Ryan Millers Goalie Mask

Wow! What a great hockey game! Ryan Miller was just sick tonight with some of his saves. If you didn’t watch the game tonight as Team USA wins 5-3 against Canada, you missed a hell of a game!

Nice to see Sidney Crosby get a goal, but even nicer to see a USA team that hardly anyone gave a chance to go 4-0 with 8 out of 8 points so far.

Great job, USA and great job Ryan Miller. Can’t wait to see how this will play out in the later rounds.

USA, USA, USA!

Russia won today too, which is only going to give them even more confidence and if we see Canada again, they are going to have a huge chip on their shoulder. It’s not going to get any easier, that’s for sure. Let’s just enjoy what they’ve done so far because according to most of the experts, we weren’t supposed to be this good.

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As Pirates spring training gets under way and I try to muster a little bit of enthusiasm about the coming year, I can’t help but think of a dog I used to have called “Buddy”. Let me tell you a little about this dog and explain why the Pirates are so similar to him.

As it is any time you get a new pet, our relationship with Buddy started out with great enthusiasm and happiness. “What a cute puppy!” . . . “He’s going to be a great dog!” . . . “I’m so glad we finally got another dog!” These were all things that could be heard in my house the first few days of having Buddy. Well, it all went down hill from there.

Buddy was the biggest pain in the ass, destructive, nightmare of a dog that was ever conceived. No matter how many chew toys, you got him, he loved to chew anything that was of any value in our house. If we put him in his crate while we were away for a few hours, he would piss in it. I’m pretty sure that dogs are hardwired not to do this! If you opened the door even a crack, he would do his best to knock you down so he could get out and roll in anything that was dead. We had him for a year and after he knocked my wife down the steps while she was 8  months pregnant, because he heard a knock on the door, we took him back to the Humane Society. There was a lot of training and attempts to teach this dog to not act this way, so in case some dick from PETA tries to say that we shouldn’t of gave him back, don’t bother.

” I can’t stand that dog!” . . . “Please, can we get rid of him?” . . . “This dog is possessed by demons!” These were all things that could be heard after living with Buddy for a year.

So, back to why Buddy and the Pirates are so similar. In my mind a dog, or any pet for that matter, is supposed to bring joy and happiness in to your life and your household. This dog brought nothing but misery. The Pirates or any other sports team should also bring you happiness. They should be fun to watch, fun to go and see play live, and not piss you off every time you hear about their latest sorry ass roster move.

You need to love, feed, groom, and provide a nice place for your dog to live.

Using the Buddy = Pirates metaphor, you need to love (Support the team), feed (Buy tickets and go to the games), and provide a nice place for the Pirates to live (PNC Park paid for by the taxpayers!) As with Buddy, we have done our part and whenever it got unbearable, we got rid of him. We gave him back to the Humane Society in hopes that someone that was better skilled at living with dogs from hell, could do a better job than we were doing.

Well, haven’t we been doing our part for the Pirates? Haven’t we done all of the things above? We still go to the games even though we know what the results are going to be. The Pirates play in the greatest ball park in MLB, and some of us suckers, still hold out hope that this year is going to be different and maybe they can win. After 17 losing seasons and no end in site, can we please get someone better skilled at running a Major league team? We don’t want to get rid of the Pirates, we just want ownership that is better at leading the Pirates out of this nightmare.

Just like Buddy, we keep believing that things are going to change. . . . Just like Buddy, the Pirates keep shitting in the corner of the living room.

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I don’t think that I have ever seen this much excitement all around for hockey in the Olympics as there is this year. Is it me or is there really a buzz going around this time more than ever?

It is pretty exciting and I am looking forward to watching some great hockey! Of course I would love to see the United States somehow get a medal and as we know from 1980, it could happen. The favorite for a lot of reasons though is Canada and a big reason is because of Sidney Crosby. How well he plays will determine a lot about how well Team Canada does in the 2010 Olympics, when it comes to hockey anyways.

So will Sid be the best player on the ice in the Olympics? Of course this is all just a matter of opinion and there will always be some debate whether he is or isn’t. The Olympics will have the best of the best from all countries, but in reality so does the NHL. It’s not like there is a bunch of talent from other countries that choose not to play in the NHL. So if you believe that Sidney Crosby is the best player on the ice during any given night of the NHL schedule, you have to at least consider the same in the Olympics. Read the rest of this entry »

If your looking for a Valentine’s day idea for your sweetheart, but don’t want to get the usual V-day stuff, try this. If your wife or girlfriend loves chocolate covered strawberries, like Tammy does, here’s an easy way to show her how much you care. Remember when you were little and would make a bunch of useless stuff for your mom each holiday, like pictures or homemade cards? She would always love it and proudly display it on the refrigerator, no matter how horrible it was, right?

Well your wife is probably the same way. Most woman love stuff that we make for them. They like to see that we put some thought and time in to it. Of course they also love if you go and buy them jewelry or a new BMW also! I think that most of us are not going to be shopping for a new Lexus or BMW this Valentine’s day though, right?

My wife had one of those jewelry parties the other night. (Before we got pounded with all of the snow!) Well one of the things that she made to eat had to do with melting chocolate and dripping it all over a bunch of stuff. As I saw how she did it, I thought how easy it would be to buy some big, juicy strawberries and melt some of that same chocolate and dip the strawberries in to it. I just tried it a little bit ago while she was out and it actually worked great!

I got regular chocolate and white chocolate and threw it in the microwave to melt it. I dunked them babies in to the regular chocolate, drizzled the white chocolate on them once the regular chocolate got hard, and now I look like a hero! Not only do they look great, they cost me close to nothing! Have you ever bought chocolate covered strawberries at a specialty store around Valentines Day? You could easily spend close to $50 for hardly any strawberries. By doing it this way, you save money that you can use to buy her something else, plus she will love that you took the time to do it yourself.

As an added touch, I put them on a platter and dripped the word”Love” with white chocolate.

I couldn’t wait and had to give them to her today. She loved it! Wait till she gets her package from Victoria Secrets tomorrow! I believe in gifts that both of us can enjoy! I may be a big wuss, but remember guys, “A happy wife is a happy life!”

Well, if you live in the northeast area of the United States, you may be tempted to bitch about the weather lately. I know I sure have,  but I always bitch about the cold weather! I hate it and want to move to a warmer climate as soon as my kids get older. We absolutely got pounded here in Pittsburgh on Friday and many of us lost power for days. Some still don’t have it now and without electricity, don’t have heat either.

We didn’t have it for a few days and had to check in to a hotel on Sunday for one day until the power came back on. Luckily, it came on sometime Monday and we are getting back to  normal life, although it’s now snowing again! On Saturday, we had no power and no heat, but we did have gas logs. Me and Tammy and the kids put a mattress in front of the gas logs in our family room and kind of camped out by candle light. It was actually kind of fun in a weird way. The fun didn’t last too long though, since the house got progressively colder as the time went on and we eventually turned the water off, drained the pipes, and went to a hotel on Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry Mr. President, I know it isn't turning out like you were hoping it would!

I talked to a Realtor today and we were talking about how they are not supposed to mention the denomination of churches in the neighborhood of houses that they show. I guess somehow just the mention of a church or the wrong type of church will offend a potential homebuyer and hurt their feelings. They also aren’t supposed to say that a certain school district is good or bad. If the buyers ask them if there are any white people, black people, Chinese people, Jewish people, Catholics, etc in the neighborhood; they are not allowed to say.

I knew this already and it doesn’t really phase me anymore. The crazy thing that she told me today was that, they are not really supposed to call a room a family room. Why? Well, because she said “in reality what makes a family?” She said that not all people have a family or have the typical family and we shouldn’t call the room a family room, because it may bring up some bad feelings for the buyer!

Holy shit, are you f-ing kidding me? I mean really, are you kidding me? This kind of fucked up bullshit thinking is the reason that I would like to move either to a far off island with only my family and a few select people or live in the mountains like Grizzly Adams! Read the rest of this entry »