running food, its use as a high energy endurance food has been recorded as far back as the ancient Aztecs. It was said the Aztec warriors subsisted on the Chia seed during the conquests. The Indians of the south west would eat as little as a teaspoon full when going on a 24hr. forced march. Indians running form the Colorado River to the California coast to trade turquoise for seashells would only bring the Chia seed for their nourishment.

If you try mixing a spoonful of Chia in a glass of water and leaving it for approximately 30 minutes or so, when you return the glass will appear to contain not seeds or water, but an almost solid gelatin. This gel-forming reaction is due to the soluble fiber in the Chia. Research believe this same gel-forming phenomenon takes place in the stomach when food containing these gummy fibers, known as mucilages, are eaten. The gel that is formed in the stomach creates a physical barrier between carbohydrates and the digestive enzymes that break them down, thus slowing the conversion of carbohydrates into sugar.

For more info, check this site out: http://www.living-foods.com/articles/chia.html

I'll also give a plug for my friends lady friend that has her own natural tea shop, and has great prices on these. 1/2 lb. for around 5$. Check out her store, Naturl Remi-teas, here: http://www.naturalremi-teas.com/

Listen to me when I tell you that this solved all my stomach issues, and I've had a stomach free of any problems for the full 2 months. During Tiff's pregnancy she had horrible stomach acid and heartburn. I would give her a teaspoon full of the seeds and a full glass of water to wash em down and within a 1/2 hour no more heartburn. We swear by em now!

Not only that, but they are great for keeping the body hydrated, so if your in the need of trying to keep hydrated, give em a try.

If anyone does decide to give it a try, let me know what you think.

Satellite Radio......Now this is how you EARN a customer!

So I've been holding off for awhile on jumping on the bandwagon of satellite radio to see how the whole game unfolds before I dump my money into a system.

You have 2 options when it comes to satellite radio, you can either go with XM or Sirius. Well, being that I'm a Howard Stern fan (don't hold it against me!!) I decided to wait and see what happened with Sirius and how 'serious' they got about their equipment.

In my reviews so far I've found that XM just has better quality equipment and a nice selection of stations to listen to, but again, being a Stern fan, I just couldn't go that route yet. Another big plus for me was being able to have a Walkman-style system that I could carry around with me. I like portability and want to be able to pick up and go with my radio when I need to, whether that be my house, my car or around the office. It's a must! Sorry, I'm picky!

Being that I'm an impatient consumer, I tried to push my luck and contacted Sirius thru their website to see if they offered anything or if there was plans for them to do so.

Not even an hour later I'm getting an email from a tech. support girl that gives me a complete breakdown on their newest product that's coming in October the REGO system.

Go ahead, go back and read that last statement, they emailed me right back to tell me about a future product!

Well, now I'm just full of questions, and I fire them to her and she was kind enough to answer them all for me. Now that my friends, is customer support! Here I'm not even a customer yet, and this girl went out of her way to tell me about their 'upcoming' products. You just dont see that type of service anymore.

Now for the kicker! Today, I get an email from her, with a gift certificate for $50 off of the radio and service when it hits in October! You rock!!!!!

No price on the system yet, but I'll make sure to review it as soon as I get it. Man, I'm gonna need a second job come winter time with all the new toys I'm gonna get!

Everybodies bloggin!!

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to encourage you to check out some of my links on the side bar to the right!

A lot of my friends have jumped on the bandwagon with blogging and they have come up with some great stuff!

Enjoy with me as my friends travel down the same path, just on different routes!!

Parents......and the things they do to their kids!

Well, my parents stopped over Saturday night, after what turned out to be a long, wonderful day with the family.

Tiffany and I went out to dinner, courtesy of Akron General Hospital's gift certificate. We went to Red Lobster and took Alex with us, his first date as well!

He was so well behaved and just at peace, it was an awesome time for sure.

My parents stopped over after we got home, which made it around 11pm or so. They spent a few hours taking the boy in and having some pics (added to my Flickr account) taken with him as well. Gramma Gail just oggled over him for most of the night, I mean hell, he looks just like daddy did as a baby, so what's not to like, right mom?? :)

So after they left, we fed him his bottle and Tiffany got em all cleaned up for the evening. But, before the evening ended, she was lotioning him up and rubbing his head down and started goofin with his hair. The pic above had us cracking up for over an hour, not just the hair, but the look on the boy's face! Priceless!!

I'm sure this wont be the last pic we have fun with! There's also a pic of him with a mohawk! I told Tiff, alright already, enough, your gonna give the boy a complex!!! Mothers, gessh!!!!

Now that the dust has settled.......

So here we are, 3 days after my son was born and I can finally sit back and reflect on it.

We both were in dire need of sleep, as you can tell <----------------!!!

The experience was one I will never forget. Like I had said before, the past 9 months gave Tiffany and I time to reflect on our lives and decide where we wanted to go. We didn't focus on the negative aspects of things, we just stayed focus that in the end, everything would work out fine. And guess what? We ended up FINE!

I spent the past year preparing myself for becoming an adult. Hell, I'm 31, going on 32 in just over a month now, it's about damned time I grew up and started realizing that I was letting time slip by and needed to ground myself.

But enough gibberish, let's get into the event's leading up to his birth.

Monday morning Tiffany had an appointment with the doctor to see how she was doing. Alex expected delivery date was August 17th, and it was th 15th, so we were right on time. Well, the doctor asked her if she wanted to get this party started and go thru being induced. Tiff's been very anxious to get this done, so she was ready. We were told to be at the hospital at 8pm that night.

We get in to the hospital and spend the next 2 hours getting checked in and filling out paper after paper after paper until 10pm when the resident doctor stopped in and told Tiff that they were going to start with a Cervodil, which is used to relax the cervix, thus preparing her to be induced. The whole process there was to last 12 hours. So we headed to bed and laid listening to Alex's heart beat throughout the night on the heart monitor. At 6am, the doc. came back in to check on her and see how things were progressing. She was still stuck on 1cm, but had been having 'variable contractions' all night long. About 15mins after leaving the room, she stopped back in and said that they were gonna go ahead and remove the Cervodil.

Around 9am they put her on the Petocin to induce labor. It took until around noon before she made it to 2cm's but at least we had some progress. Now, Tiffany was being one hell of a trooper. She was offered to have an epidural on several occasions and had decided to hold off until and only until she desperately needed it. Well, at 1pm they checked her again and decided that it was time to break her water. Well, after sitting there about 45mins. after that she had decided that enough was enough, TIME FOR THE EPIDURAL!!! What a woman!

So the epidural was started and from there on out it was just a sit and wait. Most epidurals last up to 5 hours, and she was bound and determined to get this over before then. The betting was on. Tiffany said by 6pm, one nurse said before then, and the resident was counting on midnight that night. So around 3pm they checked her and she had made it to 3cm, again, progress! But it's a long way to go to 10cm's.............

Next check was at 4:30 and damned if she didn't go to 9 1/2 cm's! Well, her cervix was not completely ready, but they were betting on it being at least another hour or 2 before she would be ready to rock! Well, daddy to be was starving and miserable with a headache from lack of food and drink, so I stepped out, asked the nurse if I was safe to go, and she said, NO PROBLEM!!

As I'm standing there deciding what was gonna work for dinner, the girl behind the counter, a very sweet lady, talked me into a delicious meatball sub, a bag of chips, and a fruit punch drink! But as she's getting it ready we're talking about why I'm in there and tell her about Tiffany being close to 10cm's but still time to spare! The next reaction was classic, as my hogie is rolling thru an oven, she reaches in screaming at me "Boy, you crazy!!!! Your girl's about to have that kid any minute, what the hell you doin having me toast this sub for you!!!????" Hahaha, slaps it in to a bag and sends me off running back to my room.

Well, damned if this girl didn't know what she was talking about, cause as I came in to the room Tiff's tellin me to drop the sandwich, it was showtime! It was now 5pm.

So I cleaned up, went to her bedside, and the next thing I know the RN and I are holding Tiff's legs' up and encouraging her to "PUSH!!" 3 pushes later, the RN looks at and claims "I'll be back, we need the doctor!" I looked and questioned "WHY??" She say's that baby's ready to get here NOW!!!!

So the doctors and a few more RN's get in the room and encourage the 2nd round of pushes. And there I am, holding her leg, encouraging her, and watching the baby crown!!! What a sight! Now were ready to rock! Everyone in the room gets garbed up and ready to go. In the meantime, Tiffany, all doped up, starts telling the girls "C'mon girls, let's do this, I'm gonna push this kid right up out of me! C'MON!!!" NO pain whatsoever! Thank God for epidural! I was blessed with missing the screaming and yelling at me for making her this way!!! Woooo, hoooo!!!

So, round 3 of contractions, and another 3 pushes! By the second push his head was halfway out and moving fast!!! We looked up and told her 'One more push baby!!!' and she grabbed ahold of the bed, dug deep for a big breath and just pushed like nobodies business!! With me watching this child enter this world, he came head down and was moving quick, next thing ya know, he's right up out of her!!!! Quickly they clean his mouth, and bam! We have our first cry!!!! And a beautiful baby boy is born!!!

The greatest moment came when I had to cut his umbilical cord! Oh man! How cool is that? Gross as it may sound, but to cut and release him from his mother like that was just more than I could handle, I cried my eyes out!!

Next they get him over to the scale to weigh him in. Well, for days and weeks we were being told he would be undersized. Well, the astonished look on the RN, Tracy's face, was priceless. She turns and claims, 'You guys! 7lbs 7ozs!!!!' 20" long!!! Yeah!!!!!!! A healthy baby boy, who scores 100% on all tests as well! A perfect 10!

So the momma and I spent the next hour by ourselves with the baby just taking it all in, crying our eyes out at how beautiful he was and how striking he resembled daddy!!!! He had all my features, which to me was enough, but we did a test anyways! Hey, we didn't need it, but to put everyone elses minds at ease, we did anyways! (And by the way, I was handed the results on Thursday, 99.97% for the daddy!! I balled it up and threw it away! I already knew that, thank you very much!!)

We had a few visitors, including my mom and dad, Brooke and her gramma, and Gramma Sue made the first night visit! Tiffany and I spent the rest of the night up with him (minus my moment of sleep pictured above!) just soaking him up! The more we looked at him, the more it just choked me up!

What a great life experience! Now I feel apart of the world after bringing my own child into it! What a feeling people!

Baby and mom were home by 11am on Thursday! Short stay and home where they should be! We spent last night in awe of him again after visits by Uncle Dylan and I think I went to sleep at around 2:30 am! Boy, I'm on such a high from all of this!

You wanted the best, you got the best.......

The cutest kid in the world, Alexander Christopher!

Lil Scary's here!! Pic's in a min! Stand by!!!!

Well, the wait is over! He finally made it here!

At 5:24pm on Tuesday, August 16th, 2005, little Alexander Christopher Spicer finally joined his mommy and daddy in this world!

Give me a few mins. to get the photos uploaded. Come back for the link in about an hour!

FINALLY, THE WAITS OVER!!!!

Well, tonights the night!

Tiffany just got back from the doctors and has been told that her and baby are ready to go, no more waiting! We head to the hospital at 8pm tonight for her to be induced!

Pics and news soon everyone!!!

A new season of Jackass! Oh wait......I mean......

Yes, yes, I know..........

Some of you might find this shocking, but to be honest with you, this one goes beyond ridiculous!

I've been a KISS fan my whole life, just ask my mom. She's got pics of me in diapers dancing to the sounds of Rock and Roll All Nite at the ripe age of 2, headphones and all! But I was sitting there watching VH1 with the wife the other night (she's really into all the celebreality shows there lately) and an ad came on for Rock School!

Now, I find this just absolutely hysterical. I mean I knew the show was being taped, but as far as I had heard, it was only going to air in Britian, but VH1 now has the rights to it and will air for all of us Americans to poke fun at Gene.

From the reviews I've read so far, Gene is just crucified by these kids, not withstanding the fact that several of the children started blogging about what kind of a Jackass this guy really is.

The music was what got me into them, along with the theatrics at the time. The toy's in the mid-70's really rocked, but ever since the reunion back in '96, it's just been Gene pillaging and raping us fans for every dirty dollar he could squeeze us for. 1000$ to go backstage and meet them, dolls after dolls after dolls.....you get the point. And just recently, being enshrined into the Smithsonian for their support of sex with condoms, with their condoms displayed in front of pictures of some very nasty venerial diseases! Gaaaack!!!

I just wish they could get back to making the music that brought me thru the ages, and forget all the marketing. I mean, come on Gene, you could buy Isreal now with all of the money you've made off us! Yes, you've lived the American dream, but there are people out there that really think your a moron! I'm starting to drink their Kool-Aid!

Now, when's Pauls solo album come out??

Roasting Pam!

I won't go in to too much detail on this, since I try to keep it somewhat clean around here (lol) but I have to mention it anyways!

This was on Comedy Central last night and an unedited version will air next Saturday (8/20) at 1am. This is a must see, if not for Pam, for all the cracks that just had me in tears for 2 solid hours last night!

A few no names that I didn't recognize, but they were just as funny as the stars of the show as well.

I really could have done without that tramp Courtney Love though. What a pig!!!

No pun intended ehhhh??

LOL, and my favorite news article quote of the week, courtesy of 1UP.com

"X05 Will Be Hashed Out in Amsterdam "

LOL, just genius!!

Todays musical selection........

Some of you may or may not know, but I'm a big music fan. I listen to pretty much everything. If it's got a catchy riff or beat, I'll check it out.

A few years ago while working out in Pennsylvania, a friend of mine turned me on to quite a bit of music. Music that I had heard of but wouldn't have rushed out and bought it myself.

These were the early days of Napster and stuff like that and we exchanged quite a bit of music betwixt the two of us.

One of the more interesting finds for me was this band that formed now over 10 years ago called Gov't Mule. Warren Haynes, of Allman Brothers fame, was a founding member with Allen Woody and a few other great musical talents. They are your basic jam band, but the music is just killer! Very bluesy and very melodic!!

Right now I'm jammin out to an album they put out a few years ago called 'The Deep End Vol. 1' This is a spectacular album and has some great remakes from the Allman Brothers, John Fogerty and even has an appearance from Bootsy Collins (Of Funkadelics fame)!

I would recommend if you have an open mind to music to pick this one up and give it a listen.

***** STAR RATING FROM SCARY!

This week's 'Ouch, that's gonna leave a mark!'

This has to be the nastiest play I have seen EVER!

Yesterday during a game between the Mets and the Padres, Mike Cameron and Carlos Beltran (yeah great, you haven't done shit for me all year long as it is and now this!!) had a head on collision.

Now, let me set the stage for you: There's a shot to mid-field and both Cameron and Beltran zero in on the incoming flyball, not paying attention to one another. Like Superman, both men dive to catch the ball and Beltran slams head first into Cameron, knocking the boy clean out of his jockstrap!

Now, I know this was a nasty shot, bcause during SportsCenter last night Tiffany and I are watching this and she sat up in gasped at the devistation that this looked like. "Oh my god! He's gotta be dead after that!" She uttered in disbelief. To see Beltran get up from that was amazing, and unfortunately Cameron wasn't so lucky.

He was taken to the hospital where both cheeks were broken and the boy had to spend the night in the hospital.

This is a sight to see this in action. And to hear it played back with make your ass cheeks pucker! What a hit!!!

Coming to a next gen system near you............

And by next gen. system, I mean no other than the XBox 360, lovers!!!

I've been keeping a close eye on a few games that really have my attention right now and what's gonna keep my playing games way into my 30's, and I've found 5 right now that are standing out to me, so here goes:

1. Gears of War, by Epic games - This game is just stunning from the first photos I've seen. Not slated til almost summer of 2006, this is the game that I am most craving. Heading up the team is Cliff 'Cliffy B' Bleszinski, of Unreal fame and fortunes! It's a game based on horror survival and tactical shooting. Oh, who cares, the monsters are freaking huge and scary looking! And we like Scary!!! Don't we?? Reading thru Cliffs Blog I'm intrigued by the scare factor that's gonna come with this one. C'mon, sneaking up on someone and then chainsawing them??? Put a fork in me, I'm done!

2. World Air Force - OK, big reason this one's #2 on my list is simple. We are going to finally get an air combat game based on today's military aircraft! Nuff said! It's a Japanese company developing it, Taito, and their claiming only 15% is complete so far, but wow, for 15%, the graphics are stunning. Here's hoping that those photos are in-game shots! Just look at these screen shots! Yeah, you like that don't you??

3. Huxley - This one is a killer epic game with what their touting as a MMOFPS, yes, you read that correctly! Going on record, they were touting battles of up to 5000 people simultaneously. Time will tell!

4. Condemned - You hunt a serial killer........OK, I'm done! That's gonna be fun!! Here's a quip from a favorite game site 1up:

Combat consists of frenzied scrambling to fend off murderous nut jobs--you'll pick up whatever's at your disposal, be it a lead pipe, wooden plank, or shotgun, to stay alive. Don't expect pure fighting, though: The CSI-inspired forensic puzzle elements add a clever twist (e.g., scoping mysterious stains with a black light). Plus, the grisly narrative violently intrudes on your progress, thrusting you into heavily stylized crime-scene flashback cut-scenes.

C'mon, doesn't that just get you warm and fuzzy inside??

and

5. Ghost Recon 3: Advanced Warfighter - Holy crap!!! I'm a huge GR series fan, and this one is just blowing me away! The video clips I've seen have me sitting her in sheer giddiness! Won't you join me in shooting up friends relentlessly?? Take a look at the beauty that is Ghost Recon and you will quickly say, PS what??? RIIIIIIIIGHT!

This week in gaming!

Well, as I've already mentioned Madden '06 came out this week and on top of that, last week brought me another game to my beloved series, Ghost Recon.

Ghost Recon: Summit Strike hit the shelves a week ago and with it brought a bit of anger to start off with. Seem's Ubisoft has issues with creating a good game from the start and always deals us something to bitch about with each game. Well, low and behold with the first boot up we were all dealt a big fat red x on our screens! NICE!!! Seem's you had to stand on your head, click your heels and kiss your own ass before it would work, but eventually it did!!

After dealing with getting it to load at first, I've fallen deeply in love with this game. This is the best to date! Tonight alone I had 22 friends online playing it. I haven't seen that much action since Halo 2 hit last November, so this is a great sign.

Speaking of 22 friends online, I had the greatest thing happen last night. I have a great group of friends that I used to work with in Pennsylvania at good 'ol Tech Tool and Mold . Well I decided to stop in and say hi to a buddy of mine Dave. Whilst in the room another mate joins in and knows immediately who I am and the guessing game is on as to whom this character is. I quickly identify him and proceeded to play 5 hours of great gaming with these guys! Man I miss that place, but again, thanks to XBox and XBox Live, I can keep in close contact with old friends!

I'm telling you guys, Sony totally blew goats by not jumping on the online gaming community like Microsoft did. It will be their demise, you watch and see.

Now, go out, spend your money on the XBox 360, and make sure you throw Scary Aaron a friends invite! You wont regret it!

Another season of getting owned!!!!

Well folks it's that time of the year again that all of us guy's look forward to: FOOTBALL SEASON SUCKA'S!!!!

And with football season for most of us geeks comes to highlights

1. Fantasy football

and

2. Another year of Madden football, on your preferred gaming system.

You know my ass is hangin on the Live side of things, fo sho!!!

But even being a fan of both items above, I consistenly have my ass handed to me in Madden or whatever other football game it is that I pick up. I just can never figure the shit out! I absolutely dominate when I'm playing offline, BY MYSELF!!!! But when it comes time to face the real deal, I just get trounced and look like a guy who's never even picked the controller up before. It's utterly embarrassing!!!

Tonight started my continuation of being dominated AGAIN, this time going down to Lil Bones in the first XBLF league of the season, thoroughly getting kicked in the dick 27-6! And trust me, it took everything I had to score that 6, yeah, piss off, I missed the extra point attempt! I'll keep trying though. Practice makes perfect!!

However, when it comes to #1 up there, I'll pound you into submission. I've become quite the fantasy manager and get a kick out of it each year. I've won several leagues throughout the past few years, and last year was my best year ever! I stayed in the background all year long, having drafted 5th in a 10 man league and snuck in to the playoffs with the help of Mr. Jerome Bettis, who mind you, I picked up 3/4's of the way thru the season. Yeah, there's money involved but it seems we never collect on it, and it just turns into a pissing contest to see who can dog who the best on our message boards! I won there too!!!

So, we're 3 weeks away from the drafts, and I'm already in 4 fantasy leagues to boot! This ought to be interesting.

Oh yeah, and that gosh damned T.O's already spreading heracy in the locker room of my beloved Eagles! Andy, don't take that crap from him. Yeah, he proved his value last year, but that doesn't give em the right to think he OWNS the Eagles now! We'll get 'er done! Now bring the trophy home this year!

FLY EAGLES FLY!!!!

A stubborn Spicer, about to be born!

alex-ultra001
Originally uploaded by Scary_Aaron.

This kids showing very good signs of being a Spicer with both being stubborn along with a being a procrastinator!

Tiffany's quite relaxed now, but still is a bit antsy to get it over with. She got back from the hospital on Tuesday after the doctors told her that her fluids were doing great and she should just take things naturally.

So here we are again, in the waiting patiently stages!

More soon, hopefully! The kid looks like he's in for the long haul!

It's about that time!

Well, we are right around the corner from baby Alexander joining our family.

The journey has been one I have grown proud to be a part of. Tiffany and I had so much to learn along the way and we really learned quite a bit about each other, not to mention everything we learned about ourselves.

Tiffany was in the hospital this morning for a thorough exam and ultrasound. The doctor was very happy with what he saw with Alex weighing in right now at a healthy 5lb's 11 oz's. There was thought that they were going to induce today if the fluid in her was low, but 5 days of refueling has done the trick for her!

So now we're in a holding pattern, waiting for Alex to decide his arrival.

Look at that, already showing signs of being a Spicer, being a procrastinator!!!

Dammit it's hot!!!

OK, I live in the gosh damned Great Lakes region, why the hell is it so damn hot this year?

The heat really isn't all that bad, its the damned humidity that is just killing us here.

I work in a machine shop, where for my comforts, I get to sit in a nice air conditioned office and then walk out and watch the lackies suffer profusely out on the floor when it is approaching the triple digit mark with all the equipment running out there.

But as irony would have it, the central air in the building is broken and being in that nice little chiller box of an office I have, it has turned in to a baking oven. Pretty soon the paint chips falling off of the vent system in here will lead to baking paint chips and the fumes should make me forget all about how hot it is!

One can only hope!

My digital lifestyle! I may be over the edge!

I was thinking about it today and I realized that I spend more time on the computer than any activity I do on a daily basis.

I work with computers so a computer is a part of my day no matter what. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I rely on electronic communications more than anything else I encounter on a daily basis, including a phone.

Now I'm not into cell phones and Blackberries, but I would dare say 95% of my daily activities and contacts are handled on my laptop. Be it by email or instant messages, forums or private messages, I watch my laptop like a little school boy waiting for that phone to ring back in the days of waiting for that cute girl in class to call.

I can't find much fault in my ways of communications being that most of my friends are now apart of my digital way of life, and most have come from some interation on the PC. I've been a part of the XBox gaming community since its inception and have created a great group of friends that way, and almost every day I'm somehow communicating with them there. I've even gone to meet some of these clowns (lol, I kid! Their all great friends!)!!! And the sad (to you maybe, a hightlight for me!) part is, I have more friends now, this way, then I did growing up! Being so glued to this thing I've picked up a program called Skype, which if need be, allows me to call people right over the internet. If ya have the program its a free call, and you can even pick up phone cards to make regular land line calls with it as well.

It just makes me realize what a cluster bomb mess I'd be in if I lost this line of communication! How would I function!!!???? Ooooo good grief, the thought alone is dreadful!

Gaming the way I like it!

I've been a big fan of military shooters for years now. I loved the feel and playstyle of the XBox versions as of late, and would be lost without my beloved Ghost Recon series to keep me warm at night.

I've shy'ed away from the XBox for the past few weeks just because I 1.) hadn't really had the time and 2.) I was a bit burnt out of gaming for awhile.

Well, a few weeks ago, the newest Official XBox Magazine hit the news stands and had a playable, online version, of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. My buddy Brian (Vitamin B) was instantly hooked and got us all in to it immediately as well. The game was an absolute blast and I couldn't get enough. Unfortunately, being that it was a demo, it had a few issues. First, you could only play 2 sessions, then there was the 1 game mode and 1 game map to play. I fell in love though, that didn't stop me (and hasn't stopped B yet, I think he's still playing it even as I write this!)! But I made the fatal mistake last week of picking up a new military shooter, Black Hawk Down. If I had been on the second floor of a building playing this game, I would have found the nearest window to jump out of. What a horrible piece of gabarge this game was. It made me want BF2:MC on the 'Box that much sooner.

Well, fortunately for me, I spent the extra $3 and had 14 days to return my smelly piece of garbage game for a full refund. But when I walked in to that store, there, glaring at me in all its box art shininess was Battlefield 2 for the PC. C'mon, I couldn't resist! I snagged it right up!

Now, just a little history on games of this origin. Most of the FPS (first person shooters) out there are your basic run and gun mentality. No one takes the time to plan out your strategies and they maintain the me, me, me attitude of gaming! Everyone's Rambo!

Well, gaming with Dave (Dagon Fel) and the other BoG'ers really got me in the mindset of gaming with a strategy. Take on the concept of working as a team to control an area, or working together to overtake a flag position. This is what the game is about to me. Organizing your guys to work in a fluid motion, having your team work together to come up with the best strategy in-game. Drawing up maps and planning your attacks and defenses. To me, this is what its all about! This is gaming the way it's meant to be played!

So many people today are in to modding games and coming up with hacks and cheats and it becomes frustrating to a guy like me who plays the game to simply be competitive on a fair and balance battlefield.

Well, in picking up the game, I wanted to find the best experience that I could and get the biggest bang for my buck in the investment I just made. I cruised around the web looking for BF2 sites to see what was going on out there and I happened across a site called Battlefield 2 Combat: A tour of duty based on Battlefield 2 ! Now you've got my interest! A tour of duty? What could this be about. I spent the rest of the day Thursday and most of the day Friday researching what was involved here. I'll break it down for you:

You spend anywheres from 9.99$ for 4 months to 34.99$ for a full years subscription to this site. What you get is servers that are controlled by the site for you to game on, a controlled environment. You don't get the hacks that don't want to work as a team, these guys are organized, and they mean business!! So I plunked down the $9.99 to give it a shot.

They start ya off by filling out all of the necessary documentation to get you enrolled, you almost get the feel as if your entering the military, with all the paperwork! You then decide what group you want to be a part of, the US, Chinese or Iranians. What the heck, throw me in the meat grinder! Put me where ya need me! Well, the Iranians are in need! So off to camp I go. The whole process is very methodical in its approach of being simple, yet it is to the point.

You get a message in your inbox telling you to report, in my case to the MEC 3rd - New Recruits section where you are given your orders. You sign up here as well and within 24 hours you are assigned a division you will be attached to. In my case I was assigned to the 21st ID. Here you meet your team leader, who for us is Captain Comrade. Being that this division is fairly new, he's getting a lot of the new recruits that are coming in. These of course are going to be your front line guys! Hoooo rah!!!!

I spent the better part of Saturday just going over all of the intel. that is available to you on specific maps, strategies for those divsions, and just proper procedures of how this ship sails! There's a great tool that they use for communicating back and forth during battles called Team Speak. The software is nice in that it is a stand alone deal and allows for you to just talk with your team mates.

The way it is organized, Tuesdays and Thursdays are reserved for practices. Each group has their own practice servers to get together on and strategize with. Which kicks ass! You again can avoid the rooms full of tyrants and not have to worry about laggy rooms and having to kick people. See the nice thing about this is that you PAY to PLAY. So someone that spends the extra money to be a part of this is going to be a little more attentive to his investment and want to work with you or risk losing that money when he's removed from the competition for not being a team player. Sundays are the big battle days. When the war officially begins, teams will battle it out from noon until 8pm EST in what is sure to be epic battles.

I'd seen this in the past with a guy I used to work with that was diehard, like this, with Medal of Honor. He was part of a group that was structured the same way and competed in tournaments as well. But here, your not going out competing against another clan or team, your battling it out in a mock tour of duty. This is a war that is waged and going to the site you get headline news from around the globe talking about the developments of the war. It really brings a different edge and feel to the game.

So, this past Sunday (July 31st) I recieved my orders for deployement in the early A.M.! I was to report to Team Speak and my divisional section of Team Speak by 11:30am to go over some basics for the match. It was a great turnout. We ended up with 8 guys in our division showing up, and a hand full of us were new recruits, not even having been in competition yet, let alone the game. Captain Comrade had it all under control though. He had is troops ready for battle and everyone was quick to follow thru with their assigned orders and duties. We gamed our hearts out! I played for about the first 4 hours and had to take a break for some weekend lawn duty, but jumped right back in to finish up the rounds with my team!

Low and behold, MEC took it to the NATO 1MC's! We had 2 maps, Area 4 - Zatar Wetlands and Area 11 - Strike and Karkand. We seemed to dominate on the Area 4 map and really did all we could on Area 11. In the end though we came out victorious.

For the first few weeks, these are organized scrimmages, so that we can get up to speed with our teams and start becoming a cohesive unit. And for a first run thru, we seemed to work pretty damn well together.

The next few practices should be fun. We seemed to all get along great and follow the plan perfectly. It was very well exectuted. I'm sure there will be bumps along the road, but thats' what makes this so fun!

This for me is my kind of gaming!