Thurston Blogging

This ain't no trip to Cleveland

Mrs. Thurston Blogging and I love to travel.  A few years, ago the little lady asked me if I'd like to take trip for my birthday.  I chose Cleveland.  Cleveland did not compute with her.  I wanted to go to the Rock Hall and Great Lakes Brewery.  She obliged, and we hopped in the Thurston Blogging mobile and were on our way.

Other than the typical fight about who can navigate worse, we had a wonderful time.  Cleveland has great sites, food, beer and people.  It's a close trip and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a little getaway.  Here are a few photos from that weekend that I recently came across.

The Scariest Movie of the Year, or Suck It Blair Witch

If you haven't seen the trailer for The Strangers, be prepared for the scared.  I don't normally give a rip about scary movies, but the trailer for this movie is riveting to me.  Each time I see it, the premise gets to me a bit more. 

I loved the movie The Blair Witch Project, and I hope that The Strangers is more like it and not like Hostel.  Hostel was the most worthless waste of a movie since Freddy Got Fingered or Poetic Justice.

Here is the trailer for The Strangers:

The Aud Stands!

The Amazing Audrey can now crawl, stand and even pull herself up.  Here is another YouTube video of Audrey - this time she is playing in her kitchen.  Note that I dressed her, which accounts for the Nine Inch Nails t-shirt and the Adidas track pants.  It was Saturday, so she donned her formal wear.

The Defenders of Stan

YouTube, you are awesome.  Once again you've provided me with something funny.  For this, I thank you.  Check out The Defenders of Stan here.

Just another reason why I cannot stand Rasheed Wallace

Rasheed Wallace is a Power Forward of the Detroit Pistons.  However, there is no "Power" in his game.  He plays, in my opinion the Wussbag Forward.  He reminds me of Terry Mills - a big dolt who is truly afraid to go inside and bang.  He has size and height, but instead he feels compelled to be a three-point shooter.  Save that crap for the guards, man.  Buy some Charles Barkley DVD's, guy. 

He should be driving to the hoop on every play, throwing down dunks and whipping elbows in peoples faces.  Instead, he's the most passive big man I've ever seen.  How did this clown create such an inflated reputation?  Elton Brand, Pau Gasol or Dwight Howard are much better than Sheed.

If I had any hesitancy of my dislike for Wallace, it was wiped out when I saw this video of the big tool on YouTube:

The Livery

Sharon, Audrey and I went to Benton Harbor last Saturday, while en route to Chicago.  We stopped at a brewery called The Livery.  In a word, the place was great. The bar is in an old brick building - the main floor has bar, and a stage, another bar in the basement, and an open air seating area.

I had the McGilligans IPA and the Double Paw IPA - both of which were hoppy, crisp and easy-drinking.

Sharon had the Mandeau Man Ruby Red and she thought it was fantastic.  I took a swig, and agreed.

Here are a few photos of Audrey and me, sitting outside.  The first photo is us being jovial, and the second photo it looks like we are about to tussle.  Not sure what happened there...

Update on the Ada Express (Fantasy) Baseball Squad

Ten games back.  Fourth place.  Mediocrity sucks.  So, I've been making some moves to enhance the roster.  Today, Mike Lowell was acquired from the struggling Ferndale franchise, and Armando Galarraga was picked up from the waiver wire.



After 8 Weeks in, here are some of the things I'm excited and embarrassed about:

Geovany Soto - drafted in the 16th round, he's hitting .314 with 9 dongs and 34 RBI's.  Pure genius.

Dontrelle Willis - drafted in the 7th round as my second pitcher, I thought he would win 22 games.  He won't

Xavier Nady - picked up on the waiver wire, he's hitting .318 with 37 RBI's.

Jimmy Rollins - first pick of the Express.  Spent some time on the DL.  He is hitting over .300 and has six stolen bases, but he's no MVP.

Ryan Braun - one of the exciting young Brewers, hitting close to .300, 37 RBI's, and 13 homers.

I've got some damned work to in order to bring this team around.

Free Burgers!

From the shady department:   A few weeks ago, I felt like eating a hamburger for lunch.  There is both a Burger King and a McDonalds near my office.  Burger King is on the right and there was tremendous oncoming traffic, so I went to BK.

I noticed that they take American Express as they had the blue sticker on the door.  I stood in line, ordered a double cheeseburger meal, with onion rings, and handed the cashier my card.  She said that they weren’t taking AmEx.  I pointed to the blue sticker on the wall, and she apologized and I got a free lunch.

So, today I felt like having a burger again, and I was curious if they had:
A) Taken the AmEx sign off of the door
B) Fixed their issue
C) Felt like giving me another free lunch

The King chose C.  Today, the clerk ran my card threw.  Twice.  She asked if I had another card, and I said that I did not, but there should be no issue with that card.  She said “Don’t worry about it”, and gave me my order.

I will continue to test this interesting anomaly every month until something changes, and will update my progress.

The Three Stooges or What Could Have Been

Three Wide Receivers.  Three First Round Draft Picks.  Two complete failures.  Charles Rogers.  Roy Williams.  Mike Williams.   The vision - three big targets, stretching the defense that would put on an aerial display on the fast carpet of Ford Field.  The reality - only one remains and the other two are complete washouts.

Charles Rogers, the tally, skinny receiver from Saginaw High School & Michigan State - came into the league as the second draft pick, behind Carson Palmer in 2003.  Two broken collarbones + one drug suspension = one unemployment line visit in 2006.  After a few tryouts with other NFL teams, we found out that he's slower than a turtle crawling uphill.  Today, he is trying to catch on with a Canadian Football Team squad.

Big Mike WIlliams (BMW) was a contrast to Rogers in that he was a mammoth wide receiver coming out of USC.  In his sophomore season at USC, he caught 16 touchdown passes.  He sat out what would have been his junior season, as he tried to petition the NFL to enter the draft early.  So, he sat around and at King Dons for a year.  That didn't deter the Detroit Lions from drafting him 10th in the 2005 draft.  From the get-go, he was a bad fit.  At 6'5" 250 pounds, people wondered if he would play Tight End.  The lardass probably would have been suited for Defensive Tackle.  He missed meetings and loafed in practice.  After a few unproductive seasons, he was traded to the Oakland Raiders.  BMW didn't last an entire season there, and is now on his third season - the Tennessee Titans.  Good luck, fatty.

Roy Williams is one shining light in the otherwise dark years of the Matt Millen regime.  Roy is tall, fast, and incredibly exciting to watch.  He caught 8 touchdowns as a rookier in 2004, made the Pro Bowl in 2007 and has had to endure a cavalcade of new quarterbacks, coaches, coordinators and systems.  He's caught almost 250 passes, 28 Touchdowns and over 3600 yards since coming out of the University of Texas and Perriman High School in the  football-crazy town of Odessa, TX. 

He was drafted 7th overall, when the Lions and Browns swapped draft picks which allowed the Browns to draft sixth (Kellen Winslow II).  Roy makes acrobatic catches, one-handed catches, over-the-middle catches and diving catches.  He has endured not being the best-known Roy Williams in the NFL (the terrible Safety of the Cowboys gets more notoriety than the Lions Williams) and caught minor flack for being cheap.  Roy told the media that he doesn't tip the pizza delivery guys.  This off-season, trade rumors persisted that stupid Matt Millen would trade Roy to Philly or even Dallas.  Thank Jesu that this didn't happen.  He's the only thing worth watching, and one of the few Millen draft picks still on the team.   

Who wants bacon?

Man, I can use some bacon right now.  I'm hungry.  The Don and I were in Vegas last week.  We made a special trip across the strip to go to a hotel for brunch.  The reason - there was a rumor of a bacon carving station.  I won't name the name of the hotel as they did not have said bacon carving station. 

What they did have was a tremendous amount of great food.  However, the bacon that they did have was limp.  I was too hung over to put up with that.  So, I asked the guy behind the food station to burn me up some bacon.  He was excited to do so - come to think of it, I'm not sure he was a chef.  Regardless, he brought me a plate of 8-10 finely cooked, stiff bacon.  The day got much better at that point.