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AZ Legislature Shinanigans

Read the full story below by following the link.  Here’s a short clipping from the story:

Sen. Ken Cheuvront (D) has asked the Senate Ethics Committee to issue a formal reprimand against Sen. Jack Harper (R). The complaint accused Harper of “conspiring” with other Republican leaders to cut off microphones last month during a Democratic filibuster aimed at killing the anti-gay measure.

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Space!

I had to post this… maybe you’ve seen it on YouTube.  The pictures stitched together to make a video show what Earth looks like from deep space.  Killer!

We’ll Pick You Up

The image above shows the distance from my work to where Mike’s mom works.  Today we leave for Las Vegas and we have a situation.  The truck that Mike usually uses to get to my house is needed this weekend so he is unable to drive it over today.  A solution was figured out and it requires me to pick him up at his mom’s work before we head out of town.  Not a big deal at all, but I think it’s amusing how far away it looks in Google Maps.  I guess it looks far because it is door-to-door, it’s 30 miles.  :)

Big Brother 10

WARNING – THIS IS A LONG POST

I love Big Brother.  I’ve seen every season.  I’ve been holding off on watching episodes without Mike because I’ve kind of gotten him addicted to the show as well.  Besides, it’s more fun to watch it with someone than alone because you can talk about what crazy stuff is going on during the episode.

Anyway, there were three episodes on my TiVo that needed to be viewed on Wednesday night.  Two were from earlier in the week and the eviction episode from that night.  Let me just say, the contestants for this year look like they are going to make some good episodes in the future.  There seems to be enough low level animosity between a few players that will make eventual blow-ups inevitable.  That’s good TV.  A quick rundown of the first week of BB10 is below.

This season started with the contestants having to select the first HOH before entering the house and getting to know one another.  This, I thought, was an interesting twist.  They had no idea if they were going to accidentally choose the craziest person in the house or not.  In fact, the craziest person in the house was almost chosen (Renny) simply because other contestants felt she looked like the “motherly” type.  Yikes!  I don’t think we’ve seen her real hair yet this season.  She wears these funky wigs with scarf headbands… kooky.  She’s also very loud and has an in your face personality.  That being said, I told Mike that if I was on the show, I would probably end up being her friend.  HA!

Later in the first episode, the houseguests had their first competition.  They were required to break into two teams and then proceed to climb into upside down VW Beetles.  The whole team was to work together to move down the track to one end, pick up a gas can, move back to the other side and have one player jump out with the gas can.  The catch to this game was that the last person in the car for the winning team would win a classic car.  Also, the winning team would win food for the week while the losing team would be on slop.  Most of the players decided not being on slop was a bigger incentive than the car so jumping out of the cars was not as big of a problem as it could have been.  Memphis ended up winning the car, which could become a sore spot for other contestants down the road.  Also, in this episode, there was a small argument between Jesse and Renny.  As I mentioned before, she’s a bit loud and Jesse was trying to sleep in the other room while Renny was carrying on about the door being “locked” when it wasn’t, etc.  This is the first night in the house and Jesse, for some odd reason, thinks that he’s entitled to a quite night sleep.  Ummm, hello, didn’t you sign up for Big Brother?  Didn’t you realize you’d be in a house with 12 other roommates?  Why would he think it would be quiet?  Did he think he had checked himself into a nice hotel or something?  Yeah, Renny was a bit noisy, but nothing more than most of us have experienced at some point in our lives.  It was night #1 and he was already crying about how loud it was and how she was being disrespectful.  In addition to his gross muscles, his attitude is very unattractive.  He may be 22 but please grow up and stop whining like a baby.  Renny apologized for being too loud and yet he kept carrying on about it.  Anyway, as you can tell, he really annoys me.

In the first episode, we also got the nominations for eviction.  The two people put up were Renny and Jesse.  Jerry (the HOH) said they were nominated because he wanted the house to decide who should leave and who was responsible for all the drama that occurred because of their little fight the night before.  In reality, Jerry was being manipulated by Brian.  Brian, as we find out in the next few episodes, is too smart for his own good.

The veto competition was a good one this week.  The players were required to make their way under a “bridge” through a pool of honey-like substance and dig through a bed full of pillows for bears that were the color of their sleepwear.  The pillows, of course, were full of feathers so the contestants were soon covered in feathers from head to toe.  I was rooting for anyone but Jesse to get the power of veto this week. I was hoping to see him go out of the house.  He’s really very annoying.  Anyway, my wishes were not granted and he ended up winning the power of veto.  Brian immediately launched a new plan and convinced Jerry to put up Memphis when Jesse took himself off the block.  It’s worth mentioning that originally, there was an alliance between Brian, Dan and Ollie.  Well, two of the girls, Libra and April, press Ollie to give up the fact that he’s working with Brian.  To save his own butt, Ollie sells out Brian and Dan and helps the two girls convince the whole rest of the house to have a meeting with Jerry up in the HOH room.  The whole house gives Jerry and ultimatum, either put up Brian in place of Jesse or we’ll boot you out next week.  What is Jerry to do?  He agrees.  The veto meeting happens and Brian is put up in place of Jesse, to the shock of Dan.  I’m kind of glad Brian is put up on the block.  I don’t necessarily dislike him but I figure it’s probably the best for the house.  The voting goes down and Brian is evicted with only one vote to keep him in the house (Dan).  I think he was a bit surprised by that but it appeared that he knew he was leaving the house.

The first HOH competition of the season was one of the “majority rules” games that they play quite a bit in BB.  They usually do one of these early on to see how much each of the contestants knows their fellow housemates.  I was really hoping that Steven would win.  We’re not seeing much of him on TV at the moment.  Is it because he’s very mellow and flying under the radar?  Possibly.  It doesn’t appear that he has much drama (at least drama CBS is willing to televise) in the house.  We need a powerful gay contestant this year!  Unfortunately, my “favorite” player won HOH this week.  I have no idea what Jesse is going to do this week.  He’s a real crap shoot.  I’m sure he’ll put up Renny since he hates her so much.  We’ll find out more on Sunday night!

Question for those of you who are watching the show, do you think they know Steven is gay yet?

Vegas Adventure!

Mike and I will be heading to Las Vegas for a fun time this weekend.  I’ve always wanted to see KA and they have some attractive summer prices at the moment.  The plan is to hit the road on Friday at about 1pm so that we get to Vegas in plenty of time before the show.  I do enjoy going to Las Vegas.  I’m not really a gambler but I love people watching and the alcohol that is readily available around every corner.  Not sure exactly what else we’ll be doing while there.  I’ve been to Las Vegas so many times that it’s hard to think of new things to do.  It’s been over a year since I went last and things are always changing in Vegas.  I’m sure we’ll find something new to see!

Oh, for any of you who watch “Last Comic Standing” on NBC, you’ll recognize this phrase from a T-Shirt worn by one of the contestants. “What happens in Vegas… stays burned into God’s memory for all eternity.”

Musical Post

This song is great.  I love it.  Share it with that someone special in your life.

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Jason Mraz – “I’m Yours”

WordPress Crisis Averted

wp I decided to update to the newest version of WordPress.  I followed all the directions.  After updating the database, I was asked to log in again.  Not a problem, that’s something that normally happens.  What happened next almost put me in the hospital!  I typed in my username and password and pressed login.  What happens?  The page refreshes and says “Please Login Again.”  So, I do and get the same message.  I start panicking.  What am I going to do if I’ve locked myself out of my blog forever!  This is terrible!  Luckily, Google was there to save the day.  It turns out, all I needed to do was delete the cookies for my site and all would be fixed.  I did so and viola voila!  Happy days are here again.  If any of you are planning on upgrading in the next few days, keep that in mind if you get a kooky message like I did.

iTunes and Album Art

I’ve spent a good amount of time these past two days updating my album art in iTunes.  Like most people, I enjoy the coverflow feature in iTunes but I’ve recently become fed up with the missing artwork or the lesser quality images that some of my tracks have associated with them.  That’s is why I decided to take on this endeavor.  Lucky for me, I have a lot of images already in my library and the updating isn’t too massive.  It’s still taking a lot of time though.  Currently, I am on the R’s in my library.  Just a few more to go, I hope.  Going forward it will be easier to keep my new tracks up to date.  I get these weird obsessions every once in a while, but is that such a bad thing?

Monsoon Season – 2008!

It’s officially started!!  Monsoon Season is here for the next few weeks and it has started with a bang.  Yesterday we had a crap load of rain fall over an hours time.  Some areas of Phoenix received over an inch and a half of rain.  That may not sound like much to some of you but you must remember we live in a desert.  Below is a photo I took outside of my window.  Normally you can see houses across the way, not today!  Also, the YouTube video below is the sound of the rain on my window.  We never have a monsoon rain without wind.  Good times!

12 of 12 – July 2008

What is 12 of 12?

Enjoy the photos below and be sure to click the link above if you are wondering what “12 of 12″ is all about.  This month, I spent the 12th in Flagstaff, AZ with Mike working at my dad’s house.  It was a very productive weekend.


The first photo of the day!


Cute!  A small pineapple!


Some interesting bottles of wine my dad had stored in his kitchen.  (old vintage)


Blackberries are blooming!


Classic thermos – I’m keeping this!


Outside the College of Communication at Northern Arizona University.


A visit to my dad.


Weatherford Hotel

Coconino County Courthouse


Some Swinging


Ride that dinosaur!


Finish the day with some PBR.