New Family Guy Episodes Coming

This might not be worthy of a first posting for the month but its information that I've been jonesing for. The Family Guy is back on the air September 23rd with episode 99 titled "Blue Harvest". The show synopsis:

With the Griffins stuck at home during a blackout, Peter begins to tell a story, which leads to a Star Wars flashback. Acting out scenes from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Peter plays Han Solo, Lois is Princess Leia, Stewie becomes Darth Vader, Brian plays Chewbacca, and Chris is Luke Skywalker. Cleveland and Quagmire will play the parts of R2-D2 and C-3PO, while Herbert is the wise Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Personally, I await the episode titled "Tales of a Third Grade Nothing" named from the super popular Judy Blume book or the episode titled "Believe it or not, Joe's walking on air". Will William Katt make a guest appearance?

Random Stuff

Before I forget any longer, my son just went number 2 on the potty for the first time last month. Of course, i got a picture of him showing all of us his excrement.


Forget steroids. Forget HGH. Forget greenies. Did you happen to hear about the ballgame last week between the Orioles and the Rangers? The final was.....30 to 3. This marked the first time in 110 years that a team scored 30 runs in a game. Amazingly, only 4 pitches were used.

Eric Estrada Gets Tasered

Can you beat this? I think not.

Eric Estrada, in his failed attempt at a "comeback" in this new show on CBS called Armed and Famous earlier this year which lasted all of five episodes (Estrada only in 2 of them), decided to get tasered in episode one. Listen to his description of what after effects he noticed.

What I want to know is where is Larry Wilcox?

New Homerun Record Holder!

Barry Bonds has done it. He is the new homerun champion....

.....and no one cares.

Of any record in sports, this is at the top of the list. Networks should have broken into programming to air each at bat leading up to it. Bonds should have been on every national morning show talking about the long trek leading to the record. How he was thinking of his dad every step of the way. He should be bombarded with questions with what it feels like to have hit more homeruns than any baseball player in major league baseball's illustrious history. A parade in his honor should be in the works at the end of the season. Kids should be playing ball in their backyards mimicking his swing imagining that they were the ones who were circling the bases on Wednesday night in San Diego at Petco Park at 11:51 E.S.T.

Instead, a cloud of suspicion hovers over this and many of his offensive feats like a perpetual fog.

Let me first begin here: Before I sat down to write this entry, I made a point not to incorporate the words "steroids" or "performance enhancing drugs" at any time aside from this sentence mentioning that I wouldn't do it. So to keep with the promise I made five minutes ago, the "s word" remains off limits.

I don't need to use those words to describe the feeling that I along with other baseball fans are experiencing right now. Whether your a baseball purist or a baseball progressive (whatever you call the opposite of purist), its real tough to get on board with this event that should have "feel good" written all over it. This should make Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's chase back in '98 seem like a typical day. Instead, the word "suspicion" is the adjective that encapsulates this achievement. That speaks volumes.

Trust me, I want to embrace this. I really do. I'm the first one to say that the players are not the only ones at fault in this era of "larger" than life players. Team Management, front offices, the players' union, the media and major league baseball from the commissioner on down are equally guilty of looking the other way. Everyone was making tons of money (in the billions according to some estimates), the game was flourishing after the '94 strike, Ripken just broke the consecutive games record and attendance was up. Hell, baseball couldn't have been better back then.

Here we are around ten years later. The homerun record was just broken and its just an afterthought in the media. What a travesty.

I am here to strip away the emotion of it all. Let's look at the history of all 756 homeruns in a vacuum without speculation.

3 Inside the park homers

10 game ending homers

11 grand slams

36 ballparks homered in

71 multi-homer games

157 homers hit at home in San Francisco

375 homers at home, 380 homers away

447 pitchers homered against

Scatter diagram of Bonds' 2006 homers:

Didn't that feel better?

More Nathan bday pics from my sister

Birthday Pics

...A few weeks late but here nonetheless.

Dead or Alive?

Don't ask me why this happened at work but the subject of washed up television actors and actresses came up. Guess whose name came up? Yep. Charlotte Rae--you know Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life. Never mind that she hasn't been on TV in more than 20 years, we all thought she was dead. Is she still alive?

We checked the site http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/ and sure enough, she's still vertical. She's only 81...thought she was more like 93. Maybe she's hanging out with Conrad Bain.

In Memoriam

John E. Sabol
July 1, 1987

- Its hard to believe its been 20 years since his passing -

Picture with Ann
Circa 1985

My Summer Wishlist

Since child number two is on the way late this fall, time will become more of a scarce commodity than it is now with a two year old flying around the house with a washable marker in one hand and a pretzel in the other.

Back in early 2005 prior to my son's birth, I made a wish list of things I wanted to do before I became a parent. You know, basic activities like reading 10 books or install an attic ladder or wire the upstairs bedrooms with cable. I actually did all of those. Scary thought isn't it?

This summer, my list is not as outrageous as my first one back in '05 but as with most of my projects, the list is a tall order considering my lack of disposable hours in the day. Here we go:

1. Finish installing the basketball hoop in the driveway.

Even my wife wants this done yesterday. Its been an ongoing event since early May. The quikrete is in the garage. I think this is going to suck.

2. Reinforce the poles on the deck.

Sounds like an engineer is needed here. Nope. Just time to cut a bunch of 4X4 wedges and screw them into the deck. Where is Bob Vila? Does he still have that Saturday morning show?

3. Transfer all of the video I took of my son over the last two years onto my hard drive, edit it and make a DVD.

Um. If my past history of procrastination is any indication, this won't come anywhere close to happening. Okay, maybe dumping the video on the computer is a more realistic goal as long as my two year old doesn't sneak into the computer room and hit the reset button on the computer tower.

4. Finish reading three books. A baseball statistic book, a book on the origins of the Vietnam War by the late David Halberstam and a book on the origins of language.

...Sounds like a evening full of fun, I know. Don't laugh. This is more time consuming than it seems on the surface for three reasons. One, I'm not the fastest reader. Two, these books aren't considered "quick reads". Three, now that I am working a early morning shift, I might have 15 minutes before bed to hammer out a few pages. At this rate, these books will collect more dust in the den than on my nightstand.

5. Watch these movies.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Transformers
The Bourne Ultimatum
Oceans 13
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Live Free or Die Hard
Evan Almighty
Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Shrek the Third

A few of these came out a few years ago. I realize that. Anyway, look for a synopsis as I finish each of these.


On a semi-unrelated note, the first still photo of the new Indiana Jones movie is out. It tells us absolutely nothing.

Baby News

We are having a GIRL!

Pictures to prove this coming later...