Reds vs. Diamondbacks

Me, my fiance, and a two of our friends (who happen to be dating) went out to the ballgame tonight. It was a good time. The last time I went to a Major League game was when I was barely knee-high to a something that's small. So, I didn't really recall the finer points of a good old fashioned baseball game until we got there. Like the four dollar 20 oz. Mountain Dew, or maybe the five dollar pretzel. Ahhh, breathe it in America. Our newest pastime is capitalism!

Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack, and say goodbye to your 401k.

Haha, enough ranting.

In all honesty though, it was a great time. Recently (the past 5 years or so) I haven't really been into any kind of (popular) sport, but going to the game tonight brought back my old fondness of baseball. Maybe it was the atmosphere, or perhaps it was the action on the field...Possibly a combination of the two, I'm not sure, but it was definitely A+++++++ would go again!

Cincinnati lost, but I don't give a damn about who wins or loses. What I DO give a damn about is pictures. Lots and lots of pictures! Which I took, and have, to SHARE!

These aren't all I took, but these are the ones I bothered to resize.

Group shot~!!!!211!


Some pitcher guy wailing the ball


Panoramic Pitch. The ball is the white dot 1/3 of the way from the left.


A guy with a ball for a head. I call him Ballhead.


Some guy at bat swinging...the bat...


So that's that. I spoke to the future Mrs. about making this a regular thing (eventually), but downtown Cincinnati necessitates some wicked crazy driving habits. People just don't realize how dangerous those vehicles can be! Say someone is being chased by a police officer, and the guy running from the police rams the police car in a desperate attempt to get away. The guy that rams the police cruiser would get charged with "Assault with a Deadly Weapon." So it's true! Cars are machines engineered by corporations as a means of population control! You heard it here first!

Welcome to the Ohio Valley

Enjoy your stay!

Holy...

Mackerel!

Just started reading my most recent issue of Wired today. It's a good one.

Spare Time? Pfft, More Like Sparse Time

(Looking at you with my "get it?!" face)

Well, it's true. This week especially. 49 hours I'm scheduled. Yeah, forty NINE!!

I'm off today though! Hey, that's good news. So what did I do today? I sat around and played Diablo II. No, wait, not JUST Diablo II, but Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Yeah, that's right. I got the expansion. Dig it.

Last time I played Diablo II was when me, Z, and D were working at the Perry of all Parks. I got the base game (sans expansion) from Penis and Penis, and from there I was hooked. After I beat Baal (the bad guy in the base game) I went out and bought the expansion. Not like the day after, either. NO! After I finished watching the last cinematic scene, I immediately drove to Wal-Mart to get the expansion.

Here I am now, three years later, and I reinstalled. The reinstallation of a game from your past is a very nostalgic event. It's like you're ressurecting a period of your life. Maybe it's just me, but when I saw the splash screens for Diablo I got a fuzzy little feeling in my stomach comparable to a hefty shot of Smirnoff vodka. Which, I happened to be drinking a lot of during my initial experience with Diablo. COINCIDENCE!?!?!!!11

Yeah probably...

Anyway.

For some reason I can't bring myself to play as any character other than the Necromancer. The dude is just SO badass. Spells and raising the dead? That's hot shit!

The only difference this time around, though, is that I'm playing solely online. It's a very different beast, indeed. Example: You have to scout out the area around the "towns" EVERY time you get back in the game. That sucks. Well, it works pretty good for leveling up, but sometimes you just want to get back into the action, right? RIGHT!

You can't do that if you're lumbering around trying to find the right path.

For those in the know, I'm stuck on the last quest in the second act. There's this fucking goliath of a boss I have to beat, and it's damn near impossible.

Anyway, yeah. That what I've been up to in my spar(s)e time.

As it turns out...

...Tae Bo is pretty fun, and Billy Blanks is pretty cool.

Imagine that.

So, yeah, me and my fiance did some Tae Bo today. I didn't know what to expect at first, but she had been asking me to do it, so I figured I'd give it a go.

I had done workout tapes before when I was younger, and I thought the overall pace would be same. Haha! I was wrong. I thought the so-called "warm up" was the actual work out. It was very hard to keep up. I mean, that shit moves FAST! It's kinda like you have to watch it as a movie for the first few times before you actually get up and start kicking and punching. Kinda like watching a movie so many times and memorizing the lines. Except, instead of lines, there are kicks and butt thrusts.

I'm going to try and make this a regular "work out" type deal. Me and the (future) Mrs. have already made a deal to basically force each other to do some kind of work out or another. Given a few more rounds of Tae Bo, I might actually be able to make it through without laughing my ass off at Billy Blanks.

An Update of Sorts

Today I needed something to distract myself from what day it is, so I ran the gamut of thought absorbing processes. Among these were: Playing poker, Playing Tribes, and Reading anything and everything I could find.

I also took it upon myself to do some "sprucing" up, if you will. I searched google to see what I could learn about making a good weblog. Apparently, I'm not too bad off. Some of the suggestions didn't need to be put into effect, I think, but some of them are actually worthwhile. So, that's why I now have links to some of my previous posts that I feel exemplify my weblog as a whole. If you haven't already, you might want to give them (and my archives, for that matter) a quick read. Admittedly, I'm going through a rather lengthy dry spell as far as pure writing substance goes. That'll pass though.

For now, though, enjoy the freshness to the right. Huzzah!

Bird Watching on a Rainy Day

I spent a large portion of the day on my balcony taking in the refreshing scent on the rainy spring-time air, and photographing birds as I saw them. Sometimes I get worried that someone is going to see me up on my balcony taking pictures and assume that I'm some kind of weird peeper. It couldn't be further from the truth, really. I've just found that there a lot of wonderful shots waiting for me just outside, in front of my apartment.

As has been stated previously, I love nature photography. Bird photography, however, is something I've only recently found an interest in. I know birds and nature are very closely related (a little too obvious?), but I never really thought I would be interested in it. It's rather difficult, to say the least. I've found that you pick up on their habits very quickly, though.

Just in front of my building, there's a dumpster. I know, you're thinking "eww gross, trash is nasty." Yes, true, but it was here where I found the birds constantly returning. They would perch on the fence surrounding the dumpster, look around the area outside of the fence, survey the inside of the dumpster, and dive right in. I'm guessing the dumpster is a low-labor source of food. It seems perfectly reasonble for them to feast here, actually. I mean, aside from competition from other birds (which is clearly why they'd survey the area before going in), there's absolutely no danger. Hell, I'd even venture to say that there's a sense of protection inside the dumpster, both from the rain and other birds. It's a fuckin smorgasbord, and I was on hand with my camera.

Some key shots from the day:

This bird was perched in a branch just above the dumpster. He's actually looking down on it.


This one is obviously on top of the dumpster. Once again, surveying the area. S/He looks pretty sinister, eh?


These two were working together. They were VERY interesting to watch. One would go in, get it's fill, come back out, and the other would go in. Here you can see them checking out the perimeter to see if it's clear.


That's it for now. Tune in for more....after the break.

Thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.

Samuel Clemens said that. At least I think he did...I'm not entirely sure.

I've found myself fascinated with random photography. Simply grabbing my Nikon D50 to snap a picture at the most obscure time. It may go without saying however, that I have a massive interest in nature photography. There's nothing more beautiful than catching mother nature in action, or at rest for that matter. My good friend Smitty seems to share this same love of nature photography. But, see, he has mountains. I don't have that. I have small hills and a smog-ridden city. Color me green with envy.

So, sometimes, I have to improvise.

A few weeks ago, for instance, a storm started brewing southeast of my apartment. It was quite a spectacle. 50 mi/h winds, unremitting lightning, and the obligatory booming thunder that immediately follows it. Don't you love my use of consonance? Too bad this isn't poetry, eh?

Anyway, in an impromptu effort to capture lightning with my camera, I set up my tripod just inside my balcony's sliding door. I had to position the legs just right so I could get as close to the opened door as possible. Those three legs, though simple in design, can be quite tricky. Once the camera was positioned for optimal through-the-door viewing, I had to get my settings right. I figured I'd set the camera on aperture priority and let it decide how long to leave the shutter open. It did a pretty good job, in my opinion.

So, I submit for your approval two of the best pictures taken that fateful eve.

Share a Smoke, Make a Joke

Got my coffee, got my smoke.

Can't really think of any jokes right now. Just thought I'd say something in here. I gotta get ready for work! I'm running late. Holy shit.

Just for the record. French Roast is the best.