Merry Christmas, everybody!

Yesterday, Laura and I celebrated our first Christmas in our new home. It was a great day. We ate very well. The lunch/dinner menu included appetizers of smoked salmon and baked brie, a turkey seasoned with sage, bacon and maple syrup, and sides of green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, and broccoli and cheese casserole. Fro dessert, Laura made a fantastic mint chocolate cheesecake! The crust was made of thin mints, and chocolate chips were sprinkled throughout the cake. Next week we get to do it all again with my family. Hooray for Christmas 2.0!!!

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas eve and we celebrated by making some gingerbread houses. After surveying the mess we made, we concluded that this is no activity for children. Anyway the second picture is some artsy-fartsy picture I took of the christmas tree through the glass ball of the table lamp in the living room.

Christmas pictures

Took a couple pictures today of the Christmas tree and especially all of the beautifully wrapped gifts. Laura does a great job of wrapping all of the gifts for our families. She takes the time to coordinate the bows with the paper with the tags. She is pretty awesome at it.

December Pictures

Here are some pictures I took this morning around the house. The people behind us (not part of the neighborhood) have a couple horses. This was the first time we have seen them. One of the horses, lets call him Patches, was pretty friendly and did a good job of posing. Patches also loves to eat anything that grows on a fence.

"The Rocker" movie review

Yesterday I had the honor of watching "The Rocker" starring Rainn Wilson. This movie, while receiving 2 stars, is probably a 2.25 star movie in my mind. I would give it a C. When a movie gets a C in my book this means, dont go out of your way to see it. But if you are bored on a friday night like I was, go ahead and watch it.

This movie centers around a drummer named Robert Fishman, aka Fish, who was kicked out of his up and coming band. That band, 20 years later, ends up being the biggest band on the planet while Fish is just a nobody. As you can tell, moderate hilarity ensues as Fish joins his nephew's simple garage band as the way too old, way too crazy, overly enthusiastic drummer. Now I'm not going to give away the entire plot, but I'll have you know its pretty weak.

This movie really isnt about the plot. ITs more about the rock and roll life style of the 80's mixing with the overly depressing emo generation of 2004-2009. The cast of the movie is pretty awesome, and one of the redeeming qualities of film. There are many people from the NBS shows of The Office (Rainn Wilson), 30 Rock, and SNL. Also, Christina Applegate and Will Arnet have significant roles. All these people together make an entertaining combination despite the somewhat crappy plot.

So if you are bored, have HBO, or in desperate need of something to queue up on Netflix, go ahead and give "The Rocker" a shot. Otherwise, you wont miss out.

Ems Christmas

Ems threw a Christmas prom today. Theme is "a million Christmas
wishes" or "Santa charges overhead".

Christmas lights

We put up some christmas lights a couple weeks ago. Sorry I havent posted a picture yet, I've just been a little busy. Anyway, we bought these lights in the beginning of november (I think). After putting them up I wanted to get some more, but they were all sold out. I guess I will have to wait til next year to make the larger display.

Biggest Loser Finale recap

Tuesday was the end to epic season on the Biggest Loser. The season was full of hilarious antics by some of the chubbiest contestants in recent memory. For this post I thought I would run down the list of the ranchers, give you an update on them and my final thoughts.

Antoine - never got to know this cat. All I know is that he loves to smile and he lost a lot of weight. Now instead of being fat with large boobies, he is husky with medium boobies. Way to go Antoine!

Alexandra - She had one of the worst New York accents you could ever imagine. Pair that with no personality and you have the recipe for a soon forgotten reality show contestant. She and Antoine got engaged during the finale right after they both weighed in. How romantic. (Antoine weighs less than her)

Sean - everybodys favorite youth pastor/kool-aid man impersonator told America that he and his wife just had a daughter and named it Jillian. It looked like he still had some of the pregnancy weight to lose, so he didn't crush the weigh in. But he is down from 400+ to 260ish.

Julio - Oh Julio, where do we being. Julio came into the show as the comical fat Mexican guy. And he left as the not so funny creepy Telemundo news anchor. His creepy mustache-o and goatee were nasty. In his montage of "highlights" the BL producers included about 10 instances of his falling down and rolling around. Awesome!

Coach Mo - Still looking sad coach mo saddled up to the scale and lost something like 90 lbs. The Eeyore of this season didn't say much and didn't smile.

Dina - What? Wha wha who? What's a Dina? My point exactly. This waste of a contestant made no attempt to be likeable, memorable, or thin. She came to the finale dressed like a weather balloon and we will never hear from her again.

Abby - Abby, as we all know was the inspirational rancher this season with her tragic story. She was looking pretty good standing between Dina, Eeyore, and Tracy.

Tracy - Oh lord, this lady is crazy! Leave it to Tracy to be the only person coming out in a prom dress. She did lose a ton of weight, however mostly in her face. It looked like her skin had been stretched around her face. I thought she had botox or something. But what made her face stand out was how broad her shoulders were. I mean it was like a linebacker.

Big Ol' Shay - (funny story, when I just typed shay, I accidentally typed shat) Shay rumbled on to the stage in typical shay fashion and grabsed the mic and started spouting of.....again! She told all the viewers out in TVland that she is the best looking 300 lb chubbler in the world. She goes on further to say how we should all pay tributes to her and slaughter a goat at her alter (dinner table). This got super annoying, and to make it worse, later in the show she got a damn prize! Subway (eat fresh) is giving her a 1000 dollars for every additional pound she loses from now until next seasons' final. TOTAL BS! This sends the worst message. Why should we reward somebody who has single-handedly raised our medicare taxes. I'm going to teach my kids that the best way to wealth is to wolf down tater tots and McGriddles until you are about....say...430 lbs. Then self promote your fat self until a crappy sandwich shop starts throwing money at you. Ugh! This made me so angry

Daniel - Daniel came on stage, flexed his flabby muscles then listed to shay. While she was yammering, he kept nodding so emphatically I thought his head was going to pop off. But hey, if you are going to be the baddest youth pastor in North Carolina, you better nod that head like no other. Daniel sucks.

Rebecca - This girl was a mess! After her self-promotion tour on Jay Leno, the Today show, and the internet, Rebecca comes out wearing a bright sequin tank top, no pants, and hair cut that looks like a Ken doll. She looked like Ashley Simpson after being pummeled with a sack full of potatoes. She doesn't say a damn word the whole time. She just keeps making hella lame poses and grinding on Daniel. It was kind of a train wreck. She ended up winning the $100,000 stay at home prize and did three versions of her patented dance. You know the one that looks like shes trying to wash her hands wine stomping grapes (see video).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9aymPARQGU&feature=related
(Sorry, for some reason its not letting me put links. Just copy and paste into your favorite browser.)

Liz - Liz found out early in the show that the rest of the country doesn't like her, so she was not eligible to win the grand prize. Not like it mattered anyway because she put up a piss poor showing. She weighed in at 176 lbs the gave an awkward hill country grin and we never saw her again.

The final three consisted of Amanda (no chance in hell of winning), Rudy, and Danny.

Amanda - she lost 90 sum odd pounds and was pretty much the sacrificial lamb to the beasts known as Rudy and Danny. Amanda was America's choice and all in all she did a good job. But in the end she let down this country. She knew that we are going through some tough times with the economy, Afghanistan, and such as, the Iraq, such as and still didn't come through. Amanda - not a patriot.

Rudy - Rudy was my pick from the very beginning and he did not disappoint. Every week he was workman like. He even took the time a couple weeks to tell shay to cram it. He was what a Biggest Loser rancher should be. He ended up losing 234 lbs! But in the end it wasn't enough to beat the dark horse that is Happy Danny.

Danny - This guy, after week 3 or 4, was a total badass. Something in his mind just clicked and he knew that he would destroy anybody that got in his way. He never fell below the yellow line because he pumped out double digits every week. His only advantage over Rudy was that Rudy didn't weigh more to begin with. Danny has a much smaller frame so he could ever get lighter. Rudy is a big guy, so 200 is prolly his lowest.

Congrats to Danny, you definitely balled like a true baller. This is Robert, signing off until next season......January 5!!!!

back from florida

Laura and I made it back from Florida Sunday afternoon. We had a fantastic time on our vacation! While it was a ton of fun, I have to say its good to be back in Georgia where the people are just a touch less crazy. For those of you that have ever been to Florida, I'm just preaching to the choir, but for those of you that haven't, pay attention.

Now before I get started, I want to preface myself. When I talk about Floridians, I am not talking about the people that work at the Space Center, or for Harris, or for any other respectable company. I am not talking about normal people that raise a family and would fit in in any other place in the country. I am talking about the other 85% of the state that have no job, rob KFCs, breed cats in their basements, and/or drink Old English as they drive their kids to the bowling alley at 11am on a school day.

The irony of the situation is that Disney World (the happiest place on earth) is nestled in the center of the port-o-potty known as Florida. I haven't been on this earth too long, but I have to believe when Mr. Disney was creating his vision that is now Disney World, he would have thought twice about the location if he knew Orlando was going to the be trash can it is today. The best example of this is state highway 192. This is the aorta that supplies Orlando with its much needed filth and worthlessness. For miles you drive past souvenir stores packed with Big Johnson and No Fear t-shirts. Along with Hilton Head, SC Orlando has the highest concentration of Big Dog t-shirts in the world. There are at least 5 IHOPs and 4 all you can eat lobster buffets. The classiest place along the artery of sadness is probably the Denny's. This is because Denny's is the only place that has a strict dress code of shoes being mandatory and no wet bathing suits.

To further my point, watch the national news for a week. Odds are good you will see at least two stories about a parent punching their teenager in the face then slamming four Miller Lites and riding a tractor down the interstate. 10 times out of 10 that story will be out of Ocala or Broward County. Have you ever seen a 15 year old fight a 63 year old wearing crocs? If you've been to Fort Myers you probably have.

It is for these reasons that Florida truly is the wang of America.

Disney Treasures

Florida royalty

Animal Kingdom

We went to the Animal Kingdom yesterday. It was a lot of fun, and not too crowded. Disney World is the only place you can see a grown man wearing a Tinkerbell back pack. Here are a couple pictures from the day.

barf

First Antoine and Alexandra (I dont blame you if you have no idea who they are) and now these two?!?!

It should be called the Biggest Loser Hookup Ranch. (thanks to Rachel for finding this)

The Biggest Loser’s Rebecca: In Love with Daniel Wright! - PEOPLE TV Watch

Biggest loser Makeover

Last night we all enjoyed an abbreviated version of The Biggest Loser. In this hour and a half long cry fest, all of the ranchers got makeovers. Tim Gunn and Tabitha (not sure if she has a last name) visited our portly contestants and got them looking good. Rudy told Tabitha that he didn't want his beard to go, then she promptly slapped him in the face with her crusty leather whip and shaved that badboy off. Liz also asked tim gunn if she could wear a raccoon skin vest or fanny pack. Other than those exchanges, the whole makeover montages were pretty bland. Oh and yes, we got to hear all about Rebecca's self proclaimed pretty face.

And like I said, it was a shorted episode, so this is a shortened post. Plus nothing happened so there aint much to write about. Let's jump to the weigh-ins. First Danny goes up and puts up a 12 spot. It was pretty sweet but he is still a 300 pounder. Then Rudy steps to the scale and crushes a 16. It too was pretty sweet but he is still a 300 pounder. Allen drops 5 which is a disappointment. Amanda finally got her act together and blasted a 9. That was the most she had ever lost, and I think she will never match it (only two more episodes before the finale so I feel confident with that prediction). This leaves us with Liz and Rebecca who each lost only 3 pounds. Needless to say, America was not subjected to her drunk leprechaun dance.

In the voting room it was pretty clear who was going to vote for who. Amanda of course wanted Rebecca to stay and Danny would never screw over Liz. This left us with Rudy and Allen. We will never know what Allen put because Rudy sealed the deal and wrote Rebecca. However, when he revealed his choice he gave her a verbal bitch slap. He said that he didn't trust her and that she was dishonest playing both sides of the game. This made the leprechaun very upset. She tried to fight back but Rudy, being the cool customer that he is, kept bringing it back to the vote. Sorry, Rebecca, but you lose.

Jump cut to the Where are they Now segment. Rebecaa lost a lot of weight and ran a half marathon. But in typical fashion she cried for the last 8 miles. Lam3.

In summary, the makeover week was boring except for Rudy being a prick (in a good way) to Rebecca. He could have said nothing, but he wanted to be an asshole....which is totally cool! It's clear that the best makeover of all was to the Biggest Loser. No more Shay, no more Daniel, and no more Rebecca.



Oh and one more thing. If the producers wanted to make this episode a LOT better they would have brought Shay back, then immediately eliminated her in some challenge that involved jumping.

just sayin'

Biggest Loser ZOMG!

Did you watch it last night? Well if you didn't you missed the best episode of the season, if not of ALL TIME. Yeah, Kanye. ALL TIME!!

As we all know I am not a Shay fan for many reasons. Reason the first - she is annoying as hell. Reason the second - she thinks she is better than everyone. Reason the third - never shuts up. So this week the ranchers had a challenge of grabbling tennis balls off of a wall and putting them in a bucket. (Kinda sounds like an activity for cub scouts) Allen (baller) takes the challenge and wins a one point advantage. This was huge because if you were last in the weigh-ins you automatically get sent home. Also, the next two bottom people are up for elimination. Well Allen beats Rebecca (self-proclaimed pretty face.....i'm just not seein' it) and she goes off and pouts for the rest of the episode. Even more reason to get her off the show.

The producers of TBL must have read my post about this show being rigged because they addressed those concerns head-on. There was a five minute segment of Bob and Jillian talking about how Shay "needs" to be on the ranch. Jillian told bob that he needed to focus on her. This, my friends, is total BS. And I think Bob agrees because he politely told Jillian to stuff-it.

Jillian then went on a roid rage and yelled at any contestant that decided to cry. She busted up Rebecca and told her to stop being such a baby loser brat. Then she smacked down shay. It was pretty epic. Jillian definitely had her evil gorilla face on.

Stop CRYING!!! I'm serious! I'm going to rip your face off and eat it like a pizza!!! NAAASH!!!!

Ok, let's get to the main event. The ranchers were taken to the circus because....I have no idea why. But they were taken to the circus. The challenge was to jump through other contestant's hoops 100 times to eliminate them from the competition. The person's whose hoop is the last with out a 100 "jump throughs" wins. And in case you missed this, yes, there were trampolines, and yes it was hilarious! Leading up to the challenge the ranchers were talking how teams have kind of formed between the younger crowd and older crowd. Young Team - Rebecca, Shay, Amanda, and Daniel. I don't like any of them. Old Team - Rudy, Allen, Danny, and Liz. I could do without Liz, but still a solid team.

So Shay talks to Rudy at the beginning of the challenge and forms an alliance saying neither of them would jump through each other's hoop. Rudy, of course said ok. But give me a break. Rudy, the strongest player in the competition pairing with Shay, the most annoying and slow? Hellz nah!

The competition started and Liz and Daniel were quickly eliminated. Next went Allen and Amanda. Then Rebecca got tossed. So we were left with Rudy, Danny, and Shay. Naturally, rudy and danny went tag team to eliminate shay because she is the enemy. Shay started spouting off at Rudy (yeah, at Rudy!) saying he was a jerk and liar blah blah blah. Rudy stood up for himself because he is a badass and basically told shay to shut her pie hole. It was awesome. And Shay cried.

Rudy won immunity which was huge because he definitely would have been below the yellow line.

At weigh-ins Shay dropped an amazing 17 lbs!!!! Too bad Danny did too. Liz dropped 12 and Allen 10 (plus the 1 for winning the first game, so 11). Now this was crazy! Allen barely edged shay by .02%!! That 1 pound he got for winning saved his bacon! Daniel lost the weigh-in so he was immediately sent home shifting the balance of power to the Old Team. Wooohooo!!!

In the elimination room Shay was sent home over Amanda. The daniel/shay elimination combo was epic. FTW!!!

even more New York pictures

More New York Pictures

Here are some more pictures from our trip to New York. They are in no particular order.

It was tough to get a good picture of this statue because there were tons of people hanging on it. There were also a good number of people getting their pictures taken at the other end of the bull. Nothing beats a picture of you with with a big brass bull butt (and balls).



Street performers that did all kinds of flips. They will probably audition for America's Got Talent. This was over by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The Arch near NYU.

Laura in front of Madison Square Park

This squirrel was the size of badger. He jumped up on the fence hoping to get some Cheetos, but I didn't have any so I just took a couple pictures of him. He wasn't amused, so he shot me the bird and ran off. Kind of an asshole if you ask me.

Me with one hot momma! Let Freedom Ring, Bitchiz!!!!1

Laura in the winter wonderland section of the Macy's store.

Time Square

Let's talk some TBL

Last night's episode was pretty terrible. The gang went to Washington DC to do their part to get America fit again. Wow, that sounds like a ton of fun! So the first challenge was to see who could get the most people to the Washington monument for a workout with Bob and Jillian. The ranchers handed out stickers to people on the street and lured them in with free subway. Fat Daniel was recognized by some of the people on the street from his appearance last season. So right away he thought he was hot stuff and started preaching about changing your life and living a healthy life style. Too bad he was talking to a bunch of skinny girls who were all like, "That's super interesting, but we are active, and we do eat right.....How did you get so big?"


Liz (who is that?), yeah Liz, the 48 year old grandma won the challenge. She was so proud of herself. She kept pumping herself up in the interviews, it got pretty annoying. I turned to Laura and asked, "How many raccoons do you think she has eaten in her lifetime?" Because based on her nasty country slang, and her crappy one liners, I would say its gotta be over 27.


The show continues on and the ranchers goto the White House and make a salad.....awesome. Then they meet a couple of Senators (not important ones) and they tell them how it sucks to be such a whale. The senators politely nod their head and feed them lines about how they will increase funding for healthy living initiatives. Rebecca does her tag line of saying she is just a pretty face (by now we all know this is bullsh1t) in front of the Senators to get more camera face time. It was a pathetic showing, fo sho.


Ok, I cant do this anymore. This episode was just such a waste of time. Spoiler - Rebecca wins the challenge then does her stupid clapping leprechaun dance. She wins immunity then drops 7ish pounds and again does the stupid clapping leprechaun dance. Shay drops 9 lbs and praises herself relentlessly. She eventually got hungry and rolled off the scale. Oh, and congrats to Shay for dropping below 400 lbs. You are an inspiration to us all. Seeing you accomplish that makes us all believe we, one day, can weigh less than a pregnant walrus. Thanks Shay!


Back to the summary. Everybody put up huge number expect for Tracy and Liz. They went up for elimination and, what do you know, Tracy got sent packing. The only interesting thing about the vote was shay voting for Liz. Shay hated Tracy. I see a Liz lead vendetta on Shay. Perhaps the first biggest loser boxing match? If that's the case, for whatever boxing analogy you come up with, Shay is definitely Butterbean.

It's pretty clear that this episode of Biggest Loser reached an all new level of suck, but the preview for next weeks episode looked awesome. The preview showed Shay crying (nothing out of the ordinary) and pleading with the other ranchers. This suggests that she will be below the yellow line. Now, the producers could be showing a clip from an earlier episode when she was up for elimination, I don't know, but I sure hope not.

Prediction - Next week they will send two people home. I believe they need to speed this thing up a little bit. (Update - The preview said they will eliminate two, so nothing new here) People to fall below the yellow line will be Shay and Rebecca with Rebecca getting sent home. I don't think shay will leave because the producers want her there and I never get what I want with this show.

a few pictures from NYC

Here are some pictures from our trip to New York last weekend. This set is from Friday when we walked all over Midtown. We started our day with the NBC Studio tour which was pretty cool. From there we walked through central park, time square, and grand central station. I will post some more pictures later.

Rockefeller Center as seen on 30 Rock

Matt Lauer dressed as Luke Skywalker. cough cough dork cough!!!!

Laura on 50th Street with Radio City Music Hall in the background.

The top of the Chrysler building

St. Patrick's Cathedral

More of St. Patrick's Cathedral

Oh, even more of St. Patrick's Cathedral

Not sure what building this is, but it had a cool reflection. There were several of this style with the curved base. This particular building was near the Plaza across from Central Park.

Part of the famous Radio City Music Hall sign.

Grand Central Station