deathmetalthunder dot com

Oh yeah, the Gaytors suck. Without Craphonso we beat those shitty reptilians. A few bad calls went out way, but I'll take a victory any way possible.

It's pretty crappy outside, so I won't feel bad about wasting a day watching pro football.

I guess I brought the cold weather with me as it's supposed to get into the low 50's this weekend. It wasn't too bad when I ran out for my quick-hit shopping. I can't believe how insane it is out. No wonder I never go shopping the day after Thanksgiving. And since when has it been referred to as "Black Friday"?

I had planned on heading up towards Orlando tonight before watching the FSU-Florida game tomorrow, but I took my folks to Carrabba's instead. Too much food at Carrabba's to allow me to take a two hour drive.

Labels: food, football, sports

I'm going to make the mistake of hitting the stores and getting some bargains. And only for myself. I don't know what that says, but I know that if you're buying gifts for yourself isn't it better to be saving money? I'll go ahead and spend list-price on everyone else. I only wish I had some left-over turkey to come home to.

No turkey, but the Lions won. The ham and green bean casserole are that much sweeter.

Jason Hanson had another great game. So good that I picked him up for my fantasy team. Hopefully he'll put up big numbers the rest of the year.

Labels: fantasysports, football, sports

So I've gone to my parent's place in Florida for Thanksgiving. I took a flight here and got upgraded. And they're back to offering real knives back in first class. I hope that velvet rope (separating couch from first) prevents terrorists from coming up to first, grabbing a knife, and taking over the plane. Real knives: the sign we're winning the war on terrorism.

And nothing says I'm back at my folk's place like fresh death notices.

I got on the couch at 11 am and was there until nearly 1 am. I am one lazy fuck. Football, Alias, and The Office aren't that entertaining.

Nothing makes a hangover better than somebody getting me food and Ohio State getting beat by Michigan. Screw the Buckeyes.

And after a rush home from Bubba's place, I got to see the NHL Heritage Classic. Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Fuhr, and more Oilers playing against the Montreal Canadiens Old Timers. Quite a site to behold them playing in front of 57,000+ fans outside in Edmonton. The regular Oilers and Canadiens will be in for an even colder game.

We hit Little Woodrow's last night, grabbed some food at Kat's, and saw a slimmed down version of Love Syndicate at Momo's. Thankfully I had a nap between periods of the Red Wings game so staying up until 2:00 wasn't so painful.

Labels: hockey, sports

I got a phone call from a strange area code. I had almost forgot the college roommate was in town, so I headed off to meet up with him and his wife. We bar hopped around town before I headed home to pass out. They are here through the weekend so it'll be a rough row to hoe.

A boring day of football games bled into an even more boring Sunday night game as Dallas traveled up to Foxboro, Massachusetts to take on the New England Patriots. All to be seen on my fancy TV. Fat Boy and the new-to-Austin Seerwah came over for the game. At least the company was entertaining.

Labels: seerwah

Chilly, (the future) Mrs. Chilly and I did a bunch of errands. Errands which found me spending a bunch of cash on DVD's. King of the Hill's first two season's were on sale at Best Buy if bought together, so they were bought together. Also purchased during my buying extravaganza were The Producers, Finding Nemo, This is Spinal Tap, Fight Club, and The Blues Brothers. The last two were acquired right near Target's closing time (and the end of their week's sale). Fortunately I took a wrong turn and ended up driving by Texas Memorial Stadium as Texas went ahead of Texas Tech.

And on another football note, Florida State eked out a victory while Michigan beat up on Northwestern (weren't they decent a couple years ago?). Unfortunately, Miami and Florida won.

For those of you young drinkers out there, remember it's best to keep on drinking after those first couple of beers. I went out with JMVC for some drinks around 6:00, but I went home and didn't crack open a home brew. That made me tired and lazy resuling in me staying in for the night. I did get to see The Office on BBC America before passing out for good.

Maybe I'll do something tonight.

Labels: jmvc

Friday at 4:00 pm and I've already seen Master and Commander so the weekend's off to a splendid start. I have no plans but to work on getting the pictures from the site up. Over 1200 pictures to sift through.

I came home after work and Chilly wanted to know if I wanted to come along to see a couple bands at La Zona Rosa. I had only vaguely heard of the headliner, Something Corporate, but I was in the mood to do something so I agreed to go. Something Corporate plays like a harder version of Dave Matthew and their lead singer seems more in love with himself than anything else in the world, but RX Bandits were pretty surprisingly good. They played well together and that's something considering they had a saxamophone and trombone players. Almost like a rock version of Grupo Fantasma. Lots of energy and definitely worth checking out if they come to a town near you.

Labels: chilly, music

The site I've been working on has gone live with no problems. All that hard work paid off in the end, I guess. Wait a second, I was on vacation. Hmm, I'll have to rethink that then.

One of the women in my group told us that she had a frog jump out of her toilet last night. That gives the expression "I didn't see that coming" a whole new meaning.

I had to come in early today to work on the launch of the site I'm working on. I stopped by the local taco shop and noticed a huge hole in the adjacent building that they used for overflow seating and conferences. I mention this to the manager of the taco shop (Hacienda off 183, near the airport, btw) and asked him what happened. Apparently some drunk guy drove his car into the wall with such ferocity (and, of course, velocity) that it move the foundation and forced the condemnation of the building. So I bought a couple extra tacos.

Continuing on the fantasy sports theme, my hockey team won again. I'm on fantasy fire. I'm stop-drop-and-rolling in my head right now.

Labels: fantasysports

Well, another successful day of NFL football. My fantasy team put up a season-high 116 points; the Lions managed to pull out a close one; and Fat Boy came over with his oldest son and nobody got hurt. For a shitty team, it is great to have a kicker like Jason Hanson on the team. I may joke about him being a Muppet from time to time, but he's been the most consistent player for Detroit over the last decade. Sad, but true. Here's to you #4! You're the best game in town.

Labels: fantasysports, football, sports

Florida State dropped the ball again. They truly do suck. At least Miami lost.

Went out to a fashion show at Ruta Maya once I was sure the Seminoles' had the game lost. Man, there are some pretentious fucks in this town. But it was still fun.

I got a distress call from Bubba early Friday evening. He was out with Mrs. Bubba and some of her teacher friends and needed some help keeping sane. So I jumped into the shower and headed up towards his part of town. I rarely venture past 183 so heading up I-35 to Wells Branch was a unique. And going to Roper's (a country bar) made this a novelty not worth missing.

I never go country bars (unless it's Ginny's Longhorn Saloon, but that's right near my place) so I don't know what to expect. What is it with them? Aren't there young country bars and old country bars? All other types of bars differentiate by your age, but not the country bars. Nope, they are for 18 to death. And even beyond depending on how hard you look.

I'd say the setup of Roper's is very similar to a roller rink. People all go spin around dancing. Why? I'm not really sure, but those folks seemed content. And just because it's a country bar, don't think they don't play the crappy dance music to get the girls on the dance floor. As a result music from AC/DC to Nelly was piped in for all to grind to. And when I say "all", I do mean the young and old. Including this croker doing the splits. Seriously, that could have been the last thing that guy ever did.

That was strange, but not nearly as strange as the weird old lady sitting against the rail. She had a series of signs made up that she'd show to passing dancers. Signs with slogans such as "You Go Girl!", "Great Moves", "Way to Go", and "No Stopping You" intrigued me. I checked with Bubba thinking this was some sort of country tradition to show appreciation, but he was as dumbfounded as me. So I was forced to conclude that the old hag was plain loopy.

Throughout all of this I had Mrs. Bubba telling me that she was so surprised that I came out to a country bar. And each time it came out as if those words were uttered for the first time. Mrs. Bubba's a sweetheart, but Mrs. Bubba may have had a couple too many tall Jack and Cokes. But she's got to put up with Bubba somehow.

And then the most shocking thing occurred. Wreck-N-Effect's classic, "Rump Shaker", came on and the girls ran for the dance floor. Girls outnumbered the guys, so girls dancing together wasn't surprising. Then I had a two-by-four hit me: two girls grinding all over each other and making out. That's right, girls kissing each other on the dance floor of a country bar. These places aren't too bad after all.

Labels: drinking, stupidity

It might be a new job, but there's always some bitter, angry folks to provide me entertainment. My new favorite is PR. He came back to work last week after taking a medical leave to recover from a motorcycle accident. My first day with him was yesterday and he was loud and boisterous, so much so I thought I'd be forced into "earphone mode" early on. But I'd have missed situations like these:

• Stopping by my cube as a preemptive strike apology for being loud, "I figured I'd come by and offer you some sugar. Oh, that came out wrong. Do you take candy from strangers?"
  
• On the phone with another member of his department, "If I were in their position, I'd so take a shit on the front door of [insert company name here]."
  
• Leaving a message, "Sorry [insert name here] that I've taken so long to return your voicemail. [long pause] You left a some message about something. [long pause] Call me back and we can discuss."
  

Nice to meet you, PR! I'm sure you'll be a valuable sorce of content for a long time to come.

First day sleeping in my own bed went pretty well. My alarm woke me up from a dead sleep and a dream with the "A Garota de Ipanema" playing. I guess going to bed at 11:30 pm and waking up at 8:30 am helps that out.

First day at work went pretty well. It seems like the project I'm working on did not fall apart in my absence. I don't know how I feel about that.

Labels: dreams

After nearly twenty hours of travel and hanging out in airports, I'm back in the atx. Lots of stuff to post on the site, but I've got to work now! Damn me, damn me to hell!

The flight left from Rio to Sao Paulo where we got a few more passengers. Me and Yo! were totally out of place in Business Class, but they can't take a joke, funk 'em. I had a nice salad with scallops and lobster followed by a main course of steak tenderloin with a herb sauce. After port and desert, I watched Confidence and passed in and out of consciousness for 10 hours until arriving in Houston early.

My four hour layover was filled with more sleeping and getting caught up on Sportscenter (in English!). But I did hear some jackass on his cell phone in the bathroom talking to a colleague and having the gall to tell the guy in the next stall to stop flushing. Those American people, I love them!

Labels: yo

The airport lounge has one redeeming quality, free internet access. Unfortunately I'm exhausted and half sick so I can't bore the world with my travails. I'm leaving here at 8:50 pm local time and arriving into Houston at 5:20 am CST. I'm not good at math but that's not going to be a good time. Me and Yo! are on the same flight so that should lessen the burden.

Labels: yo

Currently not dead. Heading to the plane place in about an hour or so.

We're back in Rio, but it was a pretty eventful day. The day was crappy again, but we figured it was best to make what we could out of the situation. We hit a few beaches, did some more shopping, I learned to drive stick, and Yo! tore up the buggies.

After that, we put our lives in the hands of that same crazy driver who seemed hell-bent on having somebody end up dead.

Labels: yo

We had a nice crappy day down in Buizos. Me an Yo! got up early to rent these little buggies to dart around town in. No sooner than did we pick up John than it started raining. So how do you kill the rest of a rainy day? Bar hopping and playing video games. We had an elimination air hockey tournament with the loser buying beers (Yo! "won" the right to buy). There was enough of a break for me to take a bit of a swim before heading back to the house to get Tommy for a nice seafood dinner at Restaurante Do David. I tried the best I could to stay up for the last of the Green Bay-Minnesota game, but I couldn't do it (Green Bay ended up getting a rare win in the Metrodome, 30-27).

Labels: yo

Well, PC and The Player were left behind to get their flights back to the USA. The rest of us took the ride of a lifetime down to Buzios. And I don't say because the viewing during the trip was beautiful (which it was) or because the remaining five had a great time for the three hour trip (which we did) or because of the excitement of seeing a new part of Brazil (which I was). Primarily it was the driver of our van was fucking crazy and only the presence of his wife kept us alive. Thanks for tagging along Sonia.

It took a bit of time to track down the place, but it was worth it. At first. The house the guys had rented looked great. It had a view of the bay, four rooms, and a maid/cook. Things started going downhill when we walked downhill (to town). Buzios was sleepy and expensive, not a good combination for a mad quintet of guys still high off the experience of Rio. After taking some pictures and doing some bar hopping, we headed back to the house for dinner. Black beans, rice, freedom fries and fried chicken (wouldn't PC be jealous?). After that we hunkered down for an easy Saturday night, though I did stay up to see the seven OT thriller between Arkansas and Kentucky. Thank God for satellite tv.

Labels: food, travel

After closing the Irish bar on Halloween and plotting the Atlanta 1 1/4, PC and I grabbed some food and drinks (5 am beers are the best kind of beers) at a local greasy spoon. I had a steak and egg sandwich which, like almost all other sandwiches, comes with ham on it. If that wasn't enough, I added some bacon. Hmm, hmm, good. Oh, these are some shots of the sun risen over the Atlantic Ocean after breakfast. And then I slept.

How to spend Halloween in Rio? Let's hit an Irish bar. We did try to hit a club around 12:40 am and the door guy said it wouldn't be happening for a while. I don't care what city or country you're in, if a club isn't happening by 1 am it's not going to be. Halloween was PC and Player's last night in town, so we did our best to get pissed and cause some trouble. It was like a Hollywood premiere all night with all the pictures.

After the Irish Bar, we tried to hit another bar. Unfortunately that was closed. So in the truest Brazilian fashion, we bought some beers out of some guy's car trunk and walked to the beach. This is where Yo! and PC started talking about cars. Specifically, PC was talking about all the cars he's beat off the line with his suped-up Ford SVT. Yo! can't believe that PC's vehicle can beat a Corvette, so they agree to race. PC's Ford SVT versus Yo!'s to be determined car. I've got $500 on PC and they've got $500 bet, too. Within a year.

Labels: yo