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Happy Blog Day to Me....Belated Edition

As some know, I am not a huge birthday guy.  I like to celebrate other peeps' days more then my own.  So it should be no surprise that I am 5 days late on Kull's World's THIRD Birthday.  That's right, 3 years ago last week (January 19, 2005), I entered the Blogosphere, and 386 posts later I still don't really know what direction I am going in with this thing.  But every time I try to quit, enough people support me and tell me not to.  So here I am.  And I've had a lot of fun and look forward to more.

But please, no gifts!

Burrito Wars - 2008

A few years ago, I blogged about a new franchise giving my beloved Anna's Taqueria some competition.  At the time, I said I would never step foot in that Mexican Grill that begins with the letter Q and owned by Popeye's Chicken, but if the other Mexican Grill owned by McDonald's arrived, I might be tempted.

Well, that other franchise has been in Greater Boston for a couple years now but I have been faithful to the little guy and still hit Anna's on the regular.  It wasn't until this week when Kristin mentioned she had food from "Q" at work and it wasn't that bad.  I started getting curious about the Golden Arches place.  I had fond memories of vacations in Arizona and how much of an event it was to get one of those big ass burritos with my transplanted Arizonan friends, complete with "chipotle pants" an hour or so later.  I was in the neighborhood today so I caved.  Now that I did, I can confidently say:

CHIPOTLE DOES NOT HOLD A CANDLE TO ANNA'S!

There I said it, just one guy's opinion.  But I feel guilty now.  I might even feel uncomfortable next time I go to Anna's, like I slept with the enemy.  I hope they forgive me.

Speaking of burritos and the effects they have on the body.  The other night, Ben was sitting down at the table eating cereal (yes we have a habit of eating cereal for dinner in our family) and I was in the kitchen getting something else done and I hear a chair rattling noise from across the room.  I look at Ben and ask what that sound was, to which he replied, "that was my fart!"  Ah, the joy of the ever evolving vocabulary of a near 3 year old.  I am sure every father beams with pride the first time his boy says the word FART and gets a good chuckle out of it.

 

Super Bowl Hype Train

We are now onto Day 3 of two weeks of Super Bowl hype, and obviously, the biggest news so far has been the status of Tom Brady's foot/ankle, since he was wearing "what appeared to be a walking boot" on Monday.  Those boots, by the way, are handed out like ace bandages these days.

But thanks to some big time investigative reporting, we now know it is a dreaded high ankle sprain.  Which leads me to ask the question, has a professional athlete ever had a LOW ankle sprain?  Check the records, I doubt it.

I like Gisele's boots much better...

1201032463_9323

* Asterisk *

If you look on the official Jaguars website, you'll see they call the Pats out for "cheating in one game" on their power rankings.

Unreal...aren't these sites sanctioned by the NFL?  You'd think they'd put a stop to this tomfoolery!

NO F'ING WAY!

Once again, Jim Rice came up short on votes for Hall of Fame Induction, missed by 2.8 percent!!!

I wish I could take away the money I spent in Cooperstown in 2005.  And I know I have talked about this before in this space.  But seriously, I thought this year was his year and so did the people that get paid to write about this stuff!

I can't imagine what Jim Rice would have done to baseballs if he played in the small ballparks that exist today, never mind if he stuck needles in his ass.  Unreal.

Jim_ed_rice

Travesty.

Ever wonder why HDTV's cost so freakin much?

Check out the insides!!!

Dsc_5721_3

By the way, as stressful as the whole ordeal was with my TV going on the fritz, I really enjoyed the time chatting with the repair guy about all the changes in televisions over the years.  The guy was probably in his late 40's or early 50's and he has literally been around television repair his entire life, since his father started the company he now runs.  It was very interesting.  Some of the horror stories he shared were fascinating.  Plus he was a Jeep guy so we had that in common too.

In the end the TV had a bad "S/C Board" which is one of the green boards on the left as you look at the picture, list price for that is about $380.  Fortunately it was warrantied.  TV is back to normal now, and the "rental" will be returned to the Big Box store today.


2008 Goals:

Thanks to Jeff over at November 1973, I decided to jot down some goals for the New Year. I posted them on the comment section of his blog but felt it would be a good idea to share them over here too.

So here they are, in no particular order.  Maybe a combination of goals and resolutions.  I am hopeful to accomplish them all!

1) Lose a “BEN”, he weighs 27 lbs, I have ballooned back to about 225, so losing a Ben will get me back to where I felt the best after my initial weight loss a few years ago.
2) Reduce Debt - or I should say continue to reduce debt. The wife and I have done a great job of reducing our debt since we were married by juggling balances onto lower APR cards, and when the promo rate ends, onto a new one. It takes a lot of work but if you do things right, you pay very little finance charges and the debt goes down quickly. (assuming you don’t add to it!)
3) Grow as a parent/husband - parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done. I feel and am told I am a good father, but every day brings new challenges with discipline, praise, etc. The reward is, well rewarding though. As for the husband thing, that is very important too and I know we need to dedicate time to each other and not have it be all about the kids. It is a difficult balance.
4) Accomplish more with my time - since becoming a father and homeowner, the old adage “there are not enough hours in the day” has never been more accurate. By the time we get home, have dinner, get the kids to bed, we might have an hour of time to ourselves before we hit the hay ourselves. This makes me cherish the weekends.
5) Better photo management - I have over 6000 photos on my hard drive (and backup) but probably less then 100 printed. I want to put together photo books to have for the long haul and to be able to show old school peeps that like a hard copy rather then look at flickr or your computer screen. This needs to be done gradually though, to not interfere with #2!
6) Improve job performance - this is not necessarily due to a lack of effort by me. But I am at a stand still with my job and the results I am getting. In my profession, it is difficult to judge my performance since so much is based on incident statistics, etc. I need to improve on getting through to our employees, etc.
7)  Shave regularly - this will in turn help me improve as a husband.
8)  Master the FLOWBEE - and eventually save the family a lot of money on the boys’ haircuts for the next 10-15 years!
9)  Drink more water - this will improve my health, boost my metabolism and help with #1.
10) Improve the curb appeal of our house/property - but accomplish this without breaking the bank! It can be done with lots of effort and attention to detail. In our first year, I think we did a lot towards this, now we need to take it to another level!

TicketBASTARD!!!

2005_10_sports_ticketbastard So in about 15 minutes, approximately 75 tickets will go on sale for the Patriots Divisional Playoff game next week.  The 75 is me being funny, but it could be close to accurate considering they are selling what is left after Season Ticket Holders, Sponsors, Advertisers, Teams, etc take their share.  My guess is the tickets are gone in 2 minutes.  But I figured I'd take a shot.  So I log onto Ticketbastard and get this message:
Please note.

We limit the rate of web page requests that can be made by individual users in any given time period. Your web page requests have exceeded these limits and your access has been temporarily disabled. We impose these limits to protect the web site from automated programs, as part of our efforts to promote fair access to tickets. Please allow several minutes and then try again.

Note this Ticketbastard, the last time I bought tickets from you people was for a "Elmo Grows Up" show in Worcester last fall.  Not exactly the type of show automated programs go after.  Since then, I believe I tried approximately 8-10 times to get tickets to the Pats vs. Steelers game this season.  Other than that, nothing.  And now I am being shut out of my "chance" to get a playoff ticket because of your system?  I think the government needs to get involved in how the sports ticketing industry operates, 2 Much Political Power, are you listening???

All Travel Websites are Great...

Nuff said.

Say goodbye to random comments on posts from 2.5 years ago.

My TV gave birth!!!

A bouncing baby LG 20 Inch LCD HDTV!  Arrived at our home this afternoon about noon.  But chances are, we'll give it up soon and send it back.  Long story short, my 3 month old Panasonic is on the fritz and won't display a picture.  The only sign of life is the LED light blinking 7 times, that phrase alone gets several hits on Google, so I am not the first person to experience the pain.  The earliest the manufacturer can send a repair person out is Tuesday, too long to wait considering the end of College Bowl season and the 1st round of the NFL playoffs are this weekend.

Not to mention a 2 1/2 year old asking "you gonna fix the tubie?"

So this little beauty was purchased as a rental and should be returned to the big box store once the big daddy is repaired and working properly.  Unless the lure of a kitchen TV is too enticing...

Img_43651

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Photos

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