A Minute with Jayman

Adios

2010-06-07T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well, today's the day I finally bid farewell to AMWJ. This may come as a little bit of a surpise to some of you, but others it probably won't be as I've been telling some of you that I've been thinking of pulling the plug for a while now. It just got to the point where it felt like something I had to do as opposed to something I wanted to do. I always maintained that I'd keep doing it as long as it got fun, but believe it or not it actually does take a little effort to crank out these blog entries every night, and I just don't have it in me anymore. If this was my actual job, it'd be ten times different, and AMWJ would be ten times better, but unfortunately that's just not the case. That's been the crappy part the past few months while I've been thinking about doing this was that my worst case scenario had come true. That scenario being I'm completely half @ssing the blog entries, it shows in the writing, it's not entertaining, and nobody wins.

We gave it a good run though. I just checked the site, we almost made it a full year (1st post was on 6/22/2009). I managed to get a very loyal following of somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 people I would guess. Unfortunately though, it never quite led to the world domination I was hoping for, or even any money or career opportunity whatsoever. Oh well, I gave it a hell of a run and I couldn't have done it without all of you, so I thank all those loyal AMWJsters for all the time you've put into reading my ridiculousness over the past year (all 220 posts of it). I thought about just scaling back to 1-2 posts a week, but the way I always figured it, the less active the site is, the more rapidly the interest declines. Seeing that I have 15-20 readers, I don't exactly have a lot of room for decreased interest! That's why I'm completely pulling the plug.

I'll miss the recaps the most. They were always the most fun and hopefully provided you guys with some solid entertainment. Nothing like my running commentary on all the funny randomness that would go on for me over the weekends and vacations. Who knows, maybe if I go on a vacation and a ton of stuff good happens I'll fire up the lapper on the plane ride home and crank out an entry for old time's sake and let all you guys know. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it though.

For now though, that's all for the Jayman. Thanks again for your loyal following over the past year. Definitely been a fun ride and I hope I provided you with some laughs. Certainly something I am glad I did as I do very much enjoy writing and it's kinda cool to have a written record of the past year, but it's time to move on. Now, you're just gonna have to keep up on the Jayman happenings the old fashioned way, by sending me an email (yeah, real old fashioned) or picking up the phone and calling me.

This is the Jayman signing out one last time.

RIP AMWJ.

Funny Joke

2010-06-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

No long AMWJ tonight as it's Game 1 of Lakers/Celtics and you're damned right I'm gonna watch every second of it. By the time this is over it'll be midnight and I'll be pooped. However, not all is lost. I read one of the funniest things I've ever read a couple minutes ago by Bill Simmons, who is doing a live running diary of the game from the Staples Center in LA.

Some guy writes in "The big trophy is lame" regarding the big fake trophy on the floor during warmups.

Simmons responds "It's kinda cool in person. I thought it was a statue of AC Green's scrotum on his wedding night for a while."

(AC Green claims he was a virgin until he got married)

Here's a picture of what it looked like. Hope you enjoy!

Golf Update and Some Missed Cincy Details

2010-06-02T19:10:00.000-07:00

Alrighty quick little blogger tonight cause Jayman is pretty beat. Just got back from the golf course and hit the showers and finally getting a few minutes to kick back and relax. Got a few things in store for all you AMWJsters though...

Golf Tonight:

- I swear, seriously I wonder why I even play sometimes. It's like I can write out the card before I even go out there. 49-44 for a 93 this week. SO much different than the 50-43 for a 93 I shot last week. Whatev, I had a blast anyway (and no, that was not a typo, I meant to say "Whatev"). Beers, cigars, and a hot dog at the turn...does it get any better than that? And I'm telling you, for $28 at Fairways of Halfmoon, you can't beat it.

- Definitely came the closest to dying out there that I've ever come before, so that was interesting. Me and AT had the cart by my ball, probably like 40-50 yards ahead of HemROYd and Timberlake, and a little off to the right. They were like maybe 150 yards from the hole or so. Bill was shooting, and I'm just gabbing away with AT, not really paying attention. You know, cause I was 40 yards ahead of him and off to the right when he was shooting at the green from 150 yards away and all. I'm talking with AT and all of a sudden he just yells "LOOK OUT!!!" I turn around, and the ball is coming RIGHT at my head. I just freeze and then hit the deck. The thing missed me by about 3 inches I think. Thank freaking God I got out of the way or who knows what the hell woulda happened. That had very serious like for real bad potential. We all got a couple good laughs out of it since I was fine, but aye aye aye, that was almost the end of the Jayman Era right there. First the plane that almost goes down, and then this. I'm scared to ask what's next...

Cincy Updates:

So it has come to my attention (from the Snitch basically) that I forgot to mention a few details about the trip, so I'm throwing them in there now.

- Missed Detail #1 - GW's friend out there came to the Reds/Astros game with us on Saturday evening. She had this old school 'Stros jersey that they wore in the mid 80's. Well when we all came back from the game, she brought going out clothes to change into, but we all stayed in. So the jersey was left at the GW's apartment. Well, the next day, GW and I both decide to try this thing on and Good Lord, you should've seen the carnage. CS took some pictures, if I can get a hold of them, I'll throw them up here. Let's just say it was skin tight and it didn't go past my bellybutton.

- Missed Detail #2 - When the GW had the jersey on, me and Snitch picked him up and we got a picture of it. It was great, we got GW mid belly jiggle laugh. Classic. Then, to rival the Hulkster body slamming Andre the Giants in Wrestlemania 3, me and the GW got Snitch up in the air and we got a picture of him too. The look of sheer terror on his face was very reminiscent of the Jayman on the Sky Coaster at the Great Escape last fall (youtube "Jay Gonyo" if you don't know what I'm talking about).

- Missed Detail #3 - When we were in line to get ice cream on Sunday evening, there were these 13-14 year old girls walking in the store next to us. At the same time I cut in front of Snitch, he yells out "No cutting in line" and one of the girls looks scared to death and was like "Umm, I'm not cutting" - classic Sitch!

I'm sure there are another million details that I missed but between last night's blogger and this one, that should have hit on all the major points.

Hope you all enjoyed this evening's edition of AMWJ. Thank your lucky stars you still have the Jayman in your life after that errant approach shot tonight, I know I am.

Alrighty that's it. Time to kick the feet up and watch some tube and then call it a night. Hope you had great days. I'll catch up with you soon...

Scumcinnati Recap

2010-06-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s the blog you’ve all been waiting for, the Scumcinnati recap blog! My God it seems like forever since I’ve even been in the 5-1-8, much less thrown a blog out there. It feels good. I needed to be surrounded by those filthy pigs out in the ‘Nati to get my zest for AMWJ back. Not like it matters, but I figured I’d throw it out there anyway; this is one of those fun blogs that I’m bringing to you from 30,000 feet above the ground. I’m telling you, the things I do for you people.

So the trip begins at the God awful time of 4:15 am on Saturday morning. That’s what time my alarm is set for as Big Red is going to pick us up (me and CS) at 4:30. Originally I thought I was going to be away for work last week, and not arriving back into Albany until Friday night, so we had to make the decision to fly out early Saturday morning. Then it turns out I didn’t have to go out of town, but we still had the early flight anyway. So just remember when I write all that stuff that happened on Saturday that I was awake on about 4 hours of sleep at 4:15 am. G-U-H.

After Big Red drives us to the airport like a bat out of hell (for no reason whatsoever, other than he’s just a horrible driver), we manage to take off sans problems. We’re in the air and on our way. However, right as we’re about to land, Big Red and I, since we’re in the 2nd row, can smell it clear as day the smell of burning rubber. Ruh roh. This can’t be good. Neither can the sudden nose dive we’re seemingly taking. Ah well, if this is the end of the road, it’s been a helluva ride and it’s probably a pretty painless way to go. But alas, the pilot managed to steer the ship clear of any danger and get us to the ground safely. Only, it’s a first for JTG when we get there. Immediately upon landing a couple of firemen come barging through the door to check out the cabin. Then the flight attendant says “Don’t worry about the emergency vehicles outside, they’re for us, but everything’s fine.” When I exit the plane, she wasn’t kidding, there was like 3 fire trucks and a few ambulances out there! And you thought I was kidding about escaping death.

So needless to say, after that rough flight, the Jayman had worked up an appetite. GW’s first order of business is taking us to this dive of a place that I must say does serve a pretty awesome breakfast. I get something called “The Hot Mess” which led to about a hundred jokes throughout the weekend that it would somehow leave a hot mess in my pants later on. Other than probably having enough calories to satisfy the old Jayman body for 3 weeks, it was great! Home fries, bacon, scrambled eggs all mixed together with biscuit gravy (whatever the heck that is) and a ton of cheese heaped on top. Not bad, I’ve been in the ‘Nati for 30 minutes and already I’m about 40,000 calories in. It’s gonna be a great weekend! GW even picks up the check, yessss…

So after we get breakfast, we go on a beer and cigar run. After all, what else are we going to do all day? We head across the border and ship it on over to Kentucky (only like 10 minutes away) and go to this liquor/beer/wine/cigar store. After finding what we wanted and paying for it, we head back on outside. Just to give you an idea of the kind of filthy people we’re dealing with here, let me just tell you what happened as I was walking out. I’m in the crosswalk outside the store, but a car is coming, so I’m waiting. Then he waives me on, so I go. I extend my hand as a thank you. He rolls down the window, and then is laughing as he says “Don’t worry, I only hit black people.” Alrighty then! I mean, I guess since he was black he can say that, but still. Only in Cincitucky.

After we get back to the GW’s house, it’s about 11:30 am. Well, whatever, it’s noon somewhere, it’s time to start playing some low limit poker, smoking cigars, and having a few brewskies. The next 5 hours are spent doing just that. All kinds of ridiculousness follows. I put a $1 bounty on the GW to whoever knocked him out. That got paid in about 12 seconds. Then he rebought and I put a $2 bounty on his head, and that got paid in about 20 seconds. I quickly put a 3rd bounty on his head but thankfully didn’t have to pay that one out. The Sitch bought in for $10 and had it up to about $25 at one point. GW then put a $5 bounty on his head and if we didn’t stop playing when we did, he would have almost certainly had to pay it as the Sitch (aka Big Red) cashed out a whopping $1.50. Way to be Big Red!

After the drinking and pokering session ended, we decided to hit up downtown ‘Nati for the Taste of Cincinnati Festival. At this point, the temperature was a whopping 91 degrees and with the humidity felt like about 125 degrees. Also, we were all a little drunk and pretty much starving since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast (when I got The Hot Mess, which I had turned into by about 3:00). I hit up about 4 different food stands and crush something from each and every one of them in about 3 bites. I’m fairly certain I ate it like a snake eats its prey, just in one huge solid gulp without chewing. I didn’t care, I was famished. Festival was pretty fun, there was lots of bands, food tents, brewskies, and of course, scumbags. What more could you ask for?

After that, we decide to head to the Reds/Astros game. After some very unsuccessful attempts at ripping off some scalpers, we ended up paying I’m sure more than face value for some outfield tickets ($20 each, but the cost of the ticket wasn’t on it…I was sure they were gonna be fake, but hey, what do ya know, we were actually allowed in). The seats weren’t horrible either. Only half a section up in dead center field. Let me tell you something, when you sit that far out in center field, you’re sitting with the scumbags! It was a blast though. The Reds put on a HR Derby out there for us, it was great. I think the Reds won like 11-2 or something, I have no idea. I just know I was barely paying attention and way more into drinking and being a filthy pig to everyone. Oh, and I was wearing Big Red’s “Motorboatin’ Champ” shirt and sweating like a pig in it. Good times, good times.

After the game, I have no idea how I was even standing at that point (after probably a dozen beers and again, I’ve been up since 4:15 in the morning). Surprisingly though, I’m actually not that bad. However, we make a beer run and do another session of late night pokering, smoking cigars, and I probably knocked back another 3 beers or so. Probably could have done without that. Adios to the Jayman, time to go to bed. We were all pretty tuckered out and decided to call it a night. I’m definitely drunk at this point, but again, given how much we drank, how much we were in the sun, and how early I’d gotten up on Saturday morning, all things considered, I fully expected to be much more of a drunken mess than I was. I was quite proud of myself. Fun drunk Jayman = Good. Too drunk Jayman = bad. I was solidly right in the Fun drunk stage all day Saturday.

Sunday morning rolls around and surprisingly everyone is actually in pretty good shape. How about that? We walk to a little coffee shop a mile or so from the GW’s place and get a cup of joe. Only, I got a smoothie instead cause I already had a cup at GW’s house. It’s another friggin’ hot one out there too. I sweat a lot, as anyone who knows me can attest, but my God, I thought Pollack was going to die of dehydration. Poor guy’s shirt was soaked. I thought me and the GW were going to have to carry him home! Luckily for us, we didn’t and he managed to make it in one piece.

After coffee we hit up a local hotspot called Terry’s for what are by far the filthiest, greasiest, greatest hamburgers you’re ever going to want to have in your entire life. Between my burger there and The Hot Mess on Saturday morning, I easily took 3 years off my life. Those will be the bedwetting years anyway, so not a big deal. We all eat like filthy pigs and love every second of it.

Speaking of filthy pigs, that’s exactly what we go to see next. We hit up the Cincinnati Zoo for the afternoon. Great times had by all. Anyone who wants to read my recap from last August when I went out to Scumcinnati with my Mom and we went to the zoo, it was pretty much the same as then. Lots of jokes about who was cleaner, the animals or the people there. Most of the animals there had way more teeth than the people there. Saw a polar bear take a big dump, which was pretty funny. The scummy guys next to me was like “Yup, definitely took a deuce” in the filthiest voice of all time, which I loved. Since it was about 145 degrees Fahrenheit, most of the animals were in heat induced comas, so that kind of stunk. GW wasn’t a fan when he was getting his picture taken while feeding a giraffe and I said “it’s the tallest thing in the zoo getting a picture with the shortest thing in the zoo.” Hey, I thought it was funny. And then an 8 year old was giving me lip when I thought a goat bit me as I tried to feed it. Wasn’t such a huge fan of that. All in all though, a great time had by all.

After the Zoo, we head back to the GW’s and ship it on over to the pool. We get there, and I couldn’t tell if I was in Scumcinnati or if I was on spring break in Cancun. It was insane. GW lives in a pretty nice apartment complex, no doubt about it. I guess it’s known for being the hot spot for like late twentysomethings and early thirtysomethings and boy were they out in full force. Everyone throwing back brew dogs. They even had a beer pong table going IN the water, which was just about the coolest thing of all time. I’m fairly certain the girl next to us was a stripper. They’d all probably been there since about 11 in the morning. Music’s going, it’s like a freaking Coors Light commercial out there. And I’m loving every second of it! Oh yeah, the water is heated too so it’s like a bathtub in there. It really doesn’t get any better than this. We joined in on the fun and threw back a couple brewskies too. You know what they say, when in Rome…

So after spring break, errr, the pool, we hit up one of my favorite spots in the ‘Nati called City Barbecue. Just an awesome BBQ place with some of the best stuff you’ll ever have. I gorge myself as all I’ve had all day was just that burger at Terry’s….oh yeah, and an ice cream cone at the Zoo. Everyone eats like a pig and we are all stuffed just about to maximum capacity.

Only, we’re not REALLY stuffed to maximum capacity, cause we go on ice cream run #2 of the day to a local favorite spot called Graters. It was freaking delicious. I got a milk shake and it was probably done in about 3 bites. However, seeing as they had to roll me back to the car, I probably could have done without it. I think everyone was pretty full from being such pigs all day, combined with the heat and the amount of walking we did. We got back to the GW’s place and it was pretty much lights out for all of us as I think we were all asleep by 11:00 or so. Another great day in the books.

On Monday morning we say goodbye to CS as she couldn’t get Tuesday off like me and Big Red did. After that, it’s just the boys! Me, GW, and Big Red decide to return to the scene of the crime. What’s that you say? We head back to the Hollywood Casino, the sight of the worst blackjack beating I’ve ever taken in my entire life (not the worst dollarwise, but dollar per minute it probably was, as well as the least fun ever). I’m back to get my revenge! We all know how this is going to turn out. The highlights:

- We all throw $5 in and bet it on red, as always, to see if it’s going to be a good day or not. Yikes, it’s black. Now I’m 5 IN the red for the day.

- We hit up the poker room with every intention of just playing a little low limit poker for the day and heading back to the GW’s place around 3 or 4. However, after waiting for a half hour or so, it was clear we weren’t gonna get on a table anytime soon. Time to hit the blackjack tables!

- Big Red decides to play a slot machine while we were waiting for the poker tables and hits it big. He turns $3 into $43.75. Not a bad little score. I try my luck with $10 in a slot machine and it’s gone in about 14 seconds.

- Mmm, nothing like a casino hot dog to nourish me before a big run at the blackjack tables. It looked about 50x better than the bacon, egg and cheese on a croissant that the GW got.

- We head to the tables and what do you know, the rabid jackal that tore my heart out last time was there at the same table (Linda maybe? I’ve tried to block her name out of my head). I’m here to get my revenge, and there’s nothing you can do about it!

- First hand, dealer has blackjack. Awful flashbacks come flying through my head!

- She has blackjack 2x in the first 6 hands. I’m even though through some miracle of God.

- 7th hand, she has a 2. We’re at a $15 minimum table and through doubles and splits I have 3 hands going with $75 total on the line. I’ve got a 20 ($30), a 19 ($30), and a 17 ($15). She’s showing a 2. Flips it over, 2. Next card Jack. THE POWER GOES OUT IN THE WHOLE CASINO!!! Everything, pitch black. I’m freaking out. The pit boss comes over and says “STOP”. Everyone is freaking out. Nobody knows what the hell is going on. Then the lights come back on, and the pit boss says finish the hand and then we’re shutting the table down. She flips over a 7 (as if there were any doubt) and has the most smug look on her face ever. I wanted to beat the living crap out of her and everyone in that casino. If we could have cashed out our chips (couldn’t cause the ticket windows were closed) we would’ve gone home.

- We wait about 30 minutes til the tables come back and I REFUSE to play at that table with the ice queen anymore. I’ll never let her deal me a hand of blackjack ever again. GW and Pollack quickly learn their lessons too as they stay while I jumped ship over to Donna’s table. They later joined me over there as well. We’d spent the next 6 hours at this table!

- I go belly up there too and decide that I’ve lost enough, I was gonna cut my losses and call it a day. Then there was this drunk guy named Mick who was hilarious and he befriended the GW and freaking loved us. He took a huge liking to the fact that we called Big Red “Snitch” and called him that all day.

- Mick talks me into playing again, and I run that $100 up to around $400 or so in an hour. About time something good happens for the Jayman! Do I take my good fortune and walk away like I should have? Come on, you know me better than that.

- Mick was pretty drunk and did something I’ve never seen. He has 2-2 vs. a King and split them. He ended up splitting one more time and got 3 21’s as me and Donna looked on in amazement.

- We were clearly the loudest, most fun table the casino had going. There wasn’t even a 2nd place. We’re buying Mick drinks, he’s buying us drinks. We’re hooting, we’re hollering. It’s insane.

- Donna told me “You really think you’re hilarious don’t you?” It’s like she knew me her whole life!

- Donna laughed her butt off when I told her I was a member of the MIT blackjack team. I think the words “worst member of the team ever” were uttered.

- The next couple hours are a roller coaster and I cash out with about $240. I was also all in two separate times before that too! Snitch is down some and the GW is up a couple hundred. We even get comped a free buffet too!

- We eat like it’s our last meal and we’d never seen food before. That was roughly 18 hours ago and I’ve only had a muffin since then and I’m STILL full.

- After dinner, we do the stupidest thing ever and go back to the tables to try and recreate the magic from earlier. Bad, bad idea. Different dealer, different table, we’re not drinking anymore. It just had disaster written all over it, and it was. GW was the smart one, he left and played some roulette (and made another big score). Me and Snitch stayed and got our butts handed to us. Ah well, can’t win ‘em all I guess.

So that was the 2nd trip to Hollywood Casino. Once again, it got the better of JTG but at least I had a blast going this time around as opposed to last time. If I am going to gamble and lose, I might as well have fun doing it.

That was it from the Nasty ‘Nati. Helluva trip. I feel like we squeezed a month’s worth of stuff into 3 days. And what perfect timing too, the flight attendant just told us to put all our electronic devices away. On that note, I think I’ll do just that. Glad to be back in the 5-1-8 and return to normal life once again, cause these past 3 days have been more of a fantasyland than anything.

Adios Nasty ‘Nati, I’ll be back in a couple months…

Hottest Round of Golf Ever, The Recap

2010-05-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

A golf recap I promised yesterday, and a golf recap I’m going to deliver today. Look at the Jayman actually coming through on his AMWJ promises for once…just don’t get too used to it, okay?

- So as I mentioned yesterday, it was like a sauna out there. I heard an interesting fact on the radio this morning on my way into work: the high in Albany yesterday was 94 degrees, and the high in Miami, FL was 75 degrees. How often does that happen?!?

- Several occasions (actually, almost every time) I would be lining up for a putt yesterday, the sweat would literally be dripping off my face onto the green, onto my ball, onto my sunglasses, etc. It was disgusting. I got so sick of wiping the sweat off my sunglasses I finally 86’d them at about the 7th hole. It was a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of situation. I couldn’t see with them cause of the sweat marks, and I couldn’t see with them cause of the blaring sun. I was like Ray Charles out there trying to play golf.

- Ended up shooting a 50-43 which was pretty good. Just the most standard Jayman round ever. Had some great shots, had some terrible shots, and the rest were all pretty much inbetween. I missed a bunch of putts by like a couple inches which got to be pretty frustrating. Then again, I was pretty lucky to find my ball a couple times too.

- The course was absolutely beautiful. I’d highly recommend it. Fairways of Halfmoon in you guessed it, Halfmoon, NY. Only $28 for 18 with a cart when using the Capital Region Golf Card.

- Well, it was beautiful all except the random 4 or 5 reddish orangish stripes that ran through the green on the 18th hole. Those didn’t really fit in with the rest of the course outline.

- The woman at the turn made it seem like us ordering 5 hot dogs (Hem-ROY-d had to get 2) was going to spell complete and utter chaos for the kitchen of Fairways of Halfmoon. Seriously, you’d think we ordered the lobster. If the callbox had been working on the 9th tee, we would have ordered them ahead of time. However, the hot dogs came out about 20 seconds later so it couldn’t have been THAT much of an inconvenience to this woman, right? Funniest part was that she said the kitchen was slammed, and there were all of about 3 tables eating dinner inside and one group of 3 guys drinking beer outside.

- We played with the same guy that we played with on Sunday, only this time he brought his nephew instead of his brother. The guy was telling the nephew about how good the golf balls he was using are, and the nephew responds “You get 100 of them for 30 bucks, they ain’t that good!”

- On the last hole, our buddy was clearly struggling and just looking to get off the course. He thought his ball was on the fringe, but the ball on the fringe was actually JTG’s, and his ball was like 5 yards behind the fringe, in some pretty deep rough. This is clearly the sign of a beaten man: instead of going back to get his pitching wedge, he tries to putt the ball through the rough and it went about 3 feet. It took every ounce of my willpower not to fall down laughing. Absolutely hilarious.

- We actually came up with a decent plan as to who was going to handle what going into the day. I was going to pick up the cigars the night before, Bill was going to get the beers, and it turned out our other buddy bought the hot dogs for us. I asked our friend if his nephew would want a cigar, and he was adamant that his nephew wouldn’t have one. Fifth hole tee box, I bust them out. His nephew’s eyes lit up and says “I’ll definitely have one!” Umm, sorry, I only got three. I felt like such a deusch. They ended up splitting the one I got for our 3rd friend.

- It has to run in the family, cause our buddy, his brother (from Sunday), and his nephew all love to announce which shot they’re on. It’s so funny. They’ll be chipping from 30 yards out “This is for par”. Putting from 60 feet “This is for double”. 8 iron from 140 yards “This if for eagle”. Never played with anyone else that did this. I made sure to tell Hem-ROY-d that when I was teeing off on the 18th I was going for double eagle.

- I’ve also never played with guys that got more excited for other people’s good shots than these guys did. It was really cool, just unusual. I usually just say “nice shot” (but I never mean it) and that’s about it. The nephew got INTO it. I almost drove the green on a par 4 and I thought he was going to hug me. Just great guys though, definitely a lotta fun to play with them.

So that was the golf summary to the best of my recollection. I’m fairly certain I drifted in and out of consciousness due to heat stroke several times throughout the round, so I’m sure there are parts that I’m missing. Those were the highlights that I could remember to the best of my ability though.

Other big news is that William Hem-Roy-d has become such a local celebrity among my inner circle that he’s actually been given an invitation to AT’s Bachelor Party in a few weeks. Although, there were some stipulations that Bill could not bring any of his “toys” with him to use with the entertainers. However, the invite has been made, and now, through the channel known as AMWJ, the invitation has been made even more public. You’ve been called out Billy Boy, make the right choice, come to that damn party!

I think that might be about it for tonight. Next step, heading on a plane to go out to the Nasty Nati. I’ll do my best to keep solid mental notes of all the happenings out there which will hopefully lead to some solid blogging fodder. Me, Big Red, CS and the GW will be sure to be wreaking as much havoc as possible. Well, at least Big Red will when he goes cougar hunting! CS has already declared that she looks forward to a weekend of drunken debauchery, so there’s a very good chance the LROC (I nicknamed her the Lightning Rod of Controversy) will be making an appearance or two. Good times people, good times.

Hope you all enjoyed your weeks. I’m not back in town ‘til Tuesday afternoon, so no idea when the next blog will be. Probably Tuesday or Wednesday if I had to guess. Make sure to check back in and don’t forget about me! I’ll catch up with you soon…

The Hottest Round of All Time

2010-05-26T18:34:00.000-07:00

Okay so it's 9:30 and I just got home from a 4 hour round of golf with the temperature in the 90's for a good portion of it, needless to say I don't have the energy to pump out a blog entry. It's either pump out a blog, or drink some fluids to gain back some of the 15 lbs I probably lost. For all those that know the Jayman, just know this: I drank 3 beers, a large Gatorade, and about 3 large Gatorade bottles full of water throughout the round, and I didn't pee once. The guys I was golfing with said I had so much @ss sweat it looked like I sat in a pool. It was hot! More details forthcoming tomorrow for sure.

Hope you all had a great Wednesday. I'll catch up with you soon...

A Half Naked Jayman?!?

2010-05-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

Another day in the books for the Jayman. Only a few more days and I’ll be in the armpit of America, errr, the one and only beautiful city of Cincinnati. Can’t wait, should be an awesome time. But, that’s a few days away. Here’s today’s stuff…

Check out this article. Looks like all the Jersey Shore hangout spots have become popular tourist destinations this summer. I’m actually a little ashamed that I was/am so into the show after reading this article. People are shelling out anywhere from 2 to 6 grand a night to stay in that house where Sitch, Ron Ron, DJ Paulie D and the rest of the crew stayed for 8 weeks. Some people just have too much money. Anyways, check out the article if you’re into that sort of thing. It really is amazing at how many different people and businesses are capitalizing on the success of the (dirty) Jersey Shore.

So the guy that I went golfing with the other day, the one whose brother was a little bit of a loose cannon? Remember him? Well what do you know happens today? I had just run my 4 miles for the day and I’m in the locker room afterwards, getting ready to jump in the shower. I take my socks and shoes off, take my shirt off, then take my boxers off. Then I usually wrap my towel around my waist and then take my boxers off. Well, it just so happened that in the 5 seconds it takes from the time I take my shorts on to the time I put the towel around my waist, what do you know, he comes strolling through the locker room. What does he see, but a sweaty, hot mess known as JTG standing there in his boxer shorts. Probably not what he expected at 2:30 in the afternoon. Ah well, what can you do? It was a little funny, a little awkward, and thankfully, we both laughed about it later in the afternoon.

The other funny thing that happened to me today happened where all funny stories happen, in the bathroom (wasn’t really that funny, but I’m trying to fill a blog here…work with me people). I walk in and go to the urinal, and I can hear the headphones blaring on the guy standing next to me at the other urinal. Whatever, I don’t think anything of it. He’s done, then he goes over to wash his hands. 20 seconds later, I’m done, then I walk over to the sink to wash my hands. He yells “HEY JAY” at the top of his lungs. I almost fell over it was so loud. Only, he had his headphones on so loud that he didn’t realize he was yelling. It was pretty funny. Maybe you just had to be there.

Come on, I know you’re all excited for the Jets and Giants to play in the 2014 Super Bowl in dirty Jersey. Maybe they’ll have The Sitch do the coin toss. Seriously though, I love the idea. It’ll be cool to have the game in cold weather for once. After all, it is football here, and both teams play on the same field. I’m all for it, why not. Here’s to hoping that the Giants will be the first team to ever play in the Super Bowl at their home stadium.

How about the Magic last night? Pretty much the most surprised I’ve been for an NBA game in quite some time. I know not everyone that reads this is necessarily a big NBA fan, but I just wanted to at least point out that the ole Jayman was stunned. Apparently Vegas was stunned too last night as they had the Celtics as 7.5 point favorites and the moneyline for the Magic was +280. You know, if Internet betting was legal and all. Here’s to hoping that they make an improbable comeback from 3-0 down and beat the Celtics. Even though I know the Lakers/Celtics would be a better final, I just can’t stand the Celtics at all and just want to see them and their scummy Boston fans lose.

Okay that’s all I got for ya tonight. Nothing all that great or exciting going on in the Jayman’s world today. Tomorrow should be fun as I’m golfing with William Hem Royd. Then Thursday the jerk is leaving our Company to go elsewhere, so we’re having a happy hour for him. And then, the next stop is the Nasty Nati. All kinds of good stuff coming up. Hope you had a great Tuesday everyone. Catch up with you soon...

Quite a Weekend

2010-05-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

Wow so the last time I posted something on here was for the Corporate Challenge. That feels like forevvver ago. So much has happened since then. I’ll do my best to do the uber-quick recap of everything fun and exciting that went on in JTG’s life over the last 72 hours.

Friday night I was in bed by 11:00 I think cause Saturday morning I had to get up bright and early and made the trek up to South America for the afternoon, with a brief stop in Qby to pick up my mother. That’s right, I headed up to Peru for the afternoon. A lotta people wouldn’t go to South America for a day, but then again, as all my AMWJ followers are well aware of, JTG is no regular person.

So Peru was pretty much the exact same as every other visit I’ve had over the past umpteen many years. Saw my Grandmother, my Aunt, and my Uncle. Me, my Mom and my Grandmother went out to lunch. Played some cards. Passed out on their couch for a little while since I had to get up at 5:45. It was nice out so we sat outside and shot the you know what. Pretty standard visit. Always good to see everyone up there, but it always makes for a long day.

On the way home I was reminded of a funny story. There’s 2 lanes on I-87 Southbound around where we were (somewhere around exit 26-27). I’m cruising along around 75 mph, and another car is next to me in the left lane probably doing about 80-85 mph. We go by a cop (sneaky bastard was very well hidden) and immediately me and the car next to me (that just passed me) slow down to about 68 mph. Too late. The cop pulls out in about .4 seconds (umm, I’ll refrain for once in my life from making any dirty comments on that one). I’m thinking how freaking terrible it’d be to get a ticket and how annoyed I’d be. I was very scared, but thankfully he went right past me and pulled over the guy next to me. Thank God. Crisis averted.

So what’s the funny story you ask? Well a few years ago me, Big Red, and Tom Veidman were all going to Foxwoods Casino. I’m in the front seat and Big Red is driving. We’re about a half hour from the Casino. The Sitch is doing about 50 mph in a 65 mph zone. We’re getting passed by anyone and everyone. I finally look over and say “Does this thing have a gas pedal?” Almost immediately, at most within 60 seconds of us speeding up, we hear the sirens and pull over. Big Red’s stuck with a $254 ticket for going 84 mph in a 65 mph zone. Oops. I guess I shoulda just let him drive along like a granny. Sorry big guy. To this day, that story still comes up from time to time and I can still see the fire in his eyes. The fact that he lost about another 5 ball at Foxwoods surely didn’t help matters any.

Anyways, back to the weekend. Saturday night me and the Sitch head up to Billy Hem-ROY-d’s for a little pokering. All is right with the world as JTG manages to come home a whopping $60 up for the evening. Yaaayyy. Plenty of filthy comments and busting on each other to go around for everyone. I drive because I have an early tee time the next morning. Among my favorite highlights of the evening:

- “You have to put out your full big blind Bill, no discounts” – The Sitch to Bill Roy who didn’t have enough chips to cover the big blind. Thanks Sitch.

- “I had you dominated” followed by a hyena laugh from Pollack.

- We settled on a new nickname for our coworker who grew a mascara beard this fall (that’s what I call those super thin chinstrap beards). We used to call him Timberlake cause he looked like he was in a boy band, but since his last name starts with O, we finally settled on “O-Town” (so mad at myself for not thinking of that previously). The photoshopping has already begun.

- “Congratulations on last place” pretty much 20 times a game.

Good times had by all. Plenty of other filthy comments to go around but those were among my favorites.

So golf Sunday morning was actually a ton of fun. I went in the cart with Hem-ROY-d and we went with a guy that we work with and his brother. The brother was quite the piece of work. I’ve never met anyone who was so bad that got as legitimately mad as he did when he would make a bad shot. It was actually quite hilarious. All kinds of funny stuff happened at golf. My few favorite parts were:

- The “Player’s Assistant” coming around every few holes and trying to give us pointers. It sure looked to me like he was just a glorified bum as all we saw him do all day was collect beer cans out of the garbage bins on every hole. Not to mention his extremely unkept beard.

- I turn to Bill one time when we were behind the brother and I called the trifecta to a tee. I said the brother would 1) hit a crappy shot, 2) slam the club, and 3) drop a F bomb. What do ya know? That’s exactly what happened.

- There was one hole I distinctly remember him taking at least 5 shots from the fairway. He must have hit every tree on the hole, and some that weren’t on our hole. When it came time to give our scores he said he got an 8. I told Bill if he got an 8 I was gonna have sex with Angelina Jolie that night.

- We learned that the father of our co-worker and his brother used to make them strap on the boxing gloves and throw haymakers at each other in the basement growing up. Pretty sure you’d be arrested for that these days. It was good to know though as I did my best to stay on the hotheaded brother’s good side!

- Shot a 44-49 for a 93 at Eagle Crest. I’ll take that every day of the week. Was different from the standard way I golf where I get a bogey on every hole. It was feast or famine. I probably had about at least 6 pars, but I had at least 3 triple bogeys that I can remember too. Very un-JTG-like, but hey, I’ll take the 93.

So after the golf me, the Sitch, and Purcy all headed over to a BBQ for the afternoon/evening. More good times had by all. It was slightly awkward as we didn’t really know that many people there, so we basically mingled amongst ourselves. Then once we had a few drinks, and some of the other partygoers had a few drinks, we interacted with a couple of the women there (funny how that works out, right?). We knew this woman from the bar/restaurant that we frequent and have talked to her before. She’s 41 but my God is she funny. We had quite the interesting, and of course filthy, conversation with her. Not only was she keeping up but she was putting us to shame with some of her one liners! Good times, good times. I told her that her and the Snitch should be FWB’s and she got a huge kick out of that. Not sure she appreciated him grinding on her as we left (oh, it’s true), but hey, those are the chances you take when you hang out with this crew!

So that was the weekend. Like I said, a lotta stuff packed into a not very short time period. But, luckily for me, it was a lot of fun stuff and I had a great time. Hopefully you all enjoyed. If this was my only job and I actually was paid to pump out these blog columns, I could’ve gone into ten times more detail and written about 20 Microsoft Word length pages on it and you guys would’ve been laughing your high knees off. But alas, that’s not the case so you’ll have to settle for the super abbreviated version.

Hope you all had stellar weekends. I will talk to you all shortly…

Ugggghhhh

2010-05-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

Short and sweet tonight as it's about 10:00 and I just got home and I'm tired as hell. So there were no real highlights of the race today. In fact, I was actually thinking about how disappointing AMWJ was going to be because nothing funny happened at all. I mean, there was a buttload of hot girls there, but that's not really that funny. The only thing that was funny was the Jayman getting a cramp about 4 seconds into the race and falling insanely short of any goals that he set for himself (and apparently he only talks in the 3rd person these days too). I kept my own time and finished in 31:40. Now, the only real discrepancy would be that for the first half mile or so, it was completely cluttered, but that probably didn't make all that much difference. I just didn't have it. I was that jockey who goes to the whip down the stretch and the horse just has no gas left in the tank. Oh well, what can you do? I love the fact that I've been running like a madman, lost about 25 pounds, and I get a minute and a half worse than what I got when I was a fat mess. Funny how that works out, huh?

On that sad, pathetic note, I leave you this evening with this picture of fellow Big Apple League member (and league commish) Bill Roy as he crossed the finish line today at the Corporate Challenge.

Everyone enjoy their weekend! Catch up with you soon...

Midweek Update

2010-05-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

Whaaaaat’s happening? Another Hump Day in the books. Yesssss. After a couple of down weeks, I’ve got a lotta good stuff coming up in the next couple weeks. Actually, more like the next couple of months are going to be pretty busy. Good. Hopefully that’ll lead to some solid blog fodder. Today’s stuff…

So after a mistake of epic proportions this weekend, I ended up hitting Knockouts tonight to get my hairs cut. The mistake? Well I attempted to trim my sideburns, only, I trimmed them way too thin, so they just looked kinda stupid. Hence, I had to get a haircut so it would all look good again. Maybe my failed sideburn trimming attempt was just a move by my subconscious to get my butt over to Knockouts again. We all know the Jayman’s a huge fan of the Hooters of Haircutting. Tonight was even better than the first time. They were a little friendlier as I’m no longer a new customer, but a repeat customer. Got the haircut, the neck trim, the scalp massage. No complaints here. Now not only am I feeling good, but I’m looking sharp too! And remember, if you wanna hit up Knockouts, let me know and I’ll give you a 20% off card. Let them know I sent you and I get 20% off too. Win-win!

I’m actually getting very excited for the Corporate Challenge tomorrow. This is the first time I’ve had the chance to run competitively since I’ve lost some weight earlier this year. It’s 3.5 miles, so just a tad longer than a regular 5k race. I expect to be like a fat, hairy, bad-joke-telling gazelle out there! 8 minute miles might be a little too optimistic, and that would be a final time of 28 minutes. On the treadmill, if you run at 7.0 mph, which is somewhere in the range of how fast I usually run, that would mean a final time of 30 minutes. That’s running about a 8:34 mile. I’m hoping to be somewhere in that range, obviously with the closer I am to 28 minutes the happier I’d be. Since it’s not Thanksgiving, at least the chances of me being passed by a 13 year old in a full turkey costume should be diminished (like around the 2.75 mile mark of the the 2009 Turkey Trot). I’ll be sure to keep you all posted.

The battle of the two biggest mouths in my fantasy baseball league has really picked up the intensity this week. Jersey Shore wannabe Big Red, whose team name is “The Situation”, has been running his yapper nonstop for over a week now in preparation for the big matchup with Mangurt. AT and I have an agreement that I know I’ve mentioned in the past on AMWJ, but I’ll mention it again. He makes all the baseball personnel decisions with minimal input from me (but he has final say if we disagree and we’re both fine with that). My job was in the preseason to set up as many wagers as possible, and during the season, to talk all the smack for Mangurt and turn us into the league villains. So far, AT’s done pretty well with the baseball aspect as we’re 4-2 and have the 3rd highest overall score in the league. As for my role in the whole process, I’ve been running my trap pretty much nonstop all season. I’ve already posted on here the picture I did of Big Red on the Sitch’s body, as well as the picture of him jumping into the shark tank. My next order of business after I post this tonight, to get the creative juices flowing for another scathing post about that rodent Pollack!

And that’s just about all I got for ya this evening. I really have had some of the worst writer’s block ever the past couple weeks. If you guys care about AMWJ and want to keep this thing going, I may be to the point where I need to take audience suggestions on topics to write about. I gotta get the fire back! We shall see. Hopefully the fun events of the next couple days and couple months will inspire some funny stories that I can recap, as those are always my favorites. Only time will tell.
Corporate Challenge here I come!

Greatest Brawl Ever

2010-05-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone! Everyone get through this stupid rainy Tuesday safe and sound and in one piece? Looking forward to yet another stellar (alright, mediocre) midweek edition of AMWJ? I know I sure am! Let’s get to it…

First of all, I wanted to post this video again. I got a ton of positive feedback from it today and I figured I’d throw it out there again to everyone. I kind of buried it at the end of the post yesterday, and I’m sure most of you were sound asleep by the time you got to the end of the blog post, so no hard feelings, here it is again. It’s absolutely hilarious and if you enjoy baseball you’ll absolutely love it. Even if you don’t love baseball, and you just enjoy high comedy, you’ll love it. In no particular order, my favorite highlights of this video include:

- The fact that this would never happen today for like at least a dozen different reasons.

- The fact that someone got beaned with the first pitch of the game.

- The cheesy music and commentary.

- How is Pascual Perez still hitting in the 8th inning, for the 4th time in that game?

- How Pascual Perez was swinging the bat around like a weapon and nobody thought anything of it. Wasn't even tossed, I love it.

- The fact that a couple fans jumped from out of the stands, the top of the dugout to be exact, to join the melee and start throwing haymakers.

- The fact that fans were chucking beers on the players.

- The fact that one player had to be restrained by like 8 police officers for trying to attack a fan.

- The fact that a guy on the freaking disabled list came onto the field just to join the fight. (probably my favorite subplot from all of it)

- The fact that a guy apparently lost his jersey through all of this!!! Seriously, there’s a player with NO SHIRT ON afterwards!

- The fact that, oh I don’t know, there were two (nearly three) brawls in one baseball game.

- The fact that there were 13 ejections in one game.

- The fact that 5 people were arrested during the melee.

- The fact that the umpires apparently didn’t have a care in the world!

The only other thing I can really think of that I need to pass along is how freaking funny 2.5 Men was last night. Whether you’re a regular viewer of the show or not, you need to immediately go out and see it. There is one scene in particular that I was almost peeing my pants cause I was laughing so hard. I won’t ruin it, but it was immediately after the first commercial break when Jake and Alan are in the car together. Most of you probably have Time Warner Cable, right? Just watch it On Demand. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

If I’m going to be lame tonight and not write all that much (I honestly just can’t even really think of anything fun to write about tonight) I might as well include a funny picture. I sent this picture out to a few people, but for the rest of you, hopefully you’ll ge a laugh out of it. I posted a stupid story in our fantasy baseball league about Big Red, who has been running his yapper nonstop lately about how he’s going to beat us this week (as of me writing this, he actually is kicking our butts pretty good right now, still a lot of time though). So I responded with this picture and a couple sentences how he’s no longer in the kiddie pool and that he’s swimming with the sharks this week. The Gurt, obviously, being the sharks in this example. So I posted this picture which got a few laughs out of a few members of the league. Hope you enjoy!

Good God Almighty, Jayman's Back!

2010-05-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

You know how I ended the last AMWJ by saying I’d probably have another one on Thursday or Friday? Well, that didn’t turn out to be true. I know, I know, I’m a big fat liar. It’s alright, I can live with it. I did have all the intentions in the world of cranking out a solid AMWJ last night, but again, things fell through and what do you know? The one thing that didn’t make the cut was AMWJ. Hate when that happens. However, I know it’s been a long time coming, but finally, we have another AMWJ!

It really does feel like forever since I’ve done one of these. So much has happened, both in my life and in the world around me. Where to begin, where to begin…

So I made it back safe and sound from Cleveland. I’ve got a few good friends who live out there, so I had to paint such a wide brush, but it has to be said: as a whole, they are the most miserable, depressed group of people I have ever met/seen in my life. They just expect the worst, and you know, in most cases they’re probably right. When I left, the whole city was pretty much in mourning over the fact that they were destined to lose LeBron. Some had hope, as Game 6 of the Celtics/Cavs series hadn’t been played yet, that the Cavs could still come back, beat the Celtics, and then go on to win the title. Most of them knew it was doomsday though.

Finally though, after some rough travels and a lot of turbulence where I may or may not have crapped my pants, I did my best Kevin Rudolf impression and I made it. Alright, yeah, that was totally lame, my bad. But I made it back to the 5-1-8 safe and sound. Friday was the most productive day ever. Got a ton of stuff done around the house. I’m telling you, and I’m sure anyone who has traveled for work in the past can attest to this, but it’s amazing the amount of little things you forget about when you’re on the road that you have to do when you get home. I think it took me at least 20 minutes alone just to go through the mail. A little grocery shopping, some pokering, meeting with the cleaning lady (yup, I finally broke down and went down that route), some lunch, went for a run, and before you know it, it’s time for beers and bowling!

Beers and Bowling Friday actually turned out to be quite the fun evening. Nothing too crazy or out of the ordinary. Felt so good to actually be bowling on my own will as opposed to the weight of WNLCLBL hanging over my head forcing me to go. I’m pretty sure I would have cried if these scores had counted on my real average. The beers also had a great deal to do with the awfulness, as me and AT were both a solid 30+ pins below our averages on pretty much all the games I think. I know I even managed to slide a 118 in there, yikes! Fun times though!

So have you ever tried golfing in the middle of a tornado? Well I did, this past Saturday at Fairways of Halfmoon. While I certainly had a ton of fun, the weather conditions were about as horrible as they could be where I’d still quasi-want to go. It was pretty miserable. I don’t think the wind stopped howling for more than 2-3 minutes all day. These were no little pansy winds either, we’re talking like 20-30 mph. The highlights:

- I probably lost somewhere in the vicinity of 8-10 golf balls.

- I shot a 56-47, when in reality, it was probably like a 110. G. U. H.

- We saw a fox on the 12th hole. I was fairly sure it was rabid and that was going to be the end of the road for the Jayman. Luckily for me, it jumped on a small rodent and ran off into the woods.

- The words “Unlimited Mulligan Saturday…One Time Only!” were uttered about 600 times in total. Gotta love it.

- The 6 pack of BLL’s that me and Brandt split on the back 9 made the weather infinitely more tolerable. The 2 Miller High Life Lights that I had on the front 9 made the weather infinitely more miserable. (Don’t blame me, I didn’t bring ‘em, I just drank ‘em)

- Leenie definitely swung and missed not once, not twice, but three times before finally giving in to using the foot wedge on one shot.

- I had one shot which was particularly memorable. I was probably about 60 yards out and in the fairway. Attempted to use a sand wedge. The massive divot went about 6 yards. The ball went 5 yards. So that was fun.

I’m sure there were a ton more highlights but that’s all I can really remember off the top of my head. In 10 years, if I were to look back at that round on Saturday, all I would remember was “It was insanely cold and windy, I played the worst round of my adult life, and I laughed like a million times.” I think that just about sums up Saturday’s round.

Saturday night was pretty boring. Just stayed in cause I was beat from the golf (we started at 1:50 and didn’t get done until past 7:30. Yeah, it was a long day).

Sunday I was on the fence about going golfing again, as I kinda wanted to be a bum all day and do nothing, but I ended up going just cause it was going to be so nice out, and I was definitely glad I did. We went to Mill Rd, which is a par 3 course, and I didn’t exactly play great, but it was just great to be out there. I definitely hit a ton more good shots there than I did on Saturday. Something along the lines of 36-40 or something like that, which is probably somewhere around bogey-golf on that course. I’ll take that any day of the week. Then once I got home, there were many hours logged by my butt on my couch. Ahhhh, felt great. Watched a ton of TV, did some pokering, and I was perfectly content with it.

So that’s the Jayman’s life in a nutshell over these past few days. Some pretty entertaining stuff sprinkled in there. This week should be pretty fun. I’ve got the Corporate Challenge for work which I’m hoping will be my best one ever. I haven’t done it in 3 years because 2 years ago I was just about to have knee surgery and last year, hmmm, why didn’t I do it last year? Oh that’s right, I was technically still employed but I had just been laid off, so I didn’t quite feel up to it. This year though, I’m gonna be a regular Kenyan out there on the course. And then, in the bar afterwards, I’m gonna be a regular Irishman out there!

The weekend should be pretty fun as well. Gonna be a good grandson and make the trek up to South America and see my Grandmother in Peru on Saturday. Pokering at Bill Hem-ROY-d’s house (he told me he loves to see his name in print) on Saturday night, which is always a fun time. Hopefully the Snitch doesn’t take everyone’s money again this time. And then, Sunday I’ve been invited to my first Beer-B-Q of the summer. Sounds like a winner to me! Then only a few more days and it’ll be off to the Nasty Nati for this guy. Yesssss! Cougars beware…

Before I go, I'll throw this link out to everyone. It's a 2 minute video, and if you enjoy baseball brawls, you'll really enjoy this get from the mid 80's!

Alright that’s it for this evening. Hope you all enjoyed. Felt good to be back and updating my pathetic little life on my pathetic little blog. Time to go enjoy some NBA hoops and see if we’re in for a new Charlie Harper this evening. Goodnight everyone!

C-Town Day 3

2010-05-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

What up what up??? Feeling a little fiesty this evening. Perhaps it's the fact that it actually reached 50 degrees today in Cleveland and I didn't mistakenly think I was stuck in a hurricane. Or, and this is probably much more likely, perhaps it's cause I get to go home tomorrow! Can't wait. Got a few tidbits to throw out there tonight though...

- So far and away the massive news story of the day, both in the local media, the national sports media, every radio station I listened to, every sports website I was on, and in the office I was in today was the meltdown of the Cavs last night, and specifically LeBron's performance. I'm sure for those hoops fans out there they've already read enough about it, no need for me to rehash everything. I will say this though: I went out to this pretty cool sports bar last night, and at the beginning of the night, you could just feel the excitement in the air. Everyone with their Cavs gear on, mostly LBJ jerseys. Beers were flowing, cheap wings, cheap pizza, every TV in the place had the game on, it was awesome. By the time of the midway point in the 3rd quarter came around, you could hear a pindrop in there. It was absolutely devastating to watch. You could almost feel the air being let out of the building. How could you not feel for this absolute dump of a city?!? Their economy is in the crapper, their weather sucks, their sports teams break their hearts, and on top of it all, they have to deal with me coming into town every 3 months. Who has it worse than C-Town?!?

- One more quick note about the game. I know I talk about Bill Simmons quite a bit on here, but it's only cause he's so freaking awesome and I respect the hell out of his talents. 2 things about the Sports Guy tonight real quick and then I'll move on. I know not everyone is a hoops fan, but if you are, read this article. Pretty much the best summary I could imagine regarding last night's game. I challenge any hoops fan to read that and not appreciate his thoughts. I think he does a tremendous job of putting everything into perspective. And secondly, as of right now, his Celticschants Twitter page has over 6,000 followers. Not bad for a little over one day. I've been pumping out these blogs for almost a year and I have TWELVE followers! And two of them are Pollack...

- Okay so you know how I got humiliated by that female bartender the other day? And I said I was never, ever going to step foot in that bar again? Well, that lasted all of 48 hours. I just had to see her again. If this doesn't prove that I'm the all time biggest glutton for punishment in the entire world, I don't know what does. I figured, what did I have to lose? So I went out to dinner to another place, but on my way back, I decided to man up and head over there for a drink. Of course I changed my mind about 15 times on the road before deciding to finally do it. I went there and had a drink. Even though I tried (and failed miserably) at kicking a little game with her, she seemed at least nice enough to fake a little interest, and my God did she look great. And she even remembered me which was nice. I was super worried that I'd come off as stalkerish, which is why I stayed for one drink and bounced. I instead wanted to be "aww, how cute, that out of town guy came back to say hi." Again, I'm sure I failed miserably, but whatever, she looked great, her "girls" were out and they looked fabulous. All in all, I'd say it was a successful trip.

Now that alone would have made it a successful trip. This was just gravy. Cross my heart, hope to die, this is true. I have no witnesses, but I have zero reason to lie and make this up. As I'm walking to my car after getting a drink there, I'm behind this older couple. Not too old, maybe mid 50's or so. So hope to God, this oompa loompa looking woman in front of me rips two of the loudest farts I've ever heard in my life. I got to my car and I just lost it. I was laughing my friggin arse off. These were not just two of the loudest farts I've ever heard a woman make, but I've ever heard anyone make. And remind you, I'm no stranger to loud farts. It was so freaking funny, cause I really don't think she noticed I was walking behind her at first (I was maybe 10 feet behind her, and my car was 2 spots over from her). I would have loved to have had someone else with me just to witness the carnage. Ladies and gentlemen, the wonderful women of Cleveland, Ohio!

Alrighty that's it for me this evening. Unsure when the next AMWJ will be as I'll be in the air tomorrow flying back to the A-L-B when I'm usually cranking out mediocre blog entries. Check in though, who knows, maybe I'll surprise myself. If not, maybe I'll throw something up there on Friday. Sooner or later I'll get something else up here.

JTG gonna make like a baby and head out...

Cleveland, Day 2

2010-05-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

Greetings everybody! I'm actually on a tight time budget here so I'm gonna crank this out as quickly as I can. Heading out to a bar to watch the Cavs game in a little bit, but I wanted to at least throw something up for tonight. I've said it before and I'll say it again, AMWJ is like pizza and sex, even when it's not good, it's still pretty darn good. On to the topics of the day...

- As I mentioned yesterday, It seems the black cloud of death has once again landed smack dab in the middle of Cleveland today. So yeah, that was fun. When I went out to lunch this afternoon and I was walking to my car, I thought there was at least a 50-50 shot of me getting swept away by the wind, especially now that I've lost some weight.

- Speaking of weight loss, listen to this crap. So today, I get into work and this dude that sits in the cubicle next to me brought in like 7 different flavors of cookies for the entire office. And there were probably about 30-40 of each kind of cookie. All laid out right on the desk next to me. Just as I was thinking to myself this morning on my way into work that I should try to be good today, don't want to gain back in 3 days like half the pounds I worked so hard for over the last few months. Well, 7 cookies later I'm well on my way. And I think I'm going out for wings and pizza tonight for the game. And I'll probably have a beer or two. But don't worry, I'm sure that 3.75 mile run I just went on will completely offset all of it. Or maybe like one quarter of one cookie. One or the other...

- And speaking of lunch, I came away from today's lunch with my boss with a completely new found respect for her. The reason: we actually both share an unbridled love affair with the Jersey Shore! She was telling me that she stumbled across it on TV one day, caught the first episode, realized it was the first episode of an MTV Jersey Shore marathon, and blasted through the entire series in one day! She loved it. She said that she got her husband hooked on it too. She even managed to love the quotes I was throwing out there. Hopefully this leads to some kind of raise for the Jayman, but doubtful. Who would have thought my of the Shore would help me move forward in my career? I wonder if she's writing a blog right now talking about how cool her employee is cause he loved the Jerz Shore???

- This game tonight is straight up Billy Fuccillo. It's HAYUUUGGGGE!!! I love it. People all day in the office were talking about how excited they were for the game. The whole city seems to be on edge, and with good reason. I don't expect it to, but who knows, this could be LeBron's 2nd to last game ever in a Cavs jersey. The stakes are higher than Cheech and Chong (alright, that was bad, I'm sorry). Unforutnately, nobody that I know is actually going (you'd probably have to take out a 2nd mortgage on your house for decent tickets). However, the bar that we're going to supposedly gets pretty rowdy for Cleveland sporting events. That's good enough for this guy!

- Check out this article about the Sports Guy. Cause I'm a Bill Simmons junkie, I pretty much love anything he does, BUT, even with my admittedly biased opinion, I think this is a pretty cool idea. He's created a Twitter account that he's going to use to try and coordinate the chants for the Celtics Game 6 with. I don't know if it's feasible or not, but if anyone can do it, the Sports Guy can. I mean, heck, he's only let the world know 5 hours ago (as of right now) that he made the Twitter account and it already has over 3,200 followers. I really want the Celtics to lose this series, but how could you not think this is a cool idea?!?

- Okay last but not least, this article made me so sad that the GW no longer lives in the area. He used to subscribe to this magazine, but he swears, it was only for the articles! The 5-1-8's loss is the Nasty Nati's gain I guess. If there was ever a thing to put in 3-D, this would have to be it, right?

Alrighty, that's all I got for ya tonight. Time to head out and see what it's like to watch an important playoff game for a legit NBA franchise in that city. Should be insane, I can't wait. Catch up with you all soon...

Update from C-Town

2010-05-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

What's up errrrybody? You excited to be reading the Jayman's words all the way from beautiful, tropical Cleveland, OH? I thought so...

So far so good out here. Insanely busy day here at work, but whatever, no biggie. The highlights of my trip so far:

- I got a siiiiick rental car. I was curious to find out how much it cost, so I looked it up, and here you have it. Starts at 35k so I'm sure this one is anywhere from 35 to 40. It's a 2010 Buick Enclave with 300 miles on it. Leather, power everything, XM radio, sunroof, all kinds of cool stuff. Not too often that I have a rental nicer than the Stinkin' Lincoln but this is one of those times. This thing is freaking awesome. And it's an SUV too, which brings me back to the days of the Jimmy, only it's about 50x nicer than the Jimmy. Good times. Almost makes up for the snow white Chevy HHR that I had a few years ago! And oh yeah, I actually had to drive it in a snowstorm too!

- So I told AT this today over email. He's too cool for school so he never responded to me, but I thought it was funny. So I went to this Japanese Steakhouse (a hibachi place) for dinner last night and I was eating at the bar. The bartender, very cute, was actually talking to me and struck up conversation wtih me, not the other way around. And it's actually going really well. Amazing, right? I'm totally assuming that she's into the Jayman, and let's be honest, why wouldn't she be?!? So I actually sack up and tell her we should hang out sometime over the next few days. Annnnnd she couldn't have shot that down any quicker. Awesome. Thanks, appreciate it. Have no fear, I won't be showing my face in your restaurant ever again!

- So I hit up a different restaurant this evening. Cool chain place called Bahama Breeze that we don't have back home. Nothing like eating at the bar and having a bartender that's the million percent opposite from the cute, friendly, personable, younger twentysomething bartender of Sunday night. This woman was in her mid 40's, had hair like a skunk, half black and half blonde, and had a skull tattoo on her forearm. Okey dokey then. There would be no hitting on this woman unlike last night. However, just as I'm about to hit the bricks, she comes over with a brand new Bud Light draft (I had already had one, and that's all I was planning on having) and says it's on the house. I definitely didn't see her giving out any other beers on the house. Hmmm. Whatever, who am I to argue with a free beer? Threw that down and came back here and now I'm doing everything in my power to fight off food coma and a desire to get about 10 straight hours of sleep right now.

- It's so funny to see how the entire city of C Town seems to be on pins and needles over the Cavs, and big picture-wise, LeBron leaving if they don't win the title. I mean it, it seems like everrrrrybody is walking on eggshells around here. The guy who drove the bus from the airport to the rental car company was talking to me all about the game and how awful it was yesterday. All anyone wanted to talk about today at the office was how nervous they were. Pretty much everyone in the office has a Cavs sign or poster at their desk. It's unreal. Since I live in Smallbany, NY we don't really get that same sort of love affair around the high profile sports like Arena Football 2, minor league hockey, preseason NBA games, whatever lower level than single A baseball the Tri City Valley Cats are and so on and so on. Not the same.

- Try not to be too jealous. The forecast for tomorrow here in C Town is, and I quote from http://www.weather.com/, a high of 57 degrees (a real heat wave in these parts), 90% chance of rain, and some wretched combination of "Rain / Thunder / Wind" with winds between 20 and 30 mph. I don't even have any comments on this. What jokes can really be made about Cleveland that haven't already been made?!? If I think of any, I'll be sure to let you know...

- On the flight out here I read 3 issues of Cardplayer magazine. I'm not sure, but I'll put it at 80% positive that the guy next to me saw them and gave me a disgusted look. Then I challenged him to play heads up for any amount of money and he punched me in the face repeatedly. Alright, the first part, very true, but the second part, not even close to true.

Alrighty that's all I got for this evening. I'm still in food coma and I'm struggling. G-Dammit, why do I have to be so good looking that I have to have old bartenders give me free beers? While I enjoyed every second of drinking it, I certainly knew this was going to be the result. Wish me luck...

Later!

Bowling, Golf, LT, No Power!

2010-05-07T04:11:00.001-07:00

Quick AMWJ tonight, only because I went golfing right after work and it’s getting kinda late and I’m actually pretty tired. Jayman does not adapt all that well to any kind of change in the routine. We’ll see what we can do though…

So that was it. I feel like we barely knew you WNLCLBL. I went out with a, nope, definintely not a bang, more like a whimper. I believe my scores were 168 (fine), 180 (decent), and a whopping 143 to sail off into the sunset with (guh). I’ve done my best to describe the scene at Wednesday bowling over the past four months to you guys, but I wish just for one night I could bring everyone along with me and let you see for yourselves. It really is quite a scene in there. Me and AT are basically just two fish out of water while we’re there. You’ve got guys yelling and swearing and hooting and hollering across five lanes at each other. I definitely think we’re in the minority with no visible tattoos. Yet, they seem to have taken a liking to us anyway. Good times. Told the guy who works there that also bowls there that we’d be interested in doing another fall league if they had one. Then everyone went their separate ways. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It really was quite the scene (nah, it blatantly wasn’t at all, just figured I’d add a little drama to the mix).

Other than that, did a little golfing after work this evening. Another windy day out there on the links, which I was not a fan of. It may have been even windier than when we went two weeks ago after work. Still fun, even though it was a little chilly. Couple of hot cart girls out there made things nice. Coors Lights also helped matters a little bit. Losing golf balls that I blatantly should NOT have lost made me a little upset, but what can you do? Shot a 50, but that was with like 4 penalty strokes that were insanely wind aided. Whatev. The worst day golfing is still better than the best day working!

Freaking LT. What a scumbag. Probably did that after a night of partying with Rapelisberger. Way to make the NYG proud!

Alright that’s all I got for ya this evening. Next week I’m in Cleveland which means I may or may not be doing consistent blogging. It’s all in the air at this point. Hopefully I will get a personal invite to LeBron’s castle that he has out there (complete with a barber shop and a casino…and I’m not even kidding) which I’m sure would lead to some good blog fodder. Since there’s probably a better chance of me marrying Kim Kardashian than getting an invite to the King’s Court, I’m not exactly counting on it. Just makes it tough to come up with good material when your entire day consists of waking up, going to work, coming home to a hotel, working out, going out to dinner alone, and then watching TV until I pass out. Actually, how depressing is it that I just read that sentence and was like “How’s that any different than life now?” Oh well, you’ll just have to trust me, it’s different!

Hope you all have a great weekend. Do something nice for your mother in celebration of Mother’s Day, it’s the only one you got!

(Funny story. I always type these things in Microsoft Word because believe it or not, blogspot doesn’t have a spelling or grammar check. When they’re done, I just copy/paste them into AMWJ . So I’m typing away last night, and the friggin power goes out. It’s pitch black in casa de Jayman. It’s pitch black in the entire casa de Jayman neighborhood actually. Then AT texted me saying he was frightened cause his power was out too. He wanted me to come over and stay with him, but I told him to man up. Anyway, along w/ the power, no Internet of course. So, I actually had an AMWJ typed up and almost finished, but had no way to post it. Hence, me saving this puppy in Word and then posting it this morning. I guess it's really not that funny, but it's a story nonetheless.)

Hump Day

2010-05-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

What up world? Everyone pumped? Yet another Hump Day in the books, gotta love it. And this is no average Hump Day either, it’s finally the last Wednesday of WNLCLBL. You know me, I love bowling as much as the next guy, but this will definitely be a welcome break. Leaving to go there shortly. First, we’ll hit on a few things that I came across that I found interesting today.

This story was pretty eye opening. Seriously, could Rapethlisberger be any more of a scumbag? I was emailing a couple people today about this and here’s the main point that I tried to make: if something gets said about a person who has a good reputation, you tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’m totally on board with that. However, when time after time after time people are coming out of the woodworks (ahem, Tiger) with allegation after allegation, you kind of stop getting the benefit of the doubt. It’s a quick summary of the new Sports Illustrated article that is coming out about him. Definitely worth taking a look at. And in a moment of full disclosure, I’m not going to lie, I thought #6 was pretty hilarious. Big difference between me and Ben though, I’m just some yahoo with a floundering blog, I’m not the QB of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So I wanna give a shout out to Farney. He was the only one that answered the call of duty last night in regards to 2.5 Men (thanks for nothing the rest of you). And basically, what I came up with from his research, was that I still have no freaking clue why they didn’t at least have a rerun on last night. Hey Chuckster, how about you stop threatening to kill your wife in Colorado and start making new episodes at $1.5 million per episode. Is that really that difficult?!? Hell, if you don’t want to do it, I WILL. Maybe they could just make me the new Charlie Harper and nobody would notice. I could be the Aunt Viv of 2.5 Men.

(Jayman note - Immediately after I posted this, I went back and saw AT's comment from yesterday's blog about 2.5 Men coming back. So it was Farney and AT that responded to my plea....as for the rest of you, what's your excuses?!?)

I’m sure you’d all be proud to know that I immediately changed Mangurt’s team logo to a picture of the jerkoff from the Phillies game getting tasered. Hopefully that will give our team a much needed “spark” on offense. Daaaahhhh!

Was anyone else as disgusted by the reports that Brett Favre apparently told a teammate that there’s a 100% chance that he’ll never put on pads again? Ugghh, I’m disgusted on so many levels. Things that I’m disgusted about with this story: 1) That any media outlet would actually report on this. 2) That Favre would actually say this and think people will believe it. 3) That Favre probably was sick and tired of not being in the news for a few months so he himself called CBS, Fox, and ESPN to deliver the news. Can we please just never hear about him again? Or at the very least, until Opening Day of the NFL season? I heard it on Mike and Mike this morning when I was getting ready for work and I almost hurt myself cause I ran to the remote so fast to turn off the TV. No mas. Who has two thumbs and is throwing in the towel on Grey Beard news? This guy!

Other than that, I got nada. I know, another pretty boring day, bother personally and worldwide from what I could see. Hopefully that’s all gonna change in a matter of minutes when I go and bowl my final Wednesday night for a while. If they do the league again in the fall, I’ll consider joining, but who knows. It’s sure to be a real tearjerker, I just hope I can keep my emotions in check. You know, seeing that it’ll be the last time I get to hear Angry John swear at his future father-in-law for a while. Who knows, maybe (gulp)…ever! All good things must come to an end, though. It’s on to golf season anyway, along with the occasional softball outing to satisfy my old man sporting needs. I really am the weekend warrior, aren’t I? Actually, don’t answer that, it’ll just make me too sad. On that depressing note, I’m gonna make like a fetus and bust outta here.

Til next time…

Tuesday Ramblings

2010-05-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

Yo yo yo…what’s going on? Are you all still recovering from laughing so hard over yet another all day Jayman gambling affair? I know I got a few chuckles out of reliving that day when I typed it up yesterday. Good times, good times. As my brother so eloquently put it, “I enjoyed the classic Jayman is a clown move of blowing the smoke into AT’s room.” Hey, what can I say? I am what I am. Most people don’t like it, but lucky for me, I’ve actually found a select few that do enjoy the scummy Jayman humor! God bless all of you...

For today’s topics, it was actually pretty horrible as I splashed around the Internet searching for stuff. Just about every story I read was depressing as all Hell. The failed Times Square bombing attempt (silver lining though that it didn’t go off), massive flooding leading to deaths in Tennessee, this new immigration law in Arizona making everyone get their panties in a bunch, the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, and now the Virginia lacrosse player who killed his ex-girlfriend. Does it get any more depressing than this? All huge national news stories, too. Thank God for the idiot who stormed onto the field at the Phillies game last night and got tasered or there would be absolutely zero good news to report about from the US.

This story I got from Simmons’ Twitter. I think it’s really interesting. It’s not funny or anything, but it’s got some great details about Tiger’s Thanksgiving car accident. Simmons says that he still believes Tiger was in rehab for painkillers along with his “Bootyism”. Sadly enough it’s not even surprising in the slightest that this is true (and I do believe it). I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll say it once more. The reason these athletes and celebrities think they’re above the law, is cause we treat them like they’re above the law! If I smacked the Stinkin’ Lincoln into a fire hydrant 100 feet away from my house, at two o’clock in the morning, and I’m laying on the ground, asleep, don’t you think the police are going to check my blood for alcohol?!? One million percent chance they’re going to (and rightfully so!). Good read, and it’s not too long, definitely worth checking out.

I didn’t see anything about this, but maybe some of you know. Is 2.5 Men still on Monday nights or what? I thought maybe my DVR made a mistake or something, cause it didn’t tape it. I went to watch last night and I had nothing and was shocked. Ugh, I’ll be so sad if this is the end of the road for the Chuckster and Co. Please, someone investigate for me and let me know. I’ve been pumping out free blogs for the past 11 months, it’s the least you could do!

There was some heated battles between The Snitch and that ass clown I was going back and forth with last week in my big money fantasy league that I’m in. I found that quite entertaining. The Snitch actually had me cracking up quite a bit. It was a nice change of pace! I wish I could post some of what they were saying on this forum, but it was definitely not AMWJ appropriate. You’ll just have to use your imaginations. One of the phrases that had me laughing was when The Snitch called the ass clown what you get when you combine a word that rhymes with “rock” and a word that rhymes with “cobbler”. Ahhh, one of my favorites! Other than that, that’s about all I got for tonight. I know, pretty lame-o.

Okay that’s it for this evening. Hopefully some more fun stuff will either happen in the world or to me personally over the next 24 hours to liven things up a little bit. Time to watch some hoops and get some sleep, this guy is beat. I’ll catch up with you soon!

Turning $tone

2010-05-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

What’s going on everyone? Excited for a little AMWJ back in your life? I know I am. Nothing gets the old blood pumping to crank out a blog entry like a little gambling trip. Saturday was the nicest day we have had all year here in good old upstate NY. It was supposedly in the mid 80’s all afternoon. Why do I say supposedly? Because I have absolutely no independent verification of any of this. Why you ask? Because I spent the nicest day of the year to date inside a casino all day, that’s why! The details.

We’ve been planning this trip for quite some time and the day finally came. It was quasi “AT’s fake 2nd bachelor party at Turning Stone Ca$ino”, quasi just an excuse to go to Turning Stone all day, do some gambling, get a nice dinner at the Brazilian Steakhouse, do some more gambling, do some drinking, and head out to some bars. And “other” places.

You know how sometimes when you’re in a casino you’re just shut off from the rest of the world? What, you’ve never been in a casino for 12 straight hours?!? And you’re reading this blog??? Huh, interesting. Well, I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it then. Anyhow, casinos have no clocks, no windows, no TV’s (none outside the poker room that is). Basically you're completely shut out to the outside world. When you’re at the tables, you’re not allowed to be on your cell phones, so people can’t check their Crackberries or their I-phones or anything like that. You seriously just completely forget about anything involving the real world outside of those casino doors. But anyway, Farney texts me about the Cavs/Celtics game at like 8:30 pm and my response was something along the lines of “The Cavs and Celtics are playing?” Then later on in the night, someone mentioned the Kentucky Derby. Again, my response “Oh yeah, that’s right, was that today?” Only the biggest horse race of the year by a mile. Two of the funnier “light bulb goes off that there’s a world outside of Turning Stone” moments of the day. Found it pretty comical and didn’t want to forget to pass it along.

So the day started pretty innocently enough. Everyone’s on time. The Jeep is packed. I’m actually pleased because there’s 5 people in Big Red’s Jeep and I actually get the front seat. It could be my lucky day! We’re out the door by 8:30 am.

Before we get to Turning Stone we had to stop at “Rocco G’s” in Rome, NY to pay for our limo service that we were getting for the evening. Yes, you read that correctly. We had to stop at ROCCO G’s in Rome, NY to pay for our limo. So many things come to mind. A) The place we were trusting to cart us around all night was named Rocco G’s. B) The place we were trusting to cart us around all night did not accept credit card payment over the phone and demanded that we come into their “office”. They know it’s 2010, right? C) The place we were trusting to cart us around all night doubled as a deli, specializing in overstuffed subs. Well done AT!

I could honestly do the entire blog entry on this place it was so ridiculous. This place would have been cutting edge, if it was 1986. Some of the stuff they were selling looked like it was from 1986. I honestly thought I had walked into the set of a horror movie. Wouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest to have Jason or Freddy or Chucky come walking through that door. But alas, I have many other funnier, more important topics to hit on so I’ll let you use your imagination on the rest. However, to be 100% completely honest (I’ll give that a shot for once), the people that ran the place were actually very polite and very friendly, and the limo service was actually awesome. They even threw in a free 12er of Labatt’s to sweeten the deal for us. I mean, it was cans which was a little scummy, but hey, still free beer. I even got a free Rocco G’s T-shirt out of the deal!

So after Rocco’s, we head off to TSC. We finally get there, no thanks to Big Red’s GPS that was built in the Stone Age. Ahhh, we walk in, and I feel alive! One of the best feelings in the world when you walk into a casino, you hear all those slot machines going off, you feel the energy of the place, the money changing hands. Such a great feeling. Then you breathe in about 8 pounds of second hand smoke and cough uncontrollably and it’s not such a great feeling anymore. But hey, you wanna make a cake, you gotta break a few eggs, right?

Day starts off pretty innocently enough. We sit down and there’s 5 of us at the same 2-4 poker table. I pick up Aces pretty early on, lose to A-9 when he flops a flush. Sure, why not. Pretty consistent with the theme of all things poker to me lately. Win a few tiny pots and after a few hours I’m down a whopping $10. Stupid rake. Stupid tips. Whatever, ain’t no thang. So all of us are getting quite restless. We make the executive decision…time to play some BRACKJACK!!!

We all sit down and we’re quite pleased to find that there is a brand new $10 minimum table just waiting for us. Yes! That means we get to take over the table. However, we are quite unpleased to see that the dealer immediately proceeds to rip us a new butthole. Pretty tough to win when every freaking hand you’re sitting there with a 14 vs. her 10. Oh well, I somehow manage to stay afloat and not lose too badly. Finally, I made the executive decision. I move from the first seat of the shoe to the last seat of the shoe. I’m not a superstitious man, but it’s way luckier in the 6 seat than the 1 seat.

After an hour or so, Dr. TKW shows up! Heeeeey long time no see buddy. Always great to see Veidman. He even brings booze! Shortly after he shows up, the other half of the bachelor party crew show up, too. They bring alcohol with them as well. Good choice. Words cannot even describe how just a couple of beers switched our table from pretty run of the mill / kinda boring into easily the most raucous table in the entire casino in a span of maybe 20 minutes. The dealer is sitting there laughing her butt off. We’re all winning, we’re tipping well. Other tables are laughing that we’re being so loud and obnoxious. The pit boss loves us. Strangers are coming up behind us and laughing with us. All after just a few Michelob Lights. Funny how that happens, isn’t it?

Easily my favorite quote of the day occurred during this stretch of the trip. It was 5 of us in the bachelor party and this one cool older gentleman sitting at the table. He hears us call Big Red “The Sitch” a few times. We’ve been calling him that lately cause of his fantasy baseball team called “The Situation” courtesy of Jersey Shore. Well, the older guy, who’s really funny and genuinely enjoyed all the antics, says “Sitch? He looks more like The Snitch to me! He’d be singing like a canary so he wouldn’t have to be somebody’s bunk muffin!” Needless to say, we even had the dealers calling Big Red “The Snitch” by the end of the day. I don’t think I’ve referred to him as Mike, Big Red, The Sitch, or anything else since that second. The Snitch! Never was there a more appropriate name for somebody than that.

Moneywise, I’m pretty much teetering between up $150 and down $150 throughout the entire brackjack experience at this table (the way it’s supposed to be, as opposed to stupid Indy when it was all down, no up!). Had a big double down on my last hand of the night and won, and ended up a whopping $38.50 up (as I had a $2.50 chip in my pocket from a blackjack payout). Yaaaaaay! Hey man, it’s better than losing.

So after brackjack, we hit up the Brazilian Steakhouse. I feel I could eat there every night for the rest of my life. Delicious meats delivered to you on a sword. Does it get any better than that? Also provided us with a nice break from drinking for a little bit, as those beers were going down pretty easy there for a while at the brackjack table. In one of the most unexpected turn of events of all time, I actually used a little good judgement and didn’t gorge myself to the point of being a sloth like I normally would at a place like this. I knew there was going to be late night drinking and gambling and didn’t want to feel like death the entire time, so I stopped when I was about 75% filled to capacity. Maturity maybe? Doubtful. Even a blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while. And the night ended at the Brazilian Steakhouse with a pretty ridiculous comment, even for me, which had almost everyone in tears from laughing so hard. Ahhh, our poor waitress!

After dinner, AT decides that he’s going to play craps. I tell Big Red, errr, The Snitch that this is the perfect time for us to just hang out for a bit, have some drinks, and get a couple cigars, cause I wasn’t going to play craps. He’s on board with the idea. We head up to the room, get some drinks, and head down to the smoke store. Since I was the big winner (you know, from that huge not quite $40 score I made earlier) I decided to buy the cigars. What a guy I am. To the craps table!

I don’t know much about craps, or anything really, other than it looks really cool on TV when they’re playing. And that Phil Ivey plays for more than the amount my house costs in one roll. Other than that though, I’m a blank slate. I knew it wasn’t good though that more money was coming out of AT’s stack than going back in, which sucked. I root against AT in most things, but with real money at a casino, that’s not one of those times.

Finished my first Captain and Coke and I head up to the room to get another drinky drink. Only, I’m still smoking the cigar. And I’m in the elevator with other people. They didn’t seem to mind, but I thought it was funny. Pretty sure that’s not allowed. So I’m in AT’s room, and I’m pouring myself another drink, and I’m still smoking the cigar. That made me laugh. Back to the elevator, cigar in hand. Then it’s back to the craps tables!

Didn’t take long for The Snitch to get the itch (Jay Z’s got nothing on Jay G) to go play a little more brackjack. Gotta love his fighting spirit. I agree to go with him. We sit at one table, and it’s a new table. Dealer is friendly enough. Only, the cards were not. I lost I think 9 of my first 10 hands. Baaaaaad vibe. I decide to move (hey look at that, a smart move from the Jayman!). I go to the table next to me. Muuuuch better. This table is hot. I am actually playing the dealer one on one for about five minutes or so and I’m crushing her. It’s amazing. All the losses get recouped and then some. We’re back on top. Then I managed to convince AT, Snitch and AT’s brother to come and join us. We got the whole group back together. More drinking, ridiculous jokes, cigars, and way more importantly, we all end up big winners! I think I pull about a buck fifty outta there. I’ll take it!

The last kinda funny thing that happened before we left was right after we left that table. AT rounded up the troops in his room to stuff our pockets full of beer for the limo and head out. Only, I’m still smoking that cigar! So I’m in his room, smoking a cigar, and when he notices, he tells me to get outta there with that thing. I cackle like a hyena, but I finally respect his wishes. I did the only logical thing. I stood outside in the hallway with the door open and blew smoke directly into his room. His brother was laughing so hard that I thought he was going to pee his pants!

So that was it for the casino. I’ll leave the going out part up to your imaginations. Definitely an awesome time. Even had another little $40 win during a super late night brackjack session, which was a huge bonus. Thought for sure I’d get pummeled in that one.

Overall though, awesome time had by all. Definitely one for the ages. Okay that’s it for me tonight. Hope you all enjoyed. I’ll catch up with you soon…

Bowling Recap and Some Fun Tidbits

2010-04-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

What’s the good word? Just think, only one more day and we get yet another week in the books. Few things to hit on today…

So bowling last night was actually quite eventful for once. You wouldn’t have thought it was going to be that eventful after my first two games when I got a 160 and a 160. Awesome. I fully expected to get a 166 in my 3rd game and to finish with a 162 average for the night, which would match my 162 average for the year. Awesome. Again, why even go? BUT, however, things would be a little different in the third game.

I start the 3rd game with a strike, which is pretty rare from me. Seems I always get an open frame in the 1st frame and play catch up the rest of the game. Nope, not this game. 2nd frame, strike. I let AT, as well as anyone within earshot of Latham Bowl, know that I have a perfect game going. Pretty much the complete opposite of in baseball when a pitcher has a no-hitter going nobody’s supposed to talk about it. Eff that, I wanted the whole world to know (mostly because I stink at bowling and there was absolutely no pressure on me whatsoever).

Third ball, strike. TURKEY!!! Oh yeah, forgot to mention that after every strike I get, I make the ridiculous “Strike Dance” that I always do to AT when I get a strike. It’s not even a dance so much as I turn around and make an X with my forearms in front of my face and walk back to the bench. Only, I do it so obnoxiously that everyone always has a disgusted look on their face as I walk by. How do you not love the Jayman? A true villain in every sense of the word.

Fourth ball, strike. HAMBONE!!! If you don’t think I yelled out “Hambone”, then you really don’t know me at all, do you? This also tied for my most consecutive strikes to start a game. My career high game was a 267 maybe 3-4 years ago. I got 4 strikes in a row, then 9 pins (missed the spare) in the 5th, and all strikes the rest of the way through. Just sucks cause realistically I know I’ll never come close to that again. 28 years old and I’ve peaked as a bowler. Anyway, I digress.

Fifth ball, bang, strike. FIVE BAGGER!!! At this point, AT’s pretty much just shaking his head in 50% disgust and 50% disbelief. And, to be honest, completely justified on both fronts. Disgust because I’m such a jerk with my strike dance that I can barely even root for myself afterwards. Disbelief because I usually get around 2, maybe 3 strikes a game if I’m lucky. There’s also plenty of games where I get zero strikes. That means about 20-25% of my first shots are strikes (which is probably pretty accurate). You do the math. Think about putting 4 red ping pong balls in a hat, and 1 yellow ping pong ball in a hat, and picking the yellow one. Then picture someone doing that 5 times, and picking the yellow one five straight times. Pretty unbelievable.

Sixth ball. And. It’s. Another. Strike. Heyyoooooo!!! We got ourselves a six pack. JTG is officially halfway home in his quest at bowling immortality. The same JTG with the horrible form, that sometimes looks like he’s going to fall down after he shoots, that throws it 21 mph when everyone else throws 14 mph, that throws a straight ball when all other good bowlers throw a hook. Yup, that JTG! Again, I must say, the odds are pretty much off the charts that I’m doing this right now.

Seventh ball. Right down the middle. Another strike, in the books. Or is it? What is this nonsense? A split? That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not sure if anyone knows anything about bowling, but I got a 4-6 split, which is pretty much impossible to make (although I made it a few months ago when Grant said he’d give me $50 and ended up giving me $11 – that was the only time I’ve ever seen it made in my entire life, by me or anyone else). I ended up getting one of the pins down. Bye bye 300 game. Bye bye!

I actually ended up getting a strike in the 8th frame and a strike in the 9th frame, then got another stupid split in the 10th frame. This time it was the 4-6-7, another pretty much impossible split. Ended up with a 229, good for the 2nd highest game of my career. Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

Other than that, just a couple more bullet points to hammer out before I call it a night.

- Saw this on Simmons' Twitter today and had to pass it on. Any Seinfeld fan would really enjoy this video about George. Take the 2 minutes to watch, promise you won't be disappointed.

- Sideburns are coming in nicely since they were almost completely chopped off 10 days ago. I’m hoping they’ll be fully back to status quo by the time I head out to C-Town in a couple weeks. I want my boss to look at me and not know whether she’s looking at JTG or Dylan McKay (or maybe Brandon Walsh?).

- For once in my life, I actually feel pretty tough. The guy I made fun of in the fantasy post that I wrote about last night hasn’t said a word. I think that’s his way of waving the white flag. For those of you scoring at home, that’s a TKO in the 1st round by JTG.

- Lastly, started jotting down some ideas tonight for the Tom McGrath Roast, errrr, Best Man Speech (crazy, their wedding is coming up in a couple months). I just have so much stuff to make fun of him about, it’s going to be tough to narrow it down. You don’t think they’d mind if A) I went for about 45 minutes, or B) I kept throwing shameless plugs in for AMWJ, do you? “Poor guy, my sister actually nicknamed him Little Opie Whoop Whoop cause he has hair that’s coarse like our dog Opus and he had a whooping cough. You think that’s funny? Check out my blog, A Minute with Jayman at http://jtgonyo.blogspot.com/.”

On second thought, maybe that’s not such a hot idea. Pretty sure that’d be the end of AMWJ cause Leenie would kill me. Back to the drawing board…

Alrighty that’s it for tonight. Time to watch some TV and then call it a night. Pretty exciting life I lead, I know. Hope you all enjoyed. This one even cracked me up a few times as I was writing it.

Have a great weekend and I’ll catch up with you all soon!

Fantasy Baseball 2010 Update

2010-04-28T16:45:00.000-07:00

What up what up? Another Hump Day in the books. Turning Stone Ca$ino only a few days away. Life’s pretty good right now for el Jaymano. Early evening blog for me tonight as I’m about to head out the door for a little WNLCLBL (Wednesday Night Latham Coors Light Bowling League for any and all newcomers). 2nd to last Wednesday night tonight for my bowling league, and this guy is pumped! Need. Break. Desperately.

Alrighty, on to the topics of the evening…

I haven’t touched on fantasy baseball really this year yet, so I figured I’d start there. I’m in 2 leagues this year and I rocked the Mangurt franchise for both of them. One of the leagues I’m really in to, and the other one, it would be hard pressed for me to care any less about the league than I do. That’s what happens when it’s a low buy-in, you don’t really know many people in the league, and you hate the website that you’re using. Other than that though, I love the league!

The main league, however, has been going pretty well so far. As I think I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m splitting a team with AT. I’m actually defaulting to him for all the major personnel decisions. I just know that it’s tough with a dual ownership when one guy is the quasi-manager but tries to appease the other guy at the same time. Gets to be a delicate mix. I told him to make all the moves he wants, he has final say, I won’t second guess anything he does, and I’ll offer my opinion when asked, but ultimately to do what he feels is best for us. Just trying to avoid like a too many cooks in the kitchen kind of situation. What’s that old NFL saying, “If you have two quarterbacks, you actually have none.” Or something along those lines. He runs the show, I just sit back and run my yapper. Sounds like a perfect mix to me.

Speaking of running my yapper, that’s just what I’ve been doing lately (shocking, I know). I definitely had a bowl of cool, maybe even two, this afternoon because I was feeling awfully feisty. There’s this guy in the league, who I’ve never even met mind you, who has just been getting under my skin ever since I joined. However, being that I was new to the league, I figured I’d just ignore all his stupid messages he sent out to the league and annoying comments he’d always post. But, last night everything changed. He offered us a trade, and without going into too many details, was taking us for idiots and when we called him out on it (actually AT called him out on it), he put his tail right between his legs and retreated like a little rat. I couldn’t take it any longer. I posted a message on the league website ripping him a new one. The entire message consisted of the 6 reasons I don’t like Mystery Person X, and then asked the rest of the league to chime in with the reasons they don’t like him either. And I posted a picture calling him a loser with a bunch of people laughing at him. Can’t wait to hear what bozo has to say in response to this. I’m sure it’ll be something stupid and unoriginal, like everything else he has to say. I’ll keep you posted if anything funny comes out of it.

Other than the string of posts that I’ve created lately, our team is actually pretty good. We are 2-1 and have the 2nd highest score in the league so far. Looks like we have a ton of good, young pitchers and the league is definitely pitching intensive. How it ends up this year is anybody’s guess, but I like our chances. I think the Gurt will be a factor to be reckoned with all season long.

Besides fantasy baseball, a decent amount of stuff going on these days with the Jayman. Bowling later tonight, and then next week will be the last time until the fall (at least the last time in the league). Gonna try and golf once a week after work on Thursdays, but I don’t think tomorrow is happening because the forecast looks awfully similar to last Thursday when I almost got hypothermia. Turning Stone this weekend. Heading up to the Qbizzle for Mother’s Day next Saturday, and then leaving to go to Cleve-Land on Sunday, where I’ll be for the week. Then The Corporate Challenge in the middle of May, that’ll be cool. After that, back to the Nasty Nati for Memorial Day weekend. Before you know it, summer will be here in full force and there’ll be plenty of golfing, some tennis thrown in, beer drinking, and BBQ’s. AT’s bachelor party June 12th. Lotta good stuff on the horizon.

I think that might be it for this evening. I’ve hit a little writer’s block lately. I hope I can snap out of it sometime soon. Just need some good stories to comment on in the news or something. Who knows. I haven’t found anything particularly interesting/funny lately that I wanted to pass along. Hopefully that will all change soon.

Okay hope you all had a good Hump Day. Time for me to go hit the lanes with my newly cleaned Tornado!

(200th post in the history of AMWJ! As always, please spread the word...)

Boring Tuesday...

2010-04-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

What's the good word out there in AMWJland? Enjoying your weeks I hope? So far, so good for the Jayman. Work's not beating my butt too badly this week, I like that. Just got done watching LeBron and Co. move into the second round. That's great news for me personally as I'll be out in Cleveland in a couple weeks and I'm pretty sure this ensures they'll still be playing when I'm out there, so I got that going for me. Life's pretty good right now. Alrighty, let's find a few things to talk about. Might be a little rough as not only did nothing good happen in my world today, but I just scanned the Internet quickly and couldn't find anything exciting that happened in the real world today either. Uh oh. I'll do my best.

Received feedback from one William Hem-ROY-d that A) his daughters loved the picture of "The Sitch" that I put up yesterday, and B) he agrees, "The Sitch" might/should/does have some staying power. Who knows about the last part, only time will tell. However, I don't think there's any denying that was some of my best photoshopping that I've been able to do in recent memory.

Getting pretty pumped up for the Corporate Challenge. Really looking to post a solid number this year. Now that I've shed a few pounds and have been running very consistently the past 4 months (except for that week that I was peeing out of my butt with the worst case of food poisoning known to man), I'm thinking I'll actually do pretty well (for me anyway). Gonna bring my own stopwatch cause the time you actually get is not even remotely close to the time they give you. Not only does it take about 2-3 minutes to get to the starting line, it takes another 2-3 minutes to even really get running. You have to fight your way through the masses for the first half mile or so. They've got us all penned in there like cattle, it's a wonder more people don't get hurt!

So while I am pretty excited that bowling is going to be over (I just need a break, it has been almost 4 months), I do have a quasi-funny bowling related gem to pass along. Tonight, I did something I have never done in my entire life. When I was home in the Qbizzle yesterday my Mom gave me some stuff that she had from years ago when she used to bowl that she would use to clean her bowling ball with. That's right, I sat on my living room floor and gave the Tornado a cleaning for the first time since I've ever owned it. I'm not sure if I did it right, cause you an barely tell I cleaned it, but it gave me a little satisfaction knowing that I at least put the effort in. Can't have dirty balls at WNLCLBL.

See, I didn't lie, I really don't have much to pass along this evening. But, I've been a little bit of a slacker lately, so I figured I at least owed it to all of you to post something, regardless of how funny or interesting it was. So there ya go. Okay, time for me to watch a little more hoops and call it a night. JTG is beat. I will catch up with all of you soon. Laterrrrrr...

Huge Weekend Recap

2010-04-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

Suuuuup?!? Feel like it’s been forever. I owe it to you, the fans, to throw out a quality AMWJ tonight. First time I have actually come home after work and not felt like my head was going to explode in quite some time, so I got that going for me. Hopefully it’ll lead to some creative genius (unlikely at best) coming from the old Jayman. Let’s see what we can muster up…

So the weekend was pretty darn fun actually. Friday night, headed up to Clifton Park to meet AT and Leenie out for his birthday. The old man turned 28 on Friday. So we meet them out for a drink. Annnnnd of course AT and I are wearing the EXACT same shirt. No, not a shirt that kinda looks like another shirt. This is the same brand, same color, same everything. Only, of course his had one more button done on it than mine. Of course everyone laughs hysterically. I probably would have laughed too if it had been someone else. Oh who am I kidding, I laughed too. Poor Squeaks, just wants to be like the old Jayman so much that he’s even started dressing like me. It’s like when Charlie takes Alan to do a clothing makeover on 2.5 Men and he has him try on all these different clothes, and then finally Alan comes out of the fitting room dressed in a bowling shirt and cargo shorts, and they show Charlie with a big smile on his face.

After the same shirt fiasco, it was up to William Hem-ROY-d’s house for a little late night pokering. As has been the case with my pokering lately, I couldn’t seem to get anything going and I finished in 7th in one tourney and 4th in the other (11 people total). Top 3 paid. Blaaahhh. Still had fun though and managed to throw back a few brewskies, which always makes the losing easier to take. Stunk too cause the 2nd game I had a monster chip lead with 4 people left and you’d think I would have easily cruised into the money. Nope. I think I counted 6 all-in pots in a row that I was or was not involved in that if they had gone the other way I would have at least cashed and broke even for the night. Not meant to be. Oh well, sometimes you’re the pigeon, and sometimes you’re the statue.

One great sidenote about the pokering on Friday night that I found quite enjoyable. Big Red is in the big money fantasy baseball league that I’m in with Bill and another guy that I work with who was also at cards (who has a striking resemblance to Lance Bass). Big Red’s team name is “The Situation” from Jersey Shore. So all night, I made it a point to call him “The Sitch” and that caught on and by the end of the night everyone was calling him that. I hope it’s here to stay, cause I find it quite enjoyable.

The rat fink also had quite the zinger for old Billy Boy too which I found quite enjoyable. Actually, there was 2 if you want to count “Congratulations on last place” once Bill was eliminated from the first tourney. The other one was pretty funny too. We had the live scoring updates on Bill’s computer for the fantasy baseball league. Well Bill and The Sitch were playing each other this week. One of the pitchers on The Situation just registered a win and when the points hit the live update, The Situation was now beating Bill’s team. Well Big Red turns to Bill and says “Hey, you got your glasses on, can you see that score over there?” and then proceeds to laugh like a hyena afterwards. Classic Sitch.

I posted a message on the league website this morning, talking a little smack, and even went old school and dusted off the old photoshopping skills. See picture below.

So Saturday was pretty much the most perfect day ever outside, and I planned to fully enjoy it, and enjoy it I did! Me, my sister, AT, and Leenie all hit the links at Van Patten for a round of golf. It was perfect too, cause our tee time was for 12:36 which meant we got to enjoy the entire day outside. The golfing can only be described as typical Jayman. Shot a 46 on the front 9, a 48 on the back 9 for a 94. Got 1 par, a ton of bogeys, and a few double bogeys, nothing worse. Every hole was the same thing. Decent drive, my second shot would be just off the green, chip it on, 2 putt, bogey 5. It’s like when I bowl a 163 in bowling and I wonder why I even bother to go anymore. I already know what the outcome is going to be, why waste the 10 bucks? Cause it’s fun, that’s why!

So after golfing I completely wiped out any chance of doing anything remotely active later that night by getting dinner and a couple beers at Friday’s afterwards. It was delish too! Got a 3 course make your own meal deal with a salad, a little pasta dish, and a tiny piece of cake to go with it for like $12. Sold. The dessert was quite the rarity for the Jayman these days too (down 23 pounds since 1/1/2010), and it tasted goooood! Combine that with a couple beers and being out in the sun all day, yeah, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how this was going to end. I got home, plopped myself down on the couch, was fiddling around on the laptop, threw the Lakers/Thunder game on, remember watching about the first 2 minutes, and I woke up with about 5 minutes left in the game. Gathered my bearings, stumble up to bed, get a full night’s sleep, and I was fresh as a daisy Sunday morning!

(Alright fine, I was actually quite stinky from all the beer farts the next morning, but hey, it’s a figure of speech!)

Sunday, pretty standard. Got up, breakfast, 2.5 Men to get the day rolling, little online pokering, call the ‘rents and told ‘em I was heading up, and headed up to the Qbizzle to spend the day with Lar and Geeg. First time I’d been up there sans Nelson, so that was a little weird, but other than that, definitely a good visit. Didn’t really do anything all that exciting, watched a little TV, played some cards, had dinner cooked for me which is always nice, and that’s about it. Gave my Dad a To Do list for my house which he seemed totally thrilled about, that’s always fun. And of course, I felt like I was 9 years old again as pretty much the second I got there he put me to work helping him install a new light in the kitchen. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?

That’s about all I got for the viewing public this evening. Like I said, work (knock on wood) doesn’t look like it’s going to take nearly as much out of me this week as it did last week, meaning I’ll be fresh at night to come up with some decent AMWJ-worthy material. Better than the alternative of wanting to jab at my carotid artery with a shrimp fork when I get home every night, right? Some decent stuff coming up this week too. We’ve got bowling, hopefully another Thursday golf outing, and I don’t think I’ve announced this on AMWJ yet, but another Turning Stone Ca$ino trip on Saturday. Should be a blast, can’t wait.

Okay hope you all enjoyed your Monday. I’ll catch up with you soon…

Bowling and Golf...Man I'm Old!

2010-04-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

What's the good word everyone? Looking forward to the weekend as much as I am? I highly doubt anyone could be looking forward to the weekend as much as I am on this particular weekend, given the Gawd awful week that I've had. Work ever kicked your butts like it's kicked mine? Just this one project that will not ennnnd! Enough of my complaining though...on to the topics of the day...

So bowling Wednesday, pretty uneventful. Just the same nonsense as it always is. Actually kinda looking forward to getting my Wednesday nights back and just randomly going bowling whenever I feel like it. Pretty sure there's only 2 more weeks left. Angry John was just doing things only Angry John can do. Me and AT were trying to decide if we had turned into one of the people that we make fun of at the bowling alley (I think we both sadly enough know the answer to that question). My bowling was pretty standard. 170 first game (lil above average), 173 second game (ditto), 148 third game (oops!). 163 average for the night, I'm sure my 161 average will go up a whopping .2 points or something like that. Yippee...

After work today I hit the links for the first time all year, and I sure as heck played like it! First drive I crushed right down the middle, dead smack in the middle of the fairway. That was good. The rest of the day was a struggle. Didn't help that we were playing in hurricane-like winds and I couldn't feel my fingers after the 2nd hole, but I'm never one to make excuses (blatant lie, I am one to make excuses, in fact, I'm doing it right now!). Ended up shooting a 49, blaaahhh. The equivalent if I like bowled a 152. Not the worst score in the world, but definitely a few pins below average. On Eagle Crest, I should be shooting a 45 if I'm playing well. Ah well, what are you gonna do? First time out, it was dark towards the end of the round, I was freeeeeezing, I was too busy laughing with my coworkers...I've got all kinds of excuses to fall back on. It'll get better. Hopefully...

So as for the TMZ portion of the blog entry, check out this article. It says that it's imminent that Tiger and Elin are dunzo. Ummm, yeah, I'd say that whenever a woman is building a 3 million dollar house in another country that her husband isn't allowed to go to, it's a pretty safe bet that couple is not in it for the long haul. My favorite part of the article is the last paragraph. Freaking Tiger, he cracks me up. His marriage is falling apart, and he "caught a Nickelback concert in Orlando, Fla., on Monday night, and "partied backstage" with the rock band." Forget sex therapy, he should go to therapy Nickelback therapy. Come on Eldrick, you're better than that, right? Wonder if partying backstage with NickelCrap fits in his Buddhist belief system???

Okay lotta stuff to get done tonight. Gonna go through some mail, pick up a few things around la casa, see where pansy arse Tim Tebow is going (maybe, if he gets picked in the first round), catch some hoops, and who knows, if I'm feeling frisky, maybe even watch an episode of 2.5 Men. The Tebow thing is going to depend on whether or not I can find out a way to mute Mel Kiper Jr. The guy cuts more people off than a NYC taxi driver. What a jerk!

Okay I will catch up with you all soon. Enjoy your weekends...

Gambling Tuesday!

2010-04-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

Yo yo yo...

Okay so it's midnight and I'm just getting started. Never a good combination for a weekday. Well, reason being, I just got done a very lengthy, very ugly, very disgusting poker session, which, unfortunately, has turned into the norm these days. You see, when you're winning, it's easy to walk away from the tables after an hour or so. When you're losing, you want to play and play and play until you get your money back. Hence, it's midnight and I'm just starting AMWJ. Needless to say, won't be my longest AMWJ ever or my best AMWJ ever, but who knows, I've set the bar so low, I just might surprise myself.

Since I'm in a gambling mood, I'll throw out a few gambling related links that I found interesting today and we'll call it a night.

Have fun checking out this article, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It shows the odds of Tiger getting divorced by the US Open, the over/under on what Elin will get in a divorce settlement, and odds of what her next boyfriend's profession might be (all odds courtesy of my favorite site, Bodog.com). I guess you really can bet on anything these days, can't you?

If you've got $2 million laying around and feeling like buying a house in Vegas, now's the time to do it! According to this article, Phil Ivey is selling one of his houses (wouldn't it be nice to utter those words some day?) for the reasonable price of 2 mill. House includes 4 garages, 6 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a pool, resides next to a luxury golf course, and if that's not enough, you could be neighbor's with Andre Agassi! Maybe he'd even let you borrow his mullet wig if you guys became close. Pictures included in the article, pretty awesome. Although if you're checking at work, you might not be able to get to the article cause it's a poker website.

Last but not least, speaking of my main man Phil Ivey, I heard this bet today and my jaw almost hit the ground. I don't care who you are, this is a lot of money. Phil Ivey bet Howard Lederer (another famous poker player) $5 million that over the course of the next 2 World Series of Pokers, he could win 2 bracelets (you get a bracelet for winning a tournament). There are no odds, it's a straight 1:1 bet. Just for reference, there's around 50 tournaments each year at the WSOP. Some have 100 players, and some have up to 8000 players. And for reference, Phil has won 7 bracelets in his lifetime and I think he started playing in 2001. Pretty crazy stuff.

Okay that's it for this evening. Time for me to get some sleep. Hope you all had a good Tuesday. Catch up with you soooooooon...

Knockouts Review

2010-04-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

What. A. Day. It's currently 9:35 pm and this is honestly the first time I've had a chance to sit down and just relax all day. Are there any scarier words in the English language than when your boss calls you and drops not only the "urgent request" but the "drop everything" to go with it? So yeah, that was my day, pretty much just running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Oh joy. About as much fun as a colonoscopy. However, as you're about to see, it did get a little better this evening.

Before I get started though, I did want to make sure you all noticed I threw up a blog last night on my visit to Brooklyn this weekend. Not all that often I rock a Sunday night blog so just wanted to make you all aware in case you missed it.

So this evening Big Red and I decided to hit up the "Hooters of Haircutting", aka Knockouts. I feel like it's been forever that I've been waiting for this place to open. Well thanks to Big Red's stalking prowess, he found out on the website that they are indeed open for appointments, even though they haven't had their "Grand" opening yet, whatever that means. We figured we'd go together to compare the experience. And just for the record, I love the ladies. The highlights:

- You walk in and there's a mini fridge stocked with soft drinks, free for the taking (no booze though, per my girl that cut my hair they've applied for a liquor license, just waiting to hear back about it). Definitely nothing wrong with that.

- Quite the plethora of magazines to choose from, I certainly enjoyed my Maxim as I sat there for a few minutes and waited for Big Red to finish up.

- Lots of cool pictures and whatnot on the walls. Most of them of chicas in boxing gear. Very hot, I definitely enjoyed that.

- Every barber's seat in the entire place has a flat screen, H Dizzle TV for you to watch. She even told me when I sat down "the TV's yours as long as you're here". No arguments there.

- The girl that cut my hair was super friendly and quite easy on the eyes. I most certainly enjoyed that. Probably about 23-25 years old if I had to guess. Definitely very cute. Slightly awkward at first, but it's gonna be like that anywhere you go to get your haircut for the first time I feel. We pretty much BS'ed the entire time. I'll definitely go back to her.

- You'd be proud of me, all you AMWJsters. I totally wanted to play the media card, saying I manage a popular blog and that I was going to do a review on Knockouts and that my haircut should be comped for the evening, but I took the high road.

- Haircut was very good. She knew exactly what I wanted after I described it in all of 3 seconds. What do you know? It actually came out the exact same as I'm used to having it! I know a bunch of you will enjoy this, she even managed to tame the ridiculous sideburns I've been growing (those things were a little OOC, I'll even admit it). Have no fear though, they'll be back...

- The entire haircut experience consisted of getting the clippers on the side, then she took me over to get my hair washed/conditioned, then we went back to the chair and finished up the haircut. After that, I got the straight razor on my neck which I love. And to finish things off, she brings you back to the chair where you get your hair washed and you get a 5 minute scalp/neck massage, which was pretty much Heaven on Earth. Definitely no complaints outta this guy. All that for $25, I'll take it.

So there you have it. My official review of the "Hooters of Haircutting". Overall, I was very impressed. I was a big fan. Two thumbs up. I'm definitely going back. If you read this, and you're in the market for a new place to get your hairs cut, I'd strongly recommend it. Drop my name and I get $5 off my next haircut too!

Okay that's it for this evening. This guy is dunzo. I'm down for the count. As I mentioned, crazy day at work, then a ridiculously fast dinner, 2 loads of laundry, put away the dishes in the dishwasher, went through some mail that's been piling up (even though there's still a ton left, feels good to have put a dent in it), went to Knockouts, went to Price Chopper, put all that food away, then pumped out an AMWJ. I'd say that's a pretty full Monday! Time for me to kick my feet up and go watch Charlie Harper. Hopefully it's a new 2.5 Men tonight. Catch you all later...

JTG Visits the Big Apple!

2010-04-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

Another first in the history of AMWJ. I am actually writing this blog entry from underground. No, none of those crooked New Yorkers buried me alive with only my laptop, although I had my suspicions something like that might happen a few times over the course of the long weekend. Thankfully though, I managed to make it through the weekend alive and in one piece. A little expected wear and tear, but overall, a great time was had by all. And I’m actually writing this from the NYC subway system. That’s right, the first time AMWJ has ever been brought to you courtesy of the R train!

Thursday night, my God, Thursday feels like forever ago at this point. Thursday night I went straight from work to the train station and began my journey to the Big Apple. This was the first time I’d ever taken Amtrak before and I must say, I was already loving my decision. Instead of driving all the way to Poughkeepsie and taking ghetto Metro North, I only had to drive 3 minutes over to the train station in Rensselaer and I was on my way. I wasn’t loving the police dogs sniffing my bags (it looked like one of the dogs was going to throw up once he got a whiff of my underwear), that’s for sure. I wasn’t loving a woman rummaging through my bags either. That, also, was for sure. But whatever, I managed to make it through security and I was on my way. I loved that they had outlets too that I could plug my laptop into. Two and a half hours of playing Freecell later, I was at Penn Station. Lucky for me, the Fisher was waiting for me with open arms. We all know little scared Jayman alone in NYC would NOT have been a good idea!

Thursday night turns into a low key evening complete with some baseball, some Chinese food, a couple BLL’s (Bud Light Limes), a few laughs, some catching up with the Fisher, and a relatively early night for the two of us. Gotta rest up and prepare ourselves for the next few days.

Friday morning, who woulda thunk it, actually begins with us going for a few mile run. It’s like the Bizzaro visit so far! Fisher takes me down to the scummy Hudson and we run along that for a few miles. Hard to believe it’s even the same river that we have up in Albany. I only saw like 4 dead bodies floating in the river, which was a little disappointing, I was hoping to see more. Definitely a little different though than my standard treadmill workout. Don’t really look up too often when I’m rocking the treadmill and see the Statue of Liberty, so that was kinda cool. Even saw Staten Island and learned a new term from the Fisher. The Brooklyners actually call it Staten Italy because there’s so many Italians over there. How ‘bout that? You learn something new every day.

So after we get back from the run, we finish off the remainder of the Chinese food from the night before and then we do something that I’ve never seen Fish Clinton do in all the years that I’ve known him. We went to the local tobacco shop and got a couple stogies. We smoked them out on his front porch and I have to say, it was one helluva good tyme! One of Fish’s buddies came over, and he said that as he was walking down the street he could smell the cigars and hear us cackling like school girls. Yup, that pretty much sounds just about right. Way to be fellas.

After the cigars, me, Fishsticks, his roommate and his buddy all hit up a bar to get a couple brewskies before heading up to the Boogie Down Bronx to watch the Yankees game. The bar was pretty cool. Pretty standard Friday after work crowd getting together in their suits and ties. Then there’s me with a NYY #57 Bobby Abreu jersey. Oh yeah, Bobby Abreu doesn’t even play for the Yankees anymore too, probably worth pointing out to all the non-baseball fans as it makes it a little funnier. I wanted to make sure I did my best to let everyone know I was from out of town and didn’t really fit in. Mission accomplished.

After the brewskies at the bar, we hit the subway and head on up to the Bronx. Me and Fish’s roommate, the Rickster end up sitting next to each other. We’re just BSing and whatnot when this really creepy borderline homeless person sits next to us. I’m only guessing he’s not homeless because he’s not homeless because he was carrying 4 DVD’s with him. They were pretty NEW DVD’s too: Stargate, The Replacement Killers, Total Recall, and Planet of the Apes. I’m sure we didn’t make fun of them too much. He was also wearing a T-shirt with the Rolling Stones lips (the ones Janice Soprano has tattooed on her boob), which was comical. Then he struck up a conversation with us, noting that I was cheering for the “home team” cause of my jersey. Only, the way he said it was so funny. He would put the emphasis on the wrong syllables in everything he said. The other thing he said that was really weird was that I should have brought an UM-brella. Okay buddy. Let this be a lesson to kids everywhere, just say NO to drugs…

So we get to the Yankees game and my God is that a beautiful stadium. Fish hooked us up with some pretty sweet seats too. Unfortunately, the weather did not very much cooperate with us. It pretty much rained the entire game (the game was called after 6 innings) and I kind of felt like I was at a taping for an episode of Deadliest Catch. Like I said though, I felt bad because this was obviously not in the Fish’s control. But, we did get to see 6 innings and I got to tour the Yankee Museum which was pretty freaking cool, plus I can say I’ve been to the new Yankee Stadium. I’ll take it.

Nothing more Friday evening. We take the subway all the way back to the Crook and we’re all pretty beat from the entire day.

Saturday was one of the most fun days I’ve had in a really long time, which is saying something if you’ve been following AMWJ with any sort of regularity over the past couple weeks. It started off innocently enough, with another run along the disgusting, err, beautiful Hudson River down in the Crook. Although, Saturday’s run was much shorter than Friday’s, part because of the rain, and part because of the fact that me and Fish are well beyond our athletic primes. Nevertheless, we tried and that’s better than nothing.

The rest of Friday was spent in Fish’s apartment, with the one exception being when we walked down the street to get some subs for lunch. This will probably be a different definition of fun than most people have, but it certainly fits my description. From about 10:00 until 10:30 or so, me, Fish, Fish’s roommate and Fish’s buddy, we did all of the following: watched some old Saved by the Bell shows, watched some 2.5 Men, played a sit-n-go poker tourney, played a marathon blackjack session (up $15 whoooo), watched the Hangover, all played a decent amount of online poker, watched NBA hoops, watched a good deal of the 20 inning Mets game, stalked fantasy baseball, ordered in for dinner, had to go on another beer run cause we started drinking at 2:00 and were out by 8:30 or so, and after all this, it was finally time to go out. Not a bad little Saturday if I do say so myself. I think it’s safe to say that we made the best of the crappy weather outside.

Then after all that debauchery, we got a cab and headed out to a bar in the Ridge called Bar PM (I think that’s what it was called anyway). Had a few beers there and rocked out to the music they were thumping, which was pretty entertaining. Made some new friends along the way, always good. Reaffirmed my notion that the characters in Jersey Shore are by no means special. Every girl in that place was a better looking version of Snooki and every guy pretty much could have been Ronnie’s twin brother. Helluva good tyme there though too!

So that was the weekend with the Fisher. Today, we both kind of sat around all day and licked our wounds more or less. Watched some tube, recapped the weekend, got a little breakfast, and before you know it, it was 3:00 and time for the old Jayman to head back upstate. So sad. I definitely could never in a million years live in Brooklyn, but I certainly do love visiting very much so. Always an awesome time with the Fishbone, even if I was probably getting on his nerves towards the end (mostly on purpose…again, mission accomplished, haha!).

That’s it for the Jayman. Back to work tomorrow, back to reality, I hate it. Oh well, at least I heard a rumor that spring should be here sometime soon and that the weather should be getting nicer sometime within the next few weeks. That’s only hearsay at this point however. I’ll keep you posted.

Hope you all had great weekends. Catch up with you soon…

WNLCLBL

2010-04-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

Alright I hope you enjoyed the last 2 days worth of AMWJ's, cause tonight's is bound to be much shorter and probably much less legible as I don't really have time to proofread it. See, cause we were bowling with a couple freaking tools, it's 11:23 pm and I just got home, and I still gotta pack to go to NYC tomorrow to visit Fishbone. I'll explain. But yeah, don't exactly have time to just waste thinking of quality stuff to write. Next week people...next week...

- Bowled a 169 (little above average), 154 (little below average), and a 182 (way above average, well done Jayman!). The 182 wasn't looking too good when I had a FIFTY FIVE after the 5th frame. However, I got a HAMBONE (that's 4 straight strikes for you non-bowling folks) and a couple 9 spares and managed to salvage a decent game. The old 160 average will probably go up a pin or two after tonight's stellar performance.

- So as mentioned before, we bowled with these two total freaking scumbags, and they were waaaaasted, and I actually thought I was going to kill one of them, if not both. One of them had never been there before and the other one was there for the first time last week. Both freaking drunk off their butts. Completely obnoxious. Bowled in the wrong lane like 3 times, including once when we told the kid not to like three times in a row. They stole our $20 out of our envelope (which the manager talked to them and somehow it magically appeared again in our envelope) for our weekly dues. Just completely ruined the entire evening. Good news is that hopefully they won't be back, and even if they are, we'll never have to bowl with them again. Uggghhhhh...

- Grant, Penguin Ball and all, bowled next to us. It was the first time I'd really talked to him since the league started up again as he's usually like 7 lanes down from us. He seemed to be in good spirits. Missed his spares just like he always has, that was good to see. He bowled the normal 3 games, and then, after that, he bowled ANOTHER 3 games, rapid fire style, in order to pre-bowl for next week. The second 3 games, there was nobody else bowling with him. It was just him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And I'm pretty sure he threw the ball so hard that it broke the lane he was on, cause he had to switch lanes mid-game. Gotta love Grant, he always keeps things interesting.

- The new guy in the league shot a 254 in one game, which is the high game for the whole league. AT was furious. It definitely made me chuckle. AT was bound and determined to get his high score back. A 176 and a 172 later, mission not accomplished.

- Poor Leenie, she came tonight for the first time since the new league started. Quite unfortunate timing, as mentioned above about the scumbags we had to bowl with. She only made it one game and ended up driving home. I felt really bad for her. Sorry Leenie!!!

Alrighty that's it for this evening. This blog entry was brought to you courtesy JTG's rapid fire typing skills. Not bad, 11 minutes to type this, as it's now 11:34. Hopefully it made some sort of sense, cause I'll read it tomorrow for the first time just like all you will.

Off to Brooklyn tomorrow after work. Not sure when AMWJ will be updated again. Pray for me that Fish and all his crooked friends get me back upstate in one piece!

A Plethora of Topics

2010-04-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

What’s the good word everyone? Not a lot of stuff to hit on in depth today, but I came across a bunch of things I could just fire off a few quick sentences on. And heck, most of ‘em aren’t even good (you’ve been warned). But, I’ve had the discussion with several people before, and it’s pretty much unanimous; I think everyone would rather have me pump out a few crappy paragraphs than nothing at all. So here goes nothing…

- From the Sports Guy’s Twitter account: “Twitter was my biggest flip-flop of 2009. For 2010: not only did I pay to see Hot Tub Time Machine, I thoroughly enjoyed it.” I am very nervous. I fall right into this same boat of people who thought it looked horrible and loudly proclaimed I would never see it. I might have to eat some crow and go and see it now. TBD.

- Check out this article. The bane of my existence, the one and only, the original Captain Obvious himself, John Tesh, once dated Oprah Winfrey! Whaaaat? I know, right? Pretty much out of left field. That’s what I thought too. Look at the article though. For a guy who’s pretty much like a poor man’s Alex Trebec (just pretends to be smart by reading stuff other people wrote and pawning it off as his own), you’d think he’d be a little more intelligent. I mean he’s constantly feeding us gems like “If you fall and break your leg, call 911” and basically treating us like we’re idiots, however, now it’s time for me to turn the tables around on him. In the article it says “It goes on to say Tesh abruptly ended the relationship one night when he noticed their contrasting skin colors and couldn't handle being in an interracial relationship.” So one night he noticed out of the blue that he was white and she was black? Come on Johnny Boy, you gotta do better than that! Was he wearing a blindfold when they were dating (and living together) before that “Eureka” moment?!?

- So sad. One of the few girls that I’d actually even mildly consider a friend left my company today for another job. Her last day was today. A bunch of us went out for a beer after work and she played the “oh I’ll definitely stay in touch” card with everyone. Riiiiight. This ain’t my first rodeo honey. I’ve seen a lot of people come and a lot of people go. Very few stay in touch. We’ve never hung out outside of work before (I doubt her professional weightlifter husband would appreciate that too much), I sincerely doubt that we will now that you’re not working here anymore. Stinks too cause she was some good eye candy too. Ah well, what can you do? Another one bites the dust.

- This is a pretty confusing and disturbing story. As much as I’d love to laugh at it and make fun of it, if it’s true, then Steven Seagal is a pretty sick and twisted guy. He’s married with kids, but he (allegedly) hired this 23 year old girl to be his “sex toy”. Way to be freako. I’m the all time biggest “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” guy, so I know where my money’s at. If Stevey Boy only put half the amount of energy into learning how to act instead of trying to satisfy his outlandish sexual fetishes, maybe the world wouldn’t have been subjected to such timeless classics like Urban Justice and Kill Switch.

- The Rock’s new movie trailer has got scenes in it from the 5-1-8! Look at upstate NY getting tons of love. Although, to be fair, The Rock probably makes Charlie Sheen feel good about his acting skills.

- This really isn’t even all that funny, but I found it pretty interesting. It’s a bunch of comments from Matt Kuchar on what it was really like to play with Tiger in Rounds 1 and 2 of the Masters, and just how awkward the whole situation was. Lots of good comments and insights.

- And I’ll try to end it on a funny one. Look at what Charles Barkley, never one to bite his tongue, had to say about Masters Chairman Bill Payne! Freaking hilarious. How could you not love Charles Barkley? My favorite part “And then you have this punk ass Billy Payne that goes on TV yesterday. First of all, he ain't told his kids and grandkids to be like Tiger Woods. Let's not kid ourselves. He ain't tell his kids and grandkids to be like Tiger Woods. For them to get on there and act like he's all Uncle Tom, the master on the plantation, that pissed me off. I wish somebody would just walk up to him and punch him in his face.”

Alright that’s all I got this evening. Like I said, just not a whole lot interesting going on in the world, but hopefully I at least managed to provide some entertainment. The whole life gives you lemonade kind of ordeal. Life gives you a boring Tuesday, you surf the web and try to find interesting topics to throw against the wall and see what sticks.

Okay I’ll catch up with you all soon!

JTG Masters Recap

2010-04-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

What the heck is up all my fans out there in cyberspace?!? Are you all refreshed after a weekend away from the daily grind? I know I am. Quite the low key weekend for the Jayman this weekend, and that’s just what the doctor ordered. Loved it. Only a few things to hit on today, so let’s get to it.

Weekend was great, very low key, as mentioned above. Considering the past few weekends have been 1) a drunken March Madness boozefest, 2) a drunken Phoenix debauchery vacation, complete with booger eaters and all, and 3) a Final Four adventure that ended with me violently ill, yeah, I’d say a low key weekend was just what the doctor ordered. Stayed in on Friday night and loved every second of it. Had some dinner, watched some golf, played a little poker, cracked one beer, and was asleep by midnight. Ahhhh. Then Saturday and Sunday were almost mirror images of each other. Bum around in the morning, meet up with my sister, plant our butts on the couch for 6 straight hours and watch every second of the Masters coverage on CBS. Sounds like a winner to me! And oh yeah, there was a cigar and a couple brewskies sandwiched in there on Saturday night. Very low key, and even got to see plenty of people make fools out of themselves while attempting to do karaoke. I think we’ve got another winner on our hands. (Minor suggestion: when attempting karaoke, try singing a song you’ve actually heard before)

Did everyone enjoy the Masters yesterday? I know I sure did. Enjoyed every shot that CBS showed over the entire weekend, and loved every second of it. I kind of wanted there to be a winner determined on the 72nd hole, but other than that, what more could you possibly ask for out of a major tournament? My thoughts:

- Whether you were rooting for Phil or not, how could you not have been touched by that moment when he hugged his wife on 18? Wife and mother battling breast cancer and he goes out and shoots lights out for 3 straight days. Yeah, that’s a champ I can root for. Well done Phil. Congratulations.

- Did anyone else think that Jim Nantz was kicking a dead horse when he brought up Tiger’s swearing, yet again, on Sunday to Nick Faldo before the round? Just bugged me. CBS’s ratings are gonna be quadruple what they would have been sans Tiger and yet they pick apart every little thing the guy does. And the funny part is, he didn’t even say a swear word! And it’s nothing that every golfer who has ever played the game hasn’t said, and worse. The whole thing just annoyed me. For the first time, I actually kind of felt bad for him. The man’s basically living in a fish bowl.

- Did anyone else think he was going to punch the reporter in the face off the 18th after the round? I think Tiger would have been completely justified too!

- My favorite Tiger comment after the round was when he was asked where he’d go from here and he said he was going to take some time off. The guy hasn’t played competitive golf in 5 months!

- We were all laughing how they would only show the same 6 guys all day, and they’d all be on holes 4, 5, and 6 or something like that and then the announcers would be like “Alright, let’s head over to the 16th hole” and you knew it had to be an Ace, or why else would they be showing it? Did everyone see that one guy who had a hole in one that was wearing a tie? Little overdressed buddy.

- What in the world is up with Ian Poulter’s a) hair, and b) wardrobe. Someone tell this guy he doesn’t have to wear this stuff!

- I was telling CS and Brent how I liked Anthony Kim cause he was young and flashy. They asked how old he was, so I Googled his name. You know how when you google something, it gives suggestions on what you might be typing? I typed Anthony Kim into Google and the first thing that comes up was “Anthony Kim Girlfriend” and another one was “Anthony Kim drinking.” No wonder I love the guy! He loves to get drunk and he’s got a hot girlfriend, what’s not to love?

- Doesn’t Freddy Couples look like they just pulled him off the beach in Maui and they stuck him out there? Like he was the winner of a contest and the prize was getting to golf in the Masters at Augusta and they gave him 30 minutes notice? I think my goal is to be as cool as Freddy Couples when I turn 50 years old. The guy looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

- Was it just me, or did it look like Lee Westwood put his shirt on with the hanger still in it? Or maybe he had a rod inserted into his back so that when he walked he was so upright that it looked like he wanted to fight everyone on the course?

- You think Tiger and KJ Choi are going to be sending each other Christmas cards? Here Tiger’s been the most under the radar person in the world the past 5 months and good old KJ golfs for 4 straight days with him at Augusta. There’s a story he can tell his grandkids.

- We may or may not have made some off color remarks about KJ snapping pictures of Tiger with his disposable camera. They may or may not have been tasteless, and hilarious.

- “KJ, for the last time, I’m not going to sign your visor, put the Sharpee away!”

- From Bill Simmons Twitter “Jim Nantz saying Tiger "managed a 69 through all of this" is my favorite sports moment of 2010 hands down.”

Speaking of the man himself, The Sports Guy, he also came out with a column today on the Masters. Probably like fifty times better than mine, but hey, my thoughts are all my own and none were stolen from him (for a change). Just classic Sports Guy, great stuff here. Masters recap and lots of good Tiger insight. I’d definitely check it out if you get the chance.

Alright that’s it for this evening. I hope you all had great weekends and made it through yet another Monday. Only four more days and yet another weekend will be upon us. Hang in there!

A Little Bit of the Shore Coming Upstate!

2010-04-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

What’s cracking everyone? As ready for the weekend to start as I am? I’d imagine so. Let’s get right to it…

The Masters, everyone’s favorite major of the year (or so it seems that way at least), got started today. I am sure by now everyone’s heard this already, but if not, did you see that a plane flew overhead carrying a banner that said “Tiger, did you mean Booytism?” I found that particularly hilarious. I’m already pumped. I’m just praying Tiger is either winning or in contention going into the weekend. Looking good right now as he’s right in the thick of things at -4. It’ll make for a couple of really exciting days of television this weekend. I had already planned on getting acquainted with my couch and watching both days this weekend anyway, might as well make it “must watch TV” with Tiger atop the old leaderboard. Keep your fingers crossed.

Did everyone else have the same reaction as me to the new Tiger ad that came out today? Some weird combination of confused, disgusted, bewildered, turned off, etc.? I’m basically not sure how I felt after seeing it, but I know it didn’t make me want to go out and buy Nike products, I can tell you that much. So here’s this guy, a phenomenal golfer, gets in a car accident, his life is turned upside down when reports surface that he had many extramarital affairs (looks like #17 just came out of the woodworks today), and he’s about to return to golf, so we’ll make a commercial where he looks stone faced into the camera and his deceased father asks him how he feels? Doesn’t make a ton of sense in my humble opinion. Then again, Phil Knight and the boys at Swoosh know a heck of a lot more about what they’re doing than I do, so who am I to argue?

I am going to channel my inner Michael Buffer for a little bit. Saratoga, are you ready? I said, Saratoga, arrrre youuuuu reeeaaaaaaaady? Let’s get ready to ruuuummmmmble!!! That’s right, Ron Ron Juice himself, Ronnie from Jersey Shore is coming to Saratoga this weekend for a night of fist pumping, creeping, and clubbing. One can only hope he gets into town early enough Saturday to get in some GTL (that's Gym, Tan, and Laundry for all you non-Shore people out there). So funny too, look at all those pathetic losers with their stupid comments criticizing the whole charade. It’s like people who don’t like Tucker Max, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Jay Gonyo or any other controversial public person. If you don’t like it, turn the channel, go to a different website, don’t buy their books, etc. It’s fairly simple people. If you don’t like Jersey Shore, don’t watch the show. Case closed! No need to get all worked up and fire off anonymous comments on Times Union blogs about it. You don’t have anything better to do? Just amuses me the “holier than thou” attitude of some of these clowns…

I caught this link off of Bill Simmons’ Twitter account and thought it was great. Anyone who enjoys Chris Rock, David Letterman (and his scandals), funny jokes, has 3 minutes to kill, or any combination of those things, should really check this video out (safe for work). It’s really ironic too, because I almost never watch Leno, Letterman, or Conan, but I was flipping through the channels last night before I went to sleep and actually saw this live. I mean, really, is there anyone in the world funnier than Chris Rock? For my money, he’s the best out there. He really gives it to Letterman too, it’s great. How often do you see a talk show where the guest looks about a bazillion times more comfortable than the host? Don’t take my word for it though, check it out for yourselves.

I’ll wrap it up with this one. As a football player, when Tiki Barber played for the Giants, I loved him. I always thought he handled himself with class on the field. He gave it his all when he was in the big blue uniform and that’s all you can ask. Since then though, I think he’s pretty much been a first class jerk. It seems like he can’t wait to take the latest pot shot at Eli, or Coach Coughlin, or the Giants organization as a whole. Yeah, real classy move to the team you played for your whole career.

However, this story came out and I gotta say, and I’m sure I speak for most Giants fans, it puts a smile on my face to know that Tiki’s basically a first class scumbag himself. Looks like Mr. Barber is leaving his 8 month-pregnant-with-twins-wife for a 23-year-old girl (he has two other young kids too). And apparently, he began seeing the 23-year-old when she was in college (and Tiki was still married). He even supposedly had sleepovers in her dorm. Awww, how cute. Then, according to another article, “In 2004, Barber criticized his own father for leaving his mother. "Not only did he abandon her, I felt like he abandoned us for a lot of our lives," Barber told the Post at the time. "I have a hard time forgiving that."” In the words of Ron Burgundy, you stay classy Tiki Barber.

Okay that’s all I’ve got for you this evening. Quite the random schmorgasborg of topics this evening. I like it. Hope you enjoyed.

Everyone enjoy their weekends, I’ll catch up with you soon. Go Tiger!

Quick Bowling Recap

2010-04-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

Real quick tonight. Had an insanely busy day at work today and had zero time to browse the Web for any decent blogworthy topics, so a quick bowling summary will have to do. I'll try to throw something good together for tomorrow night to head into the weekend with.

- 183 (really good for me), 152 (blah), 153 (blah). 162.7 average. I'll take it.

- We were bowling with Angry John tonight. Things are always just so much more animated when he's there, yelling at all his buddies/family members/fiance across the lanes. I just feel like my blood pressure rises immediately the second I see him. Not to mention he talks 150 mph so hanging out with him for 2 hours is the equivalent of hanging out with a normal person for 8 hours.

- He decided it was too hot, so he bowled the 3rd game in a wife beater.

- Then the guy in the lane next to us followed suit.

- I know you're all wondering, but I kept my clothes on.

- The older guy who works at the lanes but also bowls in our league, the one who tried to "help" me that one night (really nice guy though), I think he was going through his Woodstuck drawer and wore an insanely bright tye dyed T-shirt. Quite comical.

- There was this beautiful younger girl a couple lanes down from us. I kept waiting for me to be approaching the lane for a shot, look over at her, and throw the ball, along with myself, down the lanes. Fortunately, didn't happen. This girl couldn't have looked more out of place. I couldn't have been happier though that she chose tonight to show up! She must have known it was WNLCLBL.

Annnnnnd that's all I got for ya tonight. Nothing too terribly exciting happened. I'll try to come up with some stuff for tomorrow. Hopefully some funny stuff goes on in the world, that'd be nice. Keep your fingers crossed...

TV and bed for this guy. Goodnight everybody...

The Road to Recovery...Almost There!

2010-04-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

Okay so not to jinx anything, but I am feeling a little bit better right now. I’m also thinking that with a good night’s rest, I’ll actually be fully recovered tomorrow. Whooooo!!! Thank God. I think I’ve had just about as much as I can handle of my sister calling me “the salmonella kid” and that’s only been going on for one day. Lemme tell you, that one gets old real fast! It’s nice to see she is finding new and creative ways to take pot shots at the ole Jayman though...

Other than the mystery illness that’s consumed my life, not really all that much going on. I was really looking forward to coming back to the 5-1-8 to kind of resume normal activities, but I haven’t even been able to do that yet cause I’ve felt so awful. Got a few quick hitter topics to bang out this evening and that’ll be it.

Ahhh Opening Day. So great to have baseball, and two fantasy seasons worth of Mangurt, back in my life. I love it. Got some serious side action going on in one of the leagues, too, which always spices things up quite a bit. That’s the one I split with AT so I’m actually, for a change of pace, going to be rooting for him to do well. It’s definitely going to be a challenge, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull that off. I’m sure I’ll be filling you guys in quite regularly on the pain, sorrow, grief, and aggravation that is sure to be Mangurt 2010.

Can’t wait for the Masters this week either. Direct TV does a pretty sick job with the golf coverage so that’ll be a nice added benefit as well. I may even be hitting the links myself this weekend if the weather permits, TBD. I’m sure that I’ll be a real beauty out there on the course being that I haven’t touched a golf club in almost 6 months. We’ll see though. I still have to decide whether or not playing 18 this weekend is going to fit into my Buddhist beliefs…

I signed up for my first race since I’ve actually lost a few lb’s. The Corporate Challenge, downtown Albany, NY, Thursday May 20th, 3.5 miles, be there or be square! Make sure you’re not anywhere close to me though, cause you’ll be eating my dust! (Blatant lie, if you’re any kind of runner whatsoever, you’ll be finishing a good seven minutes ahead of me, but hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?) And if you’re not the runner type, please feel free to stop by afterwards and buy me a cold beer. The Salmonella Kid, errrr, Jayman, always love a refreshing brewski after a tough race.

Did anyone else see the irony in the fact that the Washington Nationals had Barack Obama throw out their first pitch yesterday, while the New York Mets had The Situation from Jersey Shore throw out their first pitch?!? Yeah, like they’re almost equals in terms of celebrity status and importance. G-U-H Mets, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Can’t wait until next year when Snooki is doing the coin toss for the Jets on their Monday Night Football debut.

Okay that’s it for me this evening. Short, quick, effective topics. Perfect. Feels good to be back. Hope you’re all having a great week, just think, tomorrow, Hump Day!

The Final Four (Cincinnati Weekend Part 2)

2010-04-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

*** Part 2 of 2 Tonight - Check Out Part 1 Below ***

Okay so here it is, after much anticipation, the Final Four blog. I’ll start off with the good.

The Good:

- Our seats were absolutely awesome. 2nd level, kind of off to the side a little bit, but could see everything perfect. There were six levels total, so we had way better than average seats.

- The atmosphere was like nothing I could have ever imagined. So many fans from all 4 teams were there. It was great. The first level was basically divided into four sections, one for each team. We happened to be right above the Michigan State section. When they hit that first three pointer to start the game, I thought the roof was going to blow off the place.

- Everywhere else, other than the first level, was pretty evenly divided amongst fans from every team. Just in the few rows above and below us, there was quite a few fans of each team.

- I was firmly on the Butler bandwagon. Just a lot of reasons. I win $80 if they win the overall tourney from AT, Fish, and Henn but there’s more to it than that. I just feel like they’ve been constantly underrated all year, and I’ve seen them play a few times in they tourney so far and they’ve really impressed me. Their coach seems like a cool, young guy with a bright future ahead of him. I really like their star player, who looks like he’s about 12 years old. They beat Siena this year, so always good to have a team that beats you go as far as possible. Not to mention, they’re the home team. What’s not to like?!?

- So much to my delight, the Butler Bulldogs pulled off the big victory against Michigan State in the first game of the night!

- In the 2nd game, I was thoroughly hoping for a West Virginia victory. Mainly because I can’t stand Duke. Well, actually, I take that back. Solely because I can’t stand Duke.

- Unfortunately, Duke stomped WVU and all those rednecks who drove a few hours from WVU went home sad. And believe me, there were a lot of them. Of the four fan bases, the WVU easily came the closest to representing the BoogerEaterMania 26 crowd of two weekends ago. Love moustaches.

The Bad:

- There was a guy in the row behind us who clearly had too much to drink. He must have been drinking before the game, because there were no alcohol sales at the game. Clearly though, this guy was trashed. I hear all this commotion in the row behind us and suddenly everyone is rushing out towards the aisle. Oh yeah, this guy threw up all over the floor in front of him. A janitor had to come up and clean it up. Thank God he left and didn’t come back (maybe he got thrown out, who knows). It was freaking disgusting.

The Ugly:

Okay so before I get into this story, I want everyone to know I hadn’t had any alcohol up until this point in the day Saturday. Again, I will repeat it, I had zero sips of any alcohol on Saturday before all of this happened. Remember, they didn’t serve beer at the game, and we got in early cause we wanted to get to our seats so we didn’t have any beers before the game. I only say it, because as you’re reading this, I’m sure you would’ve been like “Oh man I bet he was wasted.” Nope, not the case at all.

So before the games started, I was pretty much starving, so I decided to get myself a little dinner. I debated between getting nachos before the first game and a pizza before the second game, but instead, I went all out pig mode and got both before the game. The nachos were good, but they had too many jalapenos on them, so I could only eat half. The pizza was average at best, and was super greasy, but I got all of that down.

About halfway through the Butler game, I notice that something just isn’t setting right in my stomach. I just assume it’s cause I ate too fast and that once it got digested that I’d be good to go. Only, that relief I was hoping for never seemed to come. It’s only getting worse and worse and worse. I managed to hold it together for the entire Butler game, but I just don’t feel well, at all. I also notice that I have a massive urge to do a #2 while on intermission between the two games. Try doing that in a public bathroom at a sporting event. Desperate times call for desperate measures though, so I do it. Provides some relief but man, my stomach is still killing me. I’m in some serious pain here!

A little bit into the Duke game, I turn to my brother and tell him that I know we were planning on going out after the game to a few local bars, but I don’t think I’ll be able to. That’s how bad I was feeling at the time. He tells me he understands. I don’t think it was until a few minutes later that he really understood how badly I felt. That is when I rushed to the bathroom and barfed up my entire dinner into the cleanest looking toilet I could find. Took four separate pukes to get all that stuff outta me! The bathroom was fairly packed too. Even though I had the door locked, people could obviously hear me and knew what I was doing. Do you think even one person didn’t think I was completely wasted?

After cleaning myself up, I actually notice that I feel a little better. I grab a Vitamin Water and head back to our seats. Okay phew, the worst of it is over. I figure now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’ll be 100% again. Nope, not even close. Shortly after I feel better, I realize that I feel worse again. A couple more emergency #2’s and one false alarm that I’m gonna boot again, and we realize that it’s time to go. So here I am at my first, and realistically, only Final Four that I’ll ever go to, and I have to leave with 10 minutes left in the Duke game cause I’m sick. Wonderful. Oh wait, it gets better.

So after the game there’s all these vendors giving out free stuff. One of them is Coke Zero, which I take cause I think it might soothe my stomach a little bit. So I take one and have a few sips of it. Then we get a cab to bring us back to my brother’s friend’s apartment that we were allowed to spend the night at. Of course there’s only one way that cab drivers know how to drive, like lunatics, so this did not set well with El Jaymano. He drops us off and within five seconds I’m in the bushes, yakking my brains out again.

So we get inside and all I want to do is go to sleep. I have a small glass of water to try and cleanse out my mouth and get that taste out. So I’m insanely tired, yet, I can’t fall asleep. Probably cause about a half hour after I tried to go to sleep, I had to run to the bathroom again to throw up the water. What went on to happen that night, I’d never wish it on my worst enemy. Mind you, I’m beyond insanely tired. I’m completely drained from all the puking and crapping and whatnot. Yet, that night, I swear, I don’t think I slept more than 15 minutes consecutively the entire night. I must have gotten up ten times, conservatively ten times, throughout the middle of the night to take a #2. Alright not to be too gross, but we’re all adults here, so why not. Even though it was a #2, it was actually a #1, if you know what I mean. It got to the point where I was wondering what could possibly be left in my system to come out. Pretty much the worst night ever.

The next day I did feel a tiny bit better, but still not good by any means. I’d never had food poisoning before, but I sure had it Saturday night. As I mentioned before, I would never wish that on my worst enemy. I felt like Tony Soprano when he got sick in the episode where he kills Big Puss. On Sunday, I slept the entire drive back to Cincy, for most of the three hours I was hanging out at the GW’s apartment when we got back, both flights that I had, and I got back at 9 and was asleep by 10:30 for the entire night. My entire diet on Sunday consisted of 4 glasses of Ginger Ale, 2 Gatorades at night, and a popsicle at GW’s house. Not good, not good at all…

So that was my Final Four weekend in a nutshell. Certainly not what I imagined when I headed off to Cincy/Indy. I guess you can’t plan for everything though. Just sucks. There’s never a good time to get sick, but this was definitely not a good time. But, like I said, it wasn’t cause I got insanely drunk that led to all the puking and us having to leave early, just unfortunate timing, that’s all. Still managed to make it to work today, even though I still felt pretty much awful, and still have no appetite. I’m hoping that by tomorrow I’ll be back to 100%, or at least close to it.

Alright that’s all I got for you this evening. Time to watch this Butler game and then this guy needs to get some rest. Looking forward to getting back to regular AMWJ updates on regular topics for a while…

Brackjack! (Cincinnati Weekend Part 1)

2010-04-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

*** Part 1 of 2 Tonight ***

Ahh the joys of modern technology! Sitting on a laptop pumping out a blog entry for AMWJ. I am telling you, the things I do for you people!

Just figured I’d let everyone know how the visit to Scumcinatti is going. Pretty good so far. Definitely have packed a ton of stuff in very little time. However, the main reason for this post is to give everyone one of their all time favorite topics to laugh about: Jayman getting bludgeoned at the blackjack tables!

Oh yes, it’s true. I am currently sitting in the car on the way to the Final Four with my tail tucked firmly between my legs. Bludgeoning doesn’t even begin to describe it either. Every dealer will always tell you that blackjack is a rollercoaster game, complete with tons of highs and lows. This wasn’t a rollercoaster. There was no highs. There was just one short, execution-style massacre. The Blackjack Gods heard about my big win at Casino Arizona last week and they were not about to go lightly on my on my first ever visit to Hollywood Casino in East Podunk, Indiana. Let’s get to the highlights (probably a poor choice of words as there wasn’t even close to any highlights, maybe lowlights would have been a better choice of words):

- I won the first hand I played. That was fun.

- That would also be the last good thing that happened to me in Hollywood Casino.

- In the two hours I was there, I maaaaybe won 25% of the hands I played. Maybe.

- For those non-gamblers out there, try to imagine flipping a coin 100 times and guessing the outcome wrong 75 of them. That’s almost what this was like. Playing basic strategy you should win about 48 of 100 hands. As I said, I would’ve been lucky to win half that.

- I just kept waiting, and waiting…and waiting for the cards to turn. They never did. I sat out a turn, moved seats, moved tables. Nothing worked. Nothing ever works. The black cloud of death constantly followed me wherever I went.

- I saw more 14’s and 15’s than R. Kelly.

- I think I won one double down hand. Maybe two. I must’ve doubled down at least 10 times. I’m showing an 11, dealer’s showing a 6, suuuure I’ll take a 4, why not. Six. Five. Three, just to tease you. Seven.

- I was explaining to the girl next to me that she should double a soft 14 against the dealer’s 5 (she went on to lose, shocking). The dealer even piled on the poor Jayman by saying “I would have doubled too, even without the ugly guy to my right telling me to do so.” Thanks jerk. How about you just shut up and deal the cards?

- I was actually proud of myself too. I never bet more than $20 on a hand all day. A lot of times the classic blackjack recipe for disaster is when people get down early and chase those losses by keep betting bigger and bigger and bigger, instead of just grinding away.

- You know how hard it is to lose a four ball $10 at a time? Apparently, not that hard.

- Thank God for poker.

- The saddest thing is that I can’t even put this out of my memory forever. I gotta send the GW a check for $200 when I get back home. Awesome.

- Has a dealer hitting on soft 17 ever once in the history of blackjack come back to bite the house in the ass? Has Jayman hitting on a soft 17 ever once in the history of blackjack ever benefited him?

- Even the dealers weren’t even funny, which sucked. Sometimes having great dealers can take the sting of losing away. Getting crushed and watching these monotone robots sweep your money away time after time? Shoot me in the face.

- On the bright side, I did see a guy go to the cashier and cash a welfare check right before we were ready to walk out of the casino. That definitely made me feel a little better about myself, even in my current state. I’m such an idiot, I should have taken a picture of him and posted it on the blog for humor’s sake. Who cares that you can’t take pictures in a casino. What were they gonna do, throw me out? I was already leaving!

Alright, no more being depressed. We are about an hour outside of Indy (my God Indiana is a flat freaking state with not a whole lot to look at, unless you count barns). The Final Four is gonna be freaking awesome. I absolutely cannot wait. Go West Virginia. Go Butler. Go Jayman!

I’ll catch up with all of you soon…

He's Baaaaack!

2010-04-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

That's right. I hope you all didn't think I forgot about you. Just walked in the door from the Nasty and this guy is freaking pooped. I wrote one blog entry while I was out there in the Nasty, but I didn't have any Internet access (I was in a car) so I couldn't post it. I had it e-mailed to me (I wrote it on someone else's computer) but that wasn't until like 2:00 today and by then it was time for me to head back. Soooo, I was thinking about posting it tomorrow, along with a blog about the Final Four that I'll write tomorrow. That way I'll have everything posted at once from the Nati. It'll make more sense when you see it tomorrow.

Alright I'll catch up with you all tomorrow...

Picture Commentary and WNLCLBL

2010-03-31T20:03:00.000-07:00

Everyone enjoy the Phoenix pictures? AMWJ rapidly approaching our one year anniversary and I’m still breaking down walls with the all picture blog entry! My thoughts on the pictures:

- I would’ve loved to have gone through and commented on all of them, but that’s alright. Most of them were pretty self explanatory anyway.

- I wish I had gotten a better picture of Jessica the Bassist. You’ll just have to take my word that she was insanely hot. It just stunk cause it was super dark in there and tough to get a decent picture. The fact that she was the bassist in an 80’s cover band probably made her about 175% hotter, but that’s to be expected.

- I hope the pictures of BEM26 did it justice, but I’m not sure. Just the magnitude of the event was way bigger than anything I had anticipated. I’ve been to NYG games with tons of people before, but this had a much different feel to it. Probably cause everyone’s watching a ring that is 1/30 the size of an NFL field or whatever it actually is. 72,000 people in one place is pretty crazy.

- My favorite pictures are the ones I took of the various assortment of people at BEM26. I hope you all enjoyed those.

Alrighty I just wrote the part above before bowling. Right now I’m about to head over to AT’s house for Taco Night and then I’m hitting the lanes. And then, after all that, I have to pack for my trip to Scumcinnati. Not to mention, I’m skipping fantasy draft #2 tonight in order to go bowling. Pretty busy night to say the least for el Jaymano! And normally, I’d just throw the bowling highlights up there on Thursday night’s blog. However, being that I’ll be flying tomorrow night, not even sure if there’s gonna be a Thursday night blog. Sooooo, here’s what we’ll do. I’m about to go stuff my face with tacos (in reality I’ll probably only have like two, max three…Diet 2010 back on track baby!) and then hit the lanes. When I get back, I’ll throw some super quick highlights on here (assuming there are any) and then call it a night. After that, it’s anyone’s guess as to the AMWJ updating schedule until next week. Could be every day in the Nasty ‘Nati, it could be five straight days sans AMWJ ‘til I get back. Your guess is as good as mine…

---------------------------------------------------------------

Alright just got back from WNLCLBL…

- I only had 3 tacos, but I didn’t put a ton of meat on them, so that was good.

- Bowled the best I have in a few weeks. Started with a 165 (decent), then a 148 (bad), and finished with a 187 (really good for me). Should raise the average to right around 159.

- They tried to rope us into another 12 weeks after this particular session ended. Me and AT quickly decided that was not the best of ideas during the summer. However, if they do another one next fall/winter, I’m in it to win it.

- The only funny thing that happened tonight was that Angry John yelled “headpin!” after one of his shot. I heard him from a few lanes down and was confused. I’m not that good of a bowler, and I don’t even yell when I hit the headpin.

- The guy we were bowling with wasn’t having a very good night and was clearly frustrated. After the 3 games, I told him he looked like he needed a beer. He said he didn’t need any more beers. I asked why was that. He said he had about 12 of them before he came bowling. Okay then, that might explain that crappy bowling performance.

Okay Jayman’s gotta go see what he's got for his fantasy team #2 and then get packed and ready to head out to the Nasty tomorrow evening. Can’t wait, my big return. I’m sure Ochocinco is gonna welcome me with open arms.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Not sure when I’ll be after it again, but make sure to check in every once in a while. I’ll do my best with updates. Go Butler!

Phoenix 2010 in Pictures

2010-03-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

For a variety of reasons, mainly because I've got a ton of stuff to try and get tonight before I fly out again Thursday night, there will be no written AMWJ tonight. However, I did decide to put my favorite pictures from the Phoenix trip on here for everyone to see. I realize it's a much bigger deal for me than everyone that's been sharing pictures for years on Facebook, but hey, that's the price you pay for being 5 years behind the technology times.

Anyways, it kind of stinks, but they're in random order. When I imported them into my computer, they were labeled 001, 002, etc. So I went through and renamed all the ones I wanted to upload so I could easily identify them. Well, they were easy to identify. However, they also were no longer in chronological order. It's okay, pretend it's one of those digital frames that shows a different picture every 10 seconds. So here they are, in random order, everything from baseball to basketball to BEM26...

Phoenix Recap

2010-03-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

Well, all good things have to come to an end eventually, and never has that been more apparent than right now. Not only is it bad enough that I have to leave Phoenix, one of my favorite spots in the whole world, but to add injury to insult, I feel like Andy Dufresne (sp?) when they chuck him in the hole for a few weeks for being obtuse in Shawshank. I’m currently probably somewhere above like Missouri or something like that. The Redman is about 4 inches to my right, watching Direct TV (pretty much like the coolest thing ever having that on flights). Some not overly friendly old guy is to my left and hasn’t even so much mumbled a word to me over the past two hours. And I’m right in the middle. It’s a Jayman sandwich… (feel free to insert your own inappropriate jokes here after I lobbed up that softball)

Alright before recapping some of the big ticket items over the past 4 days, I’ll just give you an update on my physical condition. I mean, besides the fact that I feel like one of those fighting fish at the pet store that they put in those super tiny bowls cause they’re not allowed to be put in with other fish. Not exactly a ton of personal space for the old Jayman right now. Other than that, the most overwhelming feeling I have right now is relief. Relief that I don’t “have to” drink for a few days. And I say “have to” in quotes because obviously nobody forced me to drink heavily 8 of the last 11 days, but you know what I mean. It’s gonna feel good to get my body back to normal for a few days. Until the Final Four when I’m sure I’ll be after it again. I told Red and Farney this morning that I feel like I need to sit in a sauna for 3 hours and sweat out like 12 lbs. of garbage. Feels like someone ordered themselves a Jayman Margarita and I’ve been put into a blender for a week and a half.

So that’ll give you at least some sort of idea of my physical and mental state right about now. In that regard, very happy to be coming home. Other than that, very sad to be leaving ‘Zona. Being as that I have a pretty good tan right now, and I know that it’s in the mid 30’s back home, yeah, doesn’t exactly put me in the greatest mood of all time. Oh well, what can you do. I’ll only be home for a few days before heading off to tropical Scumcinnati anyway…

So as for the trip itself, as I’ve mentioned a few times already (some in drunken, late night, non-coherent blog entries), it was an absolute blast. A quick summary of all the events from start to finish.

Wednesday night: Flight to Farneyville, AZ surprisingly much more fun than expected. That usually happens when one drinks around nine unexpected beers or so. Oops. Pretty good omen for the trip though I’d say. I’m just happy I made it on time to the connecting flight instead of losing track of time at the fine Mexican restaurant we were at in the BWI airport. Never a good sign for the quality of a restaurant when one beer costs more than your entire dinner.

Thursday: Starts off with a solid 3.4 mile run on the treadmill. Ahhh, feels good to sweat out some of that beer. Then we hit up the Rangers/Angels preseason game. Is there a better feeling in the world than wearing shorts and a t-shirt, sitting in absolutely perfect weather, having a couple beers and a foot long hot dog, all while taking in a ballgame?!? Just absolute Heaven. I could do that every day the rest of my life. The Redman pulls a decent score by fighting off a group of 8-year-olds and getting Torii Hunter’s autograph. The night is capped off by spending about 5 hours in a ridiculously fun sports bar watching one of the best college hoops games I’ve ever seen between Xavier and Kansas State. Great food, more beers, phenomenal women, awesome TV’s, tons of people, so many Kansas State fans that I actually thought I was in Kansas, and Amber, the lovely waitress who is the new love of my life, well, 2nd behind only Kim Kardashian. Great times!

Friday: Started the day off right with a 4 miler with Carol, Farney’s super athletic and way better runner than the Jayman girlfriend. Shorts and a t-shirt, outside, mid 60’s, and a breeze at 8 in the morning…so good! Farney has to work, so Red and the Jayman hit up the Giants/Angels preseason game. Pretty much just as Heavenly as the day before. Poor Scooter tweaks his knee on a pesky bleacher, but other than that, a huge success. From there, we hit up Alice Cooper’s bar in downtown Phoenix (appropriately called Cooperstown) for dinner, some college hoops, and a couple beers before the Suns game. More fun times. Then we had pretty sick seats for the Knicks/Suns game and my huge $15 bet on the over even came in with 40 seconds to play. Another successful day in the books! And oh yeah, forgot to mention, probably the greatest collection of 40-something year old women at the Suns game. Good Lawd!

Saturday: Another run to start the morning, but all the eating and drinking is taking it’s toll . Only 2.5 miles and I can’t bring myself to go any further. Not good. More fun on the horizon though. We hit up the Ca$ino Arizona and pull off an upset of monumental proportions as Red and I actually beat the house in blackjack! Unreal. Then we hit up the hot tub with a couple brewskies to celebrate and make about 50 Hot Tub Time Machine jokes. A little more college hoops at Farn’s house, then we take him out for a nice steak dinner as a kind of surprise 30th birthday celebration. It’s not for another month or so, but I think he appreciated it. Kind of a hole in the wall place, but it was phenomenal. From there, we hit up the downtown Snobsdale (what the locals call Scotsdale) area to pretty much the coolest indoor/outdoor bar ever. We rocked out to an awesome 80’s cover band and again, young Jayman fell in love with another unattainable lovely vixen. This time, the bassist of Rock Lobster. If you’re reading this, I heart you Jessica!

Sunday: No run to start the day. We head right to the Hot Tub Time Machine to get the morning started right. Ahhh, feels so good. We get an early start to the day and load up the car to do some tailgating pre-BoogerEaterMania 26. We see tons and tons of interesting creatures. I take pictures of all the biggest freaks I can find, which entertains everyone greatly. We even befriend a couple dudes from San Diego who were pretty cool guys. Little scummy, but then again, so am I, so it worked out perfect. BEM26 actually wasn’t even too horrible. I’m sure the booze helped, but I did actually have a ton of fun once I was in there. Just the whole atmosphere was insane. You put 72,000 mouth breathers in the same spot and good times are sure to follow. Redman even managed to get a picture taken with a Macho Man look-alike, which cracked me up. Got like 5 compliments on my Rock shirt too. And for as much as I mocked it leading up to the event, I’ll be the first to admit, it was pretty awesome. However, sitting in traffic for an hour afterwards was not awesome.

So there you go. That was my trip to Phoenix in a nutshell. I feel like I squeezed 3 weeks worth of activities into 4 days. And even if I did manage to do everything I just did in the past 4 days over a 3 week span, I’d still think it was a pretty busy 3 weeks. Work hard play hard though, that’s the motto, right? Plus it gave me some awesome blog fodder and killed a couple hours for me on this flight. Definitely an all around winner of a trip. Well, with one exception of course. Diet 2010 was the hands down, unequivocal loser this weekend. I’m guessing I gained 5 pounds since last Wednesday. Who knows, maybe even more. Ah well, what can you do? I’ll get right back on the Diet Train once I land down in the A-L-B later this evening.

Hope you enjoyed the recap. Time for me to begrudgingly rejoin the real world. All good things must come to an end eventually, right?

RIP Trip #4 to Phoenix. One helluva ride…

(Jayman's note 9:40 pm EST - My apologies for any typos and grammar mistakes. I usually do my best to proofread anything I put on here, admittedly sometimes better than others, but this, I just ran through the spell check real quick and I'm putting it out there. I got a ton of stuff to do, as I am sure you all know what it's like when you're out of town for 5 days in a row, so I just don't have time right now to go through and make any changes. Hopefully it was at least quasi-legible.)

Next Stop...Wrestlemania!

2010-03-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

Wowzer, just took some time to read that post from last night. Looks like someone (this guy) had a little too much to drink last night!

Just figured I'd pass along that we're about to put the finishing touches on pretty much the best vacation ever. All you AMWJsters out there know exactly what that pretty little bow is too. Yup, that's right, going to hang out with all the mouth breathers at WrassleMania 26. And Since I'm gonna be hanging out with all the booger eaters today, I did my best to fit in with them. I'm currently wearing a Rock T-shirt that I borrowed from AT that says "Laying the Smack Down" on the back. And on the bottom, I'm rocking the army cargo shorts and flip flops. I figured, when in Rome...

There is some decent news that's coming out of today though. I was talking to Farney and he said that we could throw some gambling into the mix to spice things up. I told him all the participants had to be drawn at random and not through any sort of snake draft cause I would be at a huge disadvantage! I'll be sure to pass along if anything worthwhile happens on our wrasslin' wagers this evening. Other than that, I'm going to have to rely on some modest quantities of beer to get me through the evening.

As I am typing this, Red is currently flipping through my camera and looking at all the pictures I've taken over the past few days. I believe the word "scumbag" was used when he was looking at the pictures I took at the Suns game. Apparently Red wasn't impressed that 80% of the pictures were of the cheerleaders! What, I was just trying to show off the zoom capabilities of my camera and it just happened to be on the cheerleaders...

I do have some good ones though over the past few days, who knows, maybe I'll even throw a few up on here. Probably not, but I guess technically it's a possibility...

Alright that's it for me. I'm heading out the door in a few minutes to hang out with the wonderful fans of the WWE (to show you how long it's been since I've watched wrestling, I still think of it as the WWF). Good times for sure. Pray for me...

More Redman Humor...

2010-03-28T02:22:00.000-07:00

So it's 5:15 AM on my computer, which means it's 5:15 am on the East Coast, which means it's 2:15 am Phoenix time, which means I just got very drunk for the 4th night in the row. Pretty much just saw like the greatest 80s cover band of all time. I am telling you, there are about a bazillion hot girls in Phoenix for every one hot girl there is in Albany. I really need to move here already. Of course there were about 12 girls that gave the Jayman "the eyes" but did I talk to any of them? Of course not! I talked to the Redman who is currently on his SECOND bag of chips since we got home about 3 minutes ago.

And he's still complaining about how badly his knee hurts. It's hilarious, he's changed his story from "walking to our seats" to "climbing up the bleachers" which makes his fake knee injury SO much better! Hahahaha.

Alright time for me to get some sleep. I hope this is even legible. Jayman is druuuunk. Pretty much the best vacation ever! Few too many vodka tonics tonight. To quote the infamous Fish Clinton, I was 'faced tonight bro! Hope you are all enjoying the weekend back home in the 5-1-8, I'll be home soon enough. Just gotta put the finishing touches on the best vacation ever...BoogerEaterMania!

Talk to you all soon!

Poor Scooter

2010-03-27T00:04:00.000-07:00

Way too tired (and a little too drunk) for a full blog entry, but I figured I'd pass along pretty much one of the funniest things to ever happen today.

We're all walking to Farney's car after the Suns game, and Red "burps", only I look over at him and he spits out this little bit of puke when he does it. So I turn to him and say "did you just puke?!?" and he's like "NO!" only, I knew he did cause I just saw it. So he laughs hysterically and finally admits that he did. Freaking hilarious. Then he comes back to the house and asks Farney for an ice pack to put on his knee cause he apparently tweaked it walking to our seats today at the Giants/Angels spring training game. No, not actually doing anything, just literally walking to our seats. Real finely tuned athlete the Red is...

Not his finest day today. Just figured I'd pass that along to everyone...

Goodnight world!

Flight to Zona

2010-03-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

So I had to at least pass this tidbit along from the trip to Phoenix last night. On the flight from Albany to Baltimore the Redman is bragging about how he's going to drink like 6 beers and a shot on the layover. I tell him I doubt I'll even drink. I'm tired enough as it is, no need to booze it up when I'm gonna fall asleep on the plane from Baltimore to Phoenix anyway.

Well, obviously you can see what happens. I knock back one 23 oz. beer at the Mexican restaurant we hit up in Baltimore. It goes down so smoothly, so of course I have to have another. Redman, meanwhile, barely finishes his first but we peer pressure him into getting another one too. He has like 3 sips of that when we decide we have to get going or we're going to miss our plane. Well, me and the 21 year old new bff that we hung out with on the flight to Bmore and then to Phoenix split the rest of that one.

Then we go over to our gate, only to find out the flight has been delayed an hour and a half. Back to the Mexican restaurant for another 23 oz beer. Me and 21 year old bff decide to split another one after that. Sooooo, needless to say, we're feeling pretty good once we get on that flight.

So we're sitting on the plane, and we possibly might be a little loud, but nothing too out of the ordinary, and the conversation turns to some girl I used to hook up with. We're laughing and laughing and I'm telling them about this girl, and the guy next to us, in a full business suit, is laughing his arse off. Well some old bag in front of us turns around and looks at me and is like "Really?!? Are we in high school?!?" to which I made a snide comment and she turned around and didn't talk to us the rest of the flight. It was quite hilarious.

And of course we had 2 more Miller Lites on the flight to Zona.

Sooooooo there you have it. From "I'm not going to drink" to about 9 beers. Isn't that how it always goes?!?

Alright, time to get ready for the day. Already ran 3.4 miles. Now it's time for some baseball and then some college hoops. Can't wait...

Next Stop...Phoenix!

2010-03-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

Hello hello everyone. Hope you all enjoyed your Tuesday. JTG gonna try to actually step up to the plate and deliver for once. I know it’s been a while since I actually posted a decent AMWJ, so I’m going to try and change that tonight. Well, I’m not sure how great the content is going to be, but I’m at least going to try to pump out more words than the past couple entries. Plus, it’ll be the last entry for probably a little while considering I’m going right from work to the airport tomorrow and then it’s off to Phoenix with the Booger Eaters for 5 days.

So bowling last night was an absolute disaster. Nothing funny really happened. The atmosphere was pretty much dead in there (it was a Monday night after all). No hot girls (not like there ever is I guess, but still). All 3 games about 10 pins below my average. 153, 155, and 154. I guess you can say at least I was consistent. Consistently bad, but consistent nonetheless. It was the 2nd time I’ve pre-bowled and both times I bowled like absolute crap. I hate it. I need Angry John and his antics there to encourage me to do better. No excuses though, I just bowled like crap.

It definitely didn’t help when I saw the older guy who works there that also bowls in our league come up to me and AT and talk to us for a bit. He really means well, and I kinda feel bad for him. You can just tell he loves bowling and was legitimately trying to give me some tips, which I definitely appreciated, just not right then and there. My head was completely gone to crap after that. Just all kinds of being out of sort once I talked to him. I felt like Roy McEvoy in Tin Cup after he got “the shanks” right before the US Open. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to hopping on a plane and heading to Phoenix tomorrow. I’ll come back refreshed and ready to dominate the WNLCLBL. And yes, I’m well aware that my poor bowling has aggravated me much more than what one would call “healthy”.

Diet 2010 took another step in the positive direction today. As mentioned yesterday, I ran 4.25 miles during lunch. Well today I clocked another solid 3.5. Weighed myself this morning and dropped 1.5 lbs since yesterday morning, so after this weekend, I’m only up 1 from my low point. I can take that. If my life is Dumb and Dumber (probably pretty accurate), and Diet 2010 is the trip from Rhode Island to Aspen, then March 18th – March 21st was when Lloyd Christmas drove a sixth of the country in the wrong direction. But I’ve seen how that movie ends; they end up making it to Aspen even with the detour!

Other than that, the biggest thing dominating the Jayman’s world these days is the Phoenix trip coming up. Tentatively on the schedule is at the very least: 2 spring training baseball games, a Casino Arizona trip, the Knicks/Suns game, BoogerEaterMania, and a solid amount of beer consumption. Thankfully, the Barn has a gym right in his apartment complex so there will also be some treadmill sessions (I say that now, who knows what I’ll say every morning when I’m probably a little groggy from all the beers of the previous night). The plan is to head out there tomorrow after work, forget about all things work and upstate NY, and enjoy 4 days of fun in the sun. And oh yes, there will be sun! Checked the weather, every day I am there is supposed to be high 70’s or low 80’s. Sounds like the Jayman will be spending a few hours at the pool. I’m not gonna lie, I hope we get like 3 feet of snow back here in the 5-1-8. I’m such a jerk…

This is pretty much the most amazing thing that I’ve ever seen/heard/read. This 17-year-old kid with autism from Chicago picked a perfect bracket so far in the NCAA Tournament! My favorite part of the article says that according to www.BookOfOdds.com, it’s easier to win the lottery. Twice.

Alright, since I’m running out of steam, I wanted to pass along some of the comments made recently by one of my favorite people in the whole world, Mr. Bill Simmons, via his Twitter account and his running diary of Day 1 and 2 of March Madness.

- After the Tiger interview on Sunday night: “Enjoyed the 1st episode of ESPN's new series, "Frantic 5-Minute Interviews with Tom Rinaldi." Next week: Ben Roethlisberger!”

- After getting slaughtered on his bets through the first two rounds of the tournament: “CBS should put me in the 2010 "One Shining Moment" montage: a slow motion clip of me writing a 4-figure check for my bookie.”

- Before the Cal and Louisville game: “If the Cal band plays "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" pregame, how would you feel about Bears' chances against Pitino?”

- Him and his friends were watching all the games at his house. “We all hate the UPS guy. We're not gonna see him all day, are we? It's always funny when the Rogaine ad follows the UPS guy.”

- Him and his buddies regarding Tiger: “This is a hot discussion in the Bat Cave right now. Who should Tiger's Wife have slept with to get him back? John Daly, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Fuzzy Zoeller, Casey Martin, or Annika Sorenstam. I voted for Fuzzy.

The guy’s hilarious. Gotta give it to him.

Alright that’s it for me this evening. And unfortunately, that’s gonna be it for a while, as I’m not gonna be back home until Monday night. I can’t envision myself really posted all that frequently while I’m on vacation in Phoenix, but you never know, I could surprise everyone (even myself) with the occasional post. Expect nothing (as I am sure you already do anyway) and maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised over the next 5 days.

Everyone enjoy the rest of their week. I’ll catch up with you all soon...

Monday Quickie...

2010-03-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

What. Is. Up. How the heck is everyone doing on this fine Monday evening? Definitely a beaten down Jayman today. Didn’t feel like going to work, I was still a little sore (which I can’t explain because I really didn’t do anything close to physical activity this weekend) and I wanted to be a bum for one more day, but it wasn’t meant to be. However, I just got out of work and I’m nowhere near close to being able to kick up my feet and relax for a hot second. My day is just getting started. I’m heading over to AT’s for a few hours to hammer out a fantasy baseball mock draft and then heading over to Latham Bowl to pre-bowl for WNLCLBL. After that, there’s going to be approximately a 0% chance I’m going to have any motivation whatsoever to pump out a solid AMWJ, so hence the super early, probably going to be super abbreviated since I have to leave in a half hour AMWJ right now.

Cranked out a solid 4.25 miles on the treadmill at lunch today. Probably the greatest and worst thing I could have done all at once. Great because I feel like I finally sweat out some of the filth from this weekend, and terrible because I’m walking around right now like I was riding a mechanical bull for 2 hours. I’m sure that’ll be great for the bowling this evening. As for the Diet 2010, yes, it was bad news this morning, just as I had expected when I stepped on the scale. Managed to pack on a solid 2.5 pounds since Thursday morning. That, my friends, is not what you call good.

I heard this morning on ESPN Radio that 4.8 million people entered a bracket into their contest, and exactly zero of them have the Sweet 16 correct. That’s awesome. I feel like I’m already ready for the Sweet 16. I don’t want to wait 3 more days for the games to start up again. Of course, I’ll probably be watching them from a sports bar in Phoenix, AZ, so I’ll be too distracted by the ridiculous amounts of amazingly gorgeous women to even pay attention to the games, but that’s a chance I’m ready and willing to take.

Anyone else laugh hysterically when they listened to the Tiger interview yesterday and once again he played the Buddhism card, or was it just me?

Other than that, not too much for me to report on. I totally wish I could have had a camcorder follow me around the past 72 hours just to give everyone a glimpse of how much fun I had. Since I didn’t have that, I guess AT’s pictures that he posted last night will have to do. My personal favorite is from St. Patty’s Day when my sister and Leenie are posing for a serious picture together and some drunk idiot is giving them the double bird in the background. The last couple weekends have been great, definitely a lot of fun pictures in there.

Okay that’s it for me. Time to go mock draft me a winner…

Madness Mini Recap

2010-03-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

Wow I wouldn't even know where to begin. It's Sunday evening, Fish is dozing in and out of consciousness over there on the couch, I'm struggling to stay awake over here on my couch, and my body feels like it's gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson circa 1989. Just so much has happened over the last 72 hours that I can't even begin to describe it all. Nothing like a little old school, college flavored drunken debauchery weekend all centered around March Madness to get the juices flowing. Unfortunately, I'm paying for it now though. Just figured I'd let everyone know though that I was still alive and kickin'. Barely, but yes, there is a pulse. A random sampling of all the nonsense from the last few days...

- I made 10 bets on Friday's games to spice up the action a little bit. I definitely went 1-6 on my first seven. Ouch. Made a decent comeback though and finished at 4-6 on the day. 2-0 on Thursday night and 3-2 yesterday. I'm completely tapped out today though gambling-wise. No bets. No action. No juice. Coincidentally, no real interest in the games either.

- Siena gave a valient effort but fell to Purdue unfortunately. Damn. And I owe Bill HemROYd another $5. Guh.

- I am sincerely hoping that all the good work I've done on Diet 2010 was not undone in 72 hours. Words cannot express how scared I am to step on the scale tomorrow. Terrified. 3 days of pretty hardcore dieting and detoxing and then it's off to Phoenix where I'm guessing it'll be a lot of the same from this weekend.

- Me and AT were playing a drunken game of air hockey on Friday night. I think the score was 3-3 within about 12 seconds. Our hand eye coordination was not exactly firing on all cylinders. And oh yeah, AT whipped a shot out of bounds that practically decapitated one of the waitresses. Good times.

- Pretty much like the best tourney I can ever remember this year. So many buzzer beaters. So many great finishes. Can't wait to see how it finishes. I can only hope the Final Four will be as cool as these first two round games have been!

Alright this blog is entry is coming out of me like molasses in January. Not exactly flowing smoothly. Probably because my brain feels like mush. I can only hope I'll get a good night's sleep tonight and I'll be the same Jayman of 4:45 on Thursday before all this debauchery happened. Big night tomorrow...pre-bowling and mock fantasy drafts. And to answer your question, yes, I know that makes me sound like the biggest loser of all time! It's okay, I'm fine with it...

Okay just wanted to check in. JTG alive and in one piece. Well...sorta...

Hope you all had awesome weekends. Time to wake up the Fish and hopefully watch Duke lose...

Finally...The Madness Begins!

2010-03-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

Alrighty here’s the deal. Blogging will probably be uber-scarce the next 4 days or so. Got the Fish and the Henn coming into town (they’re actually already in town as I type this), I’m one trillion percent entrenched in the Madness, quite frankly I probably won’t be in front of a computer for the next couple days, and even if I am, I’ll be way too drunk to type my thoughts into rational, coherent sentences. Hopefully I’ll have some good stories to pass along though. However, that said, just wanted to hammer out a couple bullet points for you...

- Jimmy Fallon (who I never really liked, I don’t think he’s nearly as funny as he thinks he is) picked Siena to not only win in the first round against Purdon’t, but he picked them to win the National Title! Pretty crazy…

- Barry Obama, our nation’s fearless leader, also picked Siena to upset Purdue in the first round. However, the buck stopped there for Barry O. He has the Saints losing to Texas A&M in the 2nd round.

- So bowling last night…I really don’t have a ton of time to get into the nuts and bolts of it, but just know that I bowled like absolute ass. 160, 174 (both of which are fine), but the 138 I ended with on my last game…yeah that wasn’t so hot.

- The new format for the 2nd half of the league is instead of teams of four, we actually have teams of two. Me and AT will be representing Scared Splitless for the next 8 weeks. I thought Grant was going to cry when he found out we were ditching him (not really, but I thought it added some drama).

- Grant surprised everyone in the entire alley by bringing a lady friend with him last night. I would have seriously bet my life savings that he didn’t have a better half. Good thing nobody took me up on it!

- There was even mention of a BBQ after the league ended. Could you imagine me, AT, Grant, Angry John all at the same BBQ?!? Imagine if I’m nominated to host it?!?

That’s it for tonight. Like I said, probably gonna be on hiatus for the next couple days or so. Just too much going on to properly dedicate time to AMWJ. I know, I know, so sad. If management would actually shell out a few bucks for me to do this every day, then I might be more inclined to put some more effort in. But alas, I pour my heart and soul out to all my loyal followers day after day sans compensation. What can you do?

Alrighty hopefully everyone has an awesome next few days! Enjoy the Madness and have a cold one for me. Cheers!

It's St. Patty's Day?

2010-03-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

What’s cracking? Everyone enjoying their St. Patty’s Day? I’ll be honest, I completely forgot that St. Patty’s Day was today until I saw everyone at work today dressed in green. For all intents and purposes, my St. Patty’s Day was last Saturday. Hopefully that’s not the case for all of you though and you’re actually out drinking beers while I’m heading to WNLCLBL in a little bit.

Short AMWJ tonight. Just a combo of not all that much going on today with the fact that I’ve hit on everything the past few days that I’ve really needed to touch on as far as March Madness. On top of it all, I feel like I’ve been on the go 100 mph the past three days from work and all the stuff I’ve got coming up in the next few weeks, combined with all the action I’ve somehow managed to get involved in. By action I mean big buy-in fantasy leagues, big side bets in those fantasy leagues, March Madness pools, side bets in March Madness pools, March Madness squares through work, a couple casino trips coming up. It never stops! (Believe me, not that I’m complaining about any of that stuff, all that sort of degenerate activity is my bread and butter!)

The good news, however, is that it feels like the arctic tundra I’ve come to know and hate this winter is finally going away. In a cruel twist of fate, one of my buddies from work was telling me he’s going to Florida for a little girls guys getaway weekend, and the forecast while he’s there is in the low 60’s. The forecast for upstate NY this weekend: you guessed it, low 60’s! Oh well, he deserves it for being a Lance Bass stunt double.

Other than that, pretty much status quo from the last couple days. Really looking forward to this weekend. Really looking forward to getting out to Phoenix next week. Really looking forward to the Final Four in a couple weeks. Just an awesome time to be the Jayman.

My sincere apologies for the short and repetitive AMWJ this evening, but even Michael Jordan shot and missed occasionally. Hopefully I’ll have a good story or two from bowling this evening to spice things up tomorrow. Just need a few seconds to kick back and relax before I hit up bowling tonight. Gonna be a whirlwind next four days so I might as well relax now while I got the chance.

One Step Closer to the Madness

2010-03-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

What’s the good word out there in AMWJ-land this fine Tuesday evening?!? Everyone make it through another day of the corporate grind in one piece? I can safely say that knowing that pretty much everyone that would read this, including myself, is a corporate schnook in one way or another. Where did I go wrong? I grew up in the Dot Com Era, how am I not a bazillionaire with a smoking hot wife who plays 36 holes of golf every day? Or at least be friends with anybody like that? I hate it…

So the NCAA Tourney actually started this evening. Well, kinda started. Good old Arkansas Pine Bluff and Winthrop are playing tonight for the chance to get their asses kicked by Duke in a couple days. I really hope Winthrop wins cause I love saying it. I put a ton of emphasis on the “throp” part of the word, basically just because it annoys people and it sounds obnoxious. Not looking so good at the moment though, as they’re down by 9 with two and a half minutes left. But anyway, they’re playing tonight in Dayton, OH. Kind of random, but it’s true. Did the NCAA Committee throw a dart at a map and say “Huh, Dayton, I guess it’s as good a spot as any.” Sort of seems that way, but what do I know?

Speaking of the NCAA Tourney, I’m sure I’m not the first person, or even the thousandth person to notice this, but I gotta say it. How ridiculous is it that Siena is playing in the South Region, but yet, their first round game is in Spokane, WA, pretty much the furthest place in the continental US you can be from “South”. My other really favorite matchup is Washington vs. Marquette playing in the East Region, yet, their game is in San Jose, CA. Again, if you looked at a map, San Jose is about as far as you could be from “East” and not be in Hawaii. Were these bracket assignments done after each committee member was about 6 scotches deep?!?

Big news today…Tiger is coming back from the Masters! It’s always good to see a feel good story of a man overcoming his demons and returning to glory. In this case, Tiger overcame his battle with sexual addiction and is set to return to the golf course on golf’s most prestigious stage. Why is it that you only hear about celebrities that have sexual addiction? If this wasn’t Tiger, and it was just a regular guy, wouldn’t he just be a total scumbag that couldn’t keep it in his pants? Pretty sure the way his life outside of marriage the past few years has been portrayed sounds very similar to Derek Jeter, well of course without the Perkins waitress, and he’s looked at like a God for his sexual conquests.

As for my real take on the whole thing, I’m ecstatic that he’s coming back. Being a Tiger fan, was I disappointed to hear all that stuff? Sure. Is it going to stop me from rooting for him again when he gets back out there? Absolutely not. Pretty sure we don’t want to know about the private lives of most of the athletes we put up there on that pedestal. He’s only different cause he got caught. I never liked him because I thought he was a great family man; I liked him cause he can hit a 3 iron from 220 yards to within 6 feet of the cup. That’s why I want him back, and that’s why the PGA Tour desperately needs him back. He’s bigger than the sport. Can’t wait to see the reaction when he finally does return though. I’m very much anticipating that.

Sidenote - Still waiting to hear from AMWJ management whether or not they’re going to pull me out of work and send me down there to cover the big news or not. I’ll keep you posted.

Huge announcement on the Diet/Detox 2010 front; I hit a nice milestone this morning. I have officially dropped 20 pounds since January 1st. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. Best I’ve felt physically in a really long time. Definitely hoping to keep the momentum going throughout the rest of the year too. This weekend will be tough with lots of temptations, but hopefully I can manage to stay relatively healthy. As for Diet/Detox 2010, I should blatantly just dump that down to Diet 2010 at this point. I’ll let you figure out why.

Can you feel the excitement in the air?!? March Madness only a few days away (complete nonsense, the tourney starts Thursday, NOT tonight). I went out and got provisions for the fellas that’ll be staying at Casa Jayman this weekend. Plenty of beer and food in the house. Siena’s playing in a couple days. The out of towners will be here in less than 48 hours. 4 of my favorite days of the whole year coming up Thursday through Sunday. What more could a guy ask for?!?

Alright that’s it for tonight. Gonna go and relax for a few minutes. Went out for a stogie and bite to eat after work and I need to kick the feet up and relax a little bit. Hope you all had a great Tuesday and are just as excited as the Jayman about being one step closer to the Madness...

St. Patty's Day Parade

2010-03-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

What the heck is going on everyone?!? Another Monday in the books, just the way I like it. Everyone sit around and fill out their brackets all day? Certainly wish I could say the same, instead I was being worked like a rented mule. Ah well, I guess that’s why I make the big bucks, right? Wait a second…I don’t make the big bucks at all! Alright, let me get to today’s topics before I get severely depressed...

So St. Patty’s Day Parade, always one of my favorite days of the year, and this year was no exception. Let me get into a couple of the funnier events of the evening. As always, no particular order:

- I know it was only one year since I last went to this thing, but my God did it really just hit me how old I felt this year. The college kids looked like they had absolutely no business being there whatsoever. Hell, they probably thought the same thing about me too. Maybe it was cause I got there around 12:30 this year when in years past I always got there around 10:00 or so, so I was too drunk to notice. Who knows. It didn’t stop me from having a great time though.

- Speaking of those young college girls, I was almost positive this really cute one was really feeling the Jayman vibe. I was loving it. I talked to her for a hot second and was thinking it was going pretty well. Cute too! I felt like Angry John after a turkey, my chest was puffed out nice and big like the peacock that I am. But alas, to quote Shawshank, she went off and disappeared like a fart in the wind. Her friends probably said something to the extent of “Stay away from that old man desperately trying to fit in with the younger crowd with his fake shamrock tattoo on his face.” Sadly enough, she was probably right. Oh well, what can you do?

- This was pretty funny actually. I was in line at the port-o-potty and I finally got to the front. This drunk kid comes up to me and is like “how much to cut in front of you?” I tell him “Five bucks” and he’s like “No problem, done.” But the freaking scumbag doesn’t even pay me, he just jumps into the stall and the rest of the line starts chanting “A-hole” and a guy even goes to the door and starts banging on it. Me being the pond scum that I am didn’t tell anyone of my devious plan to make five bucks, I just jumped in with the rest of the crowd and started chanting “A-hole.” It was great!

- One of AT’s buddies and I, later on in the evening, were in line at the bathroom (shocking, I know) and a couple ladies came up to us and said the same thing to us as the drunk guy earlier in the day. We tell them if they buy us a beer it’s a deal, to which they say no problem. We both agreed there was a zero percent chance we were getting a beer out of this situation, but sure enough, we got out of the bathroom, walk past the girls at the bar, and there you have it, two Miller Lites waiting for us!

- Albany’s finest, Mayor Jennings, cut right in front of us in line to go to the outdoor bar on Pearl St. Really appreciated that. Seriously, it looks like he was spray painted orange. I should have pulled the same stunt as above “Mayor, you can cut in front of me, but you gotta buy me a beer!”

- It was also at this outdoor bar where I saw the biggest dog I’ve ever seen in my life. I didn’t know whether to tell it to sit or jump on top of him and try to win the Kentucky Derby!

- There was some definite photo bombing sessions going on which always makes for a good time. Leenie and my sister were attempting to get a picture of the two of them, and I’ll give you one guess as to the jerk behind them making his classic “picture face” and giving two middle fingers. The looks on their faces were priceless when they saw it in the digital camera afterwards!

- AT had this ridiculously huge Guinness hat that I kept stealing, but whenever I stole it and put it on my head, everyone kept pulling it down over my entire head, completely not allowing me to see a Goddamn thing. Seemed much funnier when we did it to AT.

- There was a brief session of everyone’s favorite party game, “Guess which clown I am from WNLCLBL”

- Overall, the day was definitely a huge success. Tons of fun, I did manage to stay true to my promise and not turn into the drunkest guy at the Parade, which is always nice. Although, to be fair, I probably did have a beer or two more than necessary. As evidenced by the fact that when I got home (thanks Brent!) I was drinking some water and watching TV and I accidentally deleted an entire series off my DVR that I had no intention whatsoever of deleting. Oops! Time to start taping High Stakes Poker from scratch again…

Not much else besides that really happening. The NCAA Tourney and work have pretty much occupied every waking second of my life between 6:00 yesterday and right now. And between the two of them my head is just about fried. Not good at all, maybe I should go and check and see what kind of nonsense is going on in the world these days…

Alright, Internet surfing time and 2.5 Men (pretty sure it’s supposed to be a new one tonight) time for the Jayman. I am telling you folks, it’s a pretty exciting life I lead.

I’ll catch ya on the flip side…

Couple Housekeeping Items

2010-03-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

What up what up?!? Couple bullet points to hammer out on this Sunday evening or else tomorrow's entry might take me like 8 hours to write, and it'd take you like 2 hours to read, and nobody wants that. Hence, gotta throw a few things out there tonight (and while they're still fresh in my head, don't wanna forget).

- Just found out that Siena got a #13 seed and is playing against Purdue on Friday in Spokane, WA. I am loving every piece of that. Loving the fact that it's on Friday cause I only took Friday off this year so it's definitely great that it's not on Thursday. Love the fact that they're playing Purdue. I'm not a huge college hoops fan but I do know that their star player tore his ACL a couple weeks ago so they're not nearly as good as they were before he got hurt. I have a mighty strong feeling that's gonna be a super close spread and that Jayman Gonyo will be wagering heavily on Siena this Friday. Ahhhh tourney time. Besides Christmas, my favorite time of the year!

- Probably shoulda started out with this, but oh well. JTG is alive and well, in one piece after the debauchery of the St. Patty's Day Parade. I set out to not be the drunken puddle that I was last year, and hey, what do you know, mission accomplished! I was definitely drunk, but nowhere near the heap of crap I was at the end of last year. More details to come tomorrow I'm sure.

- Very, very pumped for the next three weeks or so. This weekend, got the Henn and the Fish coming into town and will be hanging out watching hoops all weekend. Then, me and the Red going out to Barneyville, AZ (aka Phoenix) for some NBA hoops, MLB preseason action, and of course BoogerEaterMania. And then, after a short trip back to the A-L-B it's back on the road to Scumcinnati and then Indianapolis for the Final Four. Sah-weet! And of course, all the while 8 more weeks of Wednesday bowling! (Did everyone love the surprise announcement last Thursday?)

- Gotta end on a sad note today. Heard some news yesterday from my mom that my favorite dog in the whole wide world, Nelson Gonyo, isn't doing so hot. Not 100% sure of the details, but here's what I do know. He's 10 years old now, which is getting up there in dog years. My mom said last week he basically lost all control of his back legs (obviously not good), so they took him to the vet. The vet said he's coming down with some kind of spine disease. So they gave him some pills to try out and by Wednesday we'll see if he gets better or not. If he doesn't, it's one of two options. The first option is a $4,000 surgery, which as much as we love Nelson, ain't gonna happen, or we gotta put the yellow guy down. So me, CS and Brent went up to the Q today to say our goodbye. Sad stuff. First time since 10th grade I'm gonna have a pet die. Well, other than the hundreds of goldfish I went through at Fenimore Trace Apartments...

Alrighty, that's it for this evening. Life's pretty damn good right now...

I'll talk to ya this week...

The End of An Era

2010-03-11T20:25:00.000-08:00

Why beat around the bush, let's get right to the highlights! Here they are, in no particular order, highlights from the grand finale of the WNLCLBL:

- After a less than spectacular 145 opening game, I righted the ship and fired a respectable 183 and a 179 for my final two games. In the 183 game, I even got a 9 or a strike on every single frame! To say the least that was quite unexpected. I entered the game with a 164 average, my guess is with that series, it either stayed the same or maybe went up to a 165. Either way, I'll take it.

- During that wonderful 145 disaster, I managed to get a 5 spare in one of the frames. I don't think AT saw the first shot, cause he looked at the scoreboard and seemed surprised that I got a 5 spare, so of course he mocked me for it. My response, "It was my second of the game!"

- For the last week of the season, finally, we started to see a little bit of rewards for being in the league. Latham Bowl brought us a couple pitchers of Coors Light and a bunch of cheese pizzas. However, since I was full from the food taste testing, and I'm still being good on Diet/Detox 2010, I didn't have any pizza. I did of course have one Coors Light draft though (I am human you know).

- To me, the funniest part of the night was when AT approached the people in the lane next to us. He saw that they had a fresh pitcher of Coors Light. Since we had already finished our pitcher, he went over there to ask if he could have some of their pitcher. After all, the pitchers were free and were for everyone in the league. However, AT was unaware that the people on the lane next to us finished their free pitcher and just bought this new, full pitcher. It was phenomenal, they looked at him like he had three heads. "Umm, yeah, we bought this ourselves" was probably uttered, or at least something to that extent. You should've seen the poor little schnook walk back to our lanes with his tail tucked between his legs.

- We were bowling with Angry John and Co. last night. They were up to all their old tricks like always.

- At one point the guy who works there on AJ's team, he and my main man Grant were busting each others chops and the guy who works there says "Listen (word that starts with S and rhymes with 'putt')". Me and AT were almost rolling on the ground from laughing so hard.

- The old guy that I wrote about a few weeks ago was there too and he was rocking the Razor Ramon dance into the Tiger Woods fist pump after every shot. It was freaking awesome.

- I finally figured out the best way to describe Angry John. The light bulb just went off all of a sudden. He thinks he's a good bowler cause he gets a lot of strikes. The part he neglects to pay attention to is that he always misses his spares, which is essential to being a really good bowler. He's the golfer who practices drive after drive after drive on the driving range, but yet, always 3 putts from 10 feet and is a 28 handicap.

- At one point AJ rolled off like 7 strikes in a row, and the best way to describe his walk back to the seats after every shot was a proud peacock. SO proud of himself. Head held high, chest puffed out, just pure comedy to the Nth degree.

- AJ told me I need to put some weight on so I don't almost fall over after every single shot. That's probably the first time anyone has ever said that to me. I told him I was on a diet, and he responded "You keep drinking that beer you'll pull all that weight back on." Ouch!

- AJ was like everyone's best friend last night, it was hilarious. He has a little unnatural obsession with AT, which I find comical. He also even addressed me by name for the first time yesterday, which I don't think he has ever done before. Weird times at the WNLCLBL finale.

- Somebody missed a spare and AJ went up to AT and whispered to him "missed it by a C-U-Next-Thursday hair" only he didn't spell it out like that. You can figure it out.

- Grant was also in rare form last night. I don't think he liked it when the old guy who worked there called him a "pervert", although I thought it was hilarious. He responded by stealing the guys cell phone and threatening to throw it down the lanes. With Grant, anything is possible.

- He kept his streak alive of wearing dirty jeans to every single week of WNLCLBL.

- Leenie pointed out that he has the butt of a woman. I never would have noticed this myself, but once she said it, I looked around, it did look a lot different than everyone else's butt there. Well, except for maybe Leenie's, which I guess would make sense!

- Oh yeah, Grant also was quite the proud peacock when he passed around his cell phone at the beginning of the night to me and AT and made us listen to a filthy text message he had. I swear, this guy is 44 going on 12.

- The penguin ball was getting a lot of love last night. AT even threw it on one of his practice shots. AJ was making fun of it and for a minute I thought "my 3 favorite characters of WNLCLBL all involved in a nice little subplot, Angry John, Grant, and the Penguin Ball."

- You know how at a wedding when they play that song "Hot Hot Hot" and everyone dances around in a circle around the whole reception area? How you hold the person's hips in front of you and then the person behind you holds your hips? After one of the games, AT was writing down our scores on the score sheet, and for some reason, AJ grabbed AT by the hips, just like that dance at weddings, and moved him to the side. Personally, I would've gone with the "Excuse me", but that's just me. AT may or may not have drawn wood.

-You ever look a person and just say "He looks like a beaten man"? That was Leenie last night. I felt so bad for her. She just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge and be done with the WNLCLBL. You could just see it on her face, and I even felt bad for her. She's been a trooper all year and I'd like to give her a big round of applause for sticking it out all season.

HOWEVER...You don't think I forgot about the big surprise announcement I said I was going to make today, did you?

So last night during the 3rd game, right around the 7th frame, the guy who works there that also bowls in the league stopped everyone and made an announcement. He just said he wanted to thank everyone for participating in the league and that it was a great success. As for the big announcement...

Wait for it.....

Wait for it.....

Jayman Gonyo was named League MVP!!!

How's that for a big announcement?!?

Pretty exciting, right?

Alright, well, hopefully you didn't get too excited, cause it's not even close to true. For real though, the big announcement was that if everyone in the league agreed, they'd agree to run the same exact league with the same exact teams for another 8 weeks. Me and AT looked at each other like little kids on Christmas morning. Poor Leenie, her shoulders just shrunk to the ground and she immediately said "not a chance". So Leenie's out, but Jayman, AT, and the Grant Man are back for another 8 weeks of action! And the greatest (or not greatest, who knows) thing is that AJ's girlfriend, whose father is the one who works at the alley and also is in the league, is going to replace Leenie on "Scared Splitless". I will see to it that that will be our new team name for the next 8 weeks.

Okay, so not really the biggest news of all time, but I'm glad I can finally let the cat out of the bag. Everyone was bugging me nonstop all day asking about it! Orrrr, like 3 people asked. Still, always good to use AMWJ to create a little buzz. 8 more weeks of blog fodder! Can't wait.

Okay that's it for tonight. Hope you enjoyed the week 8 highlights. You all thought it was the season ending highlights, but oh no, we just hit the halfway point! In the words of the immortal Ric Flair, WHOOOOO!!!!!

Catch up with everybody soon...

Closing Thoughts on the MAAC Finale

2010-03-10T20:11:00.000-08:00

What's happening? Everyone make it to the second half of the week alive and well? Manage to avoid all possible confrontations with any rent-a-cop security guards today at work? Sure hope so. Even though I was just trying to celebrate a little and "storm the lunchroom" this afternoon, I was tossed to the ground like a piece of trash and dragged out to the parking lot by my hair! I then had to sit there helpless this afternoon as I read a statement saying that my workplace security guards were very nice people and didn't hit anyone during the lunchroom mayhem. Oh wait, nevermind, I'm getting confused. That was the Siena basketball game where that happened, not at work. Ahhh, it just doesn't get old, does it?

Which will bring me to my first (and last) topic. Since I went so into such super detail about everything yesterday, I'm not going to bombard you with more details about the mayhem that went down Monday night. Just know that the MAAC commissioner issued a statement last night or early this morning. In that statement, he blamed the TUC security for all the commotion of Monday night. Well the TUC then issued another release this morning again just defending themselves (and it's a pretty solid statement if I do say so myself) for Monday night. They seem to acknowledge that they had a few bad eggs in their staff and are going to take appropriate disciplinary action. Whether they do or not is a whole different story, but to at least come forward and acknowledge that publicly, I thought was the right thing to do. My final take on everything: I think the MAAC commish is an arrogant blowhard and deserves all the negative attention he's getting. All the mid-major conferences storm the court after they win the conference tourney. Instead of futilely trying to stop it, they should acknowledge it's going to happen and assist in the process. Case closed. (Check out the TU website if you want to read more)

Alright, the reason that was my first and last topic of the evening is simple. It’s past 11:00 and I’m just sitting down and relaxing for the first time all evening. After work, I came home for a hot second and went to Albany Country Club (super nice!) and tried out the food that is gonna be at AT and Leenie’s wedding. Then, once that was done, I headed home, changed outta my work clothes, and went right to WNLCLBL (Wednesday Night Latham Coors Light Bowling League for those new to the program) for the grand finale of a season for the record books.

However, I will say this. I’ll give an overview of everything that went down tonight tomorrow to everyone, and I’ll even tease it a little bit. I will be making a major announcement tomorrow on AMWJ. I’m not even going to go into any details tonight, and I don’t care how hard you beg or how much money you offer, I’m not telling anyone what it is tomorrow. You’re gonna have to wait to see it posted just like everybody else!

I’ll let everyone chew on that until tomorrow. Always good to keep them wanting more, right? So while tonight’s AMWJ might have left you wanting more, you have tomorrow’s big announcement to look forward to. And just think, along with that, we got St. Patty’s Day Parade, NCAA Tourney, Phoenix, and the Final Four all right around the corner as well. Lots of fun stuff to blog about. But for now, I’m gonna go downstairs, kick my feet up, maybe watch an episode or two of Charlie Harper, and call it an evening. Goodnight everybody!

The Aftermath

2010-03-09T20:28:00.000-08:00

What’s the good word everyone? Enjoy your Tuesday? Still in a post “MAAC Tourney Siena Victory” haze? I know I certainly am. That was certainly the topic of discussion for me early and often with just about everyone today at work. Who knows, maybe there are more AMWJ fans out there than I thought (a man can dream, can’t he?). Apparently everyone knew I either A) went to Siena, B) went to the game last night, or C) both, because it seemed like everyone was asking me about the game last night. Definitely an awesome time. I hope you all enjoyed the writeup. That, and I hope none of my readers were seriously injured by the professional cage fighters disguised as disgruntled Times Union Center security guards last night. Which leads me to my next point...

Just as it was first reported here yesterday on AMWJ (pretty much turning into Dateline v2.0), the big story of the day was the chaos that ensued after the game last night with the fans storming the court. You know how I know it was the biggest story of the day? It’s been the lead article on the front page of the Times Union website all day today! Very rarely is a story on the front page for the entire day. That, and the two main article about the chaotic scene (which we’ll get to in a few minutes) each had over 120 comments as of this afternoon. (Sidenote – this also made me feel good because I was validated in the fact that I didn’t steal my idea after reading the article as my blog entry was from last night and all the fallout was done all day today. But alas, I digress. That’s beside the point.)

First and foremost, here’s a two minute video of the scene from last night. I think everyone needs to watch this at least twice. It’s awesome. Unfortunately, it didn’t catch a ton of the really physical encounters (I’ve broken it down like Peyton Manning breaking down game film). However, it gives you a good idea of what the scene was like last night. My favorite part, by a mile, is the 37 second mark when one of the security guards (who I recognize from my days at Siena, God knows how long he was there before that) takes one of the kids who is hanging from the net, pulls him down, and for no reason at all, just gives him a shove towards the middle of the court. I understand taking him off the net, but the shove was completely unnecessary. Especially since he shoved him towards the court, thus saying it's alright to storm the court, just get off the net. Mission was accomplished, the kid was already off the net. And his disgusted look makes it all the better to watch. I still laugh every time I see, just hilarious.

The other big article that got a ton of attention today is the response from the Times Union general manager regarding the controversy. Here is a link to it. Just make sure you roll up your pants before you read this, cause you’re gonna be knee deep in you know what starting right about the third paragraph. However, to be fair, he does make some good points towards the end. It seems like the TUC was put in a no-win situation, as they had to follow the MAAC director’s orders. However, it does look like he’s owning up to some of the mistakes made by his crew. I’ll let you all decide for yourself what your thoughts are on the matter.

Gonna follow a different kind of format tonight. Since these two articles got so much attention today, and since I was at the game and wrote about it last night, I want to go over my favorite parts of the articles and the comments. I’m just going to give you all my favorite parts of the Times Union Center’s statement, as well as the comments, along with my insight where it’s appropriate. Some of them will be educational (the first hand accounts of what actually happened), sad, horrifying, eye opening, and since this is AMWJ, I’ll try to throw some funny ones in there too. My comments are in bold.

My favorite parts of the Times Union Center statement:

“These security guards are NY State certified and trained, and they not only respect the Siena students, but they love to see them at regular-season games.” - Right, that’s why they were treating them like NFL players treat tackling dummies during training camp.

“The security guards did not “hit” students as the TU reported this morning.” – According to one commenter on the other article, he saw a security guard shove a girl to the ground and pull her out of the arena by her hair. Pretty sure she probably would have rather been hit!

“In reality, these security guards are extremely nice people, most of whom work at the arena as part-time employees with other full-time jobs.” – Umm, I’ve been going to games at the Times Union Center in some capacity for over 15 years. I beg to differ. Those security guards are not all “extremely nice people”. Look at the 37 second mark of the video above, does he look like a really nice guy?!?

“After the championship awards ceremony on the court, the Commissioner of the MAAC left the building without saying thank you or goodbye to anyone on the TUC staff.” – Gee, I wonder why. Should he have given some of these guys Purple Hearts for beating the crap out of some drunk college kids?

My favorite comments from the 2 articles:

“With all due respect Mr Belber I was there last night and this 56 year old father of a Siena student witnessed your security ABUSE several Siena students. May I suggest you obtain the tapes and and get rid of those ABUSERS on your staff.” - Love how he has ABUSE and ABUSERS in all caps.

“Some of them physically man-handled the students. They were also gave them vulgar laced tirades. The video shows one of your highly trained guards shoving a girl on the court. Highly trained is quite the comical statement, how long is that NYS training course 10 hours?”

“I was in section 209. There was some super douche rent a cop standing in our sight line that refused to move. He was also the same d-bag orderring people around at Will Call before the game. Please get rid of him.” - This one tickled my funny bone. I love when people throw d-bag around.

“I could not believe what I witnessed last night. I hope someone has a tape of this and sends it to the news stations. What I saw were students (both girls and guys) being man-handled by over zealous security staff at the arena. I saw a young large security guard near section 118, throw students to the ground.” - If anyone has the tape, send it to AMWJ. I'll glady break the story way before News 6, 10, or 13.

“I was at the game and watched multiple female students being assaulted by security guards. One girl in particular was tackled to the ground. She tried to regain her footing and was pushed back down by the security guard, face down into the ground. The girl was clearly not trying to harm the guard in any way; she was just trying to get to the court. The security guard aggressively attacked this female student.” - Very scary.

“The guards did hit kids. I was sitting in the student section, second level, row B, with the perfect view of everything taking place and on numerous occasions saw guards swing at, and hit, kids, even after they got past them. Id go to the tape to review this one!”

“There’s no way you can say that the TU Center security was justified in their acts last night. I was physically “HIT!” in the face and also orally accosted. I will not repeat what the security guards were saying to kids but it was over the line. After being hit in the face I saw one girl get tackled by a guard then another kid pinned up against the wall by his head.” - Orally accosted? That's a new one.

“I personally saw a Security Guard tackle a student right in front of me in Section 118. Linebacker style. This after 100’s of people were already on the court. What’s the point?” – The second part of that statement is so true.

“I saw One security guard inparticular in a blue blazer that grabbed a female student and tossed her around like a rag doll. I am sure you know who this employee is… he was bald and fat and acting like someone who for once had a bit of authority.”

“#29 – You were “orally accosted” by a senior citizen security guard? And what were you chanting during the game? Please get a life.” – Hilarious!

“Really? Sinkoff, a local sports talk radio person, saw a 110 lb girl tackled into a table… Did you hire the WWE or Hells Angels as security guards!!!!” – This cracked me up.

“What a joke. I saw a grown man throw a young girl to the ground. I dont care the situation that guy should have charges pressed against him. I literally saw him push her down then drag her out of the arena by her hair.”

“I knocked over a security guard,” one student said. “I hit him in the face, he fell, and I ran over him. No lie.” – This was perhaps the funniest thing I’ve ever read. It put the biggest smile ever on my face.

“The game goes to OT so during that intermission I figure it’s a good time to hit the head. But no,, as you attempt to go to the nearest restroom security has barricaded that off, making you now go to the OPPOSITE end of the building to find one. I manage to get back with 90 seconds to play.” – Guh! Well done Times Union Center!

“As far as the d-bag TU security that were tackling and body slamming students–get a life boys. You couldn’t hack it in the Albany PD so you end up taking out your frustration on a few Siena students.” – You tell ‘em!

“Any of the students that rushed the court at the bottom of Section 118 let me know if you are pressing charges. The pudgy, younger, security loser with black hair and a crew cut should have been arrested for throwing students into the concrete barracade and tackling petite women to the stadium floor. I witnessed an APD officer tell the guard to take it easy and yet the guard became more and more physical with the crowd. Fat man you are beyond trash.” – Really good details. Again, love how the TUC statement said that the security guards didn’t hit anyone. Umm, this seems a little too detailed to just be “made up”, don’t you think?

“I watched from section 107 and several of the security personnel(maroon jackets) were excessivly manhandling the students. Unfortunitly some of the students did fight back but only after they were pushed and/or shoved around.”

“The clown that was hanging from the rim during the celebration should have been arrested. I watched him try 3 or 4 times, without success, to grab the net and pull himself up.” – Thank God this clown tried climbing onto the rim, cause it provided me one of the funniest moments I’ve seen on video in a really long time!

“Anyone see the black shirted security guard full out tackle the female Siena student near the media table by the band. Seriously?” – Scary stuff.

“I witnessed one security guard take a student by the shirt, push him into the wall, knock him down and then drag him off the floor. All this while the other 100 kids in the same area ran onto the court to celebrate. Did stopping that one kid and risking injury to him or the security guard really serve any good purpose?” – Good story. Again, a little too much detail to just think this was made up, no?

“All of you “entitlement mentality college kids” are just a waste of skin, bones, and what should be brains. This is nothing more than another example of how America is sliding downward.” – Eassssssy big fella. Disgruntled much?

“I was at the game and it wasn’t just some security guards trying to hold back fans, it was security guards tackling young men and women like they were in a football game. It was awful to watch and completely overboard.” – Probably making this up. According to the TUC statement, no fans were “hit” during the evening.

“Security was really mean last night . I am a 14 year old girl I was on the court and a really mean security guy pushed me and said get off the court. I was shocked at how mean they were being.” – This 14 year old has quite the imagination. Those security guards are “actually really nice people”! (Seriously...they were shoving around 14 year old girls?!? That's freaking sick. Well done TUC.)

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Alright hope you enjoyed the recap. What a freaking scene it was last night! I was actually looking forward to getting back to normal AMWJ topics today, but I guess that will have to wait at least another day.

Catch up with you all soon…

MAAC Final

2010-03-08T19:33:00.000-08:00

What's the good word everybody?!? Everyone enjoy their first day back to the office today? I know I certainly didn't!

Went to the MAAC Tourney Final tonight w/ the Redman and the Big Redman. Definitely a good time for sure. The highlights:

- We get to the game about 5:45. This means we have an hour and fifteen minutes to eat and drink as much beer as possible. The gauntlet has been laid out.

- We head to our first bar, Pagliacci’s (sp?) across the street from the Times Union Center. It’s a mob scene. We head to the streets.

- Pizza stand is selling beers outside. Bingo. I decide I’ll have two.

- We hit the pizza stand inside; somehow manage to find a seat. It’s completely mobbed in there. I wolf down two slices of cheese (I am on a diet you know) in record time.

- Still another 20 minutes before tipoff. We hit up Broadway Joe’s. Another round of beers.

- A little texting back and forth with William HemROYd leads to a $5 bet that Siena is going to cover 8.5 points tonight. Extra incentive to root for the Saints!

- All of us are 3 beers in and feeling pretty good.

- We get to our seats.

- I'm wearing my 1999-2000 Siena Dog Pound shirt. As far as I can tell, I'm the only one in the whole arena with one on. Yeah, I'm officially old.

- There's a MILF sitting next to Big Red. She is not a fan of this. She puts her 3 year old son next to him instead as a buffer. He is also a redhead. This means I have a red head on my left and 2 redheads on my right. Good thing I'm buzzed.

- Red has done another masterful job with our tickets. 4th row behind the basket that Siena was shooting at in the 1st half.

- Go SIENA!!!!!!!!

- No cheerleaders in front of us today which is a little bit of a downer.

- Not good. Fairfield gets off to a hot start. This isn’t good for business.

- Siena down 15 with 4 minutes left in the first half.

- The crowd gets restless.

- The hot start continues. All the way to halftime. Siena down 11 at halftime. Not good. Not good at all.

- Siena comes out hot to start the second half. Trim the lead to 8 points.

- Ubiles gets a steal and for some God forsaken reason tries (and thankfully, makes) a 360 dunk on a fast break. Crowd goes wild.

- Siena storms all the way back.

- We manage to tie the game (yeah, I said we).

- Tie game, 12 seconds left. Perhaps the best use of fouls I’ve ever seen when a team isn’t in the bonus yet.

- Siena fouls 3 different times and only allows Fairfield 1.7 seconds (I think) to get off their last second shot.

- Guy from Fairfield gets a good look, but luckily it doesn’t go down.

- Thank. Freaking. God.

- Ohhhhverrrrrtime!

- Siena dominates in overtime.

- Ref makes some bad call in overtime; I can’t remember now what it was. Guy that looks like Colonel Sanders who has a table in the second row runs out ON TO THE COURT to argue with the refs. Security tells him to go back to his seat. That’s a 19 year old Siena student, they’re chucked out in like .00007 seconds.

- It’s becoming apparent that Siena is going to the Big Dance.

- Students get ready to rush the court.

- Security pretends like it is going to stop people from storming the court.

- Within 5 seconds of the game being over there are like 500 Siena students on the court.

- I took a picture with my camera phone but I’m nowhere near technologically advanced enough to get it onto my computer and throw it on AMWJ. You’ll have to take my word, it was pretty awesome.

- For some reason, I have no clue, but the security guards were just randomly picking and choosing which students they were going to allow on the courts, and which ones they were going to try and beat the living crap out of. I swear, some of those security guards looked like UFC fighters out there. The cops too. I felt bad for the random kids that were getting beaten up and taken outta there. Obviously I don’t know the whole story, but it just seemed so ridiculous that they were picking and choosing which kids to get in headlocks and which ones to let storm the court. Very scary actually. As Chris Rock would say, there was some violence going down!

- However, awesome scene out there on the court. Colonel Sanders went and shook Coach Fran McCaffery’s hand after the game. Awww, how sweet.

- Some student, and I swear this was true, shook Fran’s hand and kissed him on the cheek. Not a problem, except the student was a male with a Mohawk.

- Incredible atmosphere out there tonight. Just so awesome to be there live. Jayman's going nuts.

- Siena’s heading to the Big Dance for the 3rd straight year!

- I owe Bill Roy $5, but it's $5 well spent. Can't wait for a week and half when I get to see Siena in the tourney.

So the only other noteworthy thing is that Diet/Detox had a step in the right direction (of course it had a step in the wrong direction as well as I had 4 beers and 2 slices of pizza at the game tonight, but details schmetails) earlier today. I made sure to really step it up a notch on the treadmill at lunch today so I wouldn't feel so bad about having a couple beers tonight. And step it up I did! Yours truly rocked out to the tune of 4.25 miles. And no, that is not a misprint. Even managed to rock the first 3.1 miles (the distance of a 5k) in 26:20. Quite the far cry from the 29:30 I rocked on Turkey Day morning (I looked it up...so sad). I don’t think any 13 year olds in a turkey costume would have beaten me this afternoon!

Alrighty, that's it for tonight. Great to be back in the 5-1-8, as I mentioned yesterday. Congrats to the Siena Saints once again for another MAAC Tourney Title and another trip to the Big Dance. Can't wait to find out who, when, and where they play. Great times for sure. And now that I'm back on my home turf, better and more regular AMWJ posts. I gotta say, other than being bombarded with work at this current point in time, life is pretty good! I will talk to you all soon...

Weekend Mini Update

2010-03-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

Just a little brief state of the union kind of update as I finally had a few minutes to sit down and relax here on Sunday night. I realized I haven't had a decent post on AMWJ in a while. Figured I'd take a few minutes to just let everyone know that the Jayman is alive and kickin', in one piece, and very, very thankful to be in the 5-1-8 and not the 4-4-0 (C Town) this week. Regular posts with much better material will be sure to come. All kinds of good stuff coming up this week too. Got the MAAC Final tomorrow, where hopefully Siena can win and make it into the NCAA Tourney. Wednesday I got a little food taste testing for the big wedding this July. We got ourselves the last week of the WNLCLBL this week. I'm sure I'll shed a few tears over that one. And then to finish the week off we got the St. Patty's Day Parade, always an annual favorite of the Jayman.

Speaking of the MAAC Tourney, I only know that Siena made it to the MAAC Final because I heard it through the rumor mill. I mean, I was at the game and all earlier tonight, but the 2nd half was pretty much a blur. You see, the Niagara cheer team was warming up right in front of me for the entire 2nd half, and it was borderline impossible to follow the game with these girls doing their stretches and exercises in front of me. It was mesmerizing. And thanks to the Redman stepping up to the plate all Billy Fucillo style (Hayuuuuggge) this weekend, we were in the front row of the section that we were in behind the bench. I was at most 10 feet away from these girls, and I loved every second of it! I mean, I'm sure they hated every second of it, but that's neither here nor there.

Just wanted to give a quick update to everyone. I'm back, I'm home, I'm not looking forward to going to work all that much tomorrow, but hey, it's a return to normalcy and I'll take it.

Hope all is well with all my millions of fans. Looking forward to kicking it back up a notch.

Laterrrrrrr...

He's Baaaaaack!

2010-03-04T18:13:00.000-08:00

It’s a first for AMWJ…I’m actually writing this from 30,000 feet in the air! Probably somewhere above Syracuse right now. I was about halfway through the flight when I decided I’ve reached the point of diminishing returns on reading Cardplayer so I decided to pump out a blog entry. What a guy I am, so multitalented.

Well, unfortunately, it’s much of the same from yesterday in that not much has happened. However, I’ll be touching down in the A-L-B in about a half hour or so, so that automatically means I’m in a ten times better mood than I was yesterday at this same time! This is just a guess, but I’m sure the sequence of events will go something like this upon arrival home: 1) get mail, 2) walk in house, 3) throw mail on the kitchen table, 4) throw laptop bag and luggage on the floor, 5) turn up heat, 6) plop my butt down on the couch for an hour to watch the series finale of Nipper. Again, just a tough guesstimate, but just in case you were wondering, that’ll probably be the sequence of events this evening when I get home. Pretty exciting, I know. In the words of the infamous Austin Powers, “I too like to live dangerously.”

Other than that, not too much new to report on. Today was basically Hell on Earth. I had six meetings that my boss found it appropriate for me to attend. Those meetings turned into an absolute bloodbath. The work just kept piling up with every one. It was a horror show. So yeah, next week doesn’t look like it’ll be that much fun either. Awesome.

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Alright slight change of plans. Those 3 paragraphs, sadly enough, were all I got done on the plane. Sleeping instead felt like a much better option. Or passing out, but now we’re just getting into semantics. Anywho, I’m actually back in the 5-1-8 and I have got an absolute crapload of things to start cranking out on the DVR, so I’m gonna wrap this up (hey, I gave fair warning, out of town AMWJing is not for the weak of heart). Back to regularly scheduled programming asap, I promise.

Hope you all had wonderful Thursdays. I’ll be thinking of all you poor schleps tomorrow as I have the day off while you’re in the office slaving away. Ahhh, maybe life ain’t so bad after all. I’ll catch up with you all soon…

Update from Drew Carey-land

2010-03-03T20:38:00.000-08:00

Greetings everybody!!! I feel like it's been forever since we last caught up. And for good reason too. As you're about to see, absolutely nothing funny whatsoever happens to me or around me when I'm here in C-Town. No Wednesday night bowling fodder. No Internet surfing for quality links. No nothing. It's pretty miserable actually. Hence the reason I gave fair warning that I might not post every day while I was out here. I'll give it a shot though, even with my limited material.

- How sad am I? Not only am I missing WNLCLBL tonight, but I'm also missing the series finale of Nip/Tuck. That's right, no FX in the hotel so I gotta wait til tomorrow night to see how it all goes down. And actually, it's 11:06 PM EST as I am writing this, so it actually already has gone down. RIP Nip/Tuck. We barely knew ya...

- So I think I got mistakenly put into this class while I was here. I took a class in project management the past two days (which I basically had no business taking whatsoever) and here's my thoughts: project managers do absolutely nothing! All these years, the GW's been telling me about how hard he's worked, little did I know all he was doing was assigning work to others, and when they did a good job, he took the credit for it! Better to be the Queen Bee than the stupid worker bee I guess. Probably why I'm destined to live the rest of my life like a schnook...

- Had a first for me last night. Went out to dinner with a guy I've kinda become friends with since I took this new job last summer. I'm on his team, he's the same age as me, laughs at the same stupid stuff I laugh at, really into sports, and loves to exchange funny dating stories as from what I've gathered, he's in the same boat as me with the ladies. Not really looking for Ms. Right, but Ms. Right Now. He also happens to be African American, which pretty much has no bearing on anything, just stating a fact. So he said him and his buddy are going to dinner and asked me if I wanna go, which I say yes to. I meet his friend and he's cool as hell, and he's also African American, which again, doesn't really matter at all. Just important cause it's the first time I've ever been the only white guy at a dinner before.

So we're all BSing and my buddy from work was telling his friend "I knew Jayman (he calls me Jayman, I love it!) was cool when the first time he came to the office he got up from his desk and left his wallet right on his desk next to me. I'm thinking 'can't he see I'm black?'" which we all got a huge laugh out of. They later go on to tell me Lee Evans and Chris Chambers both went to their high school, both NFL wide receivers, and they each know them pretty well. Cool stuff. I thought about throwing out there "well I know the starting third basemen for the Twins" but thought better of it. Doesn't exactly carry the same weight...

- Did another late night run tonight. Not sure how I feel about that. I worked late tonight (even going to the office after training was done, which was in another office all the way across town, what's wrong with me?!?), and by the time I got out I was starving. So I shot down to this great seafood place, one which I would never eat at if I was paying for it out of my own pocket, and scarfed down some shrimp and crabcakes. Mmmmm, deeeeelish! However, with all that seafood crawling around in my belly, running wasn't feasible until 10:00, which is just what I did. For those of you counting at home, I ran Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday while I was here. Let's give it up for the Jayman!

- That's pretty much all I got for ya everybody. I know, I know, so lame. I got nothing though! I did love Farney's idea of some guest writers, but I'm guessing I was the only one since nobody stepped up to the plate for the old Jayman. I see the way it is... Just kidding. Let me get back to my normal surroundings and I'm sure I'll be back to my tricks in no time. Plus, there's a crapload of cool stuff for me coming up (MAAC Tourney w/ the Redman, St. Patty's Day Parade, NCAA Tourney with the Henn and Fish and Co., Phoenix w/ the Redman and the Barn), so that should give me ample material to crack a few jokes. For now though, I absolutely can't wait until tomorrow to hop on that plane and get back to the 5-1-8. Been a tough week and tomorrow's gonna be the worst day yet. Blaaahhh. I need bowling w/ Grant and Angry John!

Alrighty everybody. Hope you're all having a better, more exciting week than I am (if you aren't, you're a loser). Catch up with you all once I get back home...

Safe and Sound

2010-03-01T20:41:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let everyone know I made it to C-Town safe and sound. I know how worried all of you have been. Have no fear though, the Jayman is in one piece, chillin' like a villain, maxin' and relaxin' with LeBron and Drew Carey.

Speaking of LeBron, good Lord is he amazing. Went to see him tonight with the only person I'd actually consider a friend here in the 4-4-0 and had an awesome time. Is he ever a beast or what? He threw down this one dunk, it didn't count cause Delonte West threw him an alley oop and got fouled on the pass, but Bron Bron caught it at his waist, cocked it back over his head and threw down the sickest reverse you'll ever see in an NBA game. Just out of this world. The place, including the Jayman, was going bananas. Since they were playing the Knicks and they were up by almost fifty points at one point, I didn't get to see the King play all 4 quarters, but it was still incredible. My second trip seeing him live, and hopefully he stays in Cleveland so I can see him many more times. And a special thanks to the Knicks for putting an extra large postage stamp on that game tonight...boy did they ever mail it in!

Other than that, pretty horrendous day workwise. Had a little lunch with the boss which was nice, but other than that it was balls to the wall all day. Pretty awful actually. I did manage to keep one streak in tact though. I really, really wanted to go for a run today, but I knew going at lunch was out of the question, and running tonight was going to be tough since I got home at 10:45 from the game. So I pulled out the oldest trick in the book, the old "Jayman Gonyo set the alarm for 5:30 and swear this will be the time I finally get up and run before work" Trick. Yeah, that went off and I was like a grizzly bear pawing at a salmon turning that thing off. Think Frank the Tank when he gets shot in the neck with the tranquilizer dart in Old School. So my streak of post-college trying to run before work cause I have something big going on in the afternoon is still strongly intact. I've still yet to accomplish the feat, even though I've tried somewhere north of twenty times if I had to guess.

However, there's a happy ending to this story (and no, unfortunately not the happy ending Big Red enjoys after a Hong Kong massage). Against all odds, I got back to the hotel at 10:45, went to the gym and ran 3 miles and it felt amazing. I just had to given that my eating is probably going to go to crap this week. Diet/Detox 2010 will be put to the ultimate test this week, and this whole month actually. Today wasn't awful, but it definitely wasn't great either. Be sure to stay tuned for more details.

Alright that's it. It's almost midnight and I gotta hit the sack. Hope the Capital Region is still running on all cylinders this week sans Jayman. I guess I'll find out Thursday night when I get back.

Hope nobody had too bad of a case of the Monday's. Catch up with you all soon...

Weekend Highlights

2010-02-28T18:59:00.000-08:00

Couple of minutes to kill sitting here in the Albany Airport before I head out to C-Town, so I figured what better way to pass the time than a little AMWJ! Plus tomorrow night I’m going to see Bron Bron and the Cavs so who knows if I’ll have the time to update. Couple of fun topics to pass along.

So Friday night we went to a comedy show in Troy and it was an absolute blast. For the second time in my distinguished career, I got mocked by a performing comedian! The first time, the Redman and I (both underage at the time) were acting like drunk idiots in the front row of a Colin Quinn stand up performance and I believe the phrase Colin used was “Great, I’m being mocked by a couple drunk 19 year olds.” And then on Friday night the comedian onstage was going through a bit about birth control and he was talking about this ring that girls put up there. I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was to the effect of “give us a little warning, I almost pulled the thing like I was starting a lawnmower.” And of course I had a few beers in me, so it was even more funny to me and I say, not so quietly apparently, “It’s so true” and the comedian then proceeds to make fun of me for clearly being without a date to the show (which of course was true). Just really funny stuff.

The funniest part of the evening was at the expense of none other than good old AT. Does it get any better than that? The reason we went to the comedy show was because AT’s buddy was performing as the warm up act. Well he went into a bit about his friends getting married and how he couldn’t believe it. He then specifically mentions AT and says “Real Asian name…Tom McGrath” Yuck yuck yuck, it was pretty funny. However, not the funniest part of the night. The funniest part of the night was when the 2nd comedian (the one who mocked me) was talking about sex with different colored condoms. He said one time he put an orange condom on and his girlfriend said “You know I don’t like cheetos.” Then he said how fun it would be if you put on a black condom and your weiner actually got bigger. But he said how horrible it would be if the opposite was true, and you put on a yellow condom and your thingy actually got smaller…”Tom McGrath!” This elicited a massive response from the audience, and there’s a 50/50 chance I peed my pants from laughing so hard!

The rest of the weekend wasn’t all that exciting, with one exception. As all of my faithful followers are well aware, I went pre-bowling this week for the WNLCLBL since I’ll be out of town on Wednesday. Here’s the highlights from that this morning:

- We get there, and we’re easily the only non-kid, non-parent in the entire place. Awesome.

- The woman behind the counter says it’s fine to pre-bowl but she had to warn us, it was going to have a galactic bowl feeling to it, with the strobe light and music blaring cause of all the birthday parties going on. This keeps getting better and better.

- AT is a good buddy and agrees to go with me so I don’t have to bowl alone.

- Oh yeah, we just left the alley 9 hours prior as we went midnight bowling Saturday. Did I forget to throw that fact in there? Oops!

- I’d love to blame my Gawd Awful bowling on being a little groggy from the beers the night before, the strobe lights, the screaming kids or a combination of all of the above, but basically I just crapped the bed. I think the final tally was 8 splits in 3 games. Yeah, not a good combination if you’re looking to keep a stellar 167 average. I believe the 3 games were 165, 146, and 127. Needless to say, not my finest moment.

- These little kids and their moms were bowling next to us, and the kids were starting to get a little antsy and were running around the sitting area behind the lanes. AT overheard one of the moms say to the little kids “Listen girls, you have to behave, the men next to us are trying to bowl.” We both had the same reaction when we heard that – “Men?!? Where? Oohhhh, they’re talking about us.” I actually thought my Dad was there for a second…

- And last but not least, by far the most memorable thing that happened this morning was AT’s 2nd game. It’s a pretty funny thing, cause he’s a much better bowler than I am, but for the longest time (probably 2+ years if I had to guess) I’ve been able to hold over his head that I have a higher career game than he does. Mine was a whopping 267 and his was a 266.

Well he set out to end that nonsense today. Strike after strike after strike. All of a sudden, I’m looking up, and it’s five frames. Six frames, seven frames, EIGHT frames, still nothing but strikes. And as well documented, I usually root hard against him, just for the pure fact that I love holding my high career game over his head. Well after the 9th frame when he still had all strikes, it was clear he was going to beat the 267, so I got on board and started rooting for him (do you believe in miracles?!? Yessssss!!!). First ball in the 10th frame, strike! Only 2 more strikes and he has the elusive perfect game! 2nd ball in the 10th frame, not a clean hit at all, but what’s that, after a little scumminess, somehow, someway, all the pins go down! At this point, I thought it was in the bag. I thought for sure he was gonna do it, and I thought that would be the one we remembered. However, unfortunately (bowling can be so cruel) he threw what looked like a perfect shot for his last ball and ended up leaving a solid 10 pin for a 299. I couldn’t’ believe it. I wanted it so bad cause I knew how much it meant to him, not to mention it’s pretty f’n cool to watch that happen. I’ve only seen one other one live in my life and that was probably 8 years ago. Wasn’t meant to be though. Regardless, still a Herculean effort from AT. Almost makes up for the fact that the comedians mocked him Friday night…

The only other real noteworthy thing that happened this weekend was the official end of the month weigh in this morning for Diet/Detox 2010. Since I won’t be in town tomorrow, I had to weigh in today, and I gotta say, I was pleased with the result. I’ve lost a solid 18 pounds since January 1st. Way to be Jayman! Of course, they weren’t literally a solid 18 pounds, or else I wouldn’t have needed to go on the diet in the first place (alright, yeah, that was bad, I’ll move on now).

(Sidenote - what a sad day it is indeed. Due to Diet/Detox 2010, I'm not even going to do the old school move of calling PF Changs from the airport and having it ready for me to pick it up 30 minutes later when I get to my hotel. I'll probably get a salad or something stupid. A sad day fo sho.)

Last but not least, I received a text from AT this afternoon that has never made me more ashamed of my college alma mater. He wrote me to tell me that one of the scummy teachers from Siena was out collecting bottles from the trash of his apartment complex. G.U.H. And to make matters worse, I’ve actually seen this same scumbag going through the trash looking for bottles A) at Siena’s townhouses, B) at Fenimore Trace Apartments, and C) in downtown Albany. I kid you not. I know teachers don’t make Bill Gates-type money, but still, they shouldn’t be rummaging through trash looking for bottles either, right?!? Ughhh, grosses me out just thinking about it. And to think if these parents only knew they were paying big bucks to send their kids to learn from a trash picker!

Alright the flight is about to board, so I’m gonna shut down shop and call it a night. Next stop, Cleveland, OH. Jayman and the Great White, in the same state once again! Probably a good thing Scumcinnati is 5 hours from Cleveland. This could be hellacious...

Week 6, The Highlights

2010-02-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

Bunch of decent stuff to hit on today, so let's get to it.

So sad, probably the most boring bowling night to date. The highlights:

- I was on cloud nine that bowling night was actually happening after all the snow we had yesterday.
- I was also on cloud nine at the fact that my average had climbed to a stellar 166. Good God Almighty!
- I had my doubts that I'd be able to keep up that stellar pace when my first practice ball went for a ONE!
- However, ye of little faith, the Jayman, as always, came through with flying colors. 156 1st game, 180 2nd game, 180 3rd game. Whoooo!
- No Grant last night. Turns out, not surprisingly, that he is actually the lightning rod of controversy we need for a wild night of bowling. Pretty sad state of affairs, but it's true. My guess is he didn't show up due to the weather.
- Angry John was there though. I actually tried making some small talk with him last night by saying "You got another 277 in you this week?" and all of a sudden we were bff's! He kept talking and talking and talking and I couldn't get him to stop. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little terrified. Anyway, he went on to tell me that he was plowing for 16 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday, and that he was still going to do more plowing after bowling last night. I assume he was talking about snow, but who knows, he could've been talking about his girlfriend.
- Besides that though, it was a pretty boring night. The team we were supposed to bowl against, nobody showed up until the last game, and even then, only one of the guys showed up. It was like rapid fire bowling out there for a little while. However, that slowed to a crawl for the last game. This dude is pretty cool but I've never bowled with a slower bowler before. He's the human rain delay. I guess I can cut him a little slack cause he's actually pretty good, but still, no need to be like Nomar Garciaparra up there.
- He did high 5 AT after AT got a strike one frame and on a scale of 1 to 10 on the awkward scale, it was a solid 12. I was drinking my water and almost did a spit take.
- Last moderately funny bowling related thing to mention is that since I'll be in Cleveland next Wednesday, I won't be able to bowl. Since I have to pay anyway, I'm going to prebowl for the week. That means I'm gonna go bowling Sunday morning and my scores will count for the league. Only, there's gonna be about 2,000 8 year olds there having birthday parties. You don't think they'll mind if I suggest a game of dodgeball with the little rugrats and go all Billy Madison on them, do you?

- I'm used to these bowling recaps providing me enough material for an entire AMWJ entry, but not tonight. So, lucky you, my faithful readers, you get a couple of special bonus tidbits to sift through on this fine Thursday evening.

- Once again, my main man Billy Simmons (I have like 20 guys I call my "main man", but that's beside the point) comes through in the clutch. Perhaps the best, most reasonable, and honest opinion on the whole Tiger Woods saga that I've heard from anyone. Go to his website here and click on the 2nd podcast on the right. He did a radio interview w/ Colin Cowherd (just try to ignore him, he's an arrogant blowhard) and gave his thoughts on everything because (I'm just guessing) I think he's gotten some negative feedback on the article he did bashing the whole press conference last week. I highly recommend it to anyone with a few minutes to kill. Perfectly safe for work. You only have to listen to the 5:46 mark in the little podcast. Good stuff.

- And speaking of Tiger, check out this billboard. Even PETA has gotten in on making fun of the poor guy!

- And while I'm on the subject of PETA, let me throw this out there too. I doubt any of you have seen it, cause I really haven't heard anyone (my friends or the mainstream media) talk about it. I've been DVRing the Michael Vick documentary on BET and I gotta say, it's actually really good. It feels really propaganda-ish and obviously they're trying to remake his image and are trying to portray him in the best light possible. I get that, I'm not stupid. That said, by no means do I condone any of his actions. I think they were sick, barbaric, and completely inhumane. Hell, I'm a dog lover, I've grown up with them my whole life. However, all that said, after watching a few episodes of the show, you completely understand how he got so wrapped up in it.

He first got introduced to dogfighting at the age of 7 years old. I mean, if that's the only thing you've ever known, it's pretty easy to see how someone could get so caught up in it. Now he blatantly should have had people in his ear telling him to get away from all that nonsense once he went to college and the NFL, but that's another story. It was just really fascinating to see him walk through the property where they housed the whole operation and have him give the gory details of everything went down. They showed the jail cell that he was in for almost two years and gave a glimpse of what his life in jail was like. Really powerful stuff. They also show him giving speeches in schools and all the work he's done with PETA and the Humane Society. Who knows if he's going to keep giving those speeches and continue working with those groups, or if he's really sorry, or if he's just sorry he got caught. Either way, hopefully he keeps it on the straight and narrow not only for himself but his 3 young kids. I'd recommend the documentary though if you're just looking for something to watch to pass some time.

- I think this puts the final stake through the heart of my "Latham Man Cave" haircutting dream. Yeah, I'd say it's a fair assessment to make when the partial owner gets sent to jail for prostitution. My favorite part of the article is where it says "But Speranza was later less-than-truthful to a probation officer conducting his pre-sentencing report. Then he was involved with a racy venture "Stilettos of Latham" -- a would-be salon offering so-called 'rubdowns'." I love how the phrases "racy venture" and "so called 'rubdowns'" were used in an article describing a place that I 100% would have gone to if it had actually opened up in Latham. Ah well, I guess the "Hooters of Haircutting" will have to suffice, that is if they ever get off the ground and up and running.

Okay that's it for tonight. I hope you've all enjoyed another solid week of AMWJ. *** WARNING *** I'll be in Cleveland next week so I may or may not be updating AMWJ on the normal "Monday through Thursday with the occasional weekend entry" schedule. I very well may throw something on here every day, but just letting you know in advance now so I don't get emails, calls, and texts asking why it hasn't been updated if I don't (although it does feel good to feel wanted).

Hope you all had a great week and an even better weekend! I'll catch up with you...

Who Would Want to Block AMWJ?!?

2010-02-24T17:16:00.000-08:00

What’s the good word everybody? Everyone happy we made it through yet another Hump Day? I sure am! Could have done without the insane snowstorm we had last night into today, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Got a few bullet points to hammer home tonight, so let’s get to it…

I forgot to mention this the other day, but I found it to be a pretty comical little conversation. So I’m getting a cigar w/ my buddy Purcy last Thursday and we’re sitting there talking and I don’t know why but the conversation turns to drinking, which then turns to puking from drinking. He was telling a college drinking story (very out of character for Purcy…ha!) and he was talking about this one buddy of his that puked in a car after explicitly telling his friend that was driving that he was good to go and assured him he wouldn’t vomit in the car. Pretty funny stuff. Purcy’s buddy was apparently holding his head out the window like a golden retriever trying not to get any puke in his friend’s car. Apparently the friend wasn’t too pleased (shocking). As for the funny part of the story, I chime in by saying “you know, in all my years of drinking, I’ve only done that once” to which Purcy gave an inquisitive look and said “you’ve only puked once from drinking?!?” I immediately get really disgusted and say “listen buddy, I’ve puked hundreds of times from drinking, I’ve just only puked in a car once.” He found this funny, and so did I. I love how my initial response was disgust that he thought I’d only puked from drinking once in my life. I feel this probably says something about me. What it says is anyone’s guess, but I found it comical. (Sidenote – I later went on to point out that he has been with me at least two times off the top of my head where I’ve actually puked!)

I had a moment of pride today at work. Billy Roy asked me if I saw his comments in response to the TSC blog and I told him that I tried to look at them earlier today but it came up Access Denied. He tried to do the same thing on his computer, same result. Turns out the comments section of my blog was deemed “Gambling related content” and was blocked at work, even though the website itself isn’t blocked. Never have I been more proud of AMWJ.

Wednesday night, my favorite night of the week! Can’t wait to see if we can top last week’s antics at the WNLCLBL (that’s Wednesday Night Latham Coors Light Bowling League for you non-regular and new followers…yes, it’s true, after 9 months I finally recruited some new blood!). I’d put the chances at 7% that Grant pays me the remaining $39 of the $50 he promised me if I hit that split last week. Whatever, I don’t even want him to pay me, it feels weird. I just want to see the look on his face again where I actually thought he may have crapped his pants. Then after WNLCLBL, the second to last episode ever of my one guilty pleasure in the world, Nip/Tuck (blatant lie, I have hundreds of guilty pleasures, even though I really don’t feel guilty about any of them). So needless to say, big night on tap for el Jaymano!

I saw in this article that Octaskank hasn’t ruled out having another kid. Guh. The way I see it, there’s good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad news. The bad news is that it’s yet another child that my, and other hard working Americans just like me, hard earned tax dollars will have to support. Awesome. Cause I’m sure 14 kids isn’t enough. And she also says it will only be if she’s married. I look at women with one child as if they’re kryptonite to my Superman. I could only imagine what the market is for a single mother of 14. Oh yeah, now for the good news. If she does have child #15, I’m sure it could just walk right out.

Other than that not a whole lot happening as this puppy is going to press. Very much looking forward to tonight social-wise. Very much not looking forward to tonight and tomorrow weather-wise. Yes, it’s true, you know you live in a crappy part of the country when you get a double barreled snowstorm. There are in fact two different snowstorms that are pummeling our region today, tomorrow, and Friday. Like I really give a crap how many storms it’s coming from. All I care about is the fact that unfortunately, and unwillingly, I’m getting pounded by 8 inches for 3 straight days (where would I be without snow/inches jokes?). We went from having exactly zero snow yesterday at noon to likely having 2 feet of snow by Friday night. Unfrigginbelievable. So bad.

Okay, time to call it a wrap. Wish me luck tonight! I’ll be sure to keep you all abreast of what happens at bowling this evening...

Tuesday Ramblings...

2010-02-23T19:53:00.000-08:00

I hope you're all fully recovered from the Turning Stone blog entry / running diary and ready to go back to the normal, mundane AMWJ topics. Again, I can hear you groaning! Just a bunch of really quick thoughts tonight. I'm tired, had a pretty miserable day at work (they actually expect me to work like the full 9 hours I'm there!), and I'm fully expecting to get pounded by eight inches tonight....of snow that is. God I love snowstorm jokes, just too easy sometimes.

- I can't believe I forgot to mention this in the TSC diary. It broke my heart as I was thinking about it today. We were sitting w/ some older guy at the poker table and after a hand was over, and the other guy showed his winning cards, the guy shows me pocket Kings and says "Look at that, pocket Kings are about as useful as tits on a nun!" to which I immediately started cackling.

- Another fun fact missed from yesterday's diary (maybe I should've just done today's entire entry titled "Things I forgot to mention yesterday" ) was this one dealer telling the table "You'll have to excuse me, I'm not very smart. I have to take my clothes off to count to 21." This, once again, had me in stitches. I think I've got mental issues.

- So as mentioned above, we're supposed to get 8 inches of snow tonight and into tomorrow morning. Since I was a dope and didn't know this until this evening, I didn't bring my work computer home so I could work form home tomorrow. Therefore, I have one of two choices. I can get up super early and go to work around 6:30 tomorrow, or I can sleep in and go to work at 10:00. I'm torn right now. I refuse to fight the stupid rush hour traffic w/ the white stuff on the ground. And since it's almost 11 right now, I should probably figure this stuff out. I'll keep ya posted.

- Here's a good article for all my fellow 2.5 Men fans out there. Basically just goes through the logistics of how the show is going to make new episodes w/ the Chuckster in rehab. I think I speak for everyone when I say hopefully Charlie doesn't take a break from rehab to have a press conference ... where he talks ... like this ... and tells everyone ... how sorry ... he is.

- Everyone can rest easy tonight. JWoww is NOT getting bigger impants. At least not according to this story. I tell you what, say what you want about these Jersey Shore idiots, but at least they are making the most of their 15 minutes. (Sidenote - I was stunned when I heard she already had implants. I would've laid 4:1 those basketballs were real.)

- This is what makes Bill Simmons my bff. From his Twitter account, "A challenge for you watching MSNBC: prove to me in 160 characters or less that our entire U.S. Curling team is NOT drunk." I read that and just started cracking up. The guy is a riot.

That's it for tonight. All I got for ya. I need some Wednesday Bowling action to spice things up. Well, that, and to not be worked like a rented mule at work would be nice too. I hope everyone enjoyed their Tuesdays. Oh, and make sure you get ready to get pummeled by 8 inches...

Turning $tone

2010-02-22T18:17:00.000-08:00

What's the good word everyone? Hope you all had great weekends. I had one of my better ones in quite some time. Of course the biggest event of the weekend was the Turning $tone trip, so I'll just get right to the highlights of that for today's entry. No need to bore you with other mundane topics or details of the weekend. I'll save those for later on this week! (And yes, I heard all of you groaning)

Here they are, the 2/20/2010 Turning Stone Trip Highlights:

- First big shocker of the day, Big Red shows up at my house at 6:50 when we agreed to meet at 7:00. This may have been the first time in the history of the world that Big Red has ever shown up early for anything.

- AT being only 5 minutes late, also quite shocking. I was 99% sure I was going to have to go over to his house and jump on his bed to wake him up. Damn! That would have been fun.

- We're out the door and on the road at 7:10.

- Our first obstacle. TSC is off of exit 33, but when we get to exit 29 off the Thruway, we find out we have to exit because the Thruway is closed. Ummm, okay???? We have to take some back roads to exit 30 and then the trip resumes. Turns out there was a huge accident ahead. Some people have no courtesy for others. That was 10 minutes of gambling time that I missed!

- 9:10 or so and we're in the door! Has a miniature Vegas feel to it.

- Ahhh, that sound of the slot machines going off is like Heaven on Earth to the old Jayman. I am where I belong. I'm with my people. I'm among the scumbags at a filthy casino.

- I feel alive!

- First off, Big Red and AT decide to play a couple of spins of roulette while I scout out the blackjack situation (sidenote - I can't hear the word "situation" without thinking of Jersey Shore anymore, I just can't).

- I come back to find out that they each put $5 on red, which hit, then let it ride on red, and lost.

- Turns out there are no $10 tables, which kind of stinks. Instead, we make our way to a $15 table.

- We are the only 3 at the table and there's this little old Asian woman dealing for us. Very friendly. We're towards the end of the shoe and we play probably 5 or 6 hands each. It's a beautiful thing. This shoe must not have been programmed correctly cause we all are running pretty hot. I think I'm up about $60.

- Uh oh, what's that I see? It's "the closer" coming in. The Closer is a 100% real phenomenon. It happens whenever a table is running really hot, the casino decides to switch dealers and then the overall karma and collective energy of the table turns negative. I've seen it happen so many times. This time, the closer happened to be a younger looking Asian guy. I immediately (figuratively) crap my pants and grab my chips and start to run away. I tell AT and Big Red I'm going to scout the poker room. It was half true, cause I really did want to play poker, but it was also half false cause I knew the inevitable was coming.

- Shockingly, I get to the poker table, get myself a seat, and within a minute or two Big Red comes strolling in behind me. He has "the look". I immediately know I made the right choice to walk away from the table. I ask him how it went. He looks like someone just kicked his dog and lets out a somber "not good". He said the closer took all his profits and he left up a measly $5. While I did legitimately feel bad for him, I couldn't help but be a little proud of myself for knowing what was going to happen.

- AT comes in maybe 10 minutes later or so and tells us that he managed to salvage a little dignity and walked away a $20 winner. He said he fought through the initial wave of brutality and managed to win a couple of hands. I half expected him to walk in saying "well, I'm $100 in the hole" but I was legitimately happy that wasn't the case.

- So AT has to wait a few minutes before he can sit at our table cause there are no open seats, so he decides he's gonna sweat my cards for a little bit. When you sweat someone's cards, the person shows you what his hole cards are and then you watch how the hand plays out. It's not the same as playing, but definitely better than just watching the game blind.

- The first hand I let him sweat is when I pick up pocket Kings in the big blind. Perfect! Everyone limps in and I just check. All raising is gonna do is give the idiots more reason to chase me down. This way, I see an Ace on the flop and I can get away losing the minimum. Flop comes K-Q-4 with 2 spades. Perfect! No time to slowplay though as there's a lotta draws out there. I fire with my set of Kings. Bunch of callers. Wonderful. I need to avoid like every card in the deck. Turn, terrible, an offsuit 9. The flush draw didn't get there but now J-10 beats me. I bet out anyway. Bunch of callers, nobody raises. Perfect, I figure I'm still good. River, pretty much horrible, a 10. Now there's 4 cards to a straight. Disgustedly, I check, Big Red bets out, everyone folds, I want to barf before finally calling. Of course he not only has the Jack, but he has A-J for the nuts. Why wouldn't he? Sweet. What a great start to the day!

- Won't get too into the details but an hour or so later I have Q-J and the board reads 10-K-4-A. I'm trying my best to fire into the pot and get people outta there with my straight. River, 10. I check, Big Red bets, why wouldn't he have K-10 there? Boat, on the river, yet again. Another $50 shipped to Big Red's stack. I love poker. It is fun, and fair.

- Couple hands later, highest card on the board is a 10, I have Jacks, Big Red has Queens. It's gonna be that kind of day I see.

- Pretty much the theme from 9:30 am until about 6:00 pm is anything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Every hand where I was leading going on the turn and going to the river, I'm sitting there praying to myself, "alright, don't pair the board and no spade" and without fail every time it was a spade that paired the board. Vice versa too. Every time I'm sitting there with a massive draw, ramming the pots to get them as big as possible, without fail a blank would fall on the turn/river. As they say in the business, that's poker.

- Ended up buying in for a total of $175 and cashing out $80. At no point was I ever up even one dollar during the almost 10 hour poker session. Just the biggest grind of a day ever. So terrible too to see all these players that are just SOOOO bad win pot after pot on sheer luck. Put me in that same situation 100 times, and I probably win at least 80 of them. Happened that Saturday was one of those 20 times. I need to stick to online where I could have played the same amount of hands in 45 minutes spread over 4 tables. Oh well, what can you do? Still fun and always a blast to make the same stupid jokes with AT and Big Red that cracks up the rest of the table.

- Big Red takes off around 4:30 or so (he drove himself since he knew he wouldn't want to stay as late as we did) and then it's down to just me and AT, the sole survivors.

- Total so far: down $95 for poker and down $35 for the day.

- Forgot to mention, by far the biggest laugh of the afternoon. AT was 2 seats to my right, and another younger kid was immediately on my right and between the two of us. I wasn't paying attention, but apparently a cocktail waitress was really mean to him when he asked for a drink. I didn't see the whole incident go down, but that's what I gathered. The kid was then talking to the dealer about it, and they're both like "Well, you know, we'll give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was just having a bad day" and I chime in "Or maybe she's just a bitch" which seemed to crack everyone up. If I'm going to lose, might as well have fun doing it!

- So after poker, we get to another highlight of the day. AT tells me he went on a super heater at craps while I was playing poker and won a decent chunk of money. Atta boy. So not only does he win a lotta money, but he got comped a ticket to the nice Brazilian Steakhouse in the Casino. Sweet! Annnnnnd he tells he he'll pay for my dinner too. Perfect! We get to the Brazilian Steakhouse, only to find out you need reservations there and the earliest we could eat is 10:00. It's 6:00 now and I knew I'd be eating like a pig at dinner so I literally have had a bowl of cereal and a small bag of chips up until that point in the day. I was starving. And AT hadn't had anything to eat either, so he was famished too. Waiting til 10:00 is just not in the cards (pun intended).

After leaving the steakhouse, we walk by the line to the buffet and see it's probably at least an hour and a half wait. This is horrible. Then the light bulb went off in my head. I vaguely remember we skipped to the front of the line the last time we were there. Something about the poker players skip to the front of the line, I wasn't really sure. It was definitely worth looking into though as waiting in that line just wasn't gonna happen. We were prepared to eat in the food court if we had to. So we head to the poker room and I talked to the floor manager and hey, what do ya know, we do get 2 free "go to the front of the buffet line" passes that only poker players get. Unbelievable!

After leaving the poker room, we stop back by the craps table and AT explains our situation to the pit boss who comped him the meal at the steakhouse and he gets the comp ticket switched over to a buffet ticket. Then we head back to the buffet and stroll right to the front of the line (again, easily a 1.5 hour wait). Best feeling in the world. We march right up to the cashier and it turns out the comped ticket the pit boss gave AT was good for 2 free buffets, so me and him both eat for free. Best feeling in the world. I even said to AT at one point "feels nice not be schnooks for once in our lives, doesn't it?" Then we also pondered what it must be like to be Phil Ivey if we were getting treated this well. That only made us depressed though, so we stopped thinking about it right away.

- Buffet was delicious. It was the same as Super Bowl Sunday for me. I definitely wasn't good, but it wasn't worst case scenario either. It also helped that I took the proper precautions by not eating barely anything during the day where I could justify it.

- Alright alright, we've both got a little bit of food (fine, a lot) in our stomachs, time to hit the tables again!

- Tables are definitely filling up quickly during the night hours at TSC. However, we manage to find an older guy named Jim dealing at a table with 2 open seats. He's dealing nice and slow, is really friendly, and incredibly, is actually dealing out winners left and right! It's a miracle. Nothing all that exciting for me other than a few MIT blackjack team jokes. Unless otherwise specified, just assume those jokes are being made every time I mention the words "Jay Gonyo", "playing", and "blackjack" in the same sentence.

- AT actually was beyond enraged at one hand though. The count was +19, which if you're not a blackjack dork means it's really advantageous to the player, so he was playing 2 hands. One hand he got A-A (which he would've split) and the other hand he got blackjack. That, my friends, is the kind of situation you dream about. Seriously it really doesn't get any better than that. However, when the dealer also has blackjack, but he's showing a face card so you can't even get insurance against it, it quickly turns into a nightmare.

- Total so far: up $105 for this poker session and up $70 for the day.

- Another pretty unspectacular poker session followed this blackjack session. The only remotely interesting things that happened was that I was next to Mr. Know-it-All which amused me. Immediately after anyone flipped their hand over, without fail, it was "I knew he had that", which was sometimes and sometimes not followed by "no way I could have folded there, even though I knew what he had". He even had a nice looking caterpillar on his upper lip too. I just politely nodded and didn't tell him what a moron he was. Except for one time...

- It had to be done, I had to tell him how stupid he was. I had KQ, raised it up, he called w/ Q9, couple others in, flop Q-5-4. I bet out, he calls, everyone else folds. Turn is another 4 which brings 2 hearts, I bet out again, he raises. I disgustedly tossed the chips in, fearing the worst. River is a non-heart King, I check, he checks behind me. I show K-Q for the winner and he shows Q-9 of hearts. He snarkily (is that even a word?) says "Nice river there for you" to which I couldn't take it, I had to tell him I had him beat anyway. These are the people that play these baby tables and yet I still couldn't win!!!

- Very uneventful poker session. Kept waiting and waiting and waiting for a big hand. It never came. For the second time today, I was never even ahead $1 at the poker tables. Bought in for $100 and cashed out with $58.

- Total so far: down $42 for this poker session and up $28 for the day. Whoopee.

- It was about midnight at this point, and we headed into the bottom of the 9th. One more run at the blackjack tables for a little bit and then we're gonna head home.

- What a mob scene it was out by the table games. Just an absolute disaster. We search for a while and finally find a couple of open seats at a $15 table. That was the lowest limit they were running at the time. Again, $10 would have been idea, but when the world gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

- Lucky for us the dealer was hilarious too. I mean, if they're gonna take your money, might as well have a few laughs too.

- This table started out the same way the other 2 tables went earlier in the day. I could've sworn TSC was confused by the whole casino thing. This table was paying out like gangbusters. I quickly ran my $175 buyin to around $300 or so (I think $310 was the high water mark).

- We're having a ton of fun and I tell AT we should take off after this current shoe (which only had like 2 hands left). He says one more and I say alright fine. As God as my witness, cross my heart, hope to die, it was like I could see what was coming a mile away. I had the sickest feeling in the pit of my stomach before the shoe even started. Why I didn't walk away I'll never know. The dealer proceeded to maybe lose 4 hands the entire shoe out of like 20 or so. It was insane. He kept showing face card after face card and giving out 14 after 15 after 12, etc. It was the sickest thing I've ever seen. And the few times he would show a 5 and give us a 10, he'd inevitably pull a 6 and a King. Even AT said it was the worst shoe he'd ever seen and he's played a lot more blackjack than I have in my life. I think he busted every single player at the entire table. It's my own fault. I should've just let him play that last shoe and walked away with a nice profit for the day, but I didn't. Even midway through the shoe I should've cut my losses then and there. Isn't it the Army that says something like never leave a fallen soldier behind? It's one million percent my own fault, but I just couldn't let AT go down alone. As you can guess, all the profits went down the tubes. Ended up cashing in for $160.

- Final total: down $15 for this blackjack session and up $13 for the day.

- And after all the food, beverage, and gas expenses, I think I maybe lost like $15 for the day.

Overall, gambling-wise it was pretty uneventful. Never went on the big heater than you dream of. Pretty much just toiled in mediocrity the entire day. Better than losing I guess, but still so unsatisfying. Had an awesome time though. Always a ton of laughs hitting up the old Ca$ino.

Hope you all enjoyed the play-by-play. Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow!

Week 5 Highlights

2010-02-18T19:24:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, it's the Wednesday Night Latham Coors Light Bowling League Week 5 Highlights!

- First thing I noticed was that my average was a stellar 165. It's almost to the point where I'm like a scratch golfer. Can't really get too high above my average, I can only get below it. It's a curse being this great.

- Look at that, all three games over my average! First game, 171. Second game, 177. Third game, 166. I'll take it. Took a turkey in the 3rd game to even get it up to a 166. That 59 I had after 5 frames wasn't really instilling a lot of confidence in me.

- You know that song "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you"? That's the way I felt last night. Angry John and his buddy were on the left and right of us, and they just kept yelling back and forth all night. Definitely a hint of aggression in the air.

- And that wasn't the only thing in the air. Apparently Angry John forgot to shower yesterday. And the previous 8 days before yesterday. Good Lawd. A few times I was sitting at the chair closest to the lanes and I would just be randomly BSing with someone and all of a sudden I would stop dead in my tracks. My eyes were almost to the point of tearing up. It was crazy. So I would turn my head and there it was, his stinky butt like 2 feet from my face. In Seinfeld terms, he had BBO.

- It was nice to see he was in his standard outfit again too. South Pole jeans, dirty T-shirt with several stains, and pager on the hip.

- Clowns weren't the only things to the left of me and jokers weren't the only things to the right of me either. The other things? Strikes! Lots and lots of strikes. I felt like I was on the PBA Tour last night. Of course I wasn't the one getting all the strikes, but everyone around me was.

- Some guy that worked for Latham Bowl was to the right of us and he had like a 670 series or something like that. I think his best game was 246 and worst game was 214 or something. Strike after strike after strike. It was nuts.

- Even AT got into the act. Not sure if it was a career high or not, but he managed a 258. Very impressive (and you all know how much I hate giving AT compliments).

- However, not to be outdone, Angry John went on a strike tear. As in, he had an open frame in the first frame of his last game, and threw 10 straight strikes, and then left a split on his 3rd ball of the 10th frame for a 277 game. It was insane. I even managed to brave the stink and shake his hand afterwards.

- The older guy who works at Latham Bowl but also bowls in the league is always yelling at his buddies for throwing the ball too hard and making the pins fly everywhere (isn't that the point of bowling?). As a result, he always has to go behind the lanes and take pins that get stuck out and put them back into the machine (I'm not really sure what he does back there...I just know he gets pissed when he has to do it). And he always comes back out and announces to everyone "Only 4 pins stuck to the machine that time" in his gruff, angry voice. It's quite comical. So as anyone who has bowled with me knows, I throw my fastball down the lane. Usually comes in around 22 mph. Not to brag, but it is the fastest, BY FAR, that anyone in the WNLCLBL throws the ball (hey, if I can't be the best bowler, might as well throw the hardest). And he just kept looking at me and looking at me and looking at me all night long. I know he wanted to say something. He would occasionally utter stuff under his breath, but I could tell since he didn't know me he wasn't going to say anything. And every time I could see him getting angrier and angrier, since I'm a jerk, all it really made me want to do was throw the ball harder and harder. I guess maybe you had to be there, but it was really funny to me.

- As for Grant and the Penguin Ball and his superb 122 average, he was pretty calm last night for him. He was wearing a bright orange shirt of some bar down in Mexico, that cracked me up.

- The one thing that cracked me up was when he asked me to "give him a strike" and held out his hand. Confused by what he meant for a second, I finally figured out he wanted me to give him a high five and give him good luck for his next shot. So I gave him a high five. He proceeded throw a gutter ball. On his first shot of a frame. With all ten pins standing up there. Have no fear though, I'm sure it wasn't on a spare.

- This will be hard to explain, but I'll give it a whirl. There was this older dude bowling with us last night (on Angry John's team) and he just cracked me up. Every time he'd throw his first ball, and he threw the thing like 6 mph, so he had to wait forever, he'd get in this stance to do his "strike dance". I'd say there are 2 decent comparisons. One would be the beginning of the Razor Ramon (for all you wrassling fans) dance he did when he got in the ring (found a good video of it here). The other would be the beginning of the Shawn Merriman sack dance (go to the 23 second mark of this video). And it was just so funny, cause he'd do the little dance every time, but sometimes, his shots wouldn't even be close to getting a strike. It was really funny, you'll just have to trust me.

- This same old dude also was on a little strike heater and got like 2 in a row and after each one his whole team would be hooting and hollering. Well after the 3rd one, I got into the act with an emphatic, half mocking, half serious "YEAAAGGHHHH" accompanied by a giant fist pump and I turn around to see AT, who was getting a water out of the vending machine, on the floor laughing uncontrollably at my antics. Needless to say, mission accomplished.

- Okay so for the funniest moment by a mile that has ever happened in the WNLCLBL. Highly doubt this one is gonna get topped either. It could be, but it'll definitely be tough. So I'm bowling, and I throw a 22 mph heater down the alley and it hits the head pin dead on. I get the 4-6 split. Wonderful. For all you non-bowlers out there, it's the baby brother of the 7-10 split. A good way to think of the pins is in rows. The 1 pin is in the first row. The 2-3 pins are in the 2nd row. The 4-5-6 pins are in the 3rd row. The 7-8-9-10 pins are in the 4th row. Since they are on the same row, it's pretty much an impossible spare, cause you can't hit the side of one of the pins and slide it over into the other. Put it this way, I've been bowling my entire life and never hit this spare, nor have I ever seen anyone hit this spare. Needless to say, very difficult.

So of course I'm dejected and I turn around and without even saying anything, people start throwing out numbers. Leenie settles in at "dollar", AT settles in at "ten dollars", and Grant, just because he's Grant, yells out "fifty dollars". Again, there's approximately a 0% chance I'm going to make this, so these bets never actually come into play. I fire a 22 mph fastball down the lane and hit the right edge of the 6 pin. Whatever, no biggie, it's gonna go to the back and stay there. Only it doesn't! It ricochets off of the back and ever so gently slides up against the 4 pin and taps it over. I made the 4-6 split! I let out this huge yell and everyone in our 2 lanes is going crazy! It was pure madness. Leenie is celebrating like when I got that eagle golfing together this summer. She immediately gives me the dollar. AT couldn't believe it but he mans up and gives me ten bucks. He's disappointed cause he turned around when I hit the one pin (assuming it would go to the back and stay there like it would 99.9% of the time) and didn't see the completion of the spare.

Then there's Grant. Ooohhh Grant. Grant gets his own paragraph. Grant was the only one not hooting and hollering during this whole process. Grant's face is as white as a sheet of paper. He looks as if he's just seen a ghost. His jaw is almost touching the ground. Pure and utter disbelief. Literally, he doesn't even say anything for like 2 minutes while everyone around his is yelling and going crazy. He's sitting there with this glazed look in his eye, like a boxer who is getting pummeled for 10 rounds and essentially is out on his feet. After a minute or two, he comes to his senses. Me, AT, and Leenie are all worried about his safety. We think he may have had a panic attack. I tell him don't worry about the $50, I don't want his money. He insists. So he reaches into his pocket and says "Here, it's all I got" and hands me a crumpled up $10 bill and a $1 bill. Eleven bucks. Just one of the funniest, craziest, most absurd moments of my long and distinguished bowling career.

Okay that's all I got for tonight. Hope you enjoyed. Week 5 was one for the highlight reel.

Catch up with you all soon...

More Fun with the Car Dealer

2010-02-17T17:05:00.000-08:00

Another week more than halfway in the books! Love it...

Pretty standard: Wednesday bowling, Grant, Angry John, The Tornado, Nip/Tuck. Full details to come tomorrow I'm sure. Hence the earlier than normal written AMWJ.

So I swear this is true. I would not lie about this. Just the all time perfect story to tell you what bumbling idiots they have working at my car dealership. Let me go through the timeline of events today.

- Around 12:30 I get a call from the dealer, the new stereo is in. Perfect. When can you bring it in? How's tomorrow? Perfect, see you at 7:30 tomorrow. Good to go with the rental car.
- Around 1:00 I get another call from the dealer. Same woman on the phone as 12:30. She doesn't go into details but asks if I mind bringing it in Friday instead. Alright, whatever, I'm sure you can screw it up on Friday just as well as you can screw it up tomorrow. Friday's fine. See you at 7:30.
- Around 1:30, I get yet another call from the dealer. Different woman this time. Just calling to remind you of your appointment for tomorrow morning at 8:00 am. Ummm, I just spoke w/ the other woman and she said tomorrow was no good and I should bring it in Friday. As in, like a half hour ago. Please hold. 2 minutes later. You're right, sorry about that. Okay, we'll see you Friday morning.

I swear I think they're playing a game with me. They're just trying to see how much grief and aggravation they can put someone through before he finally snaps and goes somewhere else. I'm telling you now, I'm at my boiling point.

This caught me totally off guard today. Can't wait. Tiger is gonna come out and talk to the public for the first time since being clubbed in the face with a cell phone and driving through the neighborhood like a drunken sailor. I am sure he'll have a nice prepared statement that who knows if he really wrote it or not, but I'm still excited to hear what he has to say. Oh yeah, his agent already came out and said that he won't be taking any questions. I'm already keeping my hopes low so I don't get set up for disappointment.

Is anyone else as thoroughly confused that this Westminster Dog Show is as big of a deal as it is? I saw a picture of a dog on the front page of the msnbc website today! And the dogs that win these things aren't even good looking either. Gimme an 80 pound black lab that likes to run around and catch tennis balls and swim in lakes any day over these "dogs". I put dogs in quotes because most of them barely even look like dogs. They look more like rats with bad haircuts. Seems like the only dogs that do well in these things are the ones that look like some drunken barber fell asleep while he was cutting their hair. And they all have ponytails and stuff, too. It really is pretty awful.

Got some pretty exciting news last night and today. Found out that yours truly will be heading out to the Final Four this year. My brother was able to get a couple tickets to the games and he invited me to come out with him. It's gonna be awesome, I'm very pumped. The games are in Indy and he said it's only a 2 hour drive from Scumcinnati. Flights are a little expensive but the tickets are free and seriously, how often am I honestly ever going to get to do something like this in my lifetime? Probably once, and that's it.

So for those of you following at home, I've got Turning Stone this weekend, Cleveland in a week and a half, then the MAAC Tournament, then March Madness, then Phoenix for BoogerEaterMania, then the Final Four, and then possibly another trip to Cleveland as I applied at work to go out to Opening Day with the Indians again like I did last year. Busy few weeks there for the Jayman! Better start hitting the online felt extra diligently and not just drunkenly throwing around chips so I can help pay for all this nonsense!

Alright that's it tonight. I know, I know, short AMWJ. Just not a whole lot happening the past day or so. Wake up, work, come home, eat, TV, bed. Not too many fun ways to spin that.

Time for me to go mentally prep for another night of insults from the Grant Man. I'm pretty sure we're bowling with Angry John tonight too. This has a chance for some fireworks. I'll keep ya posted.

An End to Freak Dancing?!?

2010-02-16T19:18:00.000-08:00

Some decent stuff to get through tonight so let's get to it...

- As I was thumbing through the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition last night, I had a couple of thoughts. 1) It's good to be a man. 2) Wow, Andy Roddick is a lucky man. He's married to Brooklyn Decker and my God is that woman amazing. Smoking hot. 3) Can you really consider some of the things in there "bathing suits"? I've been to plenty of pools, lakes and oceans in my day and I've never seen anything close to some of these things. Don't get me wrong, I would've loved to have seen them, but not even anything remotely close. Who knows, maybe I just haven't been going to the right places. 4) There was a swimsuit, I kid you not, that cost $1,000,000. That's not a typo. One million dollars. American dollars. If you don't believe me, go to page 164 of the Swimsuit Edition. How ridiculous. I guess it's made of 24 karat gold or something. Hopefully there was a house or something included in the purchase. Or at the very least you get to spend a day with the girl wearing it...

- Another day, another awesome experience with my car dealer. Yeah that stereo that I had put in there last Friday that I wrote about, of course Friday night when I get into the car to drive to Chili's and meet up with my prom date, I notice something wrong w/ the Stinkin' Lincoln. The lights on the radio aren't lighting up. Now I had to think back and try to remember if they ever did or not. I'm almost positive they did. So when I left Chili's, trying to immediately forget about the awkwardness of the past few hours, and get into the Stinkin' Lincoln, it was pitch black out. I start my car and the entire dashboard is lit up except the radio buttons. Now I know there's something wrong. It looks awful.

So yesterday I called up my dealer and they tell me to bring in the car today. Oh goodie, trip #4 to the dealer to get this stupid CD player fixed. They offer me a rental but since it's supposed to snow all day, I didn't feel the need to take a chance and be driving a rental car around all day, so I chose to use their courtesy shuttle service. And without fail, the older guy driving the car is so ridiculously rude to me I came SO ridiculously close to telling him to not bother picking me up later on and I'd get my own ride back there. However, before I can say something, cross my heart, I swear on my life this is true, the woman next to me was so disgusted with the way he was treating me that she reamed him out for a solid 2-3 minutes. She even said she was going to go in and tell his manager all about it. He apologized and I kind of just stayed as Switzerland, but I was so freaking mad. Have I mentioned I can't stand this place?

Well, obviously you know where this story is going or else I wouldn't be telling it. Of course the stereo that was sent to the dealer last week was deficient (not sure if I believe that or not, but whatever) and they need to order a new one. Which of course means I'll have to bring in my car yet again next week. Say it was the stereo that was broken when they put it in last week, shouldn't they have at least noticed that and tested it out before giving me the car back last Friday? Whatever, I'm just so disgusted by the whole situation that I can't even explain it. If I never step foot in that place again it will be too soon. Of course, I'll have to step foot in there next week to get this fixed yet again. You know what they say, five times is a charm. And for those of you counting at home, that'll make 9 combined visits to the dealer to fix a heater seat and a radio. That's normal, right?

- Alright, on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it that I saw this article about high school kids grinding and "freak dancing" (I've never heard of such a thing, I hope that doesn't make me old) at high school dances and immediately couldn't wait to read it? I was even hoping for a few pictures if you know what I mean! But alas, only one picture and it wasn't even that great. Seems like the whole country is cracking down on what for all intents and purposes equates to high school kids having sex with their clothes on out on the dance floor during high school dances. What nerve! The funniest part of the article is where the one principal says "One school found condoms on the floor!" That tickled my funny bone.

- I can't wait for February to get over with and for March to take its place. I've had enough of this boring 2010 nonsense. March looks like the time when things are really going to start to pick up. First week, Cleveland for work. Then the MAAC Tourney right here in the A-L-B. Then the annual 4 day weekend for the first round of the March Madness games. As always that will be accompanied by plenty of gambling and beer. Then of course the St Patty's Day Parade will be thrown into the mix. And then, the crown jewel, heading out to Phoenix for Boogermania along with a variety of other sporting events. Can't wait, very excited.

- Boo repeat 2.5 Men last night. Although I guess I should have expected it given that the Olympics were on. I doubt they'd put brand new episodes up against the Olympics. Then again, I could be wrong; it's been known to happen once or twice. Or one time for every dollar that bathing suit costs on page 164 of the Swimsuit Edition.

- That's it for tonight. Hope you all enjoyed. Couple decent zingers in there. More later on this week I'm sure. Hope you all had a great Tuesday. Catch up with you soon...

V Day Weekend in Review

2010-02-15T19:31:00.000-08:00

What up what up everybody. Glad to be back and updating AMWJ after a few days of me time. I hope everyone had a ~~crappy~~, errrrrr, wonderful Valentine's Day. Hope you all spent the day with the one you love the most, I know I did. Actually, scratch that, I didn't spend the day with Kim Kardashian, so technically I guess I spent the day with the one I love the second most. Spent the entire day with Jay Thomas Gonyo, just the way I drew it up. And since Valentine's Day was on a Sunday this year, I didn't even have to see all the flowers on all the girls' desks at work either. What a beautiful thing that was. Anywho, few solid topics to get through today, so let's get to it...

- I wrote about this a few weeks back on Martin Luther King Day, but it happened again today. President's Day, another one of those quasi-real, quasi-fake holidays that I don't get off but the rest of the world seems to get off. The roads were almost completely empty on my way in to work today. Downtown Albany looks practically abandoned. I was half expecting to see the tumbleweed go flying through the streets. Good in the sense that my ride into work went really quickly. Bad in the sense that I could literally feel my blood pressure getting higher by the second as I began to think that I only get 4 holidays this year, because 2 of them are on weekends. Supposedly the fact that I get an extra day's pay for each of those two holidays makes it all better. Don't the higher ups where I work know that once you get into the real world, one day is roughly the equivalent of a week off when you're in college?!? Argghh. Alright, next topic, I can slowly start to feel the rage building inside of me with every keystroke...

- Couple more notes on Valentine's Day as mentioned above. Having it on a Sunday was pretty much the greatest thing ever. I should call up Barry Obama and have it be like Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, one of those same day of the week holidays every year. Seriously, it was a thing of beauty. It had pretty much zero effect on my life whatsoever. I had to go grocery shopping a little bit and had to see all the flowers, chocolates, teddy bears, etc. but other than that it was smooth sailing.

Another reason I can't stand Hallmark Day is fairly simple. I am pretty sure that the same flowers that I sent to my mother and grandmother would have cost about a third as much had they been sent in the middle of August. Just annoys the living crap out of me. However, both were completely surprised when they received them, so that's at least a plus. And both of them said that the flowers looked fresh too, which for the price I paid, should be expected, but by no means would I have been shocked if a dozen dead dandelions showed up at both their doors.

- Fairly funny story on Friday night. I hit up Chili's for Happy Hour after work with a buddy and a few of his work friends. First time I've been to Chili's in probably five years or so. I don't know exactly how long, but it's definitely been a while. The second I walk in, I see my buddy, head over to the bar, sit next to him, look up, and oh no. There she is. Of course it's my high school prom date that cried the entire night of our junior prom and has since turned into a lesbian, why wouldn't it be? It actually went as well as possible I'd say, all things considered. There was one strange thing that happened though. She made me show her my ID. I'm like "we graduated high school together, you know I'm over 21" and she's like "yeah but I gotta see it anyway." Alright, whatever, it's probably company policy. Only, she stares at the thing for like 5 minutes. Almost like she was memorizing my information! And I noticed later on in the night she wasn't checking other people's ID's who were clearly younger than I was. So all you AMWJsters out there, pray for my safety!

I joked around with my buddy about the girl though that it was actually the first in a long series of comical mishaps with the opposite sex for the Jayman. I should've known what the next ten plus years had in store for me. He found that pretty funny. As for the bartender, she was actually pretty cute. Neck down, I was a huge fan, but neck up, not so much. Not a big fan of nose rings (I guess that means there's no future for me and Snooki, oh darn). And the last funny tidbit about the story was that I texted it to a few people and pretty much the universal response was "Did you turn her gay?" Hardy har har. Very funny everybody!

- Was it just me, or was yesterday a completely new feeling for everybody else too? First weekend without football since Labor Day I read today. So sad. I had so much free time on my hands I didn't even know what to do with myself. It was amazing. I'm sure you'd be all pleased to know that my house is now spotless, even though I was pretty much disgusted with myself for not getting a maid service in there to do it for me. I'm thinking it's gotta happen. I don't mind picking up clutter and doing my laundry and the dishes, but dusting, vacuuming, scrubbing toilets and cleaning windows do not mix well with the Jayman. Who knows, we shall see. Even busted out some new candles too. It was like I was having my own little vigil. Only took 4 hours of burning 5 candles to de-fart the whole house.

- Everyone have an exciting week on tap? Nothing too out of the ordinary for this guy. 2.5 Men, Poker (goes without saying), Nipper, mentally preparing some zingers for Grant, using those zingers on Grant at week 5 of bowling...pretty standard stuff. But then, oh yes, very excited. Hitting up Turning $tone Casino for the day on Saturday. Very pumped for that. Gonna play a little poker, play a little Brackjack(!), and hopefully not donate too much money to the Indian Reservations of Central NY in the process. Been far too long. Goes without saying, but obviously full updates to come once I return. And then other than that, episode 2 of the new season of High Stakes Poker on Sunday night. Premiere last night was solid but nothing spectacular. Pretty much what I expected. Sounds like a solid week to me!

Okay that's all I got for tonight. Got a couple of things on my little notepad of ideas that I constantly keep with me, but I'll save them for later on in the week. Don't want to be the marathon runner that sprints the first 15 miles and has to walk the last 11.2, if you know what I mean. (Speaking of running, 4.2 miles today, yessss!)

Hopefully everyone had a great Monday. All joking aside, I hope Sunday was good for all my friends in relationships. I hope you all enjoyed your VD.

Week 4 Highlights

2010-02-11T19:12:00.000-08:00

Let's just get right to the Week 4 WNLCLBL (that's Wednesday Night Latham Coors Light Bowling League for those of you who may have forgotten) Highlights:

- Pretty decent night for the Jayman. 166 first game, 3 pins above average for me. 203 second game, the highest I've had all year in that league and pretty damned good for me. Then a 148 third game, which was probably just about expected coming off the big 203.
- And I got a 160 in the extra game that me and AT bowled after the league was over. What...I had beer to finish!
- I walk into the bowling alley and I see Grant, sitting there, with a full pitcher of beer all to himself. It was like he was just waiting for us to get there to offer us some. Oh boy. This was gonna be a fun night.
- Grant proceeds to tell me that he drinks a case of beer a week. 12 during the week, and 12 on the weekends. Good to know Grant.
- He also yells out "dollar" as we often do when a pretty tough spare is left. Usually for splits. This "dollar" was for me picking up just the head pin (and yes, I did just leave the head pin). I made it. I was so insulted by him yelling out dollar for that though, I didn't even want his money.
- Angry John grew the goatee back. No more 'stache usually reserved only for adult film actors.
- We were trying to decide what it was on his hip. It definitely wasn't a cell phone. We settled on some kind of Motorola pager. Not bad, they only went out of style 8 years ago.
- This of course led to a stream of "Angry John is probably a doctor" followed by hysterical laughter jokes.
- We may or may not have Facebook stalked him and found the angriest, funniest picture ever on his profile.
- He's a security guard, which came as a shock to nobody. Guaranteed he beats people up for no reason whatsoever. God I hope he never reads this.
- Turns out Angry John is engaged to be married too! We joked it must have been a shotgun wedding. He found out he was pregnant, so they had to get married.
- Back to Grant...he was offering up dollars left and right for just about anything. I almost felt bad too, cause some of the spares he was offering money for were pretty makeable, and he was offering $30 and $100 on some. Turns out he told us his sister did his taxes for him and he just got his refund. Apparently it was burning a hole in his pocket.
- The penguin ball actually knocked down a few spares last night. It was a miracle. I think he got a 163 one game.
- I overheard someone ask him about his ball last night. I found out the characters on his ball are from the movie Madagascar.
- The finger injury on his non-bowling hand seems to have healed nicely. For those of you that don't remember, a screw went through his hand last week while doing some handywork around the house.
- I have no idea what the conversation was about, or who he was even talking to, but at one point I looked back and Grant was talking about pressure points in the neck and wrist that could take down a person. Ummm, okay???
- As you read from my Super Sunday recap AMWJ, I had to pay for AT's bowling last night. This put me in a foul mood right off the bat. I insisted on paying before he got there, so he was never actually able to witness me handing over the money to the woman behind the counter. That would have hurt what little bit of pride I had more than anything.

That was pretty much it from the bowling front. It was definitely a fun time. The league, for me anyway, has become much more enjoyable since the initial awkward phase we went through in the beginning. The quiet bunch of Peter Weber wannabe's next to us still don't talk to us, but I'm fine with that. After 4 weeks all the teams have pretty much come to know what to expect out of one another. And every week, for better or worse, Grant just gets more and more comfortable with us. And with that comfort comes increased ludicrous comments! I think it's great. We've won him over and I guarantee that if Angry John ever laid a finger on me for my tough love blogging efforts that Grant would come to my defense in a heartbeat. We've all kind of discussed and agreed that he's probably some 9th degree blackbelt or something like that. Just gives off that vibe that he's not someone you want to be on the bad side of. Luckily for us, he's taken a liking to the rest of "Scared Splitless." And I mean, really, what's not to love?

Alright that's it for tonight. I got hundreds of Valentine's applications to sift through, this will probably take a while. That, and I was pretty busy at work today which kinda sapped a lot of energy out of me. Plus I'm kind of coming down with something and it's pretty much making me miserable. I hope so bad I'm back to normal for this weekend. Hope you all enjoy your weekends and enjoyed the Week 4 update. Just think, you're halfway home. 4 weeks down, 4 weeks to go!

Phil Ivey Shoulda Listened to the Jayman

2010-02-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

What's going on everybody? All excited that another Hump Day is in the books? Anyone even remotely familiar with AMWJ knows that Wednesdays are pretty much one of the only things I have to look forward to during the week. That's right, bowling with Grant, and subsequently getting made fun of by Grant, and a new episode of Nipper. What could be better than that?!? Actually, when I see it in writing, it just makes me sad and depressed. Forget I ever mentioned that Wednesdays are my favorite days of the week...

Since I worked from home today, I really don't have all that much new to report from my personal life. Instead, I'll have to scour the web and find some decent stories. Here's what I came up with that I found interesting and/or funny...

How is this even a news story?!? John Mayer came out and said that having sex with Jessica Simpson was addicting for him. Umm, the sun rose in the East today. Grass is green during the summer. Jay Gonyo sweats like a pig after going for a run. Isn't saying that sex with an absolutely gorgeous, breathtaking blonde with pretty much the perfect body is addictive like a drug similar to those other statements? John Mayer ladies and gentlemen, Captain Obvious!

In a very sad moment in the history of this blog (among many), it turns out that my main man Phil Ivey is not a reader. Well, at least he didn't read Sunday's post. According to this article Phil lost $2 million on the Super Bowl by betting on the Colts moneyline. Gotta give the man credit, even though he's ridiculously rich, the man likes to gamble, and he likes to gamble big. I couldn't even imagine. Think about it, having so much money that for you to bet on a game and actually get a rush out of it you have to plump 2 large down at the sports book on a single game. Sick. God bless him though. He's got the cajones to put his (unbelievably large amount of) money where his mouth is. Meanwhile I'm the schnook that's on pins and needles for three hours straight when I have a hundo spot on a game. Where did I go wrong?

I saw in this article that Sarah Palin's daughter's boy toy is going to be in Playgirl Magazine. I obviously will never be able to tell you anything about the pictures, but I'll make sure to pass along AT's thoughts after he takes a look. I think he said his weekly subscription comes in on Tuesdays, so middle of next week is when you can expect to hear something.

Okay that's all I got for you tonight. Bowling tonight will surely bring tons of fun, new stuff to the table as it always does. I'm fairly certain we are bowling with Angry John tonight. Pray for me that my big mouth doesn't get me beaten to a pulp!

Who's Ready For 6 Inches?

2010-02-09T19:27:00.000-08:00

What's going on? Everyone finally back to full strength after the Super Bowl? Could only imagine how crazy it's been down in N'awlins these last 48 hours. Oh wait, due to the wonderful invention of YouTube, we can take a look here. Wow - Insanity! A New Orleans bar when the Peyton INT happened. Would have loved to have been a part of it. Anywho, I'm not in N'awlins, I'm in the good old 5-1-8, bracing for some serious snowfall. Awesome. On to today's topics...

Can't believe I forgot to mention this the other day. Saturday, Big Red and I in the Stinkin' Lincoln up in Saratoga. I'm stopped at a red light with a red arrow in the turn only lane, waiting to turn left. There are two lanes to the right of me, both straight only. I'm stopped for a solid 30-45 seconds or so I'd guess. The green lights in the two straight lanes turn red. The guy pulls up next to me and stops. He's stopped for probably 10 seconds. Then, out of nowhere, me and Big Red hear this horrible screeching sound, the kind of you hear right before an accident. BOOM!!! Then we hear the sound that you DO hear when there's an accident. The guy right in the lane next to us, literally 4-5 feet away, got rear-ended by some 18 year old kid. Is it bad that I was more relieved for myself than I was sorry for the old man and his car full of people? Or that if the kid had rear-ended the Stinkin' Lincoln, that I would've been 50 times more concerned about the health of my car than I would have mine or Big Red's health? And that I would have possibly for the first time in my life gotten into a physical altercation with the punk? Luckily though, my baby is fine. And it looked like the sue-happy people in the car next to us were all fine too, at least for the meantime until they go to sleep with dollar signs floating around their heads...

As mentioned before, the entire Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region is supposed to get pummeled with snow tomorrow. As such, it is on days like that where I'm very thankful that I have a job where I can be 100% as productive at home, sitting on my couch, using my laptop, as I could be sitting in the office. Yours truly, working from home. Nothing like going to work in mesh shorts and a cut off T-shirt. And since I live in a townhouse and pay a Homeowner's Association, I don't even have to worry about shoveling either. Can't wait. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

So did everyone get a chance to see Charlie Harper last night? I hope so. I'm not one of those professional sites that's going to say "Spoiler Alert" in big bold letters, so just know that if you didn't see it, and you don't want to know about it, jump to the next paragraph. Huge episode plot-wise last night, which is quite rare for 2.5 Men. Charlie was awesome. Getting nice and drunk at 8:00 in the morning. Then he's wasted on the couch holding the empty bottle of scotch like a flotation device. He jumps into bed with Alan and he's not wearing any pants and tries to spoon him. Then, in one of the funniest moments in the history of the show, he pukes all over a baby. How could you not love that show? It's freaking awesome. And, as predicted here on this very site a week ago, it looks like we're paving the way to kicking Chelsea out of the way so the Chuckster can get back to his drunken whore-mongering ways. Can't wait!

Somehow I have my doubts when I see that Lil Wayne gets to hold off going to jail for dental surgery. Pardon me for being a pessimist, but at least hear me out. The man is covered in tattoos, literally from head to toe, but yet he chooses now, right before he's about to hit the slammer, to have dental surgery to improve his appearance? Judging by the picture in this article, looks like he doesn't even have real teeth! They look like diamond earrings in his mouth, not teeth. And even though the article says that this same privilege would be approved for anyone, somehow I doubt it. Plaxico Burress was having a kid a couple months after he went away in the slammer. His time wasn't pushed back any. I'm pretty sure if I went to Judge So and So of the Albany County Court System and said "Sir, I'd like you to push back my sentencing for a few months while I get a new grill put in" that he'd add another 6 months on to the sentence. Then he'd order the Bailiff to kneecap me. Then he'd watch me cry as I got hauled off.

Really not a whole lot of anything else going on today that I can think of. Shorter than normal AMWJ. What can you do though? Them the breaks. Look at the bright side, at least since there's a decent sized snowstorm coming in tomorrow, it'll lend itself to a number of "junk" jokes involving the phrases "we're supposed to get 8 inches tomorrow" followed by someone blurting out "that's what she said." Good times, good times.

5 days left ladies. Still waiting on those head shots and essays. It's going to take me many hours after sorting through the hundreds I've already gotten, but think about how rotten you'll feel if you forgot to take advantage of such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

The clock is ticking...

Super Sunday Recap

2010-02-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

What's happening everyone? Did you all make it into work today on supposedly the most called in sick day of the year (at least I've been telling people that for years, so I must have heard someone say it somewhere along the way)? I did. Of course I wish I didn't, and actually did call in sick, but I'm sure karma would catch up to me at some point if I did that. Get rid of Columbus Day or Arbor Day or something like that and make the day after the Super Bowl a National Holiday. Come on Barry Obama, as Larry The Cable Guy would say, Get 'R Done!

Well, we'll start off with some good news. I managed to finish the worst gambling season of my entire life on a high note, so at least that was nice. Blew a bunch of money on Super Bowl squares, hosting a Super Bowl party, and a ridiculous prop bet that I lost to AT, so overall I was a loser, but it definitely softened the blow. I came up with the idea and even though I lost, it couldn't have worked out any better. It was definitely a blast. We went through the Bodog props and picked 27 of them. We picked different sides on each of them. We pretty much went with the ones that were 50-50 or as close to 50-50 as we could find. We each agreed to take the bad side on a few just to try and get as many as we could. We had 27 total. Coin toss, first turnover (fumble/INT), result of first coaches' challenge (stand/overturned), Pierre Thomas even/odd rushing yards, first FG miss (wide left/wide right), O/U Peyton's Completion percentage at 67.5%, Devery Henderson's longest catch O/U 22.5 yards. All kinds of really fun stuff. Whoever won more got free bowling this week. Of course that schnook AT won 14-13 and I have to pay for his bowling this week. Although he did do the bookkeeping on this bet. 10:1 says if I go back and check I would've won like 21-6.

Not gonna get too into my thoughts on the Super Bowl. By now I'm sure everyone has heard the opinion of anyone with some sort of public voice and by now you're probably getting tired of it. What new could I possibly add that ESPN hasn't beaten into the ground in their 491 hours of pre-game, in-game, and post-game reports?

Instead, I'll let my main man Bill Simmons handle it. Check out his running diary of the second half. Absolutely amazing stuff. I read it at work and was freaking laughing my butt off. Pays to have a desk without a single living thing within 50 feet of you. My favorite part, without question, was when he said this: "A long interception touchdown in a big moment is the single most exciting play to see in person at a football game, narrowly edging a touchdown bomb, a punt return TD and any time JaMarcus Russell tries to complete a pass longer than 3 yards." I absolutely lost it. There's no way to top this guy. I've been reading his columns now for going on ten years and he's still hitting 99 mph on the radar gun. Simmons cranks them out every week and almost never puts out a clunker. Hats off to The Sports Guy.

If you're interested, here's a really good short little interview with the executive producer of The Late Show with David Letterman about the little ad they did with Letterman, Oprah, and Leno. I don't even follow the whole late night talk show scene that closely and I found it pretty fascinating. Gives CBS's take on how/why they put that together. I thought it was hilarious.

Did everyone call Doogie Howser and get themselves a date with him? Leenie did and I think she's booked sometime around 2016 if I recall. I think the date was for like 3:45 am too. I told her to be careful, there's only one thing men want at that hour! Well, maybe not Doogie. We know his preferences in real life, so maybe he just wants to go shopping or go to a play or something. If it were Charlie Harper, I'm pretty sure we'd all know what he'd want to do at that hour! And speaking of the Chuckster, VERY pumped for the 2nd half of that episode from last week tonight.

And lastly, here's how the Diet/Detox played out. During the game, I had like 5 Bud Select's (only 55 calories!), 1 piece of pizza, probably like 12 wings, some chips, like 5-6 cookies, and a pretty big piece of cake. So not good by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely not worst case scenario either. I refused to step on the scale this morning. I rocked a 4.15 mile run today at lunch and I had a super light dinner of just a piece of grilled chicken, some corn, and I've been pounding water all day. We shall see. Tomorrow will be the ultimate moment of truth.

Alright, I lied, that was not lastly, that was 2nd to lastly. I just wanted to throw this out there while I was thinking of it. Remember a couple months ago when I said that it's totally unfair, cause it seems like whether or not you lose weight is solely dependent on what you eat and has almost nothing to do with exercise? Type "Does Exercising Really Make Me Lose Weight?" into Google and over 18 million hits show up. Seems like I'm not the only one who has thought of this through the years. The fact that a few pieces of cheese could offset a 4 mile run seems a little ridiculous if you ask me.

Okay that's it for me tonight. Hope you all enjoyed your Super Bowl parties, and if you made it into work today, were at least semi-productive. RIP NFL Season 2009. We hardly knew you...

Super Sunday

2010-02-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

...and I obviously mean it's Super Sunday because you lucky people are getting treated to a rare Sunday AMWJ. Oh yeah, I heard something about a football game going on today too...

Couple quick hitter topics and then the moment of truth. The moment you've all been waiting for. From the "Predictions Sure to Go Wrong" Department, the official losing Super Bowl prediction will be made.

First thing, I saw this article and it just made all the sense in the world. For anyone who knows the Jayman in any sort of capacity, you'll know what I mean. I wonder if truer words were ever spoken. Please take a look, it's worth it. It talks about how some scientific experiment was done that the brain actually encourages a person to gamble more if they have a very near miss as opposed to when they actually win. Isn't that weird? Hitting 2 out of 3 in a trifecta is scientifically more likely to make you bet again than if you actually hit the trifecta. Amazing. Isn't it also weird that when I saw the article I had severe suspicions that it was written specifically about me?!? Anyway, I've said it a million times, that quote from Rounders is true where any gambler remembers the crushing losses way more than the big victories. And who knows, maybe now there's actually science to back that up. Good read, I enjoyed it, hope you all do too.

Next thing I found quite entertaining, and with Big Red as my witness, this is 100% true. I'd expect to see it in Scumcinnati, but not the good old Latham. I was some sort of weird combination of 60% repulsed and 40% amused. We were in the car yesterday and we saw this Nissan Pathfinder with a set of nuts hanging off the trailer hitch. As in, a fake scrotum with 2 fake testicles in it. It looked something like this! So I immediately drove up next to it, had Big Red take out the camera phone and take a picture and send it to the GW. GW probably assumed we were actually in Scumcinnati and driving on our way from the airport to his apartment to surprise him...

Diet/Detox 2010. If there's ever going to be a day where I'm put to the test, today is the day. I remember I was going through a similar Diet/Detox early in 2008 and I gained, I kid you not, 3 lbs. on Super Bowl Sunday. I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen again. I'm down 13.5 lbs. in 2010 and I'll hate myself forever if I wake up tomorrow only down 10.5. I've already taken some precautionary measures. It's about 12:30 now. I've only had a bowl of cereal, 2 cups of coffee, and a bunch of water so far. I ran 3.5 miles this morning. I'm going to have an apple for lunch. Then whatever happens tonight happens. I'll try to keep it under wraps but there's no promises. Have no fear, I'll keep you all informed of what goes down. Cross your fingers...

I'm too lazy to look up the article, but I read the other day that like 12% of all the chicken wings that are going to be eaten in the USA this year are going to be eaten today. How ridiculous. I'll probably contribute like 2% of that just myself.

Alright the moment we've all been waiting for. Two huge forces of nature at work here. Right now, 12:40 pm EST, Bodog has the Saints +6 (-115) and the Colts -6 (-105). Almost every freaking person I've heard with any sort of opinion likes the Colts to win and to cover. I'd say almost 80% of the people I've read/heard/talked to say that. Vegas was not built on winners. They're smart, they know this. That screams to me "Bet the Saints you idiot!!!" However, as written here the other day, how freaking unbelievably stupid would I feel if 6 minutes into the game, the Colts go up 14-0 on Peyton's 2nd TD pass after an opening drive TD and a jittery Drew Brees interception?

As much as I love Peyton, I'm going Saints. Can't go against Vegas, just can't do it. Right after I hit "Publish Post" I'm gonna throw down a little bit on the Saints. Not a huge bet, but enough where I'll be really pleased if I win, but totally can live with myself if I lose without sulking for a day or two (as I did pretty much every Monday during the football season). It's really a no lose. Saints win, I'll be happy for Brees, Sean Payton seems like a great guy, and after everything that city's been through, they deserve it. And I'll win some caaaashe. Colts win and cover, Peyton will be one step closer towards cementing his legacy. Seems like a great guy by all measures, how could you not be happy about that?

My official prediction: Colts 30 Saints 27.

Do with it what you will.

Hope you all have a tremendous Super Bowl Sunday. Eat lots of food, have lots of drinks, and be safe. I'll be watching in the comfort of my own home with my Super Bowl 42 Plax jersey. I know, I know, he's a criminal, but it doesn't take away anything from the greatest sports day of my life.

Later everybody!

Bowling Highlights

2010-02-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

I'm not even going to make you wait. I'm sure you're all dying in anticipation, so I'll get right to the bowling highlights from last night!

- Was bound to happen eventually. Week 3 was as good a week as any I guess. My stellar 167 average took a big hit last night. 141, 195, 132 (gulp). 468 series, good for a 156 average. Oh well.
- My personal highlight of the night was my 4 strike stretch in the 2nd game when I yelled out "Hambone!" You're damned right if I hit five I woulda yelled out "Pentagon!"
- Just a strange, strange evening. Me, AT, and Leenie all acknowledged this. Just a feel of aggression in the air. None of it amongst the three of us, but just seemed like all the other people were super amped up.
- We bowled next to Angry John and friends last night, again. I chalk all the aggression up to Angry John, his father (???), and the random person assigned to bowl with us. He was friends/brothers/cousins with Angry John so we had to be on our best behavior.
- Those 3 knuckleheads were hooting and hollering at each other all night, and I could kinda tell they were joking, but kinda maybe thought they were serious at times. Just a hint of uncomfortableness.
- As expected, Grant turned his antics towards me this week! Week 1, AT. Week 2, Leenie. Week 3, JTG. AT, you're on the clock next week!
- Grant is actually a little bit funny, but nowhere NEAR as funny as he thinks he is.
- I knew it was going to be a rough night when, as I was approaching the foul line to make my shot, I hear footsteps behind me and in the corner of my eye see this figure charging at me. It was Grant. He was trying to take the ball out of my hand in an apparent attempt to make me go flying down the lane. Who really knows what he was thinking. He thought it was hilarious. The 3 of us all kind of sat there with stunned looks on our face like "Did that really just happen?"
- As mentioned before in this forum, the Penguin Ball does not like spares. In the first game, Grant made exactly zero of them. He also didn't manage to get a strike either. Perfect game. Zero marks. Final score: 75.
- He also said that he thought it would be fun to bring a taser next week. God knows if he was serious or not.
- 3 weeks he's been there, and 3 weeks he's worn dirty jeans. Joe DiMaggio, Cal Ripken, Grey Beard...watch out! Looks like we got a new streak going...
- I forgot what happened, but I burst out loud "This sucks" and Grant responded "That's what your boyfriend said." Okay then. Again, he thought it was hilarious.
- Grant also seemed pretty proud that he was doing some carpentry during the week and screwed a screw through his finger. Luckily, it was his non-bowling hand.
- I was approaching the lane for my single pin spare attempt in the 10th frame and right as I was about to release the ball, I hear him yell in the background "5 bucks says he misses it!" Of course I missed it and he cackles like a baboon.
- Angry John shaved his goatee that he had last week. Unfortunately, he left the caterpillar above his lip. Now, he looks like some kind of crazy mix of Magnum PI, Adolf Hitler, and Ron Jeremy.
- The random person we were paired with wanted to show me a funny text message. He prefaced showing me the text message by saying, and I quote, "Have you heard about the whole Tiger Woods thing?" I politely say yes, but in the back of my mind, all I can think of "There are people in the world who haven't heard about the Tiger Woods thing?" Anyways, the text wasn't nearly as funny as the fake laugh I gave off would have made it look.
- The angry employee of Latham Bowl who bowls with Angry John was telling him he throws the ball too hard and that he's going to "break the curtain." The curtain he was referring to was the back curtain behind the pins that the pins land against after someone knocks them down. This led me to making an awful "beef curtains" joke, followed by AT getting thoroughly disgusted, which made me laugh like a hyena.
- The last two times we've gone bowling, I'm not even sure which Tax Company it is, but it's the one with the guy who dresses up like the Statue of Liberty, has had a table there, trying to recruit people to do their taxes. Two funny things about that: 1) Who on Earth says to their wife, "Honey, I think we should go down to Latham Bowl, roll a few frames and get our taxes done", and 2) They were giving out free cookies as a way to entice people over to their table. Stunner, scummy Angry John ate about 50 of them.
- No random hot girls there last night, bummer.
- When there are real leagues going on at Latham Bowl, you can hear a pin drop in there. No music allowed. The second those real leagues leave, and only our league and open bowling are going on, they crank up the music as loud as can be. Nice to see the respect they show for the WNLCLBL. Nothing like trying to maintain a solid 167 average with Miley Cyrus blaring in the background. Sheesh.

Alrighty, that's it for tonight. Figured the bowling would be enough for the entire evening. Pretty boring day today otherwise. I'll get the Super Bowl prediction out there soon, I promise. Will also keep you all posted on future wagering for the big game as well. Hope you all had a great Thursday!