The St. Valentine's Day Couch Massacre

February 15th was the state of Oregon's 150th birthday (as well as that other Hallmark holiday) so we decided to celebrate in our usual fashion with many adult beverages and that adult game with ping pong balls. It was a decidedly normal afternoon and evening, we fired up the grill and I made a couple of steaks. Afterward, the adult pong-based game continued. We started talking about how my friends had this fire pit ring that they had been given but they had never used it. More consumption of adult beverages continued and the idea of a fire smoldered in their minds until they decided, "Hey, let's burn our old Christmas tree!" With the helpful prodding of the adult beverages and the innate love of fire we all seemed to share, the Christmas tree was doused and then lit in not perhaps the safest fashion:




















It did create this cool Christmas lights effect though:



But that just didn't work that well...the tree was too green to go up. So we had to create some coals and in order to do this we were going to need furniture.



This got a good hot fire going eventually and we were able to get some good coals...and I got some cool pictures.



Then a neighbor, seeing the joy we seemed to be having around our fire, decided to join us and asked if we would also burn her leftover Christmas tree. Hers was decidedly drier and therefore went up really quickly in our extremely hot coals:



After this died down, I figured we'd had our pyromaniacal fun for the night so I went back inside the house. Returning a few moments later, I discovered that the others we apparently unsatisfied with the sanity level of the evening:



The couch was old, damp, iced over and covered in crap from having sat in their backyard for months. Little did the couch know it would be sacrifice to the state of Oregon and the love gods. It steamed for a long time as it dried. Then someone got the brilliant idea of putting coals in the middle:



And it was on, as they say, like Donkey Kong:






After a good while of burning the couch, paranoia kicked in and the idea of the cops being called seemed more and more plausible as the stench of the couch was untenable even for those who thought burning the couch was a great idea. Thus ended the story of this couch, and cleanup in the morning was a blast, of course.



But hey, at least I got some cool pictures...


God I need a girlfriend...

Lazy Links - Surge Edition

I'm too lazy to write anything today (A lazy blogger you say?!?!?)...Here are a couple links:

A Tribute to Fallen Sodas - Man, I could really go for a nice Orbitz or Surge right now. However, I always hated how Orbitz's little gelatin bubbles got stuck in your throat.

SUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRGGGGGGEEEEE!!!!

First Trailer for Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds! - The nerd boner in my pants loves Tarantino movies, war movies, gore, and Brad Pitt. Wait, what?!?



What if Celebrity Nudity Database Picked the Oscar Winners - Everyone likes nudity. Nudity should win awards, I applaud those actors willing to put themselves naked on a 50 foot screen...Unless it Phillip Seymour Hoffman...Speaking of which (I'm going to do some thinking now):

Top 5 actors of actresses who go nude and still have a serious acting career:

5) Angelina Jolie - Really started out her career getting down and dirty and hasn't stopped: see Gia and Firefox, but especially Gia (if you are a male and haven't, please castrate yourself). Can I call Tomb Raider or Wanted serious films? No. But how many UN ambassadors can get naked all the time and still be taken seriously?
4) Ralph Fiennes - Killer crazy back tattoo in Red Dragon and has never shied away from getting in the buff if the role called for it.
3) Keira Knightley - For not having the most to show, she sure does love to show it.
2) Charlize Theron - A serious actress who proved her mettle in Monster, and showed the least nudity of pretty much any film she's been in. Love her in 2 Days in the Valley, an underrated film.
1) Kate Winslet - Burst into the public eye with most famous PG movie nudity since Top Gun in Titanic, and pretty much gets out of clothes in any role she can. (Update: Okay, Titanic was PG-13, I really wanted to use the Top Gun volleyball scene reference okay?) She's going to win the Oscar, just you watch.

(Side note: I think Top Gun in Titanic is a great film premise: What if an F14 crashed into a luxury liner while the passengers were playing a perfectly heterosexual game of oily, ass slapping, volleyball.)

(Side note 2: I find the plot keywords for Top Gun on IMDB amusing, it is truly the best movie ever made.)

First Wedding Gift?

Surprisingly even though I am about to turn 26 years old I have yet to have to attend a friend's wedding. None of my really close friends are really even engaged. The one exception to this is one of my best friends who I have known since middle school. He and his fiancee' are getting married in June in the wine country part of California.

So naturally they have done what I assume all hip engaged kids are doing these days, they started a website for the event. They have also put their gift registries online to make it oh so easy for guests to purchase things for them. Since the kid is a really good friend of mine, I figure I should prolly get them something decent. But a $40 pepper grinder, uh yeah, not so much (sorry man if you read this and were really hoping to get that from me).

The amazon.com registry had them rate things that would be "nice to have", like to have" or "love to have"...now I can figure out that love is the things they want most, but which is better "like" or "nice"? I mean, I "like" "nice" things...It's also "nice" to have things I "like"...These are the things I'd like to have learned by now.

I also have some other questions and observations:

Really, you want two olive oil sprayers? You really use that much olive oil in aerosol form? That's pretty impressive...I'd buy you one, but as much as you'd love to have it, I cannot buy you two on principal.

That $43 pepper grinder is only 29.99 on Amazon...poor sucker that buys that on BB&B...

I wonder who wanted this, her or him? Seems like an odd gift for a wedding, you're married now, you're supposed to be able to stop watching your weight so much...right? right?

I'm all about Apples to Apples, but apparently its only "nice to have" so that's out...but I do encourage playing with the Michael-Jackson-Card-Always-Wins rule if you get this gift.

So anyways, I need help picking out a gift for them. Here are the things I have narrowed it to:

Square White Dishware I thought this was a good choice style wise. I'd eat at your house if served on these...and they prolly have a nice heft for throwing in arguments. Very important.

Stainless Steel Flatware Apparently this serves 8. Good savings on Amazon, I can appreciate that.

PUR Water Filter thingy Clean water is the key to a happy marriage I'd think.

Fasta Pasta Maker Does this thing actually work? I'd prolly force them to make me some pasta just to see if it does. If I bought this I'd have to buy something else too, prolly the Egg Rite Egg Timer. Maybe I'll get them anyway, just cause they seem like good funny gifts.

If you're only friends with one of the couple really, is it bad etiquette to ask the guy what he'd want? Would adult shop gift certificates be ill-advised? Maybe I'll hide those in the Fasta Pasta Maker.

A Childhood Hero Lost

Alright, since its the major sports/news story of the day and its all I've been watching, I'd like to throw my two cents in on ARod and steroids.

Beginning my real love for the Seattle Mariners right before the time when Alex Rodriguez was called up to the big leagues, ARod was one of my favorite players from the moment he stepped on the field. I even have a false memory of him hitting a home run in his first plate appearance as a Mariner (he didn't actually hit his first ML home run until June 12, 1995). I knew he was going to be a star from the first time I saw the lanky kid playing shortstop. He, like my absolute favorite player of all-time Ken Griffey Jr., always seemed to have fun playing the game. They were like kids out there and they made the game fun to watch.

Then he walked away from Seattle, taking Tom Hicks' $252 million to play for the Texas Rangers, a hated division rival. I hated him for it for a long time. I was in attendance at Safeco Field when he returned with the Rangers for the first time and I joined in the choruses of boos and "Pay-Rod" chants. Yet the kid could still mash the ball, play spectacular defense and as long as his teams were still mediocre with no pitching I could still admire him from an objective viewpoint. I never shyed away from picking him or trading for him in fantasy leagues. He was still on a path to being one the greatest of all-time.

Now that he has admitted to steroid use in his three year stint in Texas I am really torn on how to react. If it really was only a three year mistake and nothing else comes out about any other use, we can probably overlook it when evaluating his Hall of Fame credentials right? His numbers really weren't that much better in Texas and he was cheating in an era where many, many other players were. With theoretically nine more years in his career, he has ample time to show that the drugs weren't really all that "performance enhancing".

I was surprised that he was so forthcoming in todays interview with Peter Gammons. He didn't really need to be, he could have just said it was a couple time thing or that he "thought it was flaxseed oil" (thank you Barry). But he was contrite (something we haven't seen from ARod recently) and seemed pretty genuinely sorry.

While I don't necessarily buy all of the story (he quit because he had an epiphany in a hotel room during spring training of the year he tested positive even though he didn't know he had tested positive until 2004? Um, really?) I tend to only believe the timeline because he seemed to admit to much more than he had to, maybe that's just good PR but I can appreciate that.

Sit Your Ass Down!!!

Welcome to the Hammock District everyone! At first I'm sure this will just be friends following, but I hope that I can entertain enough of them to get the word out.

I want this to be a collection of my favorite things as well as things I find amusing during my surfs through the series of tubes (which I have ample time to do these days).

I love Desert-Island-Top-Five lists, so there will be a lot of those...but I welcome any followers to throw out there own lists in the comments section. I'm always looking for new things, music, food, etc. to try so please don't be shy.

This will be laid back and (I hope) humorous, so welcome and please store your luggage in the overhead bin making sure to put your oxygen mask on before assisting any children that may be with you.