Costumes

Here are the boys in there costumes. Ryan went as Mr. Incredible (he says he is Dash, but Dash is not ripped like this) and Brett went as a Monkey. Isabel was a pumpkin, but it is kind of hard to tell.

You knew it was going to happen...

This is so pathetic, but you knew this was going to be a costume idea this year. I just can't believe a celebrity - wait is Bill Maher really a celebrity? - stooped this low to wear this out in public. Funny thing is, he looks frickin' WASTED in this shot. And DAYUMMM he has got a huge nose! It is so sad that people are going to dress up as Steve Irwin. But it would be pretty easy, I am sure a lot of people have khaki shorts, so all you need is a khaki shirt and some construction boots. (I admit, I wore them with my tightrolled jeans in the late 80's!)

Halloween

Well, it's Halloween, and just another day to me. It's not that I hate Halloween or anything, but there was just some point in my life that it became on of those "meh" days. Yeah my mom used to go to great lengths to make creative outfits for us, and we lived in a small town so the trick or treating was great! Then in the 80's some stupid people had to start putting razor blades in the chocolate bars and from there on, it was not the same.

I can remember dumping out all of our candy so mom and dad could make sure there were no opened ones, and no popcorn balls. Popcorn balls, or anything 'homemade' was prohibited. Because let's face it, Larry, the crazy bachelor next door, probably coated his with Jack Daniels caramel sauce, and that is not good for little kids.

So for the next year after the famed razor blade incident, instead of trick or treating, the parents took us to Bakers Square in Joliet for dinner. I was in Jr. High, so I was outgrowing the whole trick or treating scene anyway. But since then, it just seems like you have to be extra careful, because there are a lot of weirdos out there. And sadly, a lot of people that like to harm children.

Then when you reach that age of being too old, you have to improvise. So, living in a small town, and being a teenager, we transitioned to terrorizing little kids. My friends and I would dress up in something scary and hide in the shadows of our dark street and try to scare as many kids as possible. It worked, too well at times. I remember one time the mother of the kids we scared let out this horrible scream, and started to chase us! Then she realized she was going to leave her scared kids in the dark, so she stopped.

Then, as we got older..it became criminal activity; pumpkin smashing. This is a staple of Halloween. If you had a pumpkin, we smashed it. Even smashed a clay one once. By the time I realized it was clay, I was already in the throwing motion. Was fun had by all, except for the owners of the pumpkins.

So I do have some good memories of Halloween, and it is getting fun now that the kids are old enough to understand it. So hopefully my kids will enjoy Halloween for years to come, until some stupid idiot decides to put something harmful in the candy.

*** pics of Little Slingers to come later today

Picture of the Day

Mama Slinger and I were in downtown Chicago Sunday morning and saw this man near the UIC campus.

Have to give him credit for being smart enough to find an alternative mode of transporting his keg! I guess the kids outgrew the stroller, so he found another use for it.

I don't think he liked me taking his picture though, he glared at me as we drove by him.

Da Bears!

Holy crap, 7-0! And this week the offense decided to come back and play!
Bears 41 San Francisco 10

On a side note, my Broncos fought very hard, but were unable to defeat Indy (yet again) and lost 34-31. So much for Denver's second rated defense!

"Skewering a Denver defense that was designed specifically to stop him, Manning led the Indianapolis Colts over, around and through the Broncos on Sunday, throwing for 345 yards and three touchdowns to Reggie Wayne for a message-sending 34-31 victory" - NFL.com

Flashback Fridays

I know McGone has this, but the wife thinks it is weird. Anyway… I have a pretty good memory, but it seems to be tied directly to music. I don't mean just a single song, I am talking a whole album. I can think of a song or band, and I can remember where I was when I bought the CD or saw them in concert. One particular band, I can remember buying each of the 5 CD's I have, and what point in my life I was at. I can hear a song on the radio from a certain band, and immediately I will think about a certain time in my life that the song relates to. I don’t have the lovey dovey songs that remind me of ex-girlfriends, these are more random memories. Since I have this ALL THE TIME, I decided to do a weekly post on it; Flashback Fridays

This week’s flashback comes courtesy of Urge Overkill:
Flashback to Northern Illinois University –
This is where I first heard of Urge Overkill and I was hooked on the song Sister Havana. I played it over and over, much to the dislike of my psycho roommate J.W. Ah, good ‘ol J.W. Thanks to McGone, he jinxed me with a bad roommate. [Before I went to NIU, McGone had joked about how I was going to get some weirdo roommate that watched me sleep and had a poster with a cat hanging from a tree that said “Hang in There!”] Well, I get to NIU, meet J.W. and sure enough, he is a weirdo. He was a big-time computer geek, and back in 1993 it was not the internet, it was all ICQ and coded chat rooms, and online DOOM gamers. Well, he used to log onto our phone everyday and talk to people online, about games. He would let us play games from time to time, but he one strict rule – NO DRINKING BY THE KEYBOARD! Yeah, we always drank by it when he was gone.
Well – as for the poster, it was not a cat, but a Raccoon hanging from a branch. THANKS McGONE! And he had a mop of hair like Cousin It, and he would always mumble to himself while he did things.
Well, McGone would stop by once in a while to get me for breakfast before class, and one time he knocked, but no answer, I was still sleeping. I slept in A LOT! So McGone tried the door to see if he could wake me up, and it was unlocked, so he opened it. IN a quick split second he saw J.W. sitting in his bed and there was a flurry of sheet activity as he tried to cover himself up. Then McGone just said “oh, I was trying to wake up Eric, sorry” I was still sleeping, McGone left before waking me up, don’t blame him. From what we can gather… DUDE WAS JACKING OFF WHILE WATCHING ME SLEEP!

After that, I had enough. That week I talked to the R.A. and I moved in with Ralph, down the hall. His roommate had got kicked out of school, so it worked out good for both of us. I talked to J.W. a few times the rest of the year, but he was a nut case. He made everyone on the floor feel uncomfortable.

Main reason for posting this was, we saw Urge Overkill in concert at NIU, and this girl Amy Lovell came up to go with us. I failed to tell her I had a girlfriend - Jules. So McGone, Jules, me and Amy all leave for the concert, and then Amy realizes that Jules is my girlfriend. I felt bad for not saying anything. Oh well. We rocked at the concert, mosh pit dude annoyed McGone and we actually got his shoe off of him and threw it at him as he attempted to crowd surf. After the concert, we all went to La Salsa (thanks McGone, for the name) for quesadillas and Amy went home. I felt bad, Amy thought she was going to stay with me, we had a good friendship, but I think she thought it was going to be more, but I was not honest with her. We are still friends now, when I see her.

Bob Sugar in the house!

"it's not show friends, it's show business"

I actually heard one of our sales guys say this today on a call with a customer. What a tool!

I can only imagine the nervous laughter that came from the other side of the phone.

I wish Dave would communicate these things to me!

As my buddy McGone pointed out to me this morning....Foo Fighters have a live album coming out. WTF?!?! How the HELL did we not hear about this before hand? Thank god for the little gremlins in the computer that work for Apple, they used iTunes to communicate this to McGone. I belong to the mailing list for the Foo Fighters, and I got SQUAT! Little pissed off here Dave! (Yes, Mr. Grohl has a restraining order against me, and a cease and desist order to stop calling him by his first name, but I am mad) I thought we were buds Dave? Or did you just crash our friends wedding for the hell of it?

Not like I missed out on the album though, it is scheduled to be released Nov 7th, but I like to think I have the inside track when it comes to stuff like this.

Anyway, here is the info on the live album:

Titled SKIN AND BONES

Track Listings
1. Razor
2. Over And Out
3. Walking After You
4. Marigold
5. My Hero
6. Next Year
7. Another Round
8. Big Me
9. Cold Day In The Sun
10. Skin And Bones
11. February Stars
12. Times Like These
13. Friend Of A Friend
14. Best Of You
15. Everlong

DVD will be available on the 28th.

Road Trip 2006

Well, we survived our first family road trip. My father-in-law grew up near Gettysburg, PA and we usually go out there once a year. This time, was the first time with all 3 kids, so the 12 hour drive was going to be a test of patience for us.

We left Thursday night at about 9:30pm, hoping to miss the horrible traffic that clutters the Indiana-Illinois border on I-80. It was my idea to drive all night, because I was hoping that would allow the kids to sleep a lot better. Boy was I wrong. Isabel did fine, she slept for the most part, but the boys were a different story.
They both fell asleep right after we left, but once we got into Indian we made a pit stop and they both woke up. So we turned on the DVD player for them, figuring they would fall back asleep. Brett eventually fell asleep again, but Ryan was awake until we got into Pennsylvania – about 7 hours later! He was awake until about 4am! I think he was so excited about going on a trip and into the mountains, that he was afraid he would miss something.
The only bad point was when Brett woke up, and he wanted me to hold him, but I was driving. Well he got all worked up and then he puked. So we had to make a quick stop to get him calmed down and change his clothes. Was a little hard for whoever was not driving.. they sat in the back with Isabel to keep her company in case she woke up. So the view from the back seat was nothing glorious!

The drive was not bad, except that it rained from the minute we got into Ohio and all the way until we arrived in Gettysburg. Seems like the few times I have driven in Ohio, it has rained. Pennsylvania was not bad, except driving in the mountains on the Turn Pike in the dark is a bit scary. Anyone that knows the Turn Pike knows how curvy it is, so add rain, darkness and even dense fog, and you have a wonderful drive, right?! We go through 4 tunnels in Penn, and we tried to keep Ryan awake for them, but he was passed out, so it was ok.

The weekend was good. Friday we went to the UTZ Potato Chip factory for a tour of how chips are made. Pretty interesting. For those of you that don't know UTZ chips, they are great! They also make Pretzels and popcorn, very good stuff. Had a wedding to go to on Saturday, and it was nice and sunny out, and the kids danced a lot at the wedding reception. Ryan definitely has my dancing skills (I never said they were good skills, but he has some good moves!).

The hotel had a pool so we took the boys in that after the wedding, and they got to play with Zack and Brady for a while. Sunday was pretty relaxing. Us guys went with my FiL to the battlefields in Gettysburg. He is a huge Civil War buff so it is interesting to see him give us tours, he knows so much about it.

Monday we left at 5am to drive back to Illinois. The kids did GREAT! Isabel slept for pretty much the whole 12 hour trip. She woke up when we stopped for gas and changed her and fed her. After that, she slept. The boys watched TV and took a few naps, they too were great. No vomit this time! They also got to see the Tunnels this time, so Ryan was happy! We had a little snow in PA, but nothing too bad. Ohio State Patrol was out in full force Monday. I must have seen about 10-12 people pulled over on I-80, was amazing. And I have to give a shout out to Ohio Transportation – Ohio has the best Service Plazas in all of the traveling I have ever done. Those things are NICE! Was a good drive back, was nice to be back in our own beds!

And thank god for the brains at Apple, the iPod was the perfect traveling companion at 3am while the family slept. For all you travelers...the following are very good musical companions whilst on the road --- Tom Petty, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Andy Hunter, The Black Crowes, Joe Satriani, The Chemical Brothers (just to name a few). Because we all know you need some good rocking music to help keep you awake. That, and a bag of something loud to munch on (Gardetto's snackens) and a big bottle of a caffeinated soft drink(Coca Cola).

** More photos to come tonight, and also a link to the Flickr photos.

Gettysblogger

Coming at you live from the Hilton Garden Inn, in Gettysburg, PA! Woo-Hoo!

Well, we drove 12 hours last night, from 9pm Chicago time to 9am PA time. Isabel did good, Brett did so-so on the sleeping, and he puked all over his blanket. Ryan, slept maybe a total of 4 hours. He was up all night, and is so exhausted today.

Just a quick post today, as the rest of the family is napping, and I am about too as well. So between the 3 blow-out diapers from Isabel, the puke from Brett and the constant "we gong on a trip?" questions from Ryan....I have slept a total of 2 hours in the past 24 hours. FUN!

I am documenting our trip with pictures so I will add those on Tuesday.

I too, have pictures of mountains

This is to Utah Dagger. Since he has been posting pics of mountains all the time, it made me want to scan in some of my old photos.

Since I will be incommunicado for the next 4 days, I will leave you all with this.

More Colorado pictures HERE

Long day

Today we are leaving for Pennsylvania - a nice 12 hour drive with the kids. I stayed up last night until 3am to get used to driving all night tonight. Pretty damn tired right now, but have to work until 12. Then go back to sleep for a few hours.
So I am sure I will have plenty of stories come Tuesday! Wish me luck!

Something annoying:
I don't know about ya'll, but the commercials that have a group of friends sitting around talking about Valtrex, or someother drug, and the side effects, like it is everyday conversation....very annoying. Like I am supposed to believe that 3 women are sitting in a night club discussing "if you are pregnant, or nursing, it is not good to take Valtrex..." The drug companies are trying so hard to make it look COOL, when it is really just annoying.

Funny stuff

So I am up late tonight (that story will follow tomorrow, or later today actually) and found some funny stuff online:

VeryFunnyAds

http://veryfunnyads.com/ads/24735.html

http://veryfunnyads.com/ads/24975.html

There are some pretty funny ads on here, mainly international ones though.

Mystery Solved

Wow, the Red Sox never had a chance!

** Click on the picture to read the whole story from ESPN Page2.

My gifts to you, the loyal reader

Not that the following are really gifts, but just some cool stuff that I felt like sharing with my readers. As always, random stuff that may be funny, educational or weird.

The United States population eclipses 300,000,000. You know what this means? More and more people are doin the hippidy-dippidy!

Do you ZILLOW? This is kind of cool, plug in your address and see what your house is worth, as well as your neighbors. *Amounts are not 100% accurate, but an average*

How much does Joe Satriani rock?

I first heard The Extremist when I was in Colorado with Dahootie and I was hooked. As to date, The Extremist and Crystal Planet are my faves. His most recent stuff I have not heard, but I know he went through a little electronica phase, but that was not positively accepted by his fans, from what I read. Either way, once in a while the iPod plays one of his songs, like Summer Song, and I have to listen to all of his songs. Today is one of those days. I proclaim today as Joe Satriani day. So if you have any of his CD's, put them on and enjoy the lift his music gives you! You can check out his site at www.satriani.com

HOLLYWEIRD
Back in the day, McGone and I used to be some pretty heavy hitters. We were almost 'hollywood', or "all that and a bag of chips" - at least we thought we were. All of that was great, but you know...you can only attend so many parties with the elite crowd, and can only receive so much SWAG, that at some point you have to take a step back. So that is what we did. We decided to hang up the hollywood lifestyle and settle back into a more down-home routine. For me, it was going back to school for computers and working for the megaman Telecom company that I call home now. No name dropping, but will say it is NOT Verizon, but the other global heavy hitting company. And for McGone it was going to NIU and then working for an award winning local newspaper. Not so glamorous, we know, but it was the right thing to do.

Now that we dumped that whore Holly Wood, she has gone and dug up some trash on us. Not really trash, so much, just pictures that she SWORE would never be leaked to the media. Below is a picture of us in our glory days, kickin' it old school by the poolside with some of our MANY hunnies. What can we say, whatever we were doing at the time, we just rolled with it baby!

And now the movie roles are POURING in, and we just can't go back to that life-sucking world again. It would just be too hard to forgive Holly Wood for what she did to us, and what we did to her. It be that nervous laughter, uncomfortable silence type encounter of past lovers who had moved on, before telling each other goodbye.

So we will maintain our normal lives as we do everyday, and just pretend this picture is a fabrication of various events, put together by some media slug.

10 years! TEN YEARS MAN!

On Saturday, MamaSlinger and I headed to downtown Chicago to attend her 10 yr class reunion. She went to Mt. Assisi Academy, an all girl’s catholic school, in Lemont, IL.

The reunion was from 8-11pm at this place called ZELLA. So we left the homestead around 6:30pm to jump on I-90 and go downtown. Well, 1 hour and 45 minutes later we arrived! What should have been about a 45 minute drive, turned into a bumper-to-bumper drag. It is amazing that on a Sat night, that interstate can be SO congested.

So we arrive at Zella a little after 8pm, check in, and go into the back room. Now this place is just a small 2 room bar, and the back room is divided off to make a semi-private room for the reunion. The room is full of women, and a handful of men. We talk to a few people, I get the standard “husband” introduction and we mingle. I get introduced to another husband and we started talking. They had the NLCS game on one TV and the Michigan-Penn State game on another. SO naturally, we talked sports. He was a nice guy, talked for about an hour, and I actually don’t know his name. It was either Jim, John or Jack. Either way, really nice guy, even if he did go to Notre Dame. (Sorry McGone)

Anyway, for $40 a person, we got open bar (draft beer) and appetizers. Well the appetizers were basically vegetables with dip, some cheese dip and a spinach dip with pita bread. Was not worth the price, since we only had 2 drinks each, and I had a few appetizers.

But she had a good time catching up with all her old classmates, and I had a good time to. I can basically talk to anyone in situations like that, so I talked to a few people as I watched the games on TV. We left a little after 11pm to head home and were home by 12am. Much faster ride home.

Few things I did notice…for all of these women being “catholic school girls” they sure did smoke a lot, I mean A LOT. MamaSlinger said “maybe they all smoked in school and I didn’t know it”. I think it goes with the whole “you have to follow the rules of the school” ideals that catholic schools put into your minds. A lot of people that I know that attended catholic schools always seemed to be the ones that got into trouble. Like the rebellious side acting out against the hand that controlled them.

And, despite what little fantasy is going through BDPD’s mind right now…the room was not filled with 40 women wearing their catholic school girl uniforms. Sorry Brian. But here is a little image for your brain to process...

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Monday...ah the glorious day that brings all of us working folk back to the grind. It's a damp dark morning here today. And I get to my desk and log in and start doing work, and then I get a nice visitor....

I have 2 cabinets above me at my desk, and as I am replying to an email, I see something in my peripheral vision moving. I look up, and there is a nice spider making his way down my cabinet. And he stops as soon as I look at him, almost as if to say "oh shit, he saw me, maybe if I stop moving I won't get smashed" So I grab a napkin and go in for the kill.....
...2 minutes later....
I FINALLY kill him, but not after he puts up a fight. Right as I was about to smash him he scurried down to the bottom of the cabinet and actually started to glide down to the counter using his webslinger! For one, I had to give him props for trying to out run someone 500 times his size. But I also had to think that was the dumbest move he could do. He totally left himself hanging and vulnerable. He was obviously not skilled in the art of deception. Yeah, I took pride in the chase of this little guy.

So I smack him out of the air, and where does he land? ON.MY.LAPTOP. D'oh! He was smart though, he just sat there. He obviously thought "HA! No way is this guy going to risk getting spider guts on his laptop keyboard!" He was right, but he didn't bet on me having a can of compressed air cleaner either! I blasted him off the keyboard with the Lemon-scented, moisture free, non-ozone depleting air, sending him flying back onto my desk. This obviously stunned him, because he didn't move after that. I guess that shot probably felt like 4G's to him, so he was lucky to land on his feet.

Then as I moved in for the kill again, he scurried UNDER my laptop! DAMN! This guy was not going easily! He obviously thought he was safe here, but as I lifted the laptop up, he just sat there. Maybe he knew it was no use to run anymore.

The moment before I heard the crunch of him under the napkin, I had to give him credit for the daring escape. Little guy put up a good fight, but was no match for the ozone-friendly compressed air, and the AT&T cafeteria napkin.

I don't get scared of spiders, they really don't bother me. But at the same time, I can't be sharing my already small desk space with a little arachnid who probably has a family of about 30 sitting somewhere in the nearby shadows. So I had to defend my territory.

iPod Vending Machine

I was in Macy's last week and saw this huge vending machine in the clothing department. I thought... Hmmm, that's weird. Then as I walked up closer, I saw what it was. A large machine that serves up Apple iPods! Amazing. I had heard about this a few months back, but never saw what one looked like, until now....

With the swipe of a credit card, you can purchase a Nano or Shuffle, along with various accessories, gift cards, batteries and some even sell digital cameras. I could have sworn that the one in Macy's also had the iPod video in there, but I could be wrong. Since I already have an iPod, I didn't really stop and investigate, just made a mental note and moved on. This is a genius idea, eliminates the lines and pushy Apple salesman encounter.

Respect the Wolfe

Fitting, since it is Black Friday....

It looks like Garrett Wolfe is finally starting to get some recognition for the monster stats he is putting up this year!

Wolfe leads the nation in rushing, has put up bona fides against Ohio State, fellow Mid-American Conference members (353 yards and three TDs -- two others were called back -- against Ball State) and still has Iowa, among others, on the schedule. He also leads the country in all-purpose yards and scoring, and he is averaging more yards per rush (8.6) in a single season than former Heisman winners Barry Sanders and record-holder Mike Rozier (7.8).

Blame it on BLACK FRIDAY

Ok, so today is Friday the 13th, big deal. The two middle-aged (I am being generous on the age) women that sit by me keep talking about how “you know its Friday the 13th, because this morning my coffee machine broke, and I had a dickens of a time finding my keys!” Yeah, blame it on Friday the 13th. Whatever. They annoy me on a daily basis, but today, it seems that their voices are carrying louder and farther. Must be because it’s Friday the 13th, yeah..that's it.

For those of us that work in an office, specifically a cube environment, there are certain things that I am sure annoy everyone. Listed below are a few of my favorites…

1. I listen to my iPod, yet my neighbor will stand up and start a conversation with me, knowing that I have my headphones in, and have not heard a word he said. Then when I say “What?” he replies “Oh, listening to your music?” Duh
2. Sometimes I have to go to a customer site, and will wear a shirt and tie. On these days I hear the same question from said cube neighbor “Big meeting today?” Let’s see, it’s Friday, which is usually jeans and sweatshirt day, and I am wearing a tie. Related: when your shirt is wet and someone asks you “Oh, is it raining out? You do the math.
3. Every so often, I will hear said cube neighbor let out a big *SIGH*, usually after he has just gotten off of a conference call. I believe he does this so one of his fellow cube mates will ask him “Bad call huh?” Yet no one asks him that, but he will proceed to tell us about his bad conf call.
4. The woman 2 cubes over that has a chronic hacking problem. We believe it may be a nervous tick, but she is constantly clearing her throat and coughing.
5. The loud guy 3 isles over that has no regard for decency and will spit out sexual innuendos all day, even though women work all around him.

I may need to invest in this thing: http://www.cubeshield.com/home/

I know I may be ranting, but it is just like OFFICE SPACE in my office some days. And since today just happens to be Friday the 13th…I am just going to blame it on that. Seeing as how it is only 8:45am, this post may get bigger as the day goes on

iTunes may be the best thing ever

So I was on iTunes the other night and I always try to check out the Free Download of the week. I have found some pretty good music this way, and plus it broadens my musical perspective. Otherwise I could sit on there for hours looking for new music and not really knowing what I want to look for.

Well this week's free download is from Mute Math - Plan B. So I gave it a sample, liked it and downloaded it. Then I started to do some reading on them and found this:

"Every now and then a band explodes from the grassroots. Thanks to phenomenal Internet exposure that led to soldout shows across the country, Mute Math is just such a story. Playing this summer at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and on the Warped Tour has resulted in the group’s major-label debut with a selftitled album. An inspired Alt-Rock band from New Orleans, Mute Math melds hip-hop–styled beats, moments of beauty and grandeur, big hooks, and vocals that pay homage to classic rock." - Amazon.com

I sampled the other tracks on iTunes and liked what I heard, so I downloaded a majority of them. Have to say, this was a pretty good find. This album is pretty damn good.

Other bands that iTunes has introduced me to*:
Fivespeed, Stereophonics, Snow Patrol, The Shins, Brand New, Andy Hunter, Black Stone Cherry, Gnarls Barkley.

* some of the above bands I had heard of, but never listened to them until I saw them pop up on iTunes either in the Free Download, or just in the Featured Artist segment.

October snow

October snowfall
Originally uploaded by Slinger5.

Yeah, it was only a dusting of snow, but the kids, and Molly, liked it! They were outside playing for a little bit this morning, even though it was 32 degrees!

Should be interesting to see how Brett does this winter when he plays in the snow for the first time.

Change can be bad or good

In the case of professional sports teams, usually a drastic change in the name, colors or logo. Such is the case in the NHL. Two teams have changed their logos this year, and one of those teams shortened their name. In the past, a drastic change can sometimes mean good fortunes, and sometimes bad fortunes. Usually when a team gets an updated logo and colors (Tampa Bay Bucs - NFL) they do better. Sometimes they don't - see Phoenix Coyotes.

Anaheim Mighty Ducks are no longer Mighty...they are simply the Anaheim Ducks. I am not too crazy about the logo, but the colors are better and the name is better as well. The purple and teal colors of the past were kind of girlie, and reflected too much on the Disney control. I cannot find a good picture of the new logo (actually, the lack of a logo stuns me) but here is the old one that was simply retarded, and the new wording that is on their jerseys. Also, here is a link to the Design Firm that created it.

<---OLD NEW--->







The Buffalo Sabres have gone from the Black, White and Red to Blue and Gold. Similar to the colors they were in the 90's, which I really liked. I think this was a good move for them, remind people of when they used to be a powerhouse in the NHL.
Personally, I really like the Sabres logo now. However they are using a different logo on the jersey... Personally I like the above logo better.

Ducks, could really care less either way. The old one looked like Donald Duck as a serial killer.

Either way, the changes may have helped, since both teams are 3-0-0 so far. But the season is very long, so we will see what happens.

* of course uniform really doesnt directly relate to success on the ice, but if I were in an old Duck jersey, I would feel like an ass and probably play like an ass.

****** UPDATE *****

This fact amazes me! Found on the first link in the comments from McGone:

Interesting note: The Anaheim Mighty Ducks logo is the best selling logo (jerseys, hats, jackets, etc.) since its introduction in 1994

Quote of the day

"You can make yourself happy, or you can make yourself miserable. The amount of work is the same."

This is on a sign in my office, and was fitting for the moment, since my day has been HELL and I had to engage my boss to deal with this F***ing idiot, who is actually in my department! I was on the verge of getting a major headache, and I passed this sign on my way back to my desk. Didn't make me happy, but made me realize I was getting worked up over something so small.

BECK album creation

** REPOSTED ** (is that a real word?)

I picked up the latest album from BECK the other day titled THE INFORMATION, having only heard one song. I must say, this album is incredible. I even had to go back and download all of GUERO after listening to this because I felt bad for not giving it a chance last year.
Also, this CD comes with a blank cover and has 4 sheets of stickers, so you can create your own cover, pretty cool. * my creation below *

For those that are only familiar with Beck from his album ODELAY and the single "Loser", this album is totally different, but really shows how he has grown as a musician. It is even much different than GUERO.

I give it a big BOO-YAH! rating and recommend it to anyone who likes Beck.

Broncos in PrimeTime

Monday Night Football tonight will see Denver(2-1) take on Baltimore (4-0) in a power struggle of two tough AFC teams. Denver is coming off of a Bye week, but have homefield advantage. Especially with the forecast calling for 1-3 inches of SNOW! Gotta love NFL games in the snow!

Yes, Baltimore is 4-0, however in 2 of those games they had to fight hard to come back from a deficit to win. So if Denver can get on the board quick, this should be a good game. Denver is favord by 5 1/2 points. So hopefully we will see quite a few celebrations like this tonight.

*** UPDATE ***
Denver 13
Baltimore 3

Hard fought defensive game, but thank God Jake Plummer's arm was finally put to good use in the 4th quarter to hook up with Javon Walker for a few first downs, then the TD to Rod Smith. Plus I HATE Ray Lewis, so it was nice to see him keep his big mouth shut. It rained during the game, but no snow. GO BRONCOS!

Little Bears fans

Little Bears fans
Originally uploaded by Slinger5.

DA BEARS!

Wow, it's hard to believe that it is actually FUN to watch the Chicago Bears play football! They are now 5-0 and on a roll! However they do have a tough stretch coming up in November. They play the Giants, Jets and Patriots, ALL three games on the East Coast. That will be the real test.

We got these outfits a few weeks ago and finally put the kids in them. Ryan loved his sweatshirt and he didn't want to take it off. Of course now he is in this phase where he doesn't want to do anything you tell him to do. We go to the store, on the way home all you hear is "I don't want to go home" It is kind of cute until you pull in the driveway and he refuses to get out of the car. So I leave him there and act like I am going to shut the garage door, then he finally get's out.

Game on!

Woo-Hoo! It's time for some hockey! And Chicago is getting ready to hoist Lord Stanley's Cup after just one game! GO HAWKS!
And let's all welcome newcomer Martin Havlat to the Chicago area. He had a great game last night against Nashville: 2 G, 2 A and +/- of 2. Nice way to start the season.

Anniversary

Wedding Day
Originally uploaded by Slinger5.

Well, today is the day that MamaSlinger and I celebrate 4 years of holy matrimony. Wow time flies!
And for those of you keeping score at home... the total is 3 kids in 4 years! Yes we have been busy.

So for those of you that see or talk to MamaSlinger today, be sure to give her a shout out for putting up with my crap for 4 years, and wish her good luck for the remaining 56 years she has left on her marriage contract!

Light Show

Last night we had a pretty strong storm come through and put on a spectacular light show. So I grabbed my camera and took brett upstairs with me and got these shots from the boys' room. Thank god the boys do not get scared of lightning.

At one time the lightning hit was so bright and loud, MamaSlinger thought it hit our house. But about 5 minutes later 3 police cars raced into our neighborhood and then the fire trucks came. Never did see anything, so I think maybe the hit tripped someone's power and set off an alarm.

Anyway, you can see the other pictures I took HERE.

Corn Fest wrap-up

Well, it is Monday and the 58th annual Corn Fest has come and gone. The Slingers spent the weekend in Morris and took the kids to many events. Corn Fest is best described by McGone....

"For those who haven’t experienced a Corn Fest for themselves, let me summarize... Beer, idiots, people you never see except once a year, beer, corndogs, traffic, beer, various meats served on a stick, flannel, beer, and, of course, corn.On occasion, there has even been tear gas. That’s just how we roll in The GC."

For the readers who are NOT from Morris, it is a relatively small town of 13,000 about 60 miles SW of Chicago. Much of my family still lives there and many of my high school classmates still reside there as well.

Anyway, for those over 21, Fri and Sat are basically, known as, as Utah Dag puts it, "Beerfest". Lots fo drinking and walking and catching up with old friends. It was pretty nice this weekend so it was cool at night, except for Friday when it was cold.

The kids enjoyed being outside and seeing the tractors. They even had their first Corn Fest corn dogs. I know, you can buy corn dogs anywhere, but they do not compare to the ones you get once a year in Morris. Hard to explain, but us locals know the difference. AND, the Pork Chop on a stick is to die for, just ask Momma Slinger, she had one everyday.

The one event that is pictured was the Bean Bag Toss contest. This was a great idea if you ask me, put on by a local bar, it was a huge success. However this game is really called "Corn Hole" but I guess they didn't want to have that on the sign. Funny.

The final day is Sunday and they have a huge parade. Having been in numerous parades as a kid (I was a band geek until Sophmore year) I am really not interested in the parade, but the kids really loved it. And a lot of my cousins have kids and they all played together, so it was nice.

You can view the pictures HERE of the kids playing.