Looking Forward

After going through a "personal hell" in the months of June and July, things are looking much better for myself as I head into the month of August.

Things are sometimes much better being "said," instead of "written." If you do not know my whole complete situation, you will eventually know. I apologize for not letting some of you know what the whole deal-io is, but I needed the time to myself. As I said before, the months of June and July were not the best in the my life. Please be patient.

But I managed to finish off the month of July with a bang, managing to get a little softball in and much consumption of alcohol. It was a great time to hang out with some of my friends, the loyal of the loyal, to remind me that there are people out there who actually give a shit of who I actually am.

Despite the extremely hot and dry weather, I got some golfing in last Thursday during the 9th Annual "Asche Bash." Bloody hot, but damn, it's golf and it's freakin' fun. Especially when you're tuned by the 4th hole and the hot beer girls are sucking up to you to buy more alcohol. Of course, I have to oblige. Hell, we're putting these girls through college!

But the highlight of last weekend was the great concert that Timmy-A, Mike, and myself saw on Friday night -- a concert that consisted of the classic rock bands Styx, REO Speedwagon, and Starship. Starship and Styx, in my opinion, were great, but REO kind of sucked ass. Again, the weather was around 100 degrees with the humidity reaching 500%, so we were all nasty by concerts end. We didn't care, since the beer flowed from bottles ALL NIGHT LONG. Yeah, we were all pretty happy.

Some classic moments:

• With the consumption of beer, there was numerous trips to the bathrooms and/or get a new beer. Mike was left along during the Styx set, so when I finally got back, Mike was going nuts. Apparently, the goofy-assed Styx keyboarder hauled this girl up on stage during their song "Lady," and wouldn't you know it -- this girl's skirt came right up, exposing everything. No panties. Yep. High-fives were passed around.
• There was this drunken fool sitting in front of us all night long. The guy was like 45 years old. If you gave him a breathalyzer, I bet he would have tipped the .25 scales. Early in the night, he was saying some fucked up stuff. There was this younger guy sitting next to him and apparently, they knew each other. To summarize, this older drunken guy was proud of the younger guy seeing his 20-year old daughter's breasts. O-kaaaaay.
• Later on (I didn't see this -- another beer run), the same older drunken guy kicked off one of his sandals towards the Styx stage, narrowly missing the keyboarder. A few seconds later, he said hell with it -- took his other sandal and threw it up on stage.
• Timmy-A, on purpose, poured a Mike's Hard Lemonade over an older dude's head, an acquaintance of Timmy-A's dad from his insurance agency. The guy didn't think that was too funny -- he left in quite the hurry.
• There was this smokin' hot blonde sitting across the aisle from us, one row back, three seats in (c'mon, she was hot -- I knew exactly where she was sitting). Anyway, she was giving Mike and I the ol' "fuck-me" eyes all night. She was there with her boyfriend, and after he started to notice that Mike and I was giving it right back at her, he took offense. He literally got mad at her (arguing at certain points during the concert) and then literally took the term "cock-blocking" in effect by moving his chair up and slouched forward, blocking our view at her. It was all in great fun.
• I lost $10 playing slots. Timmy-A lost nearly $200 at the BJ tables.
• The old-school quote from Robb (according to a videotape that Mike and I both have from our high school days): "How 'bout I poke her up the butt and call it even?!"

You may think: man ... Tony's using some harsh language! Well, the month of August is the last of the vacation I have before I hit up the school once again. Back to teaching. I might as well let loose a little bit with some immaturity. I've got nothing to lose.

Things coming up:

• Softball tournaments. HomeTown, weekends of the 12th-13th and the 19th-20th.
• Middle School Football. Starts on the 14th. I didn't know this until an 8th grader stopped by my house the other day and asked me about it. Typical.

Making up for the lost time .... TonyTimes is back.

Laps with Tony!

In conjunction with Crash Productions, Inc. and YouTube.com, I can finally start making some home video flicks.

My idea came with all the on-line racing that I have been doing recently. I figured that some of you didn't really get what I was doing or didn't understand (although I posted a few screenshots), but now through the power of video, I can post some pretty cool stuff.

Every Thursday and Friday nights, I race at Sim500.com. Tonight's race, I'm at Phoenix International Speedway to run in the Nocturnal Adrenaline Cup Series. I ran a few practice laps, gave my own in-sights about the track itself, and make the movie through Windows Movie Maker.

Unfortunately, Blogger seems not to display video, but I will provide the link to where all of my videos are at (supposedly YouTube and Blogger do work together -- I'll try and figure this out).

Laps with Tony!: Phoenix International Speedway
Laps with Tony!: Indianapolis Motor Speedway

The above link will take you directly to my video to view. The quality isn't very good (probably something through the uploading process), but you get the gyst of it.

Hopefully after the race I will provide a "highlight" reel, so to speak, of my exploits at Phoenix tonight!

NCAA Football 2007

Hmmm .... it's college football season once again on the PS2. I heavily documented my "created player's" Run for the Heisman last season -- I cannot wait to see what's in store for this year.

It's a must-pick-up for myself this weekend!

IGN rated it an 8.7, while GameSpot gave it an 8.8.

Two Week Sabbatical

Sorry, ladies and gents. Other matters have deterred me from posting in the last couple of weeks, but hopefully it'll all be "right as rain."

Just a few of the "good" highlights:

• Softball: I played during the weekend of July 8 - 9 back in the Home Town for the annual co-ed softball tournament. Although I'm not a big fan of co-ed softball, I made the most of it. We only won 2 games out of 6, but in the end, I was sore as hell. My whole body was on fire for the couple of days after that. Despite not having played ball in over a year, I hit the ball fairly well. I pitched, of course, but I got rocked.
• Golf: I even golfed last Saturday during a bachelor party. I haven't done that in a couple of years, but I managed to shoot a 50. It all could have been better except that I took an O.B. penalty on Hole #2 and got a 9. Hotter than hell!
• Racing: Things are going fairly well, as I have maintained my 3rd position in the Nocturnal Adrenaline Cup Series with only a couple of races to go in the season. I won't be winning that championship, but hopefully I can fend off a late-season charge from the 4th-in-points racer. In the Midnight Thunder Truck Series, we ran at Talladega last Friday night and things went well until I was slammed from behind during a wreck-fest that had occured in front of me. I was even featured in a video that will be posted shortly at Sim500.com. I will provide the link so you can check it out -- it just shows me running the high groove and another truck blowing its engine right in front of me.
  

July 3rd

You're a day early, folks.

The freakin' yokels in the this town are already blowing off their fireworks. It's almost sorry to say that it's driving me nuts.

It sounds like the Allies bombing Berlin during World War II. Are they chucking sticks of dynamite to one another?!

But ah ... the good ol' days and the splendor of fireworks. I usually held my own cache of whistlers and Black Cats in my top drawer of my dresser back home.

I remember one particular that I was staying over at a friend's house back in junior high. We ended up getting into a "Roman Candle" fight -- holding the Roman Candle like they were bazookas and blasting them at one another. Yes, a few of us got burned.

But the highlight was the so-called "chasers," -- we'd strip the whistlers down without the paper and the stick. Light 'em, set 'em on the ground, and see where they went. Delightful, especially if you had to dive for cover.

Reading...

Read it.

Talk about intrigue.

No wonder this book stirs the shit-storm.

It's a damn fine read, though.

All, Hail -- Clerks II

This time, it's not all about Jay and Silent Bob.

Although writer/producer/editor/director Kevin Smith (a.k.a. "Silent Bob") promised us that J and SB have "left the building," they are making yet another appearance.

But this time, it's all about the pair who started it, Dante and Randal.

Kevin Smith, hands down, is my favorite indie-film producer. Clerks, in all of its black-n-white glory, was and is a masterpiece to behold.

Now, 12 years later, Smith has decided to create the sequel, Clerks II.

Is this the end of the New Jersey saga? Great as all those movies are, it's starting to get stretched a little thin. I just have this terrible gut feeling that Clerks II will not deliver the kind of performance that made the original so great. Hopefully they won't get too carried away with the "dick-and-fart jokes" -- kind of like Seann William Scott's performance as "Stifler" in American Wedding.

Clerks II = July 21st.

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• Clerks II