Post #20: Lets give'em something to blog about!

It's a week shy of 6 months back with the d generation blog and this is post # 20. Hopefully the next 20 will come just a bit faster, or not!

I've kind of felt like blogging for about a week now, but haven't found anything to say. Without further ado, lets kick-off post 20 with the funniest thing that happened in the last week.

On Saturday night Xia and I attended my company's X-mas party at a restaurant. When the night was finishing up, a conversation was struck about the stupidity of a certain department at work.

Then one of the bosses said something along the lines of "Well what do you expect when you hire a waitress from Applebees."

I was sitting next to Xia when he said this and squeezed her leg. She too heard his comment. We looked at each other and shared a quiet laugh. Later that night, we spoke about it. She wasn't offended and understood the context in which he spoke. I on the other hand was slightly offended. The funny thing is I'd bet my life that Xia was the smartest person in the room, by far.

My second and final comment for post 20 has to do with Bloglines, a web based RSS reader. You can keep track of any website that offers an RSS feed by logging into Bloglines and submitting its web address. Once you do that it searches for feeds offered by the webpage, if any, and allows you to subscribe to it. Now you don't have to go to various websites to get your information. Just log onto Bloglines and any feed you subscribed to is available to read in one easy to navigate page.

Well I signed up today and started my account. While I was doing it, Bloglines offers some recommended feeds to subscribe to. They have major categories listed ranging from Animal Lover to Tech Guru. Under each category there are usually a handful of recommended feeds. One category caught my eye and made my curious as to what was listed under it. The category was Critical Thinker. When I opened the category up, it had one feed: Comedy Central - Daily Show Videos.

Nuff said!!

Good Time Out

I had a great time on Saturday hanging out with Frank & Co. for his birthday. I think this picture was taken on the corner of 46th and 7th. I was too busy freezing my ass off to look up at the signs, so I could be wrong. Now that I think about it we were two blocks away from Radio City. I'm surprised no one suggested walking by the tree.



Andie was a riot yesterday. When she wasn't putting her boobs on everyone, she was arm wrestling. My type of gal. Speaking of gals, since my gal couldn't come to the party, I was free to roam. The bartender was giving me a great vibe yesterday. Every time my drink was empty, she came by and asked if I wanted a refill. It's the way she said refill that gave it away. I can't blame her though, I'm the Sexy Cuban.
Who can resist?

File this in the weird folder.

On the subway today, I had the pleasure of listening to a sermon. A sermon given by a former Blank Panther and follower of the Nation of Islam. At least that's what I think he said. He was mumbling at points and not speaking loud enough. He seems to hate Catholics, and believes the white man is evil. Though I did get the distinct impression he liked Amish people. He rambled on for 30 minutes and made my morning commute a pleasure.

That though was not the strangest thing I saw today. Across from me on the D train sat a man wearing a long overcoat and a knit scully. He was attentively reading a book in his hand that happened to be written in Arabic. This is all well and good except for the logo on his scully, which read Bomb with an ignited bomb right above the word. I mention this because I find it to be very funny. Call me crazy or sick in the head, but that's what I think. Xia thinks I'm sick.

Frappr!: A New Kind Of Online Community!

Everyone who visits my site must join. If your my friend, you'll do it. If your family you must do it! Well you're not actually joining anything unless you want to. Your basically tagging up on this website. Follow the link, and scroll down past the map. Put your name, zip, and leave a comment. If you have a photo available load it up, and be prepared to be pinned as a Friend of d generation. You can uncheck the box to create a Frappr! account, it's not a requirement. Let me know what you think.

Happy Halloween!!

Here are a few pictures from our trip today to The American Museum of Natural History. The museum holds an event for kids so they can enjoy a safe and educational Halloween.



Xia and I took her niece and nephew, Jacque & Jose. Guy & Sal took there little ones Isaac & India. Sorry for the lack of quality pictures, but we forgot to charge our digital camera. As a result we used my camera phone, and many of the photos didn't expose properly.



I also included a picture of Louie, *cough, cough* Darth Louious!

It's almost been a month & we're still alive!

Hello all. If you're mad about not seeing a post on this site for close to a month.....get over it! Internet deprivation could be good for you. Hell I went without internet for almost a month and consider myself a better man because of it.

Those faithful few that have followed my online exploits, are no strangers to the gaps in between posts. Though this hiatus is admittedly on the longer end of the spectrum. This time it's for a good reason. We f*cki^g moved back to the Northeast Bitches. That means get ready for some mooching coming to your neck of the woods. We'll be wheeling and dealing our way to as many free dinner invites as possible.

Tuesday will mark our month anniversary back up in the Northeast. On October 29th it'll be a month since Xia and I moved to The Bronx. Read her post it's funny. On Saturday it'll be a week since the internet has been connected, hence the lack of posts since September 24th.

BTW, this post has a difficulty rating of 9.5. While I'm writing this post, I'm having dinner. Tonight my supper consists of Garden Herb Triscuits, topped with Cheddar Easy Cheese, washed down with a Mike's Hard Lime. Let me not forget Xia. She is drinking Blackstone Merlot in a happy face cup courtesy of our wonderful neighbors. Ahh, we're living the American Dream.

I'd like to publicly welcome 2 new readers to dgeneration. First is my former boss in Miami, Christ. He is a good friend who has now entered the inner circle. This is despite the fact he claims to be an Independent, while clearly being a bleeding heart Liberal.
The second new reader is my Mom. I don't know how she found out about my blog, but she knows! I've had to go back and make every blog entry Mom friendly. So no more cursing.

In the next few days hopefully I'll have some pictures up of the new place. As for CBC, I should have two posts up in the coming days.
Till next time.

Riding w/ Louie

Guess whos running the show!

Dan... is... back... alright!!!!

Xia has wanted me to blog about something for weeks now, but I didn't want to. Nothing has inspired me to put letter to screen. Then the inspiration came to me. Let me start my entry by writing about not wanting to write. The rest of this post just spilled out in a few minutes time.

Its Xia's birthday today, so it would be nice if everyone sent their condolences. :> Happy Birthday Sweetie, hopefully your flight will not be cancelled because of Rita.

Take a look at some of my public Flickr photos I have posted over on the right. No need to sign into anything to view them, just click away. I have about 12 available to view. I'm a big fan of Flickr and recommend it to any photog out there.

I should have a new post going up on CBC today so head on over there. Speaking of comics I'm trying to pay it forward and spread the comic book love. A few weeks ago I found myself at my LCS helping out a mom and son pick out some age appropriate material. I enjoyed doing it, but I was annoyed by the store owner. He was totally oblivious to them, which was a shame. Hey if you don't hook the kids on it early on, it my never catch. I also just recently bought a few Marvel Age books as a birthday present for the son of a coworker of mine. I'm always teasing her saying that her son is Nosferatu. I also call him the demon seed, but Nosferatu fits him better. When I heard it was his birthday I couldn't think of a better present for a 1st grader learning to read than a good old comic book. It may be a little advanced, but what harm can it do? Well I wouldn't ask that question to Fredric Wertham, he might have other thoughts. That's your history lesson for today.

Later

Katrina: A disaster in every way imaginable.

Over the last week since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast it's been the topic of discussion at work. In fact the sales manager walked by production on Friday and asked if everything was alright. Apparently the discussion I was having with my boss was really loud and disruptive. I've spent hours at work talking with him about it. Our conversations probably haven't veered much from the main stream.

Monday 8/29: We had discussion about the "damage" Katrina caused in South Florida. We then watched in amazement as Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.
Tuesday 8/30: The horror of seeing the destruction and people being plucked from rooftops. Coming to the realization of the magnitude of the situation.
Wednesday 8/31: Day 2 of watching this horrific event unfold. Questioning the evacuation (pre & post storm) and rescue efforts. Could it have been done better?
Thursday 9/1: Wondering were the fuck is the cavalry? The situation has reached critical mass and all we have is local police and Coast Guards on the scene.
Friday 9/2: The blame game.

We ran through a bunch of topics during the week. Most of them not covered by the news yet because of the ongoing crisis. We started to see it some of the topics discussed Thursday and Friday. Today on Meet The Press host Tim Russert was pounding the Secretary of Home Land Security Michael Chertoff. In the coming weeks more in-depth questions will be asked.

Tuesday thru Thursday of last week I worked on average 13 hour days. On Friday when I actually came home at a decent hour I found out some interesting news. My mother works for a leading cruise line, and she volunteered to go to New Orleans to help. Apparently this cruise line has a program were they help out in disaster stricken areas. This week she'll have a better idea when she'll be leaving. This cruise line is also in negotiations to donate 3 cruise ships to serve as housing facilities.

On my work front, we are going to be collecting donations on Tuesday. At that point we'll contact HR and see if they'll match the amount collected. Last week I asked HR if the company is doing anything for the relief efforts. Three days passed and no response. So we'll collect the money first and go from there.

It's a shame that the situations had to deteriorate to this point. But it came to no surprise to my co-workers who went through Hurricane Andrew. I was told it took days to get federal help in the hardest hit areas of South Florida. Like every other aspect of the government FEMA is reactive, not proactive. In these cases though, it cost lives.

Time to help out.

I suggested to Xia that she should get Legal's to help out in the aftermath of Katrina. A month after 9/11 we in Paramus donated all our tips for a night shift to the 9/11 fund. We promoted the event locally for about a week. Many people came out to have a nice dinner, and drop a big tip to be donated. No wait/bar staff members were obligated to work that night, but more than enough volunteered to meet staffing needs. Here at VMS I'm going to suggest to my boss that we do something. I've posted a few links to organizations that donations can be made through.

From their website:
"Network For Good is the Internet's leading charitable resource an e-philanthropy site where individuals can donate, volunteer and get involved with the issues they care about. The organization's goal is to connect people to charities via the Internet using the virtual world to deliver real resources to nonprofits and communities."

Basically they can hook you up with various charitable foundations via the internet. They include American Red Cross, Convoy of Hope, Charity Hospital in New Orleans & Heart of Florida United Way among many others.

Here are some direct links charities:
American Red Cross
Salvation Army
Feed The Children

Day 2 without power.

Relatively speaking we got off easy with Hurricane Katrina. A handful of small downed trees and some water damage around window sills. Others close by were not so lucky. Just a few minutes outside my community we saw some major damage consisting of down trees and flooding. Really big trees. This picture doesn't do justice to the size of it. There is actually a kid in a white shirt sitting on the trunk of the tree.

The lack of A/C is making things tense at the house. I left early today for the game just to get some A/C in the car. It isn't all bad though. We can still use the water and I think I lost a pound or two from all the sweating I'm doing. Hopefully there won't be to many more nights without power.

Dan

Black Out

Been over two hours since we had power. Its getting HOT in here. The storm is laying a smack down on us. Dogs are sacred shitless. I'm not far behind.

Hurricane Katrina

The power keeps going out. Winds are really picking up. Kind of scary in here.

Tale Of 2 Games

For this post names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Saturday the Boss and I switched positions at the stadium. I worked the main matrix (big) board, while he was on aux (small) matrix. This was so I could get a refresher course on the big board for Sundays game when I was scheduled on it with the Hebrew Hammer working aux. I've only worked the big board 2 times, so I was eager for another crack at it.

[Now the Hebrew Hammer is a good guy, but has a reputation of talking a lot during the game and not paying attention. As a result it puts more pressure on main matrix when running the show with him at your side. Since I started working at the stadium I've realized it's a well deserved reputation. But he is a good guy.]

Saturday's game didn't go as well as I hoped. I missed a few things, and in total I made four mistakes during the course of the game. I was pissed off at myself for fucking up so much. I didn't get yelled at or anything like that for the mistakes, but they were mistakes nonetheless.
I was confident I could run the board correctly, but at the same time nervous about what Sunday would bring.

The next day I got to the stadium 30 minutes early to get a hold of the scripts as soon as possible. I carefully reviewed the PA (Public Announcement) & game scripts, built my menus, line-ups and was ready to go by game time. Pre-game went off without a hitch, and the rest of the game was as perfect as you can get, without being perfect.

Well there was one mistake, but that was on the Hebrew Hammer. He attributed an RBI to a player when he shouldn't have. One of the producers caught it and it was quickly correct.

To put it in baseball terms, I pitched a no-hitter with 2 walks. I was very pleased with my performance. Out of the 4 games I've worked the big board, I've had 1 stinker, 2 solid games, and 1 no-no. In my estimation it's not that bad considering the stories I've heard about the board going black in some situations with newbies.

My suspicion that one of the game producers is a prick has been firmly cemented as reality. Between events that I've witnessed and retelling of first hand accounts by reliable sources its become pretty obvious. The latest in game situation happened Sunday when he called his assistant a fucking idiot over the headset. It seems that to him being professional is a word in the dictionary, not an active part of his daily activities.

I've got 6 games left scheduled till the end of August then I'm out. That includes 4 straight starting this Thursday. 16 hour days never felt so good.

Till next time....

This is the first: random, what the fuck, sappy entry, edition of dgeneration!

FUCK, SHIT, CUNT, MOTHER F'er I'M SOFA KING DEPRESSED!!!!
I can't seem to get out of this funk. I've realized that I'm filling my life with little pleasures to dull the pain of reality. To help forget that I have bigger responsibilities. It really sucks! Is this a mid-life crisis at 28!?! I'm so fucking sad that........it's sad.

I followed up today on my initial inquiry about a possible transfer to the NY office. I spoke to a manager there. He said that a position in editing would be opening up within a month or so. My first reaction to this was no way. If I do this I'm probably going to be lost in the shuffle amongst the clone editors in there. I'm a fucking star man! They'd be stupid to put me in that position. Might as well put me in a closet, cause my talent would just be wasting away. Now my secondary reaction is to take the position cause it's the smart thing to do. I'm honestly split down the middle as to what to do. Should I push for this position as a clone editor with the hopes of breaking through, or go up and work at LSF and make some quick cash? Fucking reality keeps popping up and messing with my life decisions.

Finally, what that hell is that comment on my Crabby Bill's post? Has anyone seen something like that before? What is that....comment spam? Has spamming got so sophisticated that they can spam you in your blog comments? Or is someone paying for a person to randomly go to blogs and leave this shit?

The F-bomb rating on this post is 4

Crabby Bill's 7/29

A majority of our last night in Key West was spent here. Late night apps & drinks don't get any better! Hangover, not included.

Honeymoon v2.0 and more.

Coming to ya live from Key West, Florida via an internet cafe

We're celebrating our 5 year anniversary and doing the Duval Crawl. We've been in here for 2 days now, and having a ball. It's hot as pelotas down here! Oh yeah and schaffing, lots of schaffing going on. FYI for the spanish challenged, hot as pelotas means REALLY HOT AND HUMID!! Hopefully we'll have some pictures up in a few days or so, if we don't melt away.

CBC has taken an unexpected hiatus so any comic related posts will be posted here.

This weekend Upperdeck is doing a sneak preview of their newest Vs. System Expansion, Avengers. Check out the following links for a sneak peek at some of the cards. Here is a link to find a Preview Tournament nearest you.

TGC Player has a list of cards about a third of the page down, you can click and see discussions/post by readers about them.

Metagame has articles written by staff members, which breakdown the cards.

Gotta go this cost lots of $$$

Best,
Dan

Hello, Hello!

Here is my latest entry for CBC, just click on the image below. The article has generated some discussion which is always good.


On the personal side of things, I just booked the hotel for our 5th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY . When Xia comes down at the end of July, we'll be spending three days in Key West. The hotel is called Lighthouse Court and it's located next to Ernest Hemingway's home and the Lighthouse Museum. More importantly though it's one block away from Duval Street, which is where all the action happens. The 27th can't come soon enough!

later

Quick Movie Reviews

This summer by far, has been the most active movie going time for me. I've seen as many movies since May, as I have all year at the theater. Here are some quick takes on what I've been wasting my money on.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith - Some people have said it's better than Episodes I & II. I have to agree with those people, they are right. The problem is that, it's like saying you came in first in a one legged race, while driving a car. Episodes I & II were horrible, so Revenge of the Sith could only get better. The cheesy dialogue alarm only went off about half as much as it did in the other prequels. That's a big plus! The problem here was the acting was really way off. Only in a few instances in the film did the emotion come through as needed. Throughout Episode III it seemed every emotional scenes Lucas was trying to do was being pushed onto you. The acting and the dialogue seemed very forced and awkward. On the other hand the action and F/X were tight.
Star Wars Episode III gets 3 outta 5 Lightsabers.

Batman Begins - This is the best comic book inspired film to date. Wait, let me rephrase that. It's a damn good movie, that needs no qualifying statement! There is no need to qualify it by sayings it's the best comic book inspired film. Batman Begins is a really good, fun, thought provoking film. The production value, acting, and writing are all top notch. This immediately goes in my all time top 10 movie list. The bar has been set high for future sequels. Fanboys and movie critics have finally found a common ground. I've seen it twice, and it keeps getting better.
Batman Begins gets 5 outta 5 Batarangs

War of the Worlds - I've never seen the original film, but its going on my Netflix Que tomorrow. This "re-imagining" of the classic story was well done. There are more than a handful of times during the film where I was scared. The acting was good, and Tom Cruise didn't reprise his role as the cocky (fill in the blank), like the rest of his films. He played the part just right, and draws you in enough to care. Spielberg was almost Shyamalanian in his treatment of the film. Yes the ending is a little off, but it's still worth the price of admission.
War of the Worlds gets 4 outta 5 Death Rays

d generation: Back from exile.

After a long winter/spring hiatus to re-charge the batteries and bring in new writers, d generation is back. Will it be action packed? Hell yeah! Will there be less dialogue and more violence? Just like The Godfather Part III. Did we kill off a child during the hiatus? You betcha!! Will d generation be better than before? You can count on it! Oh....who the hell knows.

Xia and I got back from our vacation to NJ about four months ago. I like to think of that excursion to NJ as the Reverse Spring Break. We went from the warmth of Miami to the chill of New Jersey. Seeing the old gang was a trip down memory lane. The two people on the right are Anna aka "J. Lo" and Don from Legal's. Don recently got engaged with Marcia whom he met at work. I wish him the best. I know what it's like to work with your wife and sometimes it's a bitch. Looking back at our visit with former co-workers, friends, and family actually made me sentimental.

That right there is big for me, getting sentimental. You see in my family I'm known as the as "the cold hearted bastard". Since my teenage years I've had the reputation as being distant with family members. I like to think of it as bringing balance to the force. Everyone in the family is lovey dubby with one another, until something goes wrong. Then when you turn your back, it's a free for all, the likes only seen during a WrestleMania 12-man cage match. My family (extended & immediate) has many issues they need to deal with. In some cases 30+ years of bottled up resentment. Not to mention what people are mad about that happened last year or last week. As a result I have a fuck you attitude with family. I'm not the, "oh they're family so you should just accept them" type of person. I'm the people are people type of person. So if you're a douche-bag I don't care if your related, I'm not dealing with you. This type of attitude has branded me as, "the cold hearted bastard". That and not calling my parents for weeks on end while living away from home. So when certain people see a warm and fuzzy side, they're shocked. They say things like, "I didn't know you were like this Dan." In return I say to them, "Well you've been a douche-bag for that last few years and I didn't want to share anything with you."

Wow! Were did that come from? I feel like Will Ferrell in the movie Old School, during the debate toward the end of the film. I just went into this trance and that whole paragraph sprung out. Don't know exactly what spurred that on. Maybe that's why I'm know as "the cold hearted bastard."

Lets get back to a happier place. Xia has dubbed it Operation Move Back. I like to call it something else, Operation Miami Freedom! The Diaz forces are moving swiftly to pull out of Miami, and back to the home base of New Jersey. Yes it is official. If you haven't heard, Xia is back in NJ right now laying down the ground work for our return. She took a flight to NJ on June 8th, and began working at Legal Sea Foods shortly there after. Before leaving, Xia received official confirmation from the powers that be at LSF that a job was waiting for her. That my friend, was a huge relief. If she went an extended period of time without work, it would've been very bad. I deeply thank all those involved in helping us once she arrived up north. You've made the transition that much easier. I don't know when I'll be heading up, but the clock is ticking and my time down in the M-I-A is running out.

One thing is for sure, I won't be going up to NJ until I find work. So now I have extra motivation to look. There are many things in this world I hate to do. Toward the top of the list is job searching. It can be one of the most tedious, challenging, and boring activity's one can partake in. Now I'm knee deep in search mode, and I hate it. Yes I know it's part of the game of life, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. One plus for Xia being away is that I'll be able to work more games at the stadium. This week I'll be training on the main matrix board. This should allow me to be able to pick up more games. The next station I'd like to tackle is replay, but I don't think time will permit.

For a third time Xia has become an Aunt. Little baby Bryan was born on May, 27 2005. Do you know what that means for me? The heat is on to make Xia a mother! On the right is picture of little Jackie who now becomes the Jane Brady of the Sagustume family.



I'd like to close the post with this picture. It was taken hours after a recent operation my sister had. Notice the swollen sausage finger extended to its fullest. Goes to show you she was in good spirits. That's my Mom in the background. She automatically poses for pictures no matter what the situation. It's a reflex for her. I think this picture is just too funny not to share. Sandra's gonna hate me for this but I couldn't resist.


Don't forget to check out CBC if your interested in comics books and related randomonia.

Till next time....