Oh what a year!

Good-bye 2008!

I'm going to miss this year. While the economy died and my job was and to a certain degree still is in jeopardy and it seems everything's going to hell in the world, things for me have never been better.

While yes the first half of the year I was stuck in a dead-end job with no light at the end of the tunnel... and not much light at all working nights and sleeping days. And while yes I waged an ugly war against pesky little hives that left me often in a miserable daze and kind of crazy most days.

But with the bad comes the good... I did get a new and better job. I did buy a new and better car. And today, the last day of the year, I learned that I will have a new and better place to live.

That's right, it's official, I'm buying a home. After months of searching and sifting through garbage and junk, we found a gem of a place and went for it... and we got it!

This leads us to our next big decision... what's the best way to remove wallpaper?
(Now would be a really good time to check out the all new Duffy's Photos link on the side.)

Hopefully, 2009 will be equally great, but without all the hives.

Christmas with Paul

Christmas is quickly over. It's crazy how fast it happens. I've actually been meaning to write this since Sunday - and probably could have written it Friday night - but it amazes me how long Christmas is built up as it's been extended through Thanksgiving and is quickly encroaching upon Halloween season. Then in one day, it's over. No more Christmas movies, no more Christmas music, no more Christmas spirit.

In fact, I'm guessing you don't want to hear any more about Christmas. So I'm going to use this time to mention some sort of new feature on Shutterfly that makes it easy to share pictures. So for all my stalkers, here's all the pictures of me that are fit to print. It's also over on my links list for easy access. You can also follow the Duffy House Hunt here as it - fingers-crossed - nears its end.

And because I've put on a few music in videos lately, here's another. It's an older song, but it's just great. Like today I had a downer of a morning, and at lunch I listened to this song and it changed my whole day around. I never would have guessed that I'm a McCartney fan, but...

Yeah, it's totally cheesy, but it's the right mix of singability and car dance-ability.

Cookie Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody!

I hope everyone had as great a Christmas as I did. I got lots of cool stuff, including an iPod!, and I had an awesome time all day long. One of the cooler gifts was from my parents. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) It was also the heaviest by a mile, so we opened it on Christmas Eve so that we didn't have to drive it out to Tiff's family just to open it and haul it back.

This is what we got:

A mixer!

Now I know what you're thinking... John bakes?... I would never have guessed. Well, sometimes I surprise myself. Usually not though, but this is a great present for me as Tiff makes the best cookies ever. So for Tiff, it's a great gift, but for me, it's the gift that keeps on giving all year round. Tiff made some chocolate chip cookies right away though.

Oh my god! they look so good. I swear that's the actual picture and I didn't just pull a picture off of Wikipedia or Flickr or somewhere. And added bonus, because the mixer works so fast, she went ahead and baked a few other kinds. That's a chocolate cookie with peanut butter chips... oh man, they're so good. And that one in the back is a soft, moist molasses cookie... it's the best of its kind I've ever had. If Tiff were to open up a cookie shop, first off it would be incredibly successful, secondly they could call these cookies Manassas Molasses cookies. They'd become world-famous and people would flock to her little Shoppe and riots would break-out everyday as people waited in line for hours each day before it opened. Lastly, I would gain like 400 pounds. Here's another picture of them alongside tasty almond, white chocolate cookies.

Oh man! Anyways, we took all these cookies to a big family Christmas party:

Where Tiff was trying to pawn them off to everybody, but there weren't many takers as there are a lot of cooks in Tiff's family. Then Tiff's Grandmother tried one and quickly announced that she take a bunch home and offer them instead of the ones that she baked. Next year, Tiff's in charge of all the cookies.

Christmas Carols

It's finally beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Unfortunately, it's been sounding a lot like Christmas for about two months now.

There's probably a radio station in every city that plays Christmas music 24 hours a day this time of year. Where I am, it's "97.1, WASH-FM"... that has to be sung. At night the DJ is "Delilah"... which also has to be sung. She takes requests from people who have awful stories about how that certain song reminds them about that special someone whose no longer in their life after they had an affair with their cousin... or some equally awful story.

WASH-FM also is the "Listen At Work Station" so I've been overhearing Christmas music at work from the neighboring cubicle since I believe Nov. 17. One particularly painful day was the 25th of July when WASH-FM celebrated Christmas in July.

Anyways, when I leave work, I know I can't escape it. As much as Tiff loves hair bands and guitars, I don't think they hold a candle to Christmas music. So, there's been Christmas music playing at home off and on for, no joke, about 9 months give or take. I've been looking in vain for a Christmas Album by Slash or AC/DC this year as I'm pretty sure that would be the ultimate gift.

I complain, but I do secretly enjoy the music. The great part about Christmas music is that there's a set amount of songs, and you know all the songs. So while Otis Redding may sing it different than Frank Sinatra, you can still sing along. It seems like it's how music should be. Plus, when else can you here Elvis sing and then immediately after hear some good ole fashion choir music.

The best song for me is this one byRay Charles... he's the best.

I tried to find it without the cheesy holiday montage, but I think it might add to the spirit of Christmas.

The Need for Speed

So for my first post: My new car is full of a lot of really cool features. Who new how much I would love the CD player! - My car also has an MP3 player hook-up, but I'm not that advanced yet.

The spedometer is digital which I love because it tells me exactly how fast I'm going. I also love the cruise control. I use it all the time... literally, all the time. I could be going just 100 yards to the next stop light and I'll get it up to like 30 mph and turn it on. Well, to be honest I'd like to use it more than I actually do. You see, it doesn't work under 25 mph, so I've got to use the pedal in my apartment complex. It sucks.

The best feature though is the Need-For-Speed button. So I'm not a fast driver - I'll go about 60 on my way to work. My favorite speed is 63 miles per hour. It's the perfect blend between 5 miles and 10 miles over the speed limit on my way to work. Plus, if I don't feel like that's fast enough, with the touch of a button, I'm suddenly cruising at 100.

Mph, Km/h... what's the difference?

Getting Started... Again

That's a scary title. It forces me to do a bunch of posts in the near future, which is a big commitment for me. We'll see if I hold up to it or not.

I've missed out on some very important times with the election and the economy, and the world changing and all, but that stuff has always been for another blog. For me though, I've started the house hunt, my hives are slowly going away and I had an anniversary, all of which would make good fotter for my thoughts. Plus, my new job includes driving time which for me is good thinking time. My job however involves a lot to do and I can't spend a considerable amount of time at work writing out my posts like I use to do, so my actual postings have all but stopped.

Let's see if we can't turn that around.

Ray LaMontagne

New Ray LaMontagne album comes out Oct 14th!

I love this guy. The last time I bought an album the first day it was out was about two years ago with his last CD. With this album, he has a high potential of replacing Josh Rouse as my favorite band. He's incredibly incredible.

It's almost as exciting as the release of Smallville Season 7 this Tuesday. Tiff and I haven't seen any of it yet. It should be good. We have ten days to watch it all so that we can finally watch them on TV for its eighth and final season. That's sad to think about... hopefully Ray Lamontagne won't stop making music anytime soon.

Fruit Flies Gone Mad

So when we went out of town, we left three older bananas on the counter. Three days later, they were everywhere.

Just to note: fly swatters with holes in them are not very effective at getting fruit flies. Magazines are the way to go.

The King of Burgers

We just got back from a weekend in North Carolina. It took us about six hours, which was a pretty fun drive in my new car. It was also long enough to stop for food. As we left, Tiff grabbed some Burger King coupons, the kind that come in the mail every week or so. Anyways, about halfway down we started to look for a Burger King. Surprise, surprise, it wasn't very hard to find.


Now, I haven't eaten at a Burger King in a long time - a couple years at least - and the best reason I can come up with is this guy:The Burger King. I don't understand the Burger King. Why does it have to be a mascot? It's scary looking! It seems like it would frighten more people away than draw them in. I'm pretty sure the Burger King's smile is just hiding some deep repressed secret.

And then there's the most recent ads for their new chicken sandwich:

It's disturbing on so many levels. The cow, the motel, the chicken sandwich, the guy... it is just wrong.

So as we turned towards Burger King with a similar conversation going on, the Hardee's next door became more and more appealing, even without coupons. It was my first time at a Hardee's, home of the 1410 calorie, 107 grams of fat Monster ThickBurger, and it was really good. I had a regular cheeseburger, by the way. I think maybe that deep dark secret of the Burger King might be "I love a nice juicy Hardee's hamburger. Mmmm." (For some reason, the silent Burger King has a Bill Clinton accent in my head.)

The Coke-Diet Coke

Recently I discovered a whole new drink that has quickly become my drink of choice. It spawns from two very different worlds. I took the crazy notions of any child that mixing your favorite sodas together creates the ultimate in refreshing taste combined with the crazy notions of any adult that diet soda is healthy. So, with no further ado, I am proud to present the yet-to-be-named half Coca-Cola, half Diet Coke.

This, to me, is the greatest thing to happen to the soda industry since the introduction of Crystal Pepsi, of which I had exactly one. By combining the overly sweet taste of Coke with the overly watered down (or is it fake sweet) taste of Diet Coke it is the perfect mix of sweet and water down (or is it fake sweet). Mmmmm... of course, at this point this is limited to the self-serve places, as I haven't worked up the nerve to ask the waiter, "Can you mix the two for me? Please?"

Anyways, I'd also like to mention that I've given up straws. I don't need a disposable plastic tube to help me drink. It's not much to save the world, but hey, it's a start. Maybe, I'll start back up my sacrifices soon and try again to green my life. Until then, I'll be enjoying my new favorite drink. I'll have to work on the name.

Fun and Prizes

Tiff and I recently went to the County Fair. It was surprisingly fun and gave me a lot to say, so I broke it up and this is the second part of the story. Here’s the first part of the story, or just scroll down to Good Clean Fun.

The main attraction at the fair was probably the carnival. Tiff’s sister got Wii Carnival recently for the Wii, which we had played a little bit of, and by golly if every single game that the mighty Wii people could think of weren’t at this carnival, and then some! It was great fun. We didn’t play any of them though. We chose instead to shell out the big bucks for the chance to win bigger bucks ...At the coin pusher. Here’s how we did…

We actually played another 5 bucks after that too. It was worth every penny.
We went on wandering through the carnival until it started to rain, when we just happened to be next to the Bingo tent. Bingo doesn’t get enough credit. It is some fun stuff. Fifty cents for three boards of bingo and if you tied you got five free games. If you won you got to choose any of several fine prizes, from an electric knife to a doll of Bill Clinton playing the saxophone. It was awesome.

Of course I didn’t win at all, but Tiff won or tied almost every time. In fact, I think for the two of us we only paid maybe three dollars and played throughout the rainfall and walked away with a couple of prizes. Yep, that’s a lumberjack gnome coaster set! And what’s that there, yep, that’s an As-Seen-On-French-TV three part frying pan!

Good clean fun, man… nothing beats good clean fun.

Good Clean Fun

Let me first begin by saying that my dreams of controlling a mighty blog empire isn’t looking too good. My way-cool new job takes precedence over this insanely uninteresting website. However, (every now and then) I try to keep it alive.

So last week, I found some good clean fun at the 59th Annual Prince William County Fair. We’ve been living a couple of miles from it ever since it was just the 55th Annual Prince William County Fair and have never bothered to go. This year we went and had a blast. We made it just in time to see the pet contest, where they gave prizes out for the biggest dog or longest tail… that sort of thing. We were disappointed that they weren’t doing tricks, so we moved along to the hogs and goats, which was actually really cool, despite my face.

We wandered through the cow barn, where all the cows were roped up head in, so we got a nice view of their tails. They were actually so close we kind of had to zig-zag between cattle. We really had to steer our way through. Then we went on to the bird barn. A whole bunch of caged animals that, if you look at them the right way, still look like dinosaurs. I had flashbacks of the Reptile House from when I was a kid. To its credit, the bird barn did have nice wide aisles though.

After we visited the carnival where all the real fun was had, we went through another part that judged all sorts of stuff, from the best tomatoes to the best flowers to the best photography. A sunflower won best in show… big surprise there. They also judged paintings. Maybe I should enter next year… It might not be the best but it surely is better than a lousy sunflower.

Anyways, it was a whole lot of fun and makes you appreciate good clean fun. And we didn’t even stay for the Demolition Derby or the Tractor Pull! I can't wait till next year!

My New Car

I got a new car!!

If anyone is curious why I got a new car, it's because my old car broke down. It all started about Labor Day of 2006. The car just stopped working. I've been driving my wife's car since then, which works out for the most part because we were on different schedules, but now that I'm starting a new job, I'm going to need my own car.

It's a used 2008 Honda Civic. It had all of 221 miles on it when I bought it, so while it's "new to me" as the saying goes, I'm also the first owner, besides the dealership. I'm not sure I got the best deal in town, but it drives like a dream and is guaranteed for 100,000 miles. New cars, oddly, only have a 60,000 mile guarantee. At least, that's what the salesman kept repeating.

I test drove the Toyota Corolla as well, and my only comment to the sales lady was, "It's so roomy." The Civic, I believe is a bit cozier and a bit more comfortable. Anyways, I love it, and yes, it drives like a dream.

Here are some more pictures of my new car...

This new car owner is wearing his new favorite shirt here.

Dispensing News

Now that I'm sleeping at night, I'm waking up first thing in the morning. This surprises me. I thought I would be sleeping non-stop trying to catch-up for years of missed sleep, instead I'm waking up first thing regardless of what time I go to bed. Last night, I went to bed around 12:30 and I had to force myself to stay in bed until 7.

All this is just to say that now I'm getting to eat one of my favorite foods every single day, cereal. My cereal of choice I stole from my Mom, Cranberry Almond Crunch. It's a pricey one though, which when I was working overnights was okay, because I was sleeping through cereal time most days. To eat it everyday could put a hurting on my trust fund. Plus, it's not a cereal sold in bulk at Costco, so I have to buy a bunch of small boxes at Wal-Mart.

So why am I talking about cereal? Because of something else I got from Wal-Mart, the Cereal Dispenser. I got the idea from a movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where a very naked man proclaims his love for the cereal dispenser. While I'm not naked at the moment, I would like to tell the world that the cereal dispenser is one of the greatest innovations in my lifetime.

Ah, fresh as the day I unpackaged it. Cereal Dispenser, I love you. You make waking up at ungodly hours of the morning manageable.

Converter Box

We bought a converter box yesterday. The national government is requiring a switch to digital TV, which I think means that if you use bunny ears, you have to use a converter box to watch anything. Then they tried to help poor folks like me out by issuing a $40 coupon over the internet to offset the cost.

We have cable right now that costs us $20 a month. It's actually been climbing recently. In the fall, we downgraded to basic cable which reduced our cost from $45 to $19. Every month now it seems to be going up 30 cents or so, and our last bill topped $22. Anyways, the idea that we could watch most of the same channels for a one-time $10 cost sounds pretty good to me. At least it did.

First off, getting it was an adventure. We walked to Wal-Mart and had to search the store for it, and then the cashier, with limited English, didn't understand what to do with our coupon, that admittedly looks and feels like a credit card. In the end though, we walked out only spending the 10 dollars.

So then we hooked it up. I should say that I bypassed the instructions, figuring you attach all the cables to where they look like they belong, but I'm pretty sure that I did it all correctly. I turned it on and went through the set-up menu choosing autoscan, and waited ten minutes as it searched for channels.

The moment of truth came next, and I eagerly pressed the channel up button and was greeted by a digitally broken image of the weather channel. That was okay, it was just the weather channel... I've got the internet, no need for the weather channel. I pressed channel up again, and... a digitally broken infomercial on ABC.

Hmmm... I tried again, and success! We got, in crystal-clear technicolor, MHZnet2, which was currently showing what looked like India's equivalent to the Gospel hour on your community channel. Hey, I thought, at least it was something. I tried again, MHZnet3 came next showing -
I think - a Japanese documentary on Japanese maids. You know the kind all dolled up and taking tiny steps as they serve you tea with their heads down.

This was not looking good. I tried again, MHZnet6 was next. I believe their programming at the time was on global finance. It was being broadcast in Russian. MHZglobe, or something like that, was in english, and it had an elephant documentary. I might actually watch this normally, but I was hoping to find something a little more... tv-like, so I continued on.

The only other two channels we got were the kids' programming channel Qubo and a channel called Worship that had about twenty four-year-olds jumping up and down on a floor mat. No words, just kids jumping up and down in a dark room. I watched it for a minute waiting for something to happen. I couldn't tell what they worshipping, but it clearly demanded a lot of jumping. Perhaps it was symbolic.

Perhaps it was symbolic of what I expected from my converter box - free TV - and what I actually got - free exercise... well, $10 worth of exercise.

I'll have to try again at some point now that I know what to expect, frustration. But until then, twenty dollars for twelve channels doesn't sound so bad.

(Now that I'm getting back to blogging, I'll try to start taking pictures again.)

Patriotic Flag Burning

I wish I had pictures for this.

Yesterday, on July 4th, I participated in a flag-burning. Before you get all up in arms let me explain. My flag-burning experience was a ceremony, not a demonstration. It turns out that the proper way to retire a flag is either through burning or burial, so we were doing nothing wrong. We were simply following the directions according to the official Flag Code.

Tiff's family did it all up with on official script; I first explained what was happening, then I called out the thirteen colonies in the order that they, I guess, signed the Declaration of Independence as we tossed each stripe into the flames individually. We even had a veteran approve the flags for retirement. It was a very moving ceremony.

It was also amazing how fast a flag goes up in flames, in the rain none-the-less. It's like it wanted to burn. Anyways, that's all the fireworks we saw yesterday, the rain kept us inside most of the day. Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait until next year's Kentucky Derby.

Oh, we got a video of it. It's twenty minutes long. If we ever figure out how to break it up, I'll post it on YouTube.

Freedom!

Happy Fourth of July everybody!

I'm celebrating mine with my first day of independence not working at my old job. While it has a touch of sadness, I'm so excited to never have to work all night again that I think I'll get over it. It was harder to leave than I had thought though. I mean, I didn't have to throw any tea overboard, or declare war or anything, but in the past week or so I've realized how much I've grown working at the Shelter.

Anyways, now, like any newly independent nation, on to the role of the taxman.

Baltimore: Part Two

Not to be disappointed with our luck at the National Ballroom Dancing event, we walked over to Camden Yards to watch the Baltimore Orioles play. There weren't too many folks there so $15 dollars a ticket afforded us some pretty good seats, right down the 3rd base line about even with the left fielder.

Here's a video from the night:

I hadn't been to a baseball game in a number of years, and while I didn't really care who won, Baltimore or Seattle, it was still a lot of fun. One of the best parts about it was that Tiff had never been to a baseball game. Her reaction as we were getting tickets - after the game had already begun - to the swell of the crowd reacting to a play was classic, just like any 5 year old's with bulging eyes and true sense of awe.

It was with that same sense of awe that Tiff repeatedly asked what to do if the ball was hit directly at us. While I'm sure my early responses were something along the lines of both "Catch it" and "Get out of the way," they quickly turned to "If you get hit, we're sure to get on TV." It's not that I want to see my new wife beamed by a foul ball, it's that she seemed so worried about it for soooo long that I ran out of things to say.

That was Dave and Kim that we're with. They're way-cool. For some reason, here's another video just one out after the first one:

And here's the last video we took, one more out later - I do say a bad word here:

Yes, holy shit, I caught a foul ball.

Just to clarify, I didn't actually catch it. I saw it coming and admittedly, "Catch it" was never a thought so I ducked out of the way. Tiff, with literally no time to spare, did the same and the ball crashed into the seat next to hers. It literally would have knocked her out had she not moved at the last second. The ball bounced up a couple of empty rows, Dave throws his beer behind him and lunges over several rows, sprawled out across the seats, only to have a swarm of people do the same hing, but land on him instead of the seats. The ball, meanwhile, slowly rolled towards me and I picked it up.

With that in mind, perhaps my level of jubilation was a little bit extreme, but it's not going to stop from me saying that I caught a foul ball. It will stop me from talking though, as I woke up the next day unable to make any sound whatsoever.

Baltimore: Part One

This weekend I found myself in Baltimore. My way-cool friend, Dave, and his way-cool girlfriend, Kim, had a way-cool hotel room right at the Inner Harbor. Tiff and I went up for a night.

The hotel that we were staying in was hosting a National Ballroom Dancing competition. While Dave dismissed the event off-hand, the rest of us, myself included, were eager to see the dance-off. We waded through countless men with numbers on their back and women decked out in some funny looking dresses that connect to the wrist and enough make-up to make me want to become an Avon lady, to learn that it's by invite only.

While many of them were surprisingly young, as young as 12 or 13 maybe, it was clear that there were several big names in dancing. In fact, in a cramped elevator, a short Asian man with apparently limited English skills, turned to one of the passengers and asked, "Are you, John, Johnny, Jonathon? You dance this weekend?"

John, Johnny, Jonathon smiled with his slicked back hair and coolly said, "No, not this weekend. I'm just a spectator this weekend," just like I'm sure any big name celebrity would do. He then led his lady friend by the arm off the elevator, taking long graceful strides, all the while pointing his toe.

Baseball

I mentioned recently that I was "prepared to give up baseball." I said this as I was annoyed by basketball and all the hubbub around March Madness. Plus, while the steroids issue should probably put a dark cloud over all sports, right now it's just hovering over baseball. And on top of that, those guys get paid too much. They really do.

Anyways, with the start of the baseball season under way, I find myself checking the scores and reading all the stats in my late-night boredom every night, just as I have for the past few years... and I still get excited about it. A seven run 8th inning, wow!

I am frustrated though with the media coverage of the sports world. On Sunday, for instance, I watched the local news hoping to see a few clips of the soccer game from the night before, DC's season opener, a 2-0 loss. They spent nearly the whole newscast - not just the sports - talking about the baseball season opener. Now, Ben Olsen, one of the few guys whose name I know, has to have ankle surgery and I don't know what happened or how long he's out, or anything. The news won't tell me. Yahoo sports won't tell me. Wikipedia won't tell me. DC United's website won't even tell me!

I guess soccer's time hasn't quite come yet. While I will watch the soccer that I can, I'll be hoping for a few more seven run 8th innings too.