Who the hell is James Van Der Beek?

The weekend treated me well. I made a little road trip to Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA for the Pats vs. Bills game. Woke up at 7am on sunday and threw my Neon into hyper-drive. 3 hours later and a little traffic jam and I was in heaven. There's something about being in New England that just feels different than New York. I don't know how to describe it but I think that everything is just more laid back. People aren't in a rush or attempt to get 1 car ahead of you by pulling a stunt car maneuver. I met up with madre and Aunt Celine + Uncle Tony in one of the parking lots outside of Gillette. Mom remembered to bring the grill but forgot to bring the propane so she made friends with an old guy from New Hampshire. Hats off to her for the clutch move. From there I happily dined on my favorite steak tips and chugged 2 Diet Dr. Pepper Cherrys

My Addiction...Can you blame me?

*Side Note* My mom told me that when she picked up the 12 pack of DDP-C the bag boy said she had excellent taste. Glad to know that some high school student in Dracut/Lowell knows that I have great taste in soda


The game went alright. We won. 38-30 to be exact. A little sloppy but a win nonetheless. I got to sit 6 rows from the field in the 1st half with my Uncle Tony, and then we switched at halftime and I sat with mi madre for the 2nd half in our normal seats (32 rows up). After the game we decided to beat the traffic and check out Skipjacks @ Patriot Place, which has turned into a really cool place over the last few years. Dinner was great and I had my first Dogfish head IPA. Not too bad. Stronger than what I'm used to but good nonetheless. (I've said "nonetheless" twice in one paragraph...Is that even a phrase??...a word??..I'll find out eventually....better keep its use to a minimum. 


Our last stop was at EMS and I got myself a sweet long sleeve shirt and a pair of shades because all my athletic ones keep breaking. I think my head is too big. Yikes. Anyways, on the way out, the girl at the counter said I looked like James Van Der Beek. This caught me off guard to say the least. This was the first time I had heard this. She said he was from Dawson's Creek which didn't help me at all so I googled him. I didn't see the resemblance. On a side note, she looked ridiculously similar to Sarah Jessica Parker. I wasn't quick enough however to get in that quip. Damn. My brother says I look like Drew Brees? I kinda see what he's talking about but I'll leave it for you to decide.

Super Bowl Champion Drew Brees.. long lost brother?

Dawson's Creek James Van Der Beek?

Is is the scruff? Is it the hair? Smile? I certainly have no clue....

UPDATE

Got tickets to BOTH shows at Madison Square Garden for November 12th and 13th.

The theory behind this is that I wont be sitting on my ass on Saturday wishing I was there. Simple enough :). Tickets were extremely hard to come by however. Luckily, I found some on Ticketmaster less than an hour before they were "Sold Out" Yay me!

Not as good as the TD Bank Garden!

UPDATE

The Neon is fixed! It seems $85 was all it cost to put a little more life into my rapidly aging Neon, who is going to hit 110,000 miles by Sunday if I end up at the Patriots game in Foxboro on Sunday.


Let's hope I finally get to hear Warehouse this coming tour! :)

Live in Las Vegas...An Ode to Dave

3 blog posts to date and not one mention of DAVE!? What is wrong with me....I know I'm obsessed and I'm perfectly fine with that. I am currently waiting for the Warehouse to release the status of my requested tickets for night 1 and 2 at Madison Square Garden in November. Can't wait. I've been listening to DMB - The Central Park Concert at work today and am enjoying it very much. Got a little Ants Marching coming out of my headphones.

This brings me to the point of this blog post. There are literally over 2 dozen live Dave albums and that isn't including any of the studio ones. How does one separate the good ones from the bad ones? Or how do you go about listening to every single live album they put out!? I'll save you some time and recommend an album for you to go out and buy. If you're a true Dave fan, you won't be disappointed. If you have already given it a listen, you probably already realized that it is one of the best live albums that isn't that recognized.
I'm talking about Live in Las Vegas, a show done in 2009 that featured just Dave and Tim.

The album is remarkable. I've only talked to Michelle and K Harry about it so far. Naturally being a DMB fan, Kyle is in love with the album as well. I just gave the CD to Michelle so I will patiently await her review. Here is the track listings (ripped from good ol' Wikipedia) and a few comments/favorites

Disc one

1. "Eh Hee" - 6:08
2. "Dancing Nancies" - 8:11
3. "Squirm" - 5:24
4. *"Grace Is Gone" - 4:34 - Mellow song, I like it
5. "Alligator Pie" - 4:41 - A+
6. *"One Sweet World" - 5:37 - First time hearing this song. Apparently it was never released in a studio album. Love the guitar riff and the melody. Lyrics not bad either!
7. "Loving Wings" - 4:19
8. *"Grey Street - 4:31- Friggin love Grey Street! 
9. "Kundalini Bonfire" - 4:43 - Another unreleased track. Tim really is one of the best guitar players around.
10. "Oh" - 2:59
11. "Christmas Song" - 4:57
12. "Funny the Way It Is" - 5:56 - DMB's bread and butter
13. "Stay or Leave" - 4:08 - One of my favorite versions of the song
14. "Shake Me Like a Monkey" - 4:24
15. "Lying in the Hands of God" - 5:37 - One of my favorites from Groo Grux King

1. 
   

   *"Bartender" - 8:44 - Top 10 material

2. "Kashmir" - 7:13 - Led Zeppelin cover! Awesome to see such a tribute
3. *"So Damn Lucky" - 6:42 - Top 5 favorite song
4. "Little Red Bird" - 3:02
5. "Save Me" - 4:19 - First heard this about a month ago. Love it.
6. "You and Me" - 4:32
7. "Crush" - 7:45 - Classic
8. "Some Devil" - 4:28 - Giving it a chance. Heard it at too many concerts to pass up
9. "Typical Situation - 7:55
10. "Sister" - 4:14
11. "Two Step" - 7:58 - Can't go wrong with a Two Step encore!

**Top 5 Bolded**

Listen to this while your working or doing homework because listening to this from front to back is amazing. You won't regret it!

______________________________________________________________

On a side not my Neon blew its transmission again. >:(  Brought it to AAMCO for the 2nd time in the last 2 months. 3rd time in the past 10 months. I'm getting sick of the bullshit. I'm still under warranty so I have until November til I have to pay them money for any repairs. The fact that I keep having the same problem makes me feel like they're doing an inferior job. I wish I was back in MA so I could take my car to someone I actually trust. Update to follow!

Cablevision is EVIL

Living at going to school in New York has it's drawbacks. Taxes, Tolls, Traffic, Road Rage, Yankees Fans, Traffic lights without sensors... I could go on forever. So when my beloved Pats played the Jets this weekend, I got to watch a game that I may have taken for granted back in MA. Of course, isn't watching the game as easy as flipping on the tv? Not if you live in Westchester!

Cablevision is the bane of my existence. It has really been the one constant thing in my life since moving off campus last year. The downstairs (Pete, Andrew, Danny, and Jordan) lost cable for 2 weeks and just recently got things up and running. Last Thursday we had a freak hurricane/tornado/super storm/end of the world moment that knocked out both cable and internet for the whole house. Luckily we had a guy come on Friday and fix everything. Success? Hardly....Now upstairs has no cable and the downstairs has cable.

Cablevision is EVIL

The point of this is that I had to watch the game under the remote controlled by none other than Jordan "King of TV" Lesansky. After every commercial he would flip the station to a movie or something random. It may have encouraged him to keep it on the movie channel seeing as I was watching the game with amateur football fans to say the least, with exception to Jordan and Shorthall. Jordan is a Packers fan so if the Pats were playing the Packers, things would have been a lot different. At one point during the second half, we missed the first 4 minutes of the third quarter because the riveting classic Jumper was on.Yikes! I wanted to take the remote and throw it out  the window! Alas, the Pats lost 28-14. Breaking my heart. My friend from home Adam summed the defining play of the game up in his Facebook status:

"maybe if Brady got a haircut he would have seen that one coming"

Wise words from a true Pats fan.

FAIL

Getting into a rhythm

Things have been pretty rocky for the last couple of weeks. (New classes, new internship, NCAA clearance to name a few). Today has been a day unlike any I've had i the past couple of weeks. It's the perfect way to end the week. The skies are clearing up (literally and metaphorically).

Getting cleared by NCAA on Monday morning. Boom. Done
Got work to do for my internship finally. Boom. Done.
Weekend. Boom. Need I say more?

The first 2 weeks of my internship were a little concerning. Being thrown into the back of an office complex/epic maze of cubicles, a.k.a Cube City a.k.a. Dharmaville. Whatever you want to call it, it was a little depressing. The good thing about being the first intern on the job was getting one of the only "window seats" on the whole floor (My desk is next to a window). Who isn't a fan of the window seat? Airplanes, Trains, you name it...It's one of those things you have to have. My brother isn't here so I don't have to switch seats with him on returning flight. So to speak. Back to the point of this...Interns have slowly been piling up back here, slowly filling up the desks like leaving a hose on to fill up a kiddie pool. Some cool kids back here. I'm the only one from Westchester. They all think I have a crazy commute, which I do, but living in the city hasn't intrigued me for the most part. Right now I'm researching some blogs for a company but I'm not sure which one. Got assigned to lifestyle brands so I'll be working with Honey Nut Cheerios, Hilton, Hard Rock, Sports Authority, and Smithwicks! Can't wait for some of the projects I'll be getting in the upcoming weeks.

On a completely random note I ended up dropping my bid for the Yonkers Half Marathon. :( Haven't had time to run. Ironically enough, I've been running around a lot lately from work to class and such. I'll get back on the horse soon hopefully. I dread missing a few days because I feel that my endurance goes right out the window as well as a little bit of confidence. I did however sign up for the 10th Annual 10k at the Lowell Elks on Thanksgiving morning. 10k is the perfect distance to run, I've found. Its quick enough so I don't get too bored, but It's long enough that you feel like you really accomplished a lot on the run. This year's goal is to break the 7:00 min/mile mark. Last year I ran a 7:08 min/mile if I remember correctly. Also, maybe this time I won't run the wrong way and lose 45 seconds off my time AND disqualify myself from the 10k :) No promises though

First entry

Alright! Blogging! Social Media! I'm way ahead of the game....

Or I'm just bored :)

Literally my first blog entry. I got the idea from my friend Jules who made it seem interesting. Why not give it a try? It took me 20 minutes to come up with a blog name which isn't surprising seeing as I still have one of my original AIM screen names from high school.

The highlight of my life right now is an awesome mix of intramurals and crew. Intramurals are in full swing and crew, however, is not. It's really starting to get frustrating. I was not able to attend an NCAA compliance meeting a few weeks ago because of my internship and I'm being punished by not being allowed to practice. It's killing me even missing 1 practice. Especially since I was appointed a captain this year. 2 thumbs up! Word on the street is that I can get cleared on Monday, so better late than never I guess. Looking forward to solid season with some of Iona's newest and upcoming rowers!

On a more fun note, Ryan Rourke talked me into playing 3 intramurals this fall. Of course I had no objections to this seeing as I love running around like it's recess. The fall intramurals are as follows:

• Volleyball       
• Flag Football
• Soccer

Got a little double-header for Volleyball tonight. Should be pretty interesting. Hynes East Beasts...Get some