And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger...

We were watching Survivor: Marquesas on OLN, it turns out one of my favorite Survivors is in it, Rob Mariano (or more commonly known as Boston Rob or Rob&Amber). Now first of all this is weird because we know him from after this Survivor season because he was in Survivor All Stars and The Amazing Race, this is almost like knowing someone and then getting to see a tape of how they were 3-5 years ago, definitely strange. He is one of my favorites yet he hasn't won any one of the shows has been in (although you can argue that he split a million with Amber in All Stars, but he still did not win outright). The reason I like him is that he is smart enough to manipulate people without them realizing it. Best 2 examples: while on the Amazing Race all of the teams were on a bus, most teams were sitting in the back of the bus. Rob was at the front, with maybe 3 more teams, he convinced each of them to give him money (in this show you only get a set amount of money per "leg") to bribe the bus driver into not opening the back door once they got to their destination. This might not seem huge but the kicker is that he did not put any money in the pot himself therefore making the bribe free for him while earning the other teams trust since they had no clue what he did, and finally getting a nice lead once they arrived, genius. The best one though is when they were at an eating challenge where they had to eat a whole bunch of meat (probably like 8 pounds after being cooked but I'm not sure), he realized pretty quickly that it would be very hard for him to eat all of it, so he asked what would be the penalty for quitting, which was a 4 hour penalty from the time the next team arrived at the challenge. He took the penalty and once the next team arrived he convinced them to quit as well therefore guaranteeing that he would not be the last person to leave that stop, again genius.

After all that background on Boston Rob, I want to talk about something he said during one of the Marquesas episodes ***...Warning, this post will be taking a very weird turn in the next few lines, watch out...*** He said (I'm paraphrasing): "Fear is what keeps people in line, because of fear of being voted off other people will vote with me, ..." Basically he is saying that people are so afraid of being voted off the show that they do what other people tell them to do just as long as their name does not come up. I've seen so many survivors by now to tell you that most of those people are along for the ride and eventually do get voted off. However the reason that line stuck with me is not because it was talking about the game of Survivor but because it described the very reason why religion is so powerful ( Hey, I warned you that this was going to get weird, in fact if you are very into religion, you might not like me anymore, hopefully that won't happen).

Lets think about this for just little bit, do most people believe in God because they truly have faith? Be honest, don't think with your church brain, think with your common sense/analytical brain. You see I've always thought that people believe "just in case", just in case there is a heaven and/or a hell. Religion in its many forms has created such a myth that people are just afraid of the consequences once their life is over, not necessarily during their lives. Its always been done, look at the Indians throughout the Americas (Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, etc), they had many gods they believed in, however most of those were based on natural events like Hurricanes, earthquakes, just the plain old sun and moon. They feared most of these things since they could not explain them and therefore worshiped them so they wouldn't get "mad" and unleash the fury. There is not much difference to modern religion, only that the natural disasters/events have been replaced by a book that tells you what to do and what happens if you don't. Isn't that convenient **please note sarcastic tone here**.

I've always had problems with religion in general and struggled believing, and as I get older I believe less and less. To top it off, I once watched a stand up comedy special featuring George Carlin (probably one of the 5 best comics of all time), the last 20min of his routine were devoted to this topic. In it he goes to say how he decided to worship the Sun, 'cause you can count on it being there, it keeps you warm and it gives light. Now he doesn't pray to the sun, no he wouldn't dare, he preys to Joe Pesci ,because he "looks like a guy who can get things done". But the most fun part about this was when he said that since he started praying to Joe his prayers have come true at a 50-50 rate...the same rate as when he prayed to God. He does go on to say that there is no God but I won't say that because I'm still afraid.

Go ahead, tell me I'm going to Hell...I already know I am...if there is one off course.

The Apprentice…blah, blah, blah

I was watching the apprentice last weekend. Aixa loves this show, I liked it the first 2 times, the 3rd time was ok, right now I’m questioning all this crap.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, The Apprentice is what Donald Trump calls a 15 week job interview, basically 16 executives are broken into 2 teams and asked to perform “tasks” each week, where one team wins and off course the other one loses. The losers go to the boardroom where someone gets blamed for the loss and is “fired” (only they weren’t really employees, but who cares, all these people are rich anyway).

The fundamental problem with this show is that there is no consistent way to judge the contestants. You might think this is good for a reality show since it will create drama and what not, but to me its just plain non-sense. Let me explain, for each task a “project manager” is chosen, this person is supposed to lead the team to victory. If a team loses, the project manager chooses 2 team members whom he/she feels is responsible for the loss. So far so good, here is where all the problems begin, The Donald is crazy, it seems he always has some bizarro new thing to judge these people by, so I started thinking to the past seasons of the show came to the conclusion: he makes it up as he goes. Nobody has any idea what the hell he is thinking, he might fire the project manager because he was a “bad leader” or fire the poor bastard who had extensive “event planning experience” (only she forgot to mention that she only planned really, really BORING events). This gets frustrating after a while since he constantly contradicts himself every few firings, this brings me to my second complaint:

The “tasks” are stupid. For every interesting task there is at least four that basically just suck. Perfect example: last week the teams had to create a “technology expo” for old people (like they care anyway, lets be honest, these people were just waiting to die, but that’s besides the point). This task was clearly just an advertisement for Best Buy. Wow, this is the best that Mr Fake Hair can come up with? Give 8 college kids a credit card, free food and beer money and they could do it probably 10 times better than the crap displayed here. Now my biggest problem with this types of tasks is that #1 the winner is determined by the average survey score given by the attendees, #2 the same people do not go to both events. How does this make sense? What if my team gets a bunch of grumpy old men that don’t give a rats ass about the sweetness of TiVo? Whatever.

At least if some of these tasks had realistic goal, it would make more sense but the problem is they take place over a few days. So maybe the first part of the task is interesting, like creat X for X company….but then the second part, sell as many of them as you can in a day, make little sense. Lots of times, teams win by $10 and then have to blame the dumb guy ushering people at the door because he wasn't "aggresive enough". Makes sense doesn't it, yeah, as much sense as my dog defecating on the carpet.

Maybe I’m over-thinking this stuff but these are the things I think about, maybe I should watch it as a zombie and not question any of it, yet you see a show like Survivor and think there is just no match. At this point, America’s Next Top Model is better, at least there are a few good looking ladies and better unintentional comedy…

Maybe I should realize that I’ve finally lost it, who knows?...

I suck at updates

I know, I know, I’m not that good at posting updates. In my defense, I’ve been busy with home improvement projects, work, dogs (don’t get me started on that one), we just went on a little escapade up in northern Michigan, in fact here is a picture I’m very proud of taking

(and yeah if you didn’t know that is Aixa, my wife, she is taken so don’t get any ideas…). With all those things going on there was basically no time to write (that and the fact that I think I have adult ADD plus incredible lazyness)

Ok, lets keep rolling, the next paragraph I wrote at work one time I was having lunch at my desk, it was meant to be a quick post only I never got around to actually posting it:

“As you all know, after finding MyMoneyBlog, FatWallet Forums and all other personal finance blogs, I have been obssesed with getting free money, making the most out of my own money and saving as much as possible for retirement and emergency. In fact I'm so obssesed that I find myself thinking of my next move at really akward times (like during sex, um...I mean sleeping...forget it). We'll I've come across a very interesting 4 part post related to buying a new vehicle http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2005/09/16/buying-a-new-car/. The concept here makes huge sense and while I'm not in the market for buying a new car, I will be applying this in about 2-3 years when its time to get rid of the Mazda we have (not because its bad but because it's a constant reminder of the horrible deal I got at the time, and how much of a dumbass I was back then). Yeah, it might be even dumber to get rid of it because of that reason alone but I know the wife wants a new vehicle at some point, that way I'll just say "Remember, you'll have this car for at least 10 years so make sure you like it...". Well thats a quick one for now, enjoy...”
Moving on, FatWallet’s Finance forum has had my attention for a while, I’ve found many deals, strategies, etc. so I’ve pretty much become obsessed with finances, retirement, rates, credit lines, free money, and so on. I’m actually going nuts, I mean it, my brain hurts half the time, I wonder if there is some sort of anonymous club I can join to get help (stop laughing). Anyway, my buddy Chilly Willy was asking me about identity theft, I remembered seeing something about a credit monitoring service that was pretty cheap, so here is the link to that forum thread http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?start=0&catid=52&threadid=510510. Basically this is a service provided by TrueCredit (TransUnion company) where you can monitor all your credit reports, get your credit scores (“FAKO” score, which means its not the true score that lenders look at, its more of an estimate but hey it’s a good baseline to know how your credit is doing). It also provides $25,000 identity theft insurance, all this for $7.44 a month, not bad in my opinion. Read the thread, there are ways to bypass the initial $24 fee. [EDIT: I actually just signed up, and did not have to pay the $24. I went to annualcreditreport.com got my free TransUnion credit report. During the process, you need to create a free account with TrueCredit. Once you are done with this report, log out and then follow the instructions detailed on the thread liked above. Its super easy. If you need help let me know, do NOT pay the $24!!!!!!]

Sports:
Baseball
Typically I watch baseball once the playoffs start but this year I’ve been very disconnected from baseball. I don’t know, for now its still boring for me, maybe as games get more important. I will acknowledge that the race just to get to the playoffs was very good (even though I only saw everything through Sportscenter, dadada dadada)

NBA
Felix, you know I have to say something about the Knicks. Well, Isaiah basically just confirmed he has no idea how to build a team (not that I know, but at the rate he is going, why not hire me for 1/10th his salary and get similar results? I’m available if they want me…) If you don’t know what I’m talking about, New York just traded for center Eddy Curry, who is ok at best, has poor work ethic, likes to eat a lot, and generally looks like he doesn’t care. I forgot one other thing, he has a weird heart problem. This not like a drug problem or a drinking problem, there are no anonymous meetings to go to get rid of this problem. In fact, two guys with similar conditions have DIED on the court before. Knowing Isaiah he probably gave him a 10 million dollar a year overpay, and knowing the Knick’s luck he will either die while not hustling downcourt (yes I said d.i.e. ) or he will never play for them and cripple their already paraplegic salary cap. And Larry Brown is loving this ‘cause he now has plenty of escape excuses once he realizes that his team pretty much sucks.

NFL
A few things I’d like discuss about this season so far:

• The Colts are playing good but they have been playing crappy teams (except Jacksonville), and they will keep playing against crap until like week 9 or so when they have a date with the Pats, should be interesting.


• I like Pittsburg but I must admit when watching their games I cringe when Roth-Hamburger drops back to pass. I don’t know, even though I want to see him succeed, I don’t trust him yet. Only time will tell.


• The Lions got absolutely robbed when a Touchdown call to win the game was overturned by an officials review (remember only officials can initiate a review of a play when there are less than 2 minutes left). The rule is you need to have enough evidence to overturn the call on the field, the replay clearly showed Pollard was in-bounds when he caught the pass, so what the hell where the officials looking at? This is crazy…


• Its physically impossible to watch football every Sunday for me. Don’t get me wrong, I can do it but the wrath of the wifee-nator is almost impossible to overcome. I have some strategies though, basically I have identified my 2 favorite teams (Colts, Steelers), if they are on National TV then I’m watching them, actually that is the only strategy I have, it works most times…

I’m falling asleep, so this is all for now, I’m not even going to say when my next post will be. I’m thinking of starting a mailing list to let people know once an update is up, please leave a comment if you think this is a good idea. If I decide to do it, I’ll make a post about it with instructions, etc.

Goodbye you knuckle heads…

TV shows

So, ill will suggested watching Prison Break. I wish I could but honestly my DVR is recording so many things right now that I'm not sure if I'll be able to watch it all. I was going to just reply to the comment but it turned out this could be an interesting post, so here it is: Monkey's list of shows currently being DVRed (has this word been accepted yet? It should, in case you are confused, shows being TIVOed, only that I don't have a TIVO I have a DVR from my cable company, did I confuse you more? Good)

-Bones (fox- csi type show, its new, we'll see how it goes)
-My Name is Earl (NBC- comedy, I saw the pilot episode for this and was hooked, I think this show is going to be great)
-How I met your mother (CBS comedy, another new one, starring Doogie Houser, after his role on Harold and Kumar, I'll give him 5 episodes at the very least, he deserves it [as long as he doesn't leave any love stains on my couch, get it?])
-King of Queens (CBS, irreplaceble)
-George Lopez (ABC, not the funniest thing in the world but its latin people in HD, represent!!!)
-Invasion (can't remember, this is a new show also, I'll give it a few episodes, if it sucks then I'll replace with something else)
-CSI:NY(CBS)
-America's Next Top Model(UPN, I know what your thinking but seriously its my wife who watches this one, I swear!!)
-Survivor: Guatemala(CBS)
-Survivor: Africa ("Outdoor Life Network" or "OLN", they are repeating every season of Survivor back to back, 4 episodes per week[Monday-Thursday]. Africa is season 3, we already watched the original[Borneo] and Australia. FYI: we started watching Survivor only like 2-3 years ago so we are loving this since there are so many seasons we haven't watched)
-The Apprentice (NBC, You're fired! is getting old, they'll better be some better challenges or something, otherwise I'm firing The Donald and the chipmunk living on his head)
-The OC (Fox, its been too Soap Operish lately [2 episodes thus far this season], in fact I'm kind of turned off by too many conflicts to start the season, any normal teen would have just killed him/herself and moved on, either that or they would just be in an asylum wearing shower courtains and asking to talk to Michael Jackson. I might replace this show, unless they bring back the lesbian relationship [I will now prepare for my wife's wrath])
-CSI (CBS, the original, for some reason this show never gets old, weird)
-Without a Trace (CBS, another one that doesn't get old)
-Numbers (CBS, this one is excellent too, another crime drama, but in this one the guy is a world class mathematician and uses math and other techniques to help solve FBI crimes, can you tell I'm a nerd?)

Typically, we record more than we can actually watch in a day, fall behind, then catch up on the weekend or after a couple of weekends. It’s a cool way of watching tv, only that if you get too lazy, the hard drive fills up and some shows get deleted (especially with shows in HD, they take up 3 to 4 times the space of regular shows). Its cool to watch 2 or 3 episodes in a row, especially the old Survivor ones, not the new ones because someway somehow a damn fool accidentaly tells you who got voted off (I pity the fool!!!). Keep in mind though that this is a list of the shows we record, there are plenty of other shows that we watch but can't or won't record like Real World/Road Rules (and whatever challenges, infernos, gauntlets, etc, that they come up with), Surreal Life (who would have thought that Bronson Pinchot was a pervert? I've never been more surprised [please note sarcasm here]), Laguna Beach (the real OC, as of right now definetly more entertaining than the fake one, although kind of stupid, no lesbians either…hmm I wonder if…never mind), Hogan Knows Best (or whatever the name is), did you notice these are all reality shows? Oh, Oh, Kill Reality, one of the funniest reality shows I've ever seen, we just watch it when it happens to be on but its always entertaining, House Hunters, Curb Appeal, Landscaper's Challenge (last 3 the wife watches), Whose Line Is It Anyway? pee your pants funny, Mind of Mencia (when I catch it, its very funny most of the time, except the stupid award shows and crap like that, sometime I cringe). Etc, etc. Too much reality, I know, I can't stop though...

What shows are ya'll watching? Hit up the comments section...

Updates! Updates! Updates!

I apologize, I’ve been very busy and not had a chance to post anything since last week. I’ve been accumulating so much info and ideas that this post might be absolutely huge, I’m almost approaching this as a column rather than a post, you have been warned.

Here we go:

– Dogs –
Oh my, where to start. I swear that Lilly came to us by divine intervention basically just to train us for real babies. I’m not even kidding, she wakes up every night somewhere between 2 and 4am. If we don’t take her out, she pees in the living room, incentive enough to wake up. She’ll go to sleep after that…until 6-6:15am when she is ready to have breakfast (she eats twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon). After eating, you have to go to the backyard with her or else… you guessed it! poo poo in the living room. We are hoping that as time goes by she gets used to sleeping through the night (hopefully sometime before it starts snowing).

Lilly loves to play, when we first brought her home she was very mellow and calm, or so we thought. As she has been getting more and more comfortable her hyper activity has gone through the roof. She can fetch for hours, she runs circles around honey (who at this point looks like an 80-year old next to her) , digs holes all over the yard, eats everything she can find (she loves sandals and shoes, she’s broken 4 pairs up to now, and ate my Xbox live headset).

Honey has had a hard time adjusting to Lilly, she is looking to play with him all the time however he is not having any of it, growling and barking more than before. Somehow I thing this is good so that Lilly understands who is the boss however so far it seems like she is not understanding. We’ll see what happens there.

Regardless of all that, I love Lilly to death, if something where to happen to her I would cry like I do every time I see the movie A.I. or Untamed Heart (did I just say that? Don’t ask).

Here is a picture of my to two babies when they are not fighting



– Frugality –
Since my post about frugality, I’ve been consistent in making coffee at home and taking leftovers for lunch. I almost feel like I’m in rehab and need to remind myself how long I’ve been sober otherwise I might relapse. Anyone up for some Wendy’s? Sorry, concentrate, focus, power, Manny San.

Also, I’ve been successful in getting $110 in free money so far. It breaks down like this: *$25 ING Orange Savings Account
*$10 ING referral (thanks to my man Chilly Willy [ill will])
*$75 for opening a BankOne checking account. This was lucky though, it came in the mail along with a credit card offer for my wife. If you get a credit card offer from Chase or Bank One, check it before throwing it out, it might have a flyer in it with a similar offer. Read the fine print if you get it, just to make sure you can meet all the requirements (stuff like direct deposit, opening balance, etc.) If you want more details about the offer I got let me know.

I’m still thinking about trying to open accounts in my wife’s name but I’m still debating if I should or not. Keep an eye out for updates

– Xbox 360 –
Hey, if you didn’t know already, the release date has finally been announced, Nov. 22nd. This is the Tuesday before thanksgiving, which means I’m going to be giving thanks for my Xbox 360 for at least 4 days straight. I’m pumped.

I’m concerned however, because I decided not to pre-order the system, opting to save the money myself instead of giving it to the local GameStop to hold. Typically, stores like Circuit City, Best Buy, Target and Walmart don’t take pre-orders so I figured I would go there on launch day, however there is still the possibility that I might not find one. At this point is probably pretty late to pre-order it but I’ll make some calls to see if there is anything left at the stores around my area. Again will update later.

Well that’s it for now, I did have more stuff I wanted to talk about but frankly I’m tired. Keep an eye out for the following topics: ESPN NFL 2K5, I started a new franchise with the Colts and I’m thinking of posting regular updates on my progress including stats, record and so on (so far I’m 3-1). Movie reports, we just saw the exorsism of Emily rose and I figured I might try to review it. Survivor discussion, the new season looks like its going to be absolutely awesome, I love that show, etc. I’ll do my best to update at least 3 times a week (that’s a 7 day week).

Zingalamadudi….

NBA Katrina Relief / NFL is ON!!!

Quick note on more Katrina stuff. It's cool to see NBA stars come together to help out Katrina's victims. Check this article out on ESPN.com for some in-depth information:http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=bucher_ric&id=2159082

I think in times like these you contribute however you feel necessary, there are certainly 2 schools of thought. I'm definitely more impressed with NBA players working in the trenches than putting on a good show to raise money but to each his own. If I could, I would be down there, I would feel like I was making more of a difference than just sending money or supplies, however that does not mean sending/donating stuff is bad or not needed.

Its been a good opening weekend for the NFL, my 2 favorite teams did pretty good ,Steelers blew out the Titans, the Colts took care of the Ravens in the second half. I must say I was pretty impressed with the Colts defense, they even injured the Ravens quarter back Kyle Boller (hyper-extended toe, ouch!!), with that being said I'm not getting too excited because the Ravens offense isn't exactly what you would call potent (other than their running game but that looked awful last night, it was as if I was there trying to run the football).

Speaking of awful, how ‘bout Bret Favre, yikes!! He used to be one of my favorite players but right now it doesn’t look like he’s any better than any wet-behind-the-ears rookie (*cough* like his backup *cough*). Cheeseheads throughout Wisconsin have to be preparing for some rebuilding in the next few years, at least the rookie QB draft pick makes more sense. Green Bay fans, “El Queso esta viejo y podrido”, look it up… On a somewhat funny/sad/poetic justice kind of note, Favre blasted one of his receivers in training camp, the guy was attepting a TO trying to get more money from the team. Eventually Favre convinced him to stop the holdout and play out his contract…yesterday he tore his ACL, it has to be karma, oh and if you didn’t know the NFL is the only league that doesn’t guarantee contracts, which means the Packers can cut this guy tomorrow if they wanted to saying: “sorry buddy” *pats the guy on the but then kicks his wheelchair to the curb*. Don’t you see the humor in this? OK, I’m a sadist…

Monday night football should be very good tonight, I think Mike Vick is amazing and I absolutely hate TO (don’t get me started) so hopefully ATL can get the win. I’m thinking of firing up last year’s ESPN NFL game to play a couple of seasons, if anyone is interested in doing some Xbox Live during the week let me know.

More coming tomorrow…

Katrina, You Bitch!!!!!!!

I know this subject has been beaten to death everywhere. I just want to say a few things and be done with it. I will start by saying: if you can donate, please do so, visit www.RedCross.org for more info. I’m not one to say this type of stuff but this situation at the absolute least requires that I remind everyone.

About the destruction, frankly, it was as surprising as say Donald Trump suddenly admitting that his hair is fake, seriously, Cat 5 hurricanes don’t come around very often and there is a reason for that, they destroy pretty much everything, so mother nature only unleashes them sparingly. What was surprising was the lack of preparation and the subsequent myriad of brain farts after Katrina was long gone. Its easy to criticize after the fact, so I’ll just say that Louisiana’s governor should seek out the advise of any past Puerto Rico governor, they might be corrupt as hell but they do know how to prepare for situations like these. By no means do I intend to say that PR has ever seen destruction even remotely close to Katrina’s, my point is that proper preparation could have saved many lives. That’s my somewhat subdued rant.

Now on to Kanye West. All of a sudden he is a political activist, I must say I’m impressed even if what he said was somewhat out of place in my opinion. I’m sure MTV would have jumped on the opportunity for a half hour interview (yup, #372) where he could have spoken his mind [although it would not have been on National TV]. Regardless of the appropriateness of the comments, you couldn’t help but laugh (or chuckle at the very least) looking at Mike Myer’s face (see the Sport’s Guy’s blog for more ), unintentional comedy at its best. This even made the daily show on Comedy Central and it was absolutely hilarious.

All for now, flame the comments section if you must.