Do you know your neighbors?

I realized lately that I am unfamiliar with my immediate surroundings. I know what and where people on my block live but i dont know these people that live within a football field of me. So why is this? Why dont most we try to connect with our neighbors? Do we secrectly harbor fears that the guy next door wants to blow up a post office or is it just simply a fear of the unknown. As Christians, I believe we are called to be a light unto this world, to show what God's redeeming plan through our way of life. Doesn't this begin with relationships and why not start with the people across the street?

This is the first one of i hope many conversations on this blog. Please leave comments and or further quesitons that come to mind. Much love.
JDH

Come on Brewers Fans

Needless to say, its not really a pleasant time to be a fan of Wisconsin Sports teams. Considering the crew just got demoralized by their rivals from the north side of chicago and the front office of my beloved packers is convinced that we are better team without one of the 5 best signal callers in the NFL, the only optimistic news that can be seen on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is the fact that Andrew Bogut's Team Austrailia stuck it to Yi's China in Olympic tune up games. Not exactly the type of news that makes you want to crack a PBR in celebration (although definitely news that makes you want to crack a case of cheap brandy to forget).

Anyways the loses and the ignorance aren't what pushed me over the edge. What really gets to me is the fact that Miller Park was turned into Wringley North in what was the biggest series the crew has played in some 10 or 15 odd years. While lisening to the games on my mlb radio i couldnt even realize if something good or bad had happened because the decible level of the cheering was the same all the time. My conclusion for this is two fold, one, the cubs bandwagon is getting righteously out of hand and two, miller park is too friendly of a place because brewers fans are pussies. Thats right i said it. We're too "oh welcome to my big beautiful new ball park, see the retractable roof ahhh yes were classy here just come and see the park adn have a good time." Thats bullshit, homefield advantage is huge and we piss it away because we want others to admire our stadium. If i was at game two or three or even four of the series I would have thrown beer and trash on anything that was in pinstripes, specifically targetting old ladies and childern in order to start animosity that would strike fear into the hearts of all cubs fans and make them think twice about coming to miller park for a series against the brewers. Think about it, do Packer fans not go into the metrodome a little nervous that theyll walk out with a viking horn lodged in their ass. Do you Red Sox fans ever venture into the right field bleachers at yankee stadium? Do Giants fans start scrambling to buy seats behind homeplate at Chavez ravine? The answer is no and the reason is becaues the bad blood between the fans has spilled over into the stands. This needs to happen at Miller Park with the Cubs. We need to take our home back and it starts with some good old fashioned intimidation. So this is a call to arms brewers fans....we need to be the equivalent of Eric Gange throwing a ball behind Jim Edmonds. No more Bullshit from the largest bandwagon since red sox nation!

The Donald aka The King of Smack

I heard this rant by the Donald reset on Jim Rome today and well, everyone needs to see how bad Mr. Trump verbally abuses Rosie O'Donnel. My favorite line, "She talks like a, a, a, a truck driver." Gold pure Gold!

The real MC is a jeanie!

“I was freestyling…That's all…That is what MC's do…They freestyle when called upon…And by the way, don't forget, six albums, two platinum, two gold.”

That was a quote from Shaq this morning after word broke out about is “Kobe Rap”. Now I really could care less about Kazaam lyrically assisinating Kobe (by the way, if Kobe wants to get back at Shaq he should really commit to making public appearances dressed as geanie, responding to every question by yelling “KAAAAZZZZZAAAAAMMMM!), what I really care about is the fact that Shaq has two platinum albums and two gold albums to go along with some championship rings. So I’m dropping my work and finding out: a) what albums are these and b) where does this rank shaq in the pantheon of musicians.

Well my fact checker aka wikipedia shows me Kazaam is lying, only one platinum album, Shaq Diesel, and three gold albums entitled “You cant stop the reign”, “Shaq Fu: Da Return”, and “The best of Shaquille O’Neal.” Take that and stuff it in your geanie bottle!

In terms of music, lets just say the platinum Shaq Diesel can cozy up next to Snow: 12 inches.

I rhyme with my time so i get paid

(The title has nothing to do with this blog...i just felt like tupac for a second)

This morning I was watching saved by the bell, as I usually do on saturday mornings (thank the lord for the WB becasue my life would be incomplete without Reba and Saved By the Bell), and anways I became kind of ill. Yeah physically ill, you see it was the episode where Zach gets the cheap class rings (which is hilarious because everyone is all about class rings) and they are false gold yah dee yah dee yah. So if you are an avid Saved By the Bell watcher you know that this episode happens to lie within the 12 episodes where Kelly and Jessie are gone and both are replaced by the biker chick, Tori. The episode is good funny and out of touch, however, i became ill at the sight of a Zach and Tori kiss at the end of the episode. Come on Zach, really.....Tori!? You go from Kelly to Tori, I have a problem with this. In fact I have a problem with Zach's dating period during the whole freaking 12 episodes. First its the new girl Joanna, then the girl in the wheel chair and then Tori. Its like the producers were trying to hook zach up with anything that walks or wheels, when they should have just said, listen, no one is hotter than Kelly Kapowski, lets say she did an abroad thing, drop her name every episode by having Slater ask Zach how Kelly was and set it up for the bumpy ride of the college years a year later. Thats a way better deal than watching the coolest characheter since Sam Malone (watch Cheers) lower his standards. At the very least introduce a character somewhere in Kellys orbit, its freakin SoCal, there has to be better looking and a lot less manly girls than Tori at Bayside High! In fact I know there is because in the afformentioned episode they all hang out with Screech when he takes down the slimy ring guy. And thats all i got...

An update and my vids of the week

Good saturday morning to you all..first off i have found a couple new blogs that deal with tunes by some old friends...these links are below and im pretty sure that some of you who kill time at work reading my non sense can kill even more time by reading their non sense so here are the links enjoy:


http://www.coolisimportant.blogspot.com/ by one Matt Bloem (just started)

http://www.musicisforloversblog.com/ by one Josh Chambers (quality tunes here)


Well I was perusing my own blog recently and I went to the first post and saw that what happened to my blog was not what i meant to happen. So to make ammends let me share some of the latest events that have gone down in the red stick:

-Jill and I scored a coon hound (classic southern pooch) who barks and bays and damages our apartment but loves us dearly and serves as birth control for jill and i

-I recently was told that Barack Obama was the anti-chrsit and I shouldn't vote for him to which i responded, well if he really is the anti-christ i dont think voting for McCain is going to keep him out of office

-I found one place that sells PBR and cannot buy there with an out of state liscense because the cashier told me its against a national law to buy with an out of state liscense (this futhers my beleif that people think the confederation will rise again, i bet if i was from south of the mason dixon line i could have bought PBR, then again no one south of dixie drinks PBR so i was screwed both ways)

-Crawfish is the most amazing thing ever (only boiled though)

-People in the south are afraid of black people..i know this because jill and i are moving to a neighborhood of mixed races and people have told us to take every precaution besides buying a weapon ( and im pretty sure they didnt tell us that because they assume we already own one)

-Everyone thinks yankees are pricks....no were just not 35 years behind the ball

-There is a plethora of Hummers around here

-Concealed weapons are legal here, without a CWP

-Every tuesday at school im told to repent and not have sex with guys because the big man is coming back (apparently this will be set into motion by Obamas presidency)

-Its warm...warm to the point where im chilly if its not above 65....this is problematic because my ideal tempearture window has shrunk...up north the ideal temp is 45-80 down heres its 65-85....the high window is about the same because whens it is above 80 your sweating balls no matter where youre at.

-When it rains it f'ing pours...literally...not figuratively

So thats about it, its been a good semsester and i look forward to living in the scary neighborhood next year....so on to some links/vids (since the semester has ended ive been killing alot of time on the internet looking at videos...here are some of this weeks favs)

Daily show link of the week

Its a tie between tuesday and wednesdays episodes...jon stewart on the wv elections...quotes are unreal...now i know why the founding fathers set up the electoral college


Go to the 1:20 mark and be awed by all that is Jon Stewart:


Bo Ryan crankin' the Soulja Boy


and your akon video of the week



Well that will about do it folks

All the Eucher one can handle

Lounging at home today, after listening to the brew crew lose by giving up 6 in the 7th thanks to ned yosts amazing descision to keep ben sheets after already giving up a bomb and single in three batters (i only blame ned yost for losses now and will continue to do this until he is gone.....i like to call this the mike sherman phase) when I decided to walk to the mailbox and pick up the copy of SI which has just begun to appear in my mailbox for the past three weeks. Well this month there is a story on the Brewers and I open to the page and bam i see corey hart and jj hardy playin ping pong shirtless....not a bad pic entices the ladies. Then i look around and what or rather who do I see. Well I dont want to ruin it for you so Ill just tell you take a gander on the right side of the picture and see whose moosenuckle is coming out dem der hey dolphin shorts.......Have a great day...

Oh yeah, by the way I hope to one day re-create this picture with knockdown and bcatt....short straw rocks the moose knuckle!

you dont hate him...yeah i do hate him

As some of you know I am an American Idol viewer, or fan, whatever...anyways tonight this cat named Jason Castro, a white dude with huge dreads, came out singing Bob Marley's "I shot the sheriff", which could be cool except for the fact that in the pre song interview he said "Im going to sing Bob Marley....go figure...haha". At this point I was like, dousche bag. Then he came out on stage with a guitar he didnt play and wearing marley signature blue denim jacket and jeans....respect gone (there wasnt much left).....and his performance was God awful. After the judges verbally abused him and asked him why did you do that, he replied "I was singing BOB MARLEY YEAH." This kid needs to be taken to the slums by Sean Kingston, and then left there to die. Anyways there are only two explanations for this. One, hes wasted or two, hes trying to get run off the show. Well, Ill post the youtube link tomorrow so you can hate him as much as I do and there is my American Idol blog for the 2008 calendar year.

The Daryl Hall of Fame

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the inagural induction ceremony for the Daryl Hall of Fame. In case you did not know what a daryl is lets just say its someone who sports any combo of a mullet, a use of spray on tan, popped collar, croakie, pink shirts, and camo hats with polo shirts amongst other things. Onto the 2008 Class of Daryls:



Guy with the rolling meth lab

A man whose name we do not know, established himself as an inagural daryl as he shut down east and westbound lanes of an interstate in Baton Rouge, LA when his "mobile methlab" blew up as he cruised down the highway. A truely darlyesqu acheivement...welcome to the club.

(http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/18379779.html)



Cubs Fans

Welcome to Darly Hall of Fame and I hope you never win a world series. (Apologies to my friends who happen to stand the cubs, its baseball season).



The Guy who established Purdue University

A sincere honor to induct whomever this may be for Purdue has produced more daryls and darylettes than any other institution the world. And also a warm welcome to this man's co-inductee, the guy who invented the phrase Boiler Up.



The 5 guys who walk in front me on tuesdays as i walk back from class

You five gentlemen are fine examples of daryls...with your matching shiny sunglass with attached croakies, coordinated salmon colored ralph lauren shirts, off green shorts, and of course sperry topsiders. You five are perfect daryls and im sure you enjoy each other's darylness every evening at the frat house as you sit around talking about last nights cirlce j....um sorry sorry im getting carried away...anyways welcome to the club pull up a chair next to boiler up guy.



Roger Clemens

In lue of recent events...you are a daryl and stay way from our the little darylettes.

The "You gotta drink that Sh#@ PYAAAAAAH" Guy from the silver derby
Welcome to the hall buddy....and remember you gotta drink that Sh#@!
PYYYYAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!



So thats our inagural class of daryls. And now onto our key note speaker and president of the our proud institution.....Kyle Orton..

Draft Day '08

So every year I pay close attention to the nfl draft, for reasons unbeknowst to myself. Perhaps I just need some football in my life in the middle of spring or maybe I enjoy seeing who botches and who does well for themselves, but regardless, every 3rd or 4th weekend in April I am glued to tv computer and cell phone. This year was no different, except for two things: one, I dont have cable and two, I have a wife.

The cable thing is easy to work around. Espn.com has a great draft cast, packers.com has live feeds from the press room and draft room, and Espn radio broadcasted the first and second rounds. My only regret here is that I heard very little banter by Boomer and Mel and had to settle for John Clayton and some other guy, but whatever, its all the same.

The wife thing was a little more complicated. Jill is not a football fan but it was encouraging that we made it through our first packer season as a married couple. There were moments when things got rocky; such as when I woke Jill up at 12:30 in the morning when Football Jesus through the game winnging TD to Jennings on the first play of OT against Denver or when I almost destroyed the apartment chipping golf balls at the door during the NFC Championship game, but we survived. Anyways, the draft is important to me, its the future and a whole lot of fun to watch (especially last year as Brady Quinn plumetted). Unfortunatley Jill doesnt think like me (a good thing) so I needed to come up with a way to keep up to date on the draft while not surrendering my marriage. My attack was two pronged. First, I would induce a steady flow of text messages from friends without wives which would enable me to keep up on the draft while Jill and I ran errands in the afternoon. Second, I would educate Jill on the draft to keep her somewhat involved and mabye, by a stroke of luck, she would become so enthralled that I would end up being the husband of the female Mel Kuiper Jr. Well, I'm not that lucky but at least explaining things to Jill helped. She still doesn't get why I would want to sit around for 5 hours watching a sporting event where there isnt even a game going on (she has a point but at the same time she doesn't). As far as the text messages go, it was going great unitl the packers drafted a guy named Jordy which induced a series of phrases involving the F-Bomb from me in the Winn Dixie parking lot. For those who care it went something like this:

Text: "Pack picks Jordy Nelson, WR, KState"

Me: Who the F is that guy?

Me: Why the F did we pick a reciever?

Me: Hes F'ing white!?

Needless to say, the rant was not appreciated by my significant other, nor was the constant talking to myself in the aisles of Winn Dixie about how perplexing the pick was. I looked like a crazy homeless guy wandering the streets. However, all in all I'd say the draft was a success. I kept myself in the loop without cable and while running errands, the Packers gave me some excitement, and I am still married. Now if only Jill would start to work on her 2009 NFL Prospectus.......

Now I know why Al Gore wanted out

Al Gore had it right when he kept saying no to running for president. He was right to know that he could accomplish more for the greater good of the world outside of the political spectrum. He was burned out and now we are seeing why he got burned out, the recent political war waged on Barack Obama by Hillary and the media has shown me what happens to people with a vision of change and unity in our country. I almost think it would be better off for our country if Obama withdrew and went on a humantarian crusade to make this world a better place, to avoid being ruined by politics. I feel he could do more by not being president, a la Al Gore.

Let Hillary, already a corrupt politician (if you disagree with this just go have a look at this recent political ad http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mt6W3rVTLhw can you say fear mongering), have the political power. Maybe politics isn't a sphere where change can even be brought about. Maybe making the world better is a grassroots movement which is undertaken by every day people. Maybe the leaders of this don't need to be in the public eye and can do things privately. Maybe the answer is not found in legislation but in hard work on the ground by people like you me and Obama. Lets just hope Im wrong about this and come septemeber we have an energized president who can unify a country that is being torn apart.

Welcome to Jim Leyland's School of Baseball Management

For any of you who dont pay any attention to baseball stop reading....for those that do...i guess keep on reading.....

So this past weekend the Detroit Tigers hit rock bottom and their manager, old man leyland, held a closed door meeting with the team. Since then, the Tigs have won two straight and as I write this are punishing last years AL Cy Young CC Sabathia, in Cleveland no less. Two years ago, James Leyland did the same thing and they went on to the world series. It got me thinking, what on earth does jim leyland do to those boys to make them scared shitless to not lose baseball games. Heres what I managed to come up with:

I imgaine a series of threats, proclimations and just down right evil only seen in biblical times. I see Jim threatening to send Miguel Cabrera to the middle of Compton to experience black-brown relations for himself. I see Leyland claiming to call in some crazies to run a train on D-Train if he doesnt start throwing the ball. I see James threatening to take away Bonderman's "Our Country" Disc and enlighten Todd Jones that he will be looking like Urban Camo by the time he gets done beating the piss out of him. I see Leyland looking Palanco square in the face and reminding him what happened to his head two years ago and waring him that if he keeps this shit up no helmet will fit on his deformed head. I see the skipper yelling at Pudge to get back on the juice so hes worth a damn and i see him looking at Granderson and telling him his leg doesnt hurt anymore (a report came out today that Granderson said he could play through the pain). Finally, I see Jim leylyand sucking down cigarettes and looking at his team and saying,

"I'm 64 years old, I smoke a pack a day and I managed Barry Bonds, I shoud be dead, but Im not...do you know why...because I am God and I will damn you all if you keep losing baseball games. And do you know what happens when become damned, you get to deal with the guy standing behind me"

Everyone peers around Leyland to reveal the only man in the room whose not scared of old man Leyland....Gary Shefield holding a Louisville slugger ready to kick some ass.

New Blogg.....YAY

Insipired by good friend Lisa, I've decided to blog about my life as a graduate student. As an update, I am a geology grad student in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at LSU, hence the me doing the south. Anyways in this blog I will detail my adventures in this new and adventurous place they call the Red Stick (thats this english translation for Baton Rouge).

For my first story of life here Ill tell you about my boy Sean, whom I met last night at the local BWs while I was hanging out with my buddy Steen, a fellow northerner. Steen and I were calmly drinking some brews and rooting for the Patriots, because we both felt like you might never see something like thier season again in a lifetime. Upon a Pats score, the afformentioned Sean would yell "Go back to Boston ya Yankee!" at the top of his lungs. Well after the third time he yelled at this, I felt compelled to point out that we were from Michigan. That led to Sean coming to our table. Here, I must point out that Sean was a very, very diehard LSU Tigers fan....diehard to the point that he was wearing a newly purchased championship hat and tee shirt and he had his ticket from the game around his neck. This guy was a character. We started jawing and eventually we talked about the Packers and he told me he knew Brett Favre personaly, went to Southern Miss with him, told me Brett almost died before his Senior year, and stated he wanted to talk to him because it had been a few years. I loved every minute of it. So it leads me to this conclusion. I need to determine a name for the locals down here. Something along the lines of the Darlys in West Lafayette. When I do I'll let you know but for now every character I see down here I will assume is a "Sean."