This Made me Smile

Click on the picture to enlarge, and look at his sleeve patch...


Doing the work of...France, Germany, and Italy.

Quarter Finals Are Here

Well, the 8 teams that have made it through to the quarter finals are ready to get going on Friday!
Germany vs. Argentina is clearly the premier match up based on current form, but we also have England vs. Portugal, France vs. Brazil, and Italy vs. Ukraine.
Basically, all the teams that should have made it have with the exception of the Ukraine. They are the 'cinderella' team left in so far.
Holland are out, and so are Spain, but apart from that all the teams that should have made it have.
This is such a great time for soccer. I am really nervous for the Portugal game on Saturday. I really hope that we win it, and can make it through to the semi-finals. It has been 16 years since we have made it that far. We can beat Portugal, but not on current form. I think we pick up our game against the better teams, but we have had some really bad games, too.
We shall see!

Baby Appointment on Friday

We have a baby appointment on Friday which will be our first one for teh new baby growing!
Steph is looking forward to it, and so am I. I can't wait to hear that little heartbeat for the first time which is such a great sound!
I am thinking, however, that there will be two little heartbeats....stay posted...

My New Tattoo

My new tattoo...


People will fear me if I show them this. I am so hard.

My sister informed me that the real men make it go all the way around. 'Real men' because it is really sensitive under the arm. Well, it's only airbrushed on, but this is the size and shape i want to get. I'll go all the way around, too!

I am also going to get this one on my back with the kids' names on each lion. I have always wanted this, but never got round to doing it.


The England flag, with some personalization

Wayne's Nike Ad

Okay, so as you can imagine I am not a huge Nike fan. I don't wear, or even own, a single pair of Swoosh clothing.

However, credit where credit is due, they do a fabulous job when it comes to advertising.

This latest billboard features Wayne Rooney covered in blood featuring the English Flag (St Georges Cross).

Of course, controversy reigns supreme as people are getting on Nike's case saying that they are portraying the crucifixion...

Come on people, get real. Yeah, I am not a Nike fan, but this is exactly how they get attention!

I am posting it because I just think it is cool.

Well done, Nike!


The Pride of England

Sometimes you just need to get laid...

...admittedly, this is a bit desperate, but when you have the opportunity, you have to go for it!


She wasn't complaining, she never said a word.

What is Wrong With People??

I just read a story on CNN about a woman who just dove off a bridge to commit suicide.
Okay, people have issues which is fine, and some get desperate enough to take their own lives, but this woman decided to bring her 1 year old daughter along for the jump!
Both died.
What the hell is wrong with people?

Junk Mail

I wanted to apologize to everyone who's emailed me over the past several years but has not received a personal response back. With the volume of email I receive every day, it's tough - and unfortunately, Yahoo! and Hotmail don't help matters when they categorize your important messages as "junk mail." So I'm taking a quick moment to respond to everyone who's written me as best I can. My apologies in advance if I miss anyone:

* Thanks for all your hot stock tips, but please don't spill the beans by emailing EVERYONE about them! Do you have recommendations for any stocks that I might actually be familiar with? That might be of more use to me since I'm more of a mid/large cap type of investor.

* Thanks for your generous free product offers, but I already have an iBook and an iPod. I thought these devices were in huge demand, so stop giving them away! My advice: Sell 'em on eBay, dude, and make some extra cash.

* My wife says "many thanks" for that info on penis enhancement. She's been waiting months to see the results - is it supposed to take this long to see a difference?

* On the minus size, my wife is getting suspicious about your numerous requests for extramarital escapades. Please entitle future requests "Junk Mail - Do Not Read". That will make sure they arrive "under the radar," so to speak, and not arouse suspicion by the missus. And an FYI just to the horny guys: Sorry. I don't hike up Brokeback Mountain, if you get my drift.

* Some of your emails have weird poems, nonsensical text and odd phrases in them for some reason. I think your PC might be infected with a virus!

* Speaking of viruses, I can't open your .exe files because I have a Mac. Sorry. I seem to be missing out on all those cool attachments you keep sending me.

* I feel especially bad for everyone in Nigeria who's emailed me. How did you get my email - from my D&D campaign blog? I didn't know they played D&D in Africa. Anyway, it seems like you are all very rich but have major cash flow troubles. In America, we have infomercials that explain how you can improve your cash flow and become even richer overnight! You know what? If you send me your video iPod (I don't have one of those yet, sadly), I'll go through the trouble of recording those infomercials on my laptop, download them to the video iPod -- and send the iPod back to you in Nigeria!

* No, I don't want a FREE video iPod. You can just buy one in Nigeria, and send it to me so I can download the infomercials for you.

* Oh, sorry to hear that they don't sell video iPods in Nigeria. Maybe you order one through Apple's online store! If they don't ship to Nigeria … just send it direct to my address! Problem solved!

* Hey, thanks for letting me know about your band's next show. I'm not sure if I can make it, but if I'm not working that night, I will definitely try to attend.

* Holy shit! Why didn't you call me first if there was a security problem with my eBay/Paypal/Wells Fargo/Chase/Citibank account! It's not like I check email every day, you know. What's even worse is that when I call your customer service line, they say that there's no problem with my account (especially when I never had one to begin with) but that there's a big "fishing" problem going on. I haven't gone fishing in years, so I think I'm OK, though.

* Oh, and when I type in personal data that you request on your web site, I have this nasty habit of typing in false names (generally famous people or ex-girlfriends), false account numbers and fake passwords. I don't mean to commit fraud when you make such an honest attempt to protect my eBay/Paypal/Wells Fargo/Chase/Citibank accounts, but it's a medical condition called "compulsive lying." That's the truth, I swear!

* Maybe you can send me a list of drugs that might help with my medical condition? They'll have to come cheap and not require a doctor's prescription (sadly, I have no health insurance). All this "compulsive lying" is making me depressed and impairing my ability to maintain an erection (I expect this latter problem to worsen as my penis grows to "porn star" length any day now…)

* Most importantly, I'm changing my email address to something new, so if you can stop sending emails to my old address(es), that would be a GREAT help! I'll let you know my new email address ASAP.

Thanks! Talk to you soon.

World Cup: T-Minus 24 Hours

The World Cup is less than 24 hours away, people !!!!

This is the most exciting period in four years of soccer for me !! England have a huge chance of lifting the trophy this year, and as with all things, they need a little luck and all their top players to avoid injuries...

The best news of all is that Wayne Rooney was declared fit to play. He broke his 5th metatarsal bone 5 weeks ago, and was in serious doubt for the world cup. Without Wayne Rooney we are an average team going forward. England have one of the top defences in teh world, but going forward we need power and pace, and Wayne has them both.


Get well, my son. Get well.

For you non-soccerites, that would be like Michael Jordan missing from the Bulls team with a bust finger. Now Wayne is back, England have their talisman and we are firing on all cylinders.

Come on baby....let's get this thing started !!

How To Get A Flat Tummy

A little boy walks into his parents room to see his mom on top of his dad bouncing up and down.The mom quickly dismounts, worried about what her son has seen, dress's quickly and goes to find him.The son sees his mom and asks, "What were you and dad doing? "The mother replies, "Well, your dad has a big tummy and sometimes I have to get on top of it to help flatten it."

"You're wasting your time." says the boy."Why is that?" asked his mom, puzzled? "Well when you go shopping the lady next door comes over and gets on her knees and blows it right back up!"

6-6-6: Is our number really up?

Is today's date -- 6-6-6 -- merely a curious number or could it mean our number is up?

There's a devilishly odd nexus of theology, mathematics and commercialism on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year.

It may be just the sixth year of this millennium, but insisting on calling it 2006 takes the devil-may-care fun out of calendar-gazing.



Something about the number 666 brings out the worry, the hope and even the humor in people, said the Rev. Felix Just, a professor of theology at the University of San Francisco. A Jesuit priest, Just has taught both apocalyptic theory and mathematics and maintains a "666-Numbers of the Beast" Web site that contains history, theology, math and precisely 66 one-line jokes about 666.

You can even make sport of it, betting online whether the apocalypse will happen on that date. The good news is that one online oddsmaker has made the world a 100,000-to-1 favorite to survive Tuesday -- something that Just said is supported by theology.

"Many people avoid the number; they're afraid of it almost and there's absolutely no reason to be afraid of it," Just said. "It is not a prediction of future events. It is not supposed to be taken as a timetable for when the world is going to end."

It all started with Revelation 13:18 in the Bible: "This calls for wisdom: let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six."

The beast is also known as the Antichrist, according to some apocalyptic theories.

Many scholars, such as Just, say the beast is really a coded reference -- using Hebrew letters for numbers -- for the despotic Roman emperor Nero and 616 appears instead of 666 in some ancient manuscripts. The Book of Revelation isn't prophesying a specific end of times but "is about the overall cosmic struggle of good versus evil," Just said.

But for some more apocalyptic theologians, the end of times is coming, even if not specifically on Tuesday. The evangelical Raptureready.com Web site puts its "rapture index" at 156, calling that "fasten your seatbelts" time.

It's not the date June 6 that's worrisome, but the signs in our society of the approach of the 666 antichrist, said the Rev. Tim LaHaye, founder of a self-named ministry and co-author of the best-selling "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic novels. And even though LaHaye said Tuesday isn't the date of the apocalypse, his Left Behind Web site promotes his new book "The Rapture" with an ominous "06.06.06 Will You Be Ready."

"I don't think that people understand that 666 is not a good time," LaHaye said. He said he sees signs of an upcoming "tribulation period" that leads to the Antichrist's arrival in a movement toward one-world government, a single economic system and single religion.

Apocalyptic culture and theology, especially those surrounding 666, "is especially appealing for people in an underdog situation," said Just (pronounced Yoost).

So people have looked for -- and found -- 666 in all sorts of places. Believers in the number's power have used biblical letter-numeric code to convert the names of countless political leaders, including many popes, to come out 666, marking them as that generation's Antichrist. That includes Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

It's a number that the Reagans didn't want as an address when they moved out of the White House in 1989 to the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air. So they changed their address from 666 St. Cloud Road to 668. In 1980, a TV host and others rigged the number 666 to come up in a Pennsylvania lottery drawing. It's a number that is part of every UPC barcode on groceries (a coincidence according to the code's inventor). With biblical coding, 666 also is the number for the WWW of the World Wide Web.

The math of 666 is also open to biblical interpretation and manipulation. Just points out that 666 is the sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel. Other oddities include variations on pi and products of prime number multiplication.

There's also something special about the number 6, which in the Bible stands for man, said Brian C. Jones, a religion professor at Wartburg College in Iowa.

"People need to lighten up about this," Jones said. He noted that Tuesday has a more neutral reputation than other days, like dreaded Monday or bad-luck Friday the 13th.

But this Tuesday is a day to cash in on the number associated with the apocalypse. It will mark the debut for a remake of the classic 1970s horror film "The Omen," the publication of LaHaye's new "Left Behind" book, and an Ann Coulter polemic called "Godless: The Church of Liberalism."

And for truly cashing in, there's the nonsectarian online sports book, BetUS.com, which gives Earth a better than sporting chance. At 100,000-to-1 odds, if you bet the maximum $500 that the world will survive and it does, you win half a penny. If you bet $100 that the apocalypse happens and it does, you can earn a cool $10 million, but you might have a devil of a time collecting it. People are betting both ways, company spokesman Mike Foreman said.

Commercialism based on numbers and fear bothers American University astronomer Richard Berendzen.

"What it really does is use some coincidence of some numbers for commercial gain," he said. "It's superstition and money when it comes down to it. And that's about as satanic as you can get."

Still scared about the date 666? Jack Horkheimer of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium has a piece of advice: "If it really spooks you, you can stand on your head and it'll be 999."

Look At That Heeed, It's Like Sputnik!

This was a cute one that I thought I would share.

Jack has a massive head, there is no denying it. Naomi has 4 1/2 years on him, and they wear the same size hat !

Either that, or Nim was captured by the headshrinkers at some stage of her life, and had work done.

Child Labor, Anyone?

Nothing wrong with it if you ask me.

You want dinner? Get to work.



That is why bigger families are better. I figured as soon as the baby is born, that leaves me with Naomi, Jack and one more to get everything done.

I am nearly at the point where Naomi can make mixed drinks, and Jack crawls everywhere sweeping up the dirt, so I need a talent for the new baby when it arrives.