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!

Hahaha! Gotta love horiscopes!

Ya know, Im not one for horiscopes, but Tiffany ended up signing me up on some daily email that I get and here is todays read:

Scorpio
October 23 - November 21To makes ones own mind up has never been an easy task. For you, dear Scorpio, it is particularly difficult. Today, something in the air will enable you to unify your thoughts. You will be able to take decisions fairly easily. But if you can't make your mind up on certain subjects, feel free to think a bit longer before you decide. There is no need to rush into things!

Sometimes ya gotta wonder if it's just pure luck that they get these like this! Yeah, today I've had to make some very difficult decisions, work-wise and even in my personal life.

Anyone else think these things are hokey??

Any day now............

Well, we're now down to days before little Alexander Christopher joins this world in which we live in.

If anything, the past 9 months has taught me a lot about myself and the kind of person I am and who I want to be. I have looked forward to this day my whole life, when a baby is born unto me and I get to partake in his/her upbringing and helping them mold into the person they will become. It really does make you stop, take a look around, and appreciate life for all its worth.

With doubts still at bay, Tiffany and I have both learned one thing, this is our baby! This baby will be brought up and raised as our child! I love the fact that this has brought Tiff and I this much closer and allowed us to again grow into a loving couple.

Tiffany is the love of my life. There is no other. Each day before I get out of bed, I take a few minutes to just lie there and stare at her sexy face, get under the sheets and kiss Alex and her belly good morning, and thank the heavens above for another chance to make things right in my life.

This process has really made me grow as a person and I'm starting to not take things for granted anymore. It's time to start thinking about my family and what I can provide for my family. After 9 years, its just not about me!

TABS!!!! You've won me back Explorer!

Hate on 'em all you want, but I've found a reason to return to Internet Explorer.

I'm an avid reader of Major Nelsons blog and he always is keeping us up to date with the new toys from Microsoft. I wasn't too keen on the whole MSN Search but when I discovered (yes, it's been out for a few weeks I guess) today that you can now use tabs in Explorer, I dumped my old girlfriend, Firefox, and rushed right back over to Explorer to give her a shot.

I'm gonna install all of the new toys that are out there for it and give it a thorough once over to see if I like it.

I'll post my thoughts in a few days after using it.

Goodbye Firefox! It's been fun, and you've kept me very happy. I must now go back to my first love!

Return to Flight

top.discovery1.ap
Originally uploaded by Scary_Aaron.

Yes, geek that I am, I was glued to NASA.tv to watch the launch of Discovery this morning, and as planned, at 10:39am, she blasted off of launchpad 39B to give chase to the ISS.

It was a gorgeous launch and great to breathe a sigh of relief to finally make it back to space!

Check out www.space.com for a complete breakdown on the mission and to follow the crew along in their travels.

Telsa, still kickin ass!!!

Had a great time seeing one of my favorite bands, Tesla!

Yeah, yeah, a band from the 80's 'hair band' days, but wow, these guys can still kick some major ass. All 5 members of the band were in top notch form.

This being my 7th time seeing 'em I was a bit disappointed, they only played an 1hr 1/2 set. Kinda a bummer. Started out of course with 'Comin atcha! Live! and ended the night with Modern Day Cowboy.'

It was nice to hear 4 new songs from their latest album as well.

Couldn't beat it. My buddy Dylan picked up the tickets and we rolled with his wife and his brother. My brother was supposed to go but backed out at the last minute. Not sure what was up with that.

Good times though, can't wait to catch em again. Hopefully with a longer set list.

Scotty, a legend passes!

320x240
Originally uploaded by Scary_Aaron.

Today we lost a legend, mostly noted for the infamous Hollywood line "Beam me up Scotty".

James 'Scotty' Doohan passed away at the age of 85. The great Scottish accent will never be forgotten and the guy was one of my favorites in the series.

He will be missed!

Return to Flight

050713_discovery_vlrg_7a.widec
Originally uploaded by Scary_Aaron.

Today marks the return to flight for the space shuttle program.

I have been an avid geek of everything space and witnessed the 2 shuttle tragedies along with damn near every launch that's taken place.

I am very excited to see NASA put this behind them and get back to doing what they've been good at doing, this time checking their ego's at the door! Remember guys, we are dealing with the lives of others, just because your degree says you know everything, take critism as well!.

The countdown is on! Launch at 3:51pm today! Go STS114!!!

EDIT: And just like that:

Discovery Launch Scrubbed

13 July 2005, 1:30 p.m. EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A low-level fuel sensor failure has scrubbed today’s launch of space shuttle Discovery. Details to follow.

.........and this week in the news!

So you think you've got it bad playing World of Warcraft or Halo 2 for endless hours?

Maybe you should take a trip to China and get yourself cured! Leave it to the Chinese to find a cure for this ailing disease! Now if we could get em to just focus on their bird flu epidemic and maybe AIDS or something, China just might be a hoppin place to live.

And in even funnier news yet, this kid may need to be the first American to take a trip over to test out the new facilities!!

Deep Impact............into the taxpayers wallet!

050704_flyby_impact_02
Originally uploaded by Scary_Aaron.

Now, don't get me wrong!

Im all for space exploration and discovering new things, but give me an f'n break!!! 333$ million dollars to slam a washing machine packed with 5 tons of explosives into an asteroid? Just what do you gain out of this?

I was talking with Vitamin B about this as I sat like a loon glued to the internet watching NASA TV, and we were discussing this very issue. What the hell can you possibly gain, knowledge wise out of this? "Welp, we put a nick in it!"

HAHA, I've heard some great things about this, like "just wait, it's probably some borg like object that is gonna be really pissed off now!" As it sinks its teeth into the Earth.

C'mon guys, I mean, send a man back to the moon or something. Just find something better to do with 333$ million dollars than blowing shit up for your enjoyment!

The 'old' GT.com boys

The 'old' GT.com boys
Originally uploaded by Scary_Aaron.

Was going thru some photos and wanted to get these loaded up to my flickr account.

This was taken at Daves house in January, 05 at Heathers birthday party.

This was my first time getting to meet the fellas from GT.com.

Happy 4th Everyone!

I hope everyone has a safe and nice weekend off!!

Tiffany and I are celebrating our 8th anniversary this weekend as well!

8 years.............WoW!!! It's funny how fast it goes by when you love some one so much!!

See everyone this week! We'll get some more posts up!

Get BoG'ed baby!

Tiff and Scary - Take me out to the Ball game!


So the 2nd annual Band of Gamers took place over the past weekend in St. Louis, hosted by Tony (Tboa) and Odette, his wife. Very gracious hosts' for all of us!

Tiffany and I drove 12 1/2 hours down to this! Didn't matter, there was no way I was missing this one after letting a buddy of mine (Barroom Hero) down the year before. I was gonna make it if I had to beg, borrow or steal to get there. We left Akron Thursday around noon and drove all day. Stopped in Terre Haute (yes, infamous to only KISS fans as the home of the KISS Army!) for dinner at Steak and Shake. Little did we know that this would not be the last time!

After gettin right to our exits, in good 'ol Scary fashion, we trolled around town for a few looking for the right way to go. After getting our bearings we finally made it to Tonys at around midnight.

In attendance already were DarkPrince0004 (Wally), Darhoth (Jason), The BachelorPad (Chad) and Amanda (Chads girlfriend) and Tony and Odette! We unloaded the car and Tiff jumped right in to some Halo action with the fellas! Fit right in! Of course, showing up good 'ol Scary as well! I love you baby! We played a few more hours before hitting the sack and waking up at 9am for an early start.

It was absolutely sultry there! At around 10am it was well in to the 90's already. Tony decided to take me for a spin in his H.O.T. as hell Mazda RX-8. Absolutely rocking vehicle!! I now know why they have the 'Oh Shit' bars in a car! This car has some get up and go!! Tony got back and he had to head out to pick up TJ (FreeFly3r) at the airport. He was the last to arrive!

They got back and everyone loaded up in to the Lincoln Navigator and headed over to a local sports bar and grill for some great wings and sandwiches. Back to Tony's house to decide what the day holds for us. Darhoth offers up a game of 'Demolition Ball' to play. Now this was an absolute blast! To just hear about it you may not care for it, but after you see it played it is an absolute riot!! Also referred to in some areas (Cleveland included) as Whirly Ball). You get bumper cars on a basketball court and ride around throwing a wiffle ball at a basketball backboard. Stopping your opponents by ramming em with your car. Great fun, especially when Wally offers up shots to us to make it even funner!! Red headed sluts here we come!! This was followed by shots from TJ as well. After an hour it was off to dinner where Tony treated all of us to Vietnamese food! At first looks it may not be too appealing, especially to a pregnant Tiffany. But it was all very good stuff!

Back to Tonys for a night of gaming in Halo 2. Great times in to the weeee hours of the morning. Helped out with a few shots of Grey Goose and Tequila. Mmmmm good!!

Saturday was a big day! Not to mention that it was damn near 100 before noon. We're supposed to show up to Chads (The BachelorPad's) house for a cookout and swimming. Well, a few of us were hungry and they wanted Steak and Shake, yes day #2 of the good 'ol SandS!! We definitely should have skipped this, lol! Good lunch, we load up and head to Chads. What a place this kid has!!! WoW!!!!! I've known Chad for 3 years now and I've felt like Chads been there a lot for me, so it was truely an honor to finally meet him after so long. He had a great swimming pool that we enjoyed for a few hours, a great, kick ass, gaming room with awesome seating in it, and a great grill that he hooked us up with a mid day BBQ on.

It was decided that we would head out afterwards and catch a ballgame at Busch Stadium where the Cardinals hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was a total blowout, 8-0 Cards! Great game. And in good fashion, Busch Stadium was BoG'ed!!!


Get BoG'ed


The BoG Family at the Ballgame - Cardinals vs. Pirates

The game was done and we headed back to Tony's to get cleaned up and ready to hit the town! We headed out and went to a great place called Americas Pub, which was located in a great little area with lots of different bars in it. We were right at home here, minus the lousy DJ that Wally felt the urge to remove from the booth! HAHAHA!! Lot's of drinks and good times had by all! And yes, whisky is a terrible thing! I kept on insisting that if someone looked at me the wrong way, they soon would find out why they called me Scary!! Some times I amaze myself! Ya know??!!


Friends finally meet - Scary and The BachelorPad




A toast to BoG!

Sunday brought a close to the gathering as we all exchanged photos and pleasantries! What a great experience! Next get together looks like it will be in Houston, hosted by TJ! I am saving my money now! And this time, with a non-pregnant Tiffany in tow!

Thanks for the memories guys! Check out the Flickr link to the right for over 80 more pics!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Dad's rental hot rod!

Dad's rental Hot Rod!

So my dad is really big in to cars. His latest facination is BMW. He's been buying these things all over EBay, it's maddening!

Well, his good 'ol reliable Beemer died on him a few weeks ago on a return trip home and left em stranded out in the middle of Pennsylvania.

Needless to say, the Beemer's still sitting at his place in New Jersey and he had to bring a rental home this past weekend. I had a chance to spend some time with him on Sunday and after a few brews he insisted that I drive his car home and just have it back before he had to leave Monday night! OK, let's evaluate: I live 1 (walking distance) block from his house, dad's had a few brews......Sweet, let's do this!

I have about an 1 1/2 hour ride to and from work each day and I'm driving a Ka-ka-ka-Kia! Not enjoyable at all! And spending waaaaaaaaaaay too much time in Forza lately, I felt like a speed freak behind the wheel of this bad boy! It's a 2005 Volvo S40. This car is H.O.T.!!!!! I took her out on the Ohio Autobahn (read I-271 express lanes) and wanted to see what she could do. I always get these pockets of traffic and it's a pain in the Kia to get around cars with the sweet acceleration she has! Not with this bad boy! I lightly touched the gas and I was off to the races!

I tell ya what, if I had an extra $35,000 to throw around I'd be all over this one! Fun ride for sure!

Finally, a paid vacation, leave from work!

Well,

This Thursday I'm off to St. Louis for 4 days of hanging with the boys of BoG! I've been gaming with some of these fellas for almost 3 years now and it'll be awesome to finally put a face to a gamertag! TBoa/The Bachelorpad are hosting some of us and I'm interested in what they have planned for the weekend. I really need the time away from everything and just forget about everything around me.

We're gettin down to weeks before Tiff has the baby and times will change. Gotta burn all this energy out of me before I pour it all into family!!

Conker's out this week! I may need to get my pissed off squirrel on this week yet! Who's joining me? I mean c'mon a squirrel who berates and cusses?? Enough said!

It's been a full week away from Gamertag.com and I'm still hearing crap over it. Good grief, a man (well actually 3 men) leaves quietly and all of the sudden 'Rome is burning!'!! It's a great site, it'll carry on, as will I!!

Dagon's gonna yell at me, but I have still YET to see Star Wars. There is just not enough time in the day anymore. I'm ready to see it though! My nephew Nathan has damn near quoted every line of the movie, now all I have to do is see it to makes sense of his ramblings.

Another fine Fathers Day has come and gone! Got dad a funny pair of grillin pajamas!! He enjoyed it! Tiff got me my first 'father to be' fathers day card, which was just awesome! I can't wait for the little fella to get here already!

I'll try and get some updates out here this week and definitely will host up some photos of the Lou trip!

Loved by the co-workers!

This is just awesome!

So I came in to work this morning and this picture was sitting in my chair!

As I've posted here before I've got a new office that is right in the middle of the building and has no windows at all. So some great friends here at work, Karen and Gretchan, thought they'd brighten up the room and put this photo in here!

Ya know, its the small things that can really make a persons day! Thanks girls!

Funny headline of the week......

OK, I'm just on a roll all of the sudden!

Here's your 'make your eyes pop out of your head when you read it' headline:

'144 arrested at 'largest cockfight' in U.S.'

Enough said, I don't even want to read any further..................

Word of the week..............

This week's word of the week is: Ginch! - G.I.N.C.H.! Ginch!

Listen to how that just rolls off of the tongue! I'd like to thank Vitamin B for an introduction to this word. Just like that, a new word to throw in to my crappy vocabulary!

OK, now back to the normally scheduled mindless rants...............

GI NOOOOOO BLIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!

That's all I can say, quoting my favorite loud mouth Charles Barkley!

What a stud this guy is! Manu, Manu, wracking up the points and he's let the Spurs saddle up on em and ride em off in to the sunset!

What a great series this is so far. Whhhhaaaaa, wahhhh all you Lakers/front runner fans! The 2 real stud teams are in this series trading punches. San Antonio's just laying that smack down a bit harder!

If you guys get a chance, sit down and watch how real basketball is played, not streetball!

A few choice words..........

I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a bitter person (Shhhhh Tiffany!!) but this weekend brought to an end a courtship with a game site that I watched, from it's infancy, grow in to a mammoth monster. That site was Gamertag.com!

Back in the beta testing days, and the early infancy of XBox Live, I had the pleasure of meeting some really cool cats. After growing tired of everyone constantly asking 'hey, where are you from?' JFragment and his buddies put together an early database edition of what was back then, gamertagdatabase.com. For the first year or so we saw all sorts of editions to the site, Gamertag and Munck, which was always good for a laugh or two, Custard Speaks, the list goes on.

As time went on, GTDB.com grew enormous, and Jay, being the biz man that he is, decided he just didn't have the time to put forth on the site anymore, leaving it in the (at the time he thought) capable hands of Cynn/Slickmoney.

At first glance, a lot of us thought to ourselves, "Wow! This is gonna be huge! Big changes coming, and we get to be at the forefront of it all." Only Cynn/Slick decided to take their own approach and totally leave the rest of us out in the dark. So for months we chased down the messages 'what's wrong with Clash?', 'Why haven't I got my prizes from Clash', 'When can we expect new content from the site?' or even simple emails, as mods, we would get reports of bad posts, yet they wouldn't inform us that there were 'others' working on the site. So we had to be shotty mod's and leave most of that unanswered, and just wait for the day that Slick would post his infamous 'We'll tell you when you need to know', like it was some damn government operation! Guy's its a gaming site!

Hey, businesses have to run as a business. Period! But I look at it this way, here you have a guy, Cynn, who comes in and has Clash become a part of the GTDB.com lovefest, and he ends up gettin it so he's sole owner of the site now. Good for you. But listen, you must remember that those around you got the site to where it was at. You were handed the keys to the Ferarri and told to run with it. No one could have ever envisioned you driving it into a wall HEAD FIRST! You shouldn't treat friends/employees (however you labled us) as outsiders. We weren't asking for the blueprint to a nuclear bomb or anything. You chose your path, and gave no consideration to those around it. You started off the wrong way with your 'purging' of the mods in your first 90 days, just to follow everything up with 'You'll know when we want you to know!' Yeah, great, and let us mod's take shit for it!

I wanted to stay a bit more mature on this matter seeings how I let my buddy Dave throw my name in to the 'Resignation' letter without speaking my mind.

But then again, that's what my blogs for, isn't it?

Big things are ahead for me now. This gives me time to step back and understand gaming all over again. This is like 'lessons learned' for XBox in rev. 1. Now its time for 2.0! I think it's gonna be a very interesting year ahead!

As an edit, I would also like to throw in that Slickmoney was always a great friend online! We had the hardest of times always hooking up in-game, but when we did, good times were had by all! I sure hope to have your back in some WoW!

What the hell's wrong with me.......

I was pondering this thought the past few days, and I thought I'd put it out here and see if made any more sense to me after seeing it written down.

So here's the problem. I've found myself in a quandry......I'm listening to an exorbanent amount of AM radio and I cannot figure out why? Talk radio, sports radio, etc......It doesnt stop, the ride home, the ride to the grocery store.........Radio is just so damn boring to me anymore and I can't stand it. Radio has become so repeatitive that's its damn near unbearable anymore.

The old days of a rockin WMMS or Rock 107, 107.9 The End...........It's just all gone. Even the rock stations have become filled with DJ's that are ignorant and full of opinions that mean not a damn thing to me and it's the same group of music for the ride home every day. I can damn near predict it each time too........

Now I listen to AM to either catch our local sports talk show host rant about Cleveland teams, mind you, he's a Pittsburgh fan! Or I can listen to Mike Trivisano who is just funny has hell to enjoy. I mean, I've even become tired of Stern. Unfortunately for me I'm catching him first thing in the morning at 6am, and that first hour or so he's just bitching and griping about everything. Just a complete whine session, quite painful. I miss all the good stuff cause he waits til mid-morning to get in to that form.

Satellite radio's next, I'm just holding out for a model that is portable in the Sirius brand. XM almost got my money, but I'll take NBA and NFL instead of just MLB on my radio please!

Anyone else in this same boat as me? Or are you lucky enough to have radio that doesn't suck?

A sappy post for all of you!

Not many of you may know this about me, since most of you only know of me, or anything about me either thru this blog now, or thru our interactions on the net. But, outside of the internet world I don't have much of an exciting life.

I spent a lot of my time working since Tiffany and I split up and even before that I didn't do much except pour my time into her. Even as far back as high school, I only had a few friends, and is most often the case, after high school, those friends disappeared.

When XBox Live launched, I was invited into the beta program to get involved and be a part of a fun project. Along the way I made some friends who, to this day I still am friends with. As you can see I've even traveled to meet these friends.

I've always joked with Tiffany about how the only friends I have are over the 'net, but you know something, today I realized how true that statement is.

I've made some great friends thru my clan involvement and with getting onboard with the guys over at Gamertag.com.

This is more of a 'thank you' to those guys/gals for being there for me during hard times and being able to pick up the phone and either have you guys/gals call me or if need be for me to call you. All of you have made me truely appreciate people again! You guys have sometimes seen the worse I've gone thru and you've always been non-judgemental and always just offered support and friendship. It's hard to come up with a thank you, but I thought this might be a good start.

Here's a short list (and if your names not listed, don't be offended, I'm sure I'll miss someone!)

Ralph/April (Ram2600) - I can't say enough about how much I've appreciated 2 people like you guys!

Brian (Vitamin B) - Bro, you have been there for me! Thank you my friend! The phone calls are always a welcomed pleasure!

Dave/Heather (MrSilverblood and TheHeather) - You 2 opened your home to me and made me start to really understand how great you guys/gals all are! I can't say how honored I have been for the way you guys have been with me, and with Tiffany! Thank you for showing me that people don't have to judge others and can understand where a guy is coming from!

Pete/Mary (KegOWar) - Pete, it took several years to finally meet up with you and I wished we could have met sooner! You are an awesome guy and Mary just rocks! It's great to have finally had the chance to meet you both. I hope it's not the last time!

Cindy/Terry (The Lonestars) - Your community has brought me a home on the net! Your friendship has been wonderful and you guys brought me in and made me feel more than welcome there!

JFrag and the early GT.com boys - Good grief, we roll way back into the beta days! It was just so awesome to see what you guys created over there. Again, you guys brought me in and you have helped me create some great friendships! Thanks for all of your hard work!

The BoG boys - TBoa and fellas, you guys are my brothers! It's been so damn awesome to be a part of this group. It just shows that you can compete with friends and still have fun! Thanks for keeping it fun for me! Dagon, you rock bro! You and your brothers have been such a great group of guys to get to know over the past year and I can't wait to meet and shake all of your hands! TBoa its been great watching your leadership and control over such a group of us ruffians! Kudos for holding it all together! Can't wait for the get together!

The BachelorPad - Yeah part of the BoG boys, but I wanted to personally thank you for your friendship over the years! We roll way back to the SoS/Apocalypse days and again, I consider you a great friend! Thanks for everything bro! Some day, you will see that dream you and not many others know about, come true! Watch for it!

XBLF and GT.com - Community! Just so awesome to be a part of both! I've had great laughs on days I really needed it! I'm sure there's more I could say here, but for now Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

Alright, I'll suck it up and quit being such a woosy here! But I feel a lot better having put this out there. Sometimes we forget to thank those around us, and I thought this was a proper way to do so.

Now, back to work!

Back to the grind!

What a whirlwind weekend!

Finally made it back about 9pm last night after a 7 hour ride home.

We had so much fun this weekend, Tiff, Brooke and I wished we could have stayed longer!

Tiffany and Brooke spent Sunday in the big city (NYC!) and had a mommy/daughter day. This is the first time in 9 years that Brooke had ever traveled with us on a vacation and we wanted to make it special. Money was tight, but those 2 women can stretch a dollar farther than anyone I have ever seen. I gave Brooke the digital camera to take with her and she did such a fantastic job taking the photos. She got a few of her in front of anything 'Brooklyn', from the Brooklyn Cafe (Ralph notes that this is a famous stop for members of the Howard Stern Show) and the Brooklyn Bridge! Tiffany had her photo taken in front, of course, of Tiffany's. Also Brooke took some stellar photos of her mom at Central Park. She was damn good with that camera! They spent almost 12 hours walking around town! That is simply amazing to me. Here Tiff is almost 7 months pregnant and she's just tooling around like its nothing! The girls were exhausted and I drove home so that they could rest their weary bones.

Speaking of riding home.........I took the wheel about an hour in to the ride after stopping at a Burger King inside of New Jersey off of I-80. Now get this.....I wore my Band of Gamers shirt, a grey one that simply had 'BOG' on the front and our logo on the back with 'Band of Gamers - An XBox Live Community' on it. We walked into the restaurant and it was packed with kids around Brookes age, 13. I'm betting there were around a dozen or so. But as I'm standing in line this kid comes up to me and asks where I got the shirt. I told em I was in BoG and he starts treating me like a rock star! "Wow, you guys are famous on XBox. We've read all about you guys." So I ask em who he knows and he starts running the gammut with me 'TBoa, BachelorPad, Barroom Hero..................and get's to good 'ol Scary Aaron!' LOL, now I do feel like a rock star! He get's done and I introduce myself as Scary and he turns to his buddies proclaiming 'Guy's this is Scary Aaron!' Next thing ya know I've got a group of kids all standing around me asking about our clan and if we are accepting new members and how cool it would be to be in BoG!

C'mon, that is just cool! I mean, I just game for fun, and hang with some real good buddies on there and were getting star treatment. I mean I'm 400 miles from home, and I'm in a Burger King in BFE where the kids knew who I was! That just rocked my world! Of course, Tiff had to laugh it up! I told em to stop by our forums and say hi! Hopefully to add validity to my story!!

So the ride went quick after I teamed up with a trucker cruising a nice 80-85 MPH! I followed him for about 250 miles before we parted ways, waving and beeping to each other as if we knew one another! Gotta love truckers!

Well that's all for that story! Next trip...........The Lou at the end of June! Off to finally meet the BoG boy's face to face! I cannot wait!

The worlds longest palendrome............

Courtesy of Anthony (Capt Crash 31), a buddy of Ralphs:

Go hang a salami Im a lasagna hog!

Just cracked my ass up when I heard this and had to share it!

What a blast!

Well, we've survived Saturday and we're just about thru Sunday here in Staten Island.

Pete/Mary (Keg O' War and girlfriend) and Dave/Heather (Mr. Silverblood/The Heather) have left already, but we had such a great time visiting with everyone!

Lost some money in poker Saturday night to Ralph's (Ram2600) wife and his buddy Anthony, but it was so much fun. I lasted to the final 3 which was a big accomplishment for me. Usually it's Tiffany that'll sit there longer, but I held my own this time! Take that Tiffy baby!! w00t!!!

We'll be heading out in the morning sometime and I just don't want to leave. It's so much fun to get away and spend it with friends like this!

I can't tell ya how great it was to finally meet Petey! What a character! He was everything I imagined and then some! Hey, can ya go wrong? He lives in Philly! I gotta say though, he's got pretty thick skin......His girlfriend was just tortuous on us for being Philly fans (at least for me it's the Eagles)! But she was just brutal. Tearing him up every chance she had! Your a strong man my friend! Other than that she was a very nice girl!!

Ralph and April have just been great hosts to us this weekend!

What a priveledge to come and hang with such great people!

Thanks for the wonderful time Ralph and April!

It's Frrrrrrriiiiiiiiidddddddaaaayyyyyy!!!

Woo hoo!!

Made it to the weekend!

We are just hours away from loading up the car and heading out to Ralph's for the weekend!

I cannot tell you how excited we are to see everyone!

We have about an 8 hour ride ahead of us tonight, but we're gonna make the trip at night as to avoid all the traffic that will be hitting the roads for the holiday weekend!

One last stop before I leave, gotta hit the drive thru and grab Pete his Great Lake's sampler! Mmmmmm beer!!!!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday weekend!

See ya's on Tuesday! I'll share some of the photos from the festivities!

Mmmmmm K!

Everyone's got their favorite movies that they can usually quote every word from or give you a complete breakdown on a scene.

Well, I just happened to start a horrible trend here at work that has spread like wildfire!

The movie: Office Space

The result: Hawaiian Shirt Friday!

I am not kidding you. On any given day you can here a quote from this movie, from our President on down to the administrative assistances. Everything from "Mmmmmm k" to "yeaaaaaaaaah!"
To posting 'memos' around the office, and then being asked "Did ya get the memo???"

Its funny how telling one person to watch a movie can lead to everyone in the building seeing it and then this place now becomes Office Space! Oh what have i done???

..............and yes, I am wearing a Hawaiian shirt today!

So you think your job sucks?

These guys had it worse!

Check out the link: http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/W/worstjobs/roman.html

Thanks to ColdBloodKiller from BoG for posting this over on our forums there!

Out of Exile = Phenominal

So many times it's just damn near impossible these days for a band to put out a sophomore effort that stands the test of time like a mega-platinum album that was your first out of the gate, but that's exactly what Audioslave has done.

I've been a huge fan of Chris Cornell for years, even picking up my first Soundgarden disc 'Flower' before grunge was even a word. The dude just has the most amazing voice I have ever heard. Great lyrisist as well. I loved Rage Against the Machine as well, but when I heard of this unlikely supergroup forming I was somewhat skeptical. I was glad to hear Chris was in a big group again, but disappointed to say the least.

I picked up the first disc and was immediatly blown away about the sheer rawness of it and just the fluid flow of the album. Song's like 'Show Me How To Live' just lifted the spirits and made you yearn for the good 'old days of a great rock song!

So I had my fingers crossed that lightning would strike twice with this group and they would hit another homerun. Well, low and behold, they've done it again! On top of that, I'd put 'Out of Exile' ahead of their first release. This just sounds so much tighter, the band has found its sound, and are really starting to push it musically with each other. Chris again is in raw form and just belting out hit after hit here. The first single off the album 'Be Yourself' was a great radio tune to get em back out there, but there are classics on this disc like 'Doesn't Remind Me' which is just a killer riff filled ripper, '#1 Zero' is another hit you upside the head classic, and 'The Curse' gives ya that killer ending to an album that makes you hit play again.

I've given this album about 5 listens thru already and I just can't stop! I highly recommend this album!

Are you still sitting there? Get up, or go online, and buy it already! Trust me, you wont be disappointed!

Plans are official!

Well, Tiff came in from work tonight and said she has to work Friday night but we're heading right out again driving thru the night to get to Ralphs!!!!

We are both very excited to get to hang for a few days and enjoy some time away! We sooooo need it! Can't wait to hit the road.

Here we go! Gotta load up the 27" for travel purposes, the XBox, and the games! All in my trusty carry all case! Have XBox, will travel! The last time at Daves, we enjoyed hours of fun on Halo2! This time I'm sure more Halo2 and gotta throw some Forza in as well! That's the hot ticket item these days.

Hope everyone else has an enjoyable Memorial Day! Oh yeah, mom and dad, Happy 32 Years!!!

Grillin, chillin, gamin and having some brews!

Yep, that's what's gonna be happening Memorial Day weekend!

I haven't looked forward to something this much since my trip to Boston to visit Dave and Heather (and the rest of the crew, Ralph/April/Matt/Chris/Adam/etc)!

We're heading out to Ralph and Aprils for the weekend. Can ya beat that?

I may get a chance to finally meet a guy I've been wanting to meet for quite some time and it just has never panned out yet, Pete a.k.a. Keg O War! Along with Pete, I believe Dave and Heather will also be making the trip.

I am so ready for a weekend away after the month of May here! It's time to get out, take a deep breath, and prepare for a wonderful summer that's ahead.

I'll make sure to take pictures again and share em with everyone.

So whats on your agenda for the holiday weekend?

Just what is wrong with you Canadians??

LMAO!

I don't know what else to put there! This is just too damn funny!

I found this while on a Canadian website that a buddy here at work pointed me to www.cinemaclock.com !!!

This is just plain odd: http://www.messagia.net/BOS/Bloody_Zit/

I dub thee 'Alexander the Great'!

Alexander the Great!

Well,

Tiffany and I are now in day 4 of finding out that I'm not the father of her expected child. But we haven't let that stop us from continuing our love.

The past year being split up has given both of us time to evaluate our lives and see what it is in life that we really want.

I made some great friends in that time, but you know something? Nothing could EVER replace Tiffany and the bond that we have had. Yeah, great, we've had some rough times. But everyone does! We are in the days now where it's so easy to just go and get divorced! That's the simple solution. Well, for those of you who know me, I'm never simple! I love to overcomplicate things! What can I say? I live for drama I guess!

So we spent Monday and Tuesday deciding on what she would name the baby. After a phone call with her sister she realized that "Yeah, I'm still married to Aaron and I can keep his last name!" So the attention turned to me and the responsibility of naming the baby as well! Hey, what can I say? I was honored! For everything that has gone wrong so far, I'm able to turn the conrner and find a bright spot! I must admit, I was touched!

Now, for anyone who's gone thru this hassle, you know what kind of a pain in the ass it is! I mean c'mon do you want the child growing up saying "What the hell were you on when you named me?" Nope, not this guy! I'm too sensitive for something like that!

I had been kickin around Alexander (Alex) for a few days when I woke up Wednesday morning to an overly active womb that was basically a kick boxing session and said "Alexander the Great needs to go to sleep and let mommy sleep!" Tiff wakes up out of a dead sleep and proclaims "I love it! Alexander Christopher Spicer!"

Totally caught me by surprise, but it looks like that's what she wants to go with now!

Wow, 18 years ahead of me! Wish me luck everyone!

Watch out everyone! Alex is about to take us by storm! August 17th is the expecting date! Stay tuned!

Did I mention I hate fanboys??

Good gawd, it's a good thing I'm on medication for anger management!

These fanboys are killing me on our precious forums! Good thing they don't know about my friend Custard!!! It's the only safe haven for us right now! That and the underground world of XBLF! (And no. you cannot ask me about either of the two! Their my secret, mine, mine, mine!)

It's just assanine how much kool-aid these Playstation fans are drinking.

As I've said before, time will seperate the two, but for now, put the flame-retardant suits on and prepare for battle. The Gaystation has begun the battle! Thanks for the damn CGI films that we have to constantly hear about being 'real time' action! Puuuuuhhhhhhlease!!!!!

3 words for you Sony, 1.) Community, 2.) Service, 3.) Software! Yes you provide us with ungodly amounts of software, but you lack in the other 2 catagories. 2 years wouldn't allow you to put anything in place that even closely resembled XBox Live! Keep your single player, modem-based online play, and let me go and yell at some friends as they smash my bumper (or I smash theirs) in Forza, or better yet at the end of the year with PGR3!!

XBox and KISS, which one sucks more life/money from me?

It's an argument I've been having with myself lately!

One of my favorite lines came from Craig Gaas who was a stand-in on the Howard Stern Show when Jackie the Jackass left the show. He used to put on a killer Gene Simmons impression and the one that just killed me was "This is Gene Simmons! How much money do you have in your pocket? Fan: Ummm, $5 Gene: Good, give it to me!"

I have to admit, for years all of my money went to EVERYTHING KISS! I had/have it all! Anytime Gene stuck that damned logo on something I bought it, boxers, condoms, chewing gum, it didn't matter! I bought it!

And now it's going the same for me with the XBox! If it's Live-enabled, I buy the damned thing! A game comes out, to much fanfare and hype, and again, I buy it. I cannot tell you how many games I have in my collection right now that have gone unplayed! It's insane!

Sometimes after I think about it, I may as well become a drug addict or an alcoholic, because between these 2 habits here, drugs/alcohol would be a hell of a lot cheaper!

The gloves are off, and the fists are flying

Yes, E3 has started and the bashing back and forth, by the gamers of course, has begun!

Who has the better system?

Who has the more powerful machine?

Was that real in-game footage, or was that CGI?

It's gettin ugly!

I'm really starting to feel like with so much in common as far as gaming goes, there are lines being drawn up between the big 2 and Nintendo (sorry, had to do it!). You have Sony who seems content to stay focused on single player, high graphic-quality games, and XBox who is all about the community. I fall to the latter. I want to enjoy my games with my friends.

I cannot remember the last game I bought that was simply a single player game. Oh yeah, Fable, and it still has never made it into my XBox. Sad I know. But I'm all about online gaming.

Clearly this is battle will not be settled in a 3 day period. It's going to take months (even years) for the fog to lift and the winner to step out.

It's nice to see Uncle Bill (Gates) getting involved in the battle as well stating in the new issue of Time that PS3 was gonna release on a day where it will walk face first in to Halo 3. Alright Bill, get down and dirty! That's what I like to see!

And just think 4 years ago there was no one who thought Microsoft would last thru the first iteration! The Evil Empire Strikes Back!

XBox 360 is unleashed!

XBox 360 Logo TM XBox.com

What a great night for XBox!

Microsoft and the XBox team have thrusted their best foot forward and have scored a winner!

They have big hopes for the system, but with the muscle (and money) of Uncle Bill, you know the skies the limit.

The biggest surprise of the night for me was the announcement of Square Enix joining the XBox team of game developers. The short film they showed, of course, was just breath-taking! I'll have my money down on this puppy very soon!

The future of HD is upon us and Microsoft is helping us get there faster! I'm betting, in the next year or so, we are gonna see major improvements to the infrastructure of the internet as far as speed goes. This new FIOP from Verizon and SBC with their Project Lightspeed, are showing us that speeds will reach 15-20Meg download vs. 2-5Meg upload. You read that right 2-5meg!!! Woot!!!

Youre gonna hear all the cry babies about wanting just a gaming machine, but I love the direction. It's a family entertainment device. Everyone from the wife to the kids can enjoy it as much as the husband!!!

Can't wait for the holiday season!

Test results are in..........

So Tiffany and I made the trip to the doctors today.......

Results were what we both already knew they would be, but deep in our hearts we wanted it to be different. She wasn't as pregnant as she thought she was and it has all but eliminated me from being the father. They said the conception date was between the 23-30th of November. Unfortunately, this was a time when we had both split up for awhile.

We both love each other so much though through all of this and it's our responsibility to see if we are strong enough to carry on. Can I live with this? Can I raise another child that is not mine? I love Tiffany too much to not give it a try.

Call me crazy, I call it love!

I've judged and put others down for so much of my life and this almost feels like a kick in the nuts! But you know what, God's never dealt me a fair deck. Call that what you want, but I call a spade a spade! I can't believe all the shit that constantly get's dealt to me and I just have to pick up the pieces and carry on. Somethings gotta give, somethings gotta go my way. When? What? How? Where?? To be continued I guess..........

Not even in town a full day and look who GT.com runs in to!

Seen on the streets of Hollywood! (Pic. courtesy of TeamXBox)

Their not even in town a full day and the fellas of Gt.com have already run into the man, the myth the legend! Yes, HeroProtagonist himself, J Allard stopped and talked for a few minutes with the boys from Gamertag.com and just happened to have a copy of the latest issue of Time magazine with the XBox 360 gleening on the front cover!

And back here in good 'ol Ohio, my phone rang delightfully at about 2:30am with my buddies calling to let me know of their adventures!

I want pics fellas, and I'm not referring to J either!

What other goodies are in store for us this week?

Great to see someones having a better start to their week!

Lifes funny like that!

Thought of the day:

"Just when you think you've done everything in your life the right way, you still find out that its never enough!"

Think about that!

Big week for gamers!

This week is a big week for gamers. Whether that be PC, XBox, Playstation, Nintendo or many hand held devices, 3rd party merchants, and hot booth babes, you'll find it here at E3!!

My good friends over at Gamertag.com are there and will be sending us highlights throughout the week and I'll re-post some of my favorites here.

This is a big year for my favorite, the XBox! We get to see the new premiere gaming machine, the XBox 360! This begins the journey into the HD Era of gaming, as proclaimed by Microsoft.

I have just been blown away with the gaming experience that I have gained on the XBox. The friends, probably most of you who read this, have come from XBox Live. It's just the greatest community to be involved in.

Here's hoping my friends have a good time, and bring us back some cool swag to share!!

And so the HD Era of gaming begins!

WOW!!!

That's about all this kid can come up with after the information overload of XBox 360 stuff that has invaded the web!

What a great time to be a gamer.

Yeah, I'm 31 years old and I still game, hardcore! It's like I tell my wife, 'At least I'm not out in the titty bars, regular bars, or doing drugs!!" This is my drug of choice. Yeah, it can be just as expensive and devastating to a relationship (just like the other 3), but I feel safer going this route!

What Microsoft is sharing so far with the little information just shows that gaming is no longer aimed at the hardcore people, but rather as an entertainment hub for everyone!

LOL, my favorite so far is the "Get game invites while watching a DVD!" Um, yeah, that one will go over well while enjoying a movie with the family! "Oh, sorry guys, gotta turn the movie off, its time for a Halo tourney!!"

The future looks bright and I'm glad to be a part of it!

Well, I've been relocated yet again, and more responsibilities to take care of! Scary's got his first office of his own!

I'm now in the stock room............LOL

You ever seen the movie Office Space? Well, just think Milton and that's how I'm feelin these days.

All I want is my red Swingline Stapler!!!!

But ya know the old saying 'Out of sight, out of mind'!

I'm now helping out our Quality/Inspection departments get organized and step in to the 21st century! On top of my regular responsibilities of programming our CNC mills, designing/modifying designs, scanning documents, and helping to bail water out of the leaking hull of our ship!

We're doing things now that they never thought possible! It's nice to have a boss that let's ya be a bit innovative and have some fun with your job!

Working in the medical industry, it helps to be right up to par with the latest in technology! Gotta have the new toys to stay ahead of the Joneses.

3 more days..........

I haven't been this excited about an event since opening night in Detroit Rock City for the KISS reunion tour........Yes, you read that correctly!!

XBox 360 make's it's public debut (unless your tooling around the internet gathering every bit of leaked data that's sweeping the 'net) on MTV at 9:30EST!

Most of you know where to find the info, but I'm totally excited about the HD-era of gaming! I am a total electronics geek and to see the marriage of that and gaming to me is just beyond comprehension!

Trust that I will be glued watching and soaking in every moment! Then there's E3, just next week!

Talk about information overload! I'll be giving my thoughts on what I'll be looking forward to after seeing the goodies next week. Stay tuned!

Forza, Forza, Forza..........

As most of you may or may not know, I'm a big gamer!

I love my XBox and XBox Live. Actually, most of my friends that I socialize are from the XBox Live community!

Our latest craze is a new game from Microsoft Gaming Studios called Forza Motorsport. This is supposed to be the Gran Tourismo killer for the XBox. I can't comment on that since I've never spent a dime on anything PS2 related. That's another story for another time though.

I've been seeing demos and teasers for this game for over a year now and had it on pre-order since the first of the year, just salivating over the total car customization that you have. It finally hit last week and in preparation, I also picked up my very first peripherial for the XBox, a wheel from Fanatec called the Speedster 3 Forceshock (www.forceshock.com exclusive to Gamestop, www.gamestop.com ).

I picked up the game and rushed right home to try it out, but stupid me, I went and had no sleep the night prior, thus I fell asleep just watching the breathtaking videos on the start up. So the weekend approaches and I know the likes of Vitamin B, Ram2600 and Slickmoney would be all over this and I'd be sucking dust before I knew it. I spent a few hours of learning the nuances of the wheel and getting used to it. Well, Saturday finally hit, I had a day off and spent it learning, learning, learning! After about the first 4-6 hours of play I really got the hang of it and was cruising right along to my Level 10 l33tn3ss!!....................Just to find Vitamin and a few others were already pushing on Level 20. So much for keeping up with the Joneses!!

The cars are just phenominal, with so many to choose from. If you are a car enthusiast this is a must to have!

Now go out and buy this sucker so I can dust you!

OK, OK, I swear............I'll keep this updated, starting today!

I keep reading all of these cool blogs out there and I really want to dedicate more time to this.

I'm having fun reading a lot of my buddies blogs and just catching shit from their daily activities. It may be mindless at times and sometimes pointless, but it's still fun to read!

I mean c'mon, Catspit and Major Neslon, not to mention Fuggo..............Just great reads. You can check em out on my links to the side! Tell em' Scary sent ya!

As for me...........Lot's to tell and I'm really giving thought to sharing some old stories of the past to give ya some insights to my quirkiness! Hope you enjoy!

Out like a fat kid in dodge ball................Look for those updates more often!