So, despite the absence of my daughter, I decided to roll out to Wisconsin Dells with my neighbors, Phil and Lisa, their infant daughter, and Lisa’s baby sister, Jenny. We went to Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park. I was fully expecting it to be a complete zoo there because of the impending 4th of July holiday. The park, however, was relatively vacant.

The roller coasters, while not “true” wooden roller coasters, were very cool. Hades was a great ride! It has been years since I went on a roller coaster. I loved every minute of it (except when I got off of the last one only to find out that my seatbelt had come undone somewhere along the track.) EEK!

The indoor water park is pretty cool. There are only four slides, but they are pretty big ones. The outdoor water park was very cool, especially because there was virtually no line at any of the slides.

About the only thing that was hard to get over during the day there was the amount of people who spoke little or no English. Nearly all of the employees were foreign exchange students or foreign exchange workers. There were TONS of tourists, too. But, everybody was polite. It was pretty cool that way.

Oh… there was one other disturbing incident. We were standing in line at one of the concession stores, and a kid vomited all over his sister. Unfortunately I watched it all unfold. The look on the kid sister’s face was PRICELESS!!!

So, I had a fun, eventful day after all.

…and now I’m very sleepy.

I’m divorced. Most people who read this site know that. Though I am a daddy, and daddy’s often get the blunt end of the stick, my custody schedule is actually quite favorable. I see my daughter nearly every day of the week, and every other weekend. I am thankful for that (though summer and school have messed with the schedule a little bit this year).

This week happened to be a particularly stressful one, so I was completely looking forward to spending some time with her at Mt. Olympus, and just hanging out with her in general. You know, some one-on-one daughter & daddy time. Unfortunately, while caught up in the week’s stress, I forgot that I had told her mother that I would switch weekends with her so that Bri could hang out with extended family for the 4th of July weekend. Since it’s still June, I blanked that out. When I called her grandma to tell her what time I would pick her up after work, she said, “Oh, she’s going up north for the weekend.” DOH!

So… now I’m a little bit stir crazy. And… I was listening to this song, which always makes me melt, and I thought I’d pass it along to you.

Yesterday,  a coworker asked me if I like energy drinks (well, duh!). I, of course, expressed my adoration for aluminum cans filled with carbonated water, ginseng, guarana, and taurine. She responded by saying, “I have something for you.” Sweet!

She came back in the studio with three cans of AirForce Nutrisoda Energize, and asked if I had ever tried one before. I said that I had not, though I did drink the AirForce Nutrisoda Calm and liked it (I haven’t reviewed Calm yet). She said, “here, have these. They have too much caffeine for me and make me sick to my stomach.” That’s kind of like somebody saying, “this is gross, try it,” but I wasn’t afraid to dive into something new.

Energize is pretty tasty. I even drank the first one warm, and it wasn’t half bad. The can says that it tastes like “mandarin + mint,” though I couldn’t pick out the minty flavor at all. The cool part about ALL of the Nutrisodas from Air Force is that they don’t contain any sugar, sodium, or the dreaded aspartame (bad stuff, Maynard). Since I REFUSE to review any more energy drinks that contain high-fructose corn syrup, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this didn’t contain any of that garbage.

Every member of the Nutrisoda line comes in those tiny, Red-Bull-like, 8.4 oz cans. I prefer the bigger cans, but Energize easily gets it done in this precious 8.4 ounces.

******** 8/10 ED Stars (me likes)

I’m not a big believer in horoscopes and all of that, but for some reason I looked at mine today… and it’s quite fitting:

It’s tough to let go of the way we want things to be and learn to accept how they really are. But once you do, you’ll see that reality is the only safe place to stand — and that it’s not such a bad place after all.

Of course, that’s good advice for anybody. This one in particular just happened to hit home square in the front door.

My physical’s a shell,
So when I say “farewell,”
My soul will find an even higher place to dwell.
So fly you shall,
So have no fear,
Just know that life is but a beach chair…

~ S.Carter, Beach Chair

Though part of me thinks this was staged, simply for ratings, I am a new fan of Mika Brzezinski (even though she has one too many z’s in her name).

I don’t know if you had seen much about this whole saga, but it seems Isaiah Washington just can’t leave well enough alone in an attempt to salvage any type of career for himself.

Seems he needs to “take it to that level” and start claiming racism for his firing. Let us not forget, he was the one who blatantly said “faggot” on national television in response to the fact that he had said it prior while on the set of Grey’s Anatomy. Covering up one form of hate and discontent with claims of another form of hate and discontent doesn’t shadow and hide the original crime.

Can someone call Dr. Phil and get this guy some help? Or give him the number to Ann Coulter’s fan club?

I’m a man of my convictions,
Call me wrong, call me right,
But I bring my better angels to every fight.
You may not like where I’m going,
But you sure know where I stand.
Hate me if you want to,
Love me if you can.~Toby Keith, Love Me If You Can

Since so many people are looking up the lyrics via Google and coming to my site, I thought it would be best if I put the entire song up here. So, here you go:

Sometimes I think that war is necessary,
But every night I pray for peace on Earth.
And I hand out my dollars to the homeless,
But believe that every able soul should work.

My father gave me my shotgun, that I’ll hand down to my son, try to teach him everything it means…

I’m a man of my convictions,
Call me wrong, call me right,
But I bring my better angels to every fight.
You may not like where I’m going,
But you sure know where I stand.
Hate me if you want to,
Love me if you can.

I stand by my right to speak freely,
But I worry ’bout what kids learn from TV.
And before all the debating turns to angry words and hate,
Sometimes we should just agree to disagree.

And I believe that Jesus, looks down here and sees us, and if you ask Him he would say…

I’m a man of my convictions,
Call me wrong, call me right,
But I bring my better angels to every fight.
You may not like where I’m going,
But you sure know where I stand.
Hate me if you want to,
Love me if you can.

I’m a man of my convictions,
Call me wrong, call me right,
But I bring my better angels to every fight.
You may not like where I’m going,
But you sure know where I stand.
Hate me if you want to,
Love me if you can.

Tonight seemed as good of a night as any to try a new (to me) beer. So, I headed down to my local Piggly Wiggly (that’s all we have, but they have a good selection there) and found Capital Brewery’s Fest Beer. Seeing that SummerFEST starts today, and I’ve liked most of the other Capital Brewery brews that I have tried, I decided to give this one a go ’round.

Fest Beer is yellowish, a tad on the bitter side, and though the box says that it’s “light and refreshing,” it actually has a pretty bad piquancy that lingers. Me = not impressed.

/10 bottles of beer on the wall.

Since you are all coming along with me on my venture to get back down to my birth weight ( ) I thought I would fill you in on a little somethin’ somethin’ that has had me pretty stoked, lately. I am only about 13 lbs away from my high school football playing weight (read: after running two-a-day drills during August). I will get there before the end of August. I am working pretty hard at it now.

On Tuesday, I went out searching for some XL shirts that will actually fit me. Double-XL’s are starting to look like smocks on me, and while my job can be considered an art, I don’t do much painting. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything that didn’t either look like it belonged on a 15-year-old preppy boy or a 65-year-old golfer (not that there’s anything wrong with either of those).

I did, however, end up finding a pair of pants that I like at Express Men. (I sound super gay right now, but bare with me). The coolest part about all of this is that they are size 34-32 (the same size I wore in high school), they are regular fit (in the past I couldn’t wear anything but loose fit), and my boys still have plenty of room to, uhm, breathe comfortably.

So, by initially only cutting red and white meat out of my diet, and eventually starting to exercise again (the energy came to me after I stopped eating the meat), my energy and self-confidence have skyrocketed up, and my waist size, weight, and fatigue have skyrocketed down. I did it all without any gimmicks, powders*, or pills. It was all from pure willpower. I’m not on here to gloat, but I never thought I would have the strength to pull something like this off.

Since I lost weight on my own accord, do I get to write a book now? I’ll call it, “The Fuzz Martin Fishetarian Diet Plan - Fat to Fine in Forty Frickin’ Weeks.” I adore alliteration.

*I do make protein shakes simply to supplement my protein intake on days when I don’t eat fish or seafood.

The Wedding Singer quote that Claude posted this morning reminded me of when I was 17 or so. For those that don’t know, I was born with the last name, “Ballering,” but I had it legally changed when I was 23. It’s a simple, easy, yet personal story, so I won’t get into that. I will, however get into the story of a relatively short-lived relationship that I had with a farmer girl who lived a few towns over from me.

She was a nice girl. She had a good personality. She drove a pretty cool car for only being 17 or 18 years old. Her family seemed to like me. She was friends with my friends. There were only two real problems. 1) She smelled like cow manure, even when she was at her cleanest, and 2) her name rhymed with my last name. For the sake of not using her real name (since I said she smelled like cow poo) I’ll refer to her as, “Malorie.”

Now, I’m a nice guy, but there is no way that I could EVER date a woman who smelled like shit when she was at her cleanest. I’m sorry, she could be a princess and I would have to say, “sorry, your highness, but you gots ta go.” So… I simply told her that I couldn’t see her anymore because if we got married her name would be “Malorie Ballering,” and that’s not a nice thing to do to anybody. I mean, she would have gotten picked on every day of her life. Couple that with smelling like a cow’s ass… and you’ve made a bully’s wildest dreams come true. Imagine what our kids would have gone through. EEK!

For the record, The Wedding Singer came out two years after my “Malorie” episode.

And that’s my Julia Gulia story for the day. Thank you… please be sure to tip your waitress.

Faron Young is (was) my all-time favorite of the old-time country singers.

(BTW, this is for Phel Jones…)

 I thought this was a good quote…and applicable for Fuzz.

Well, I have a microphone, and you don’t, SO YOU WILL LISTEN TO EVERY DAMN WORD I HAVE TO SAY!

-Robbie, The Wedding Singer

It’s funny how our environment can go from warm and sunny one day, to frigid and overcast the next. Especially when a cold front moves through without so much as a storm cloud. Why it happens is perplexing, but such is the weather.

The funny thing about that little white speck on the top of chicken shit. That little white speck is chicken shit too.

~Ernst Tucker, Pure Country

I decided to take the little one to see the Brewer’s game this afternoon. It was WAY too hot with the roof closed. We sat in the family section, and everybody was a lot more behaved than they normally are. I also found out that they do, indeed, have family bathrooms by section 206. Of course, since we had them at our disposal this time, we didn’t need them. Such is life, right? Bri ended up getting restless, so we left at after the 6th inning. After the hour drive home, they were still playing, so I’m glad that we didn’t stay. At the moment, they are tied at 3 in the 10th inning.

By the way, the ushers in the family section are ultra cool! One offered to take my stroller for me, and then he brought me back a claim check. I gave him a 5-spot, but he refused to take it. Then he told me to spend it on my little girl. Uhm… it’s a little hard to leave the ballpark with ANY money these days.

UPDATE: The Brewers won with a three-run home run by Damian Miller in the bottom of the 11th inning.

I love this guy.  I used to work in a “high end” restaurant before I moved to Minneapolis…and I have to say that Chef Gordon Ramsey has got it right when it comes to quality of food, preperation, and service.  This guy expects what should be expected from those who prepare $100+ meals.

I also enjoy his no-nonse way of telling people how he feels about them.  Of course, some times it is over-board for the sake of his television show, Hell’s Kitchen,  on FOX, but all in all, this guy dead on.  And you have to love all of the english put-downs and whatnot.  (*Note: I am in a bit of a foul mood, and that is why I am all about Ramsey, today).

Gordon Ramsey is My Hero of the Day…now, f*ck off.

I’m rarely a fan of artists changing lyrics when they perform concerts, but John Mayer’s “As/Is: Houston” is the first and only Mayer CD that I own, and I definitely like the following better than the original:

…and doesn’t it piss you off; your will is not as strong as you told your friends it was gonna be?

~John Mayer, Back to You, (from “As/Is: Houston, TX 7/24/04″)

Hey, hey! This is the 1500th article on FuzzMartin.com. This may be the single most boring article ever, but I just wanted to say, “thank you” for visiting my site as often as you do. I really appreciate it. As of this morning, 941 unique visitors (average) per day. That’s 200 more than last month (the beer and energy drink reviews are driving in a lot of traffic). Anyway… thank you again!!! You’re all the best!

Every office should have one!