I couldn't help it!

The last time I was home in Wisconsin, I purchased a graduation gift for my brother. I have to admit that the gift had about 85% selfish intent. I bought him the Playstation 2 game guitar hero. Over the next week, I played that game until my hand almost fell off. There is something magical about the game. It's not like any other video game I've played - ever. It combines two of my favorite things in the world, music and video games. Other games have attempted this, but it's almost impossible to achieve the desired effect with a standard video game controller. Guitar Hero goes above and beyond by have a controller shaped like a guitar. You quickly get sucked into the game and really have the feeling that you are playing the guitar and that you rock.

Matt and I own an Xbox, which sucks because Guitar Hero is only for the Playstation 2. I couldn't help it any more. I finally bought a Playstation 2 on EBay. I'm impatiently awaiting its arrival as I stare at the Guitar Hero two box tempting me from across the room. I hope it arrives soon so I can start rocking out!!

Wisconsin sports

It's been a tough couple of years for Wisconsin sports. The Brewers are definitely not living up to their potential, and I think I'll barely mention the Packers to avoid rubbing salt into the wounds of Packer fans all over. I'm watching the Badgers on TV right now, though, and they are looking really good against number 6 Michigan. I'm not expecting them to win today, but they look like they've got a shot.

I really like it when a Wisconsin team is on national TV. It almost makes me a little homesick. I remember last year after Matt left for his deployment in September, I came home and watched the Badgers and it made me feel a little bit better. Go Badgers!

Local news

All of the local news stations here seem to be sharks. They border the poparazzi with their constant coverage of "breaking" stories. The main problem is that they report the stories way too early and end up changing the story as it goes. For example, there was a phony hostage crisis at a hotel in Orlando, but it ended up being a hoax. They also beat stories into the ground. A two year-old was reported missing three weeks ago, and we get an update every single day. The update is usually that there is no update.

The other thing that irritates me with the local news here is that there are no accidents - ever. There always seems to be someone to blame for everything and they seem to believe that action needs to be taken on every situation. For example, tonight's news reported a drunk driving accident, a single SUV rollover, but because the kids were underage, someone needs to be held responsible and criminal action should be taken (that's almost exactly what they said). Fortunately, Matt and I are intelligent enough to think for ourselves and not believe everything we see on TV. It's just annoying.

How times change

Once upon a time, I really liked alcohol. I liked to go out to bars on a near-nightly basis and I had a lot of fun. I don't think that I had a problem with alcohol, but there were several mornings when I woke up and couldn't recall where my car was (I somehow found a ride home). Since I started taking my meds a couple of years ago, I can't drink much at all anymore. I was able to tolerate the headaches that came with drinking for a while, but now they are nearly intolerable. After only one drink, my head will be pounding. It's gotten to the point where if I see people on TV taking shots (which I used to do a lot), I almost start to gag. This is all probably a good thing, but I do miss some of my favorite drinks from time to time.

I only mention this because the gagging thing just happened while I was watching TV :)

Liftoff!

Matt and I went to watch the shuttle launch today. We got there just a couple of minutes before the launch. We had our camera and handheld TV in hand. We were at a great spot right on the river across from the launch pad. Matt estimated that we were about ten miles away, but I'm guessing it was closer to five miles because we could see the shuttle sitting on the pad, although it was far away.

The launch itself was pretty cool. It was a clear day, but there was one cloud that the shuttle flew behind shortly after launch (as you'll see in the pictures). It was so cool to see the initial smoke cloud on the launch pad as it slowly pulls away. The light from the engine is very bright and you could see the little dot of a light as it pulled away for a long time. The most remarkable part about the launch was the sound. We didn't hear it until about 20 seconds after the actual launch, and it just kept getting louder and louder. It wasn't quite earth-shaking, but it was impressive. All in all, the whole thing took about 10 minutes and I got to see Matt act like an excited school kid :P

Whatever!

As I'm sure I've mentioned in my blog before, one of my favorite TV stations is the Gameshow Network. My current cable company doesn't have the channel. It has all of the other stupid channels that I don't think anyone watches like Speed and Outdoor Life, but not the Gameshow network?!? You'd think, with the high percentage of elderly people living in Florida, that they'd have it. I have emailed them a couple of times and requested it. I'm hoping that if I bother them enough, they'll give in :P

That's sad

I normally don't have any emotion when I see that a celebrity dies, but today I actually felt a sense of sadness when I saw that Steve Irwin, better known as the crocodile hunter, died from a stingray barb through the heart today. I spend the majority of my television-watching time watching education stuff, including Animal Planet, where Steve had a couple of different series. He and Jeff Corwin are two of my favorite TV people, and I think the conservation and television world is a little worse off due to his death. One of his shows invited us into his family - his American-born wife Teri and his young children Bindi and Bob - and you really started to feel like you knew them. Crikey.

Well that was disappointing

Ernesto Schmernesto. All we got was a bunch of rain with winds of oh...about 0 miles per hour. I know I shouldn't be complaining, but I was hoping that we'd be able to get our first hurricane out of the way. We are ready for the next one, though!