MyTunes Monday: Summer Song

Last week saw the official end of Summer so I thought this song choice was appropriate. There isn't anything to the video, but it's a beautiful piece of music.

Soldier Comes Out to His Dad

I meant to post this last Tuesday but I guess it slipped through the cracks.

Anyway, since the above video was uploaded to YouTube, it made it's way onto CNN's radar so I'll post that that video as well.

After all those "headless" videos, I gotta say he ended being pretty damn cute.

Weekend Preview: September 24, 2011

Here are some things I'm looking forward to over the next few days.

The first is actually something I'm not really looking forward to and it's the result of being awake right now. I got out of work late (2 hours ago) and I'm still not all that tired. However to keep up with routine, I'm still getting up at 8am. This pretty much means not getting much sleep for the second night in a row (for whatever reason, I woke up in the middle of the night last night and never really got back to sleep). Even though I have the time to sleep in it's something I don't like doing. I have some stuff I want to get done tomorrow before work. This means I'm probably going to be extra cranky at work (which is really saying something).

Virginia Tech football head coach Frank Beamer.

Speaking of which, I should be getting out relatively early tomorrow night. I need to find something to do, maybe crash a party or something. I pretty much owe it to myself because I almost always end up working late on Friday AND Saturday nights. Also, if Virginia Tech wins its game against Marshall (away), everyone will be all the more rowdy. This would make for an interesting night.

Green Bay Packers Wide Receiver Greg Jennings

I was originally supposed to be off Sunday but scheduling issues led to me working the long afternoon shift. Huge problem there because I had made plans before the change. Luckily someone switched shifts so I should be out in time to catch Green Bay play at Chicago. This is one of the oldest sports rivalries (and a rather bitter one) in U.S. sports. These two teams met 3 times last season (Green Bay lost the first, but had the last 2 laughs, the latter of which got us into the Super Bowl). Thank God this is a 4pm game. I'm already excited. I'm supposed to meet up with a mate (maybe some others too) to watch the game downtown. There's something really awesome about watching football with friends, drinking, and eating really unhealthy food.

This weekend has some promise, an unusual occurrence. Hopefully it lives up to that. Happy weekend everyone!!!

"You win, or you die."

I have been reading "A Game of Thrones" since the beginning of this month. I'm well over halfway through this book. Holy crap, it's amazing. I like getting books that I'll read over and over again (to me, that's the mark of a good book). I was a little afraid when I bought this that it wouldn't live up to that standard, but it is and then some.

This book is in large part about political games and back-stabbing, shifting alliance and allegiances, family ties, the quest for power, and the cost of power. So far as I have read, it isn't really heavy on the "standard" heavily fantasy stuff like magic and such. Someone who recommended this book to me said if I liked "The Lord of the Rings" then I would like this book. While I do love LotR, I don't see a lot of similarities between the two.

Also, this is no children's tale. There is foul language, sex, murder, and so on. This is definitely fantasy for adults.

I won't give away any spoilers, but where I have read in the past few days, characters are dropping like flies. Also, there was a jaw-dropping revelation about halfway through the book I did not see coming at all. I was amazed...and disgusted. My last status update on FaceBook pretty much sums up my reading to this point:

Characters are dropping like flies, I hate Sansa & Cersei, poor Bran, poor Jon, Tyrion is a tricky little bastard (pun intended), Arya is a girl after my own heart, would someone PLEASE kill Joffrey (pompous ass), and (as I said earlier) EWWW!!!

I think that about covers what I have read so far.

I'm not sure if I have written this elsewhere, but my plan is to have this book finished by month's end. I'm ahead of schedule right now by about a day (after being almost a week behind earlier this month, I've clawed my way back). A couple of girls I went to grade school with have read the book and/or seen the show and we've been talking about it regularly.

I definitely recommend this book (it's the first part of a series by the way).

Don't Ask Don't Tell is Officially Dead

Former Air Force Lt Col Victor Fehrenbach

Weekend Update: September 19, 2011

I'll keep this brief because I don't even want to think about everything that happened:

-Overworked. My feet were killing me at least half the time.

-Ate way too much (stress eating, it happens).

-The one thing I was looking forward to, going out with some mates who were in town, ended up not happening because I had to work too late Saturday.

-I don't know if it's allergies, weather, or what, but my sinuses are uber-clogged. I had to break down and reach for the Afrin nasal spray last night.

-It has been cloudy here for the past week. Seriously, VERY little to no Sun, and the clouds won't really break until this weekend...maybe.

-I was visited by the "Ghost of Make-Out Sessions Past" which was bitter sweet...as always (emphasis on bitter).

I don't want this to be an utter bitch-fest so I'll end on a high note. Football pretty much saved my weekend. The Green Bay Packers won in what ended up being a squeaker against the Carolina Panthers (so much for the awesome Cam Newton, 3 picks) so we're 2-0. Virginia Tech beat Arkansas State so we're 3-0.

On a completely unrelated note, we are just hours away from the official end of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Definitely a great thing for this country. It's pretty hypocritical for this nation to be called the land of the free when many of the very people who defend the country were restricted from being honest about who they are. I won't get to into that here since I did on my other blog (that post is scheduled to be posted after midnight tonight).

Hopefully this week will be better than the weekend was.

MyTunes Monday - Kiss You Off

Tweet of the Day September 17, 2011

100 Greatest "Shut Ups" in Films

"Titanic" actually made it twice. That actually a surprise.

Summer Fails

Today was the day I have dreaded for a few weeks now.  Today brought the first chill of Autumn and even though Autumn's beginning is not officially for another week, the high days of Summer are gone. It has been cool all day and clouds have been heavy with the threat of rain. I knew it was coming inevitably. I have also noticed the shortening of days (the change in day length is something I tend to have an acute awareness of). This is not the half of the year where I fair well. Cold is not my strong suit. Winter is always something of a struggle both physically and emotionally. Finding ways to keep my spirits up is definitely a must. It's a good thing I have a great book to read right now.

Tomorrow will not see 60 degrees here, and it will only get worse.

To quote the book I'm reading, "Winter is coming!" Time to brace for the storm.