According to CNN.com, Newcorp big-wig and right-wing media proponent Rupert Murdoch is in talks to purchase the Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch has been snatching up various media giants in the past few years, including MySpace.com.  The man who sends down marching orders to his FOX News anchors must be excited to slant all information being delivered to all those interested in the financial markets through manipulating the writings of the Wall Street Journal.

Look for fair and balanced information to come from the WSJ in the coming years.  Who knows, maybe we can see some snappy new info-tainment pieces, colorful TERROR ALERT banners and Bill O’Reilly as Editor in Chief. 

Just in time for my daughter’s venture from car seat to big-girl booster seat, I learned a really good tip. If your daughter or son likes to nap in the car, make sure you buy the booster seat with the biggest side headrests. This way she has something to lean against while she’s sleeping. If you don’t, you’ll be tempted to move her against the door, and that’s not the safest place. I used to put my little girl on the passenger side, but somebody taught me that she’s safest in the middle. So… that’s where she is now, in her booster seat, in the middle, with great big pink flowery headrests. (…and by right now, I mean that’s where her seat is… she’s next to me on the floor coloring in her Backyardigans coloring book).

It looks like Faith Hill was purty upset that a fan in the front row grabbed her husband’s junk… not that I blame her…

Somebody needs to teach you some class, my friend. You don’t go grabbin’ somebody else’s — somebody’s husband’s balls, you understand me? That’s very disrespectful.

I picked this one up at the local IGA (along with Max Velocity). 

A few things stand out about this product.
1) The bottle is very small, like that of Nos.
2) It’s “energy drink from spring water”
3) Clear bottle.  You don’t see that on energy drinks.
4) A crazy flavor, Casaba Lime.

I didn’t know what casaba lime was until after I had tasted this and checked the website.  Thinking it was a fancy type of lime, I was disgusted when I tasted this stuff.  It did not taste like any kind of lime.  Come to find out, Casaba is a honeydew-type melon.  So, it explains the flavor, but does not forgive it. 

There are some of the fancy additives like Taurine and such in HyDrive, but not enough to advertise on the bottle.  The big draw, I suppose is that it’s water and it “replaces electrolytes” , (sound firmiliar? *GATORADE*).  Don’t believe the hype, electrolytes is a fancy word for SALT.  But saying “replaces salt” just doesn’t have that advertising silver-thread…so electrolytes, it is.

For the price, taste and amount of HyDrive you get, it’s really not worth the price if you are looking for traditional energy drinks.  It’s kinda of nasty when it gets warm…that melon flavor just does not do it for me.  Perhaps some of their other flavors.

*** 3/10 ED Stars.

Soon, I will make my virgin visit to Vegas. There are a bunch of us going for a certain somebody’s bachelor party. My issue: I am not a gambler; in fact, I friggin’ hate gambling. Maybe it’s because the last time I won anything gambling was on my 18th birthday when I won $100 on my first scratch-off ticket. Ever since then, I have only been a donor to the Indians and the government.

My first thought was, “instead of gambling, I’ll go shoot photos during the day.” That, however, TOTALLY goes against my rule that states that the party must lynch any man who brings a camera to a bachelor party. Of course, with a camera on every cell phone these days, there would be a lot of dead bodies. Besides, if I brought my Canon out during any prohibited times, I would give everybody permission to beat me senseless. Oh… and I don’t want my camera rig to get stolen, either.

My next thought was, “I’ll just play the nickel slots.” Seriously, though, how long do I want to sit there and slowly drain my pockets?

Don’t get me wrong, I will gamble, and I’m going to have a great time either way, I just hope that I win sumtin’ in my first few hours there to get me hooked.

Any tips for a first-timer?

I REALLY like this quote:

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

~Confucius

Colorblindness is a beotch.

I don’t mind it so much when it comes to clothes. Most of the time I do alright (save for the occasional green-on-green action). What gets me the most about being a single, colorblind guy is spoiled food. I can never tell when food gets moldy, turns a different color, or (in the case of lettuce) rusts.

I bought two bags of lettuce on Saturday. I believe both bags have turned bad already. UGH! I can’t really tell… so in the garbage they go. Thank goodness there was a buy-one-get-one-free sale. On second thought… maybe that’s why.

Greens and browns are the worst for me, followed by greens and reds, and reds and browns. White and anything “light” gets me, too. For instance, light pink looks a lot like white… as does light blue, light green, and light gray.

I wish there was a cure.

I picked up Max Velocity at my local grocery store…The can is hideous red with a cheetah in a supposed motion shot.  Pretty lame. 

The first whiff of Max Velocity Energy Drink is very much like that of Red Bull.  The taste is a softer Red-Bull-like flavor with a clean finish that is almost too clean.  No bite, almost like you haven’t been drinking it.  Imagine eating a piece of cake and having the flavor leave your mouth as soon as it hits your tongue.  Kinda nice, but hey, I paid $2 for this thing, I want to taste it!

It’s got tourine and B vitamins, lots of sugar, et al.

I don’t know where anyone would find this stuff, the only website/distributor listed on the can is Albertsons…which isn’t highly visable.  Maybe they aren’t proud..but they should be, because all-in-all, it’s a lot better than some of the high end crap that passes for energy drink.

******  6/10 ED Stars

ps. The cans are getting uglier and the energy drinks are getting more obscure…Fuzz and I are reaching the bottom of the barrel for a lot of these energy drink reviews.

My contract with Verizon was up. With that, my Apple “fan boy” side was urging me to go get an Apple iPhone. The reasonable side of me won out, however, and I ended up getting the LG enV from Verizon. It was a pretty slick deal since the phone retails for $250, the phone was $50 off if you signed a two-year contract, plus another $50 mail-in rebate, and then I had my $100 “free phone” credit for being with Verizon for two years. So, all-in-all I got a smart-phone/regular-phone hybrid for only $50.

I am kind of a gadget geek, so I’m really digging this new phone. It’s a stick phone that flips open on the side to reveal a full keyboard (known as a QWERTY because of the keys q-w-e-r-t-y that are all in a row on a normal keyboard - get it?). Also, when flipped open, the phone reveals a pretty big screen with speakers on both sides.

For some reason I have NEVER had the chance to play with a GPS unit, until now. There’s GPS on my phone! It’s pretty slick! VZW Navigator tells you when and where to turn while you’re driving, it can tell you how fast you are traveling, and it tells you which direction you are moving. I’m hooked.

I don’t use Hotmail or Yahoo! mail, but if I did, I could check my e-mail on this phone. The Verizon Mail Sync program would allow me to check my fuzzmartin.com mail… but it’s $19.99/month and I’d rather just use my laptop for mail (or I’d never get ANYTHING done.)

Oh, and did I mention you can make calls from it?

I highly recommend the enV (at least so far).

“We didn’t take the sugar out, it got scared and ran away.” That’s what the can says, at least. I almost bought the regular SoBe No Fear, but I didn’t feel like drinking any high-fructose corn syrup this morning… and, well, the sugar free stuff was on sale.

After drinking my first sip, I immediately thought, “great, instead of high-fructose corn syrup, I’m getting aspartame.” I was mistaken, though, there is no evil aspartame in this drink, rather some acesulfame potassium, which is pretty much the same thing but with less negative connotation associated with its name. Woohoo.

As for the the energy blend… blah blah blah… it’s the same as the others.

And the taste - well, it tastes like a diet version of the original. In other words, as Diet Mountain Dew is to Mountain Dew, SoBe No Fear Sugar Free is to regular old SoBe No Fear. It’s okay. Kind of a “diet gummy bear” taste.

Not super impressed, but not totally turned off by the No Fear SF.

***** 5/10 ED Stars

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where the hell she is.

~Ellen Degeneres

Alright….I just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Of course I don’t have the time to read, so I have listened to it on Audio-CD, which is a great alternative to listening to Top 40 music in the car on long trips!

The book was pretty good. I did like it better than some of the others (and some of the movies)…I guess the “end” of the Potter series was good. I was a little worried about the progress of the story because there was a very VERY slow part of the book where Harry and company are “journeying” around for some time…very slow, boring.

I do have to admit, I have had my fill of Wizengamots, horcruxes, patronuses, and all of the other terms and people that live within the Harry Potter Universe. I look forward to not paying much attention to it until my daughter is old enough to read the books.

Never, for one second, did I think that I would find an energy drink named “Crunk!!!” in the cooler at the Piggly Wiggly in my little town. But, as soon as I did, I knew that I had to try it.

Crunk, for those of you who don’t speak “hip hop,” is a mixture of the words “crazy” and “drunk.” Crunk, the energy drink, however, doesn’t have any alcohol in it. Thinking about that, now, though, I think that it would probably taste good as a mixer.

Despite having an overly lame name, Crunk!!! is actually pretty good. It tastes like a concentrated version of No Fear Energy Drink. It has a little bit of a “melted-gummy-bear” overtone to it and it’s lightly carbonated. The energy blend in Crunk!!! contains the same ingredients as most of the others (guarana, taurine, L-Carnitine, etc.), except this one also has Green Tea Leaf, Damiana Leaf, Horny Goat Weed (an aphrodisiac - wtf?), Licorice Root, and on the can it touts in big bold letters, “Ashwaganda.” Ashwagandha, as it’s properly spelled, is a fancy name for Indian Ginseng (and it has about the same effects as normal ginseng).

I wish it came in a bigger can, but I like it nonetheless.

******** 8/10 ED Stars

*for the record, nobody is pregnant… I just liked the quote

A little lie is like a little pregnancy it doesn’t take long before everyone knows.

~C. S. Lewis

My pescetarianism is in jeopardy now that a BW3’s is coming to West Bend (and less than a mile from the radio station no less)! I am not going to start eating meat all the time… but some wings every now and then may be too hard to resist! Damn! Maybe they have fish wings?

To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.

~George Santayana

Jim Hodges (my GM), Collin Raye, and Me at the Washington County Fair

If you don’t know…know you know

Hip-Hop Elements: Rapping, Dj-ing, Breakdancing (B-Boy’in), and Graffiti
Rap Music Elements: Bling (jewelry/riches), Bitches (women), clothing, and whips (cars)

(more…)

Congrats to the West Bend West boys baseball squad. They beat New Holstein via the slaughter rule to win the state baseball championship last night, by a score of 11-1 in the bottom of the 5th inning. This is the 2nd title to come to West Bend in five years (East won in 2002 if I’m not mistaken). The last time West won state was in 1984… and I believe the team celebrated by smoking the tires on their Trans Ams and rolling up the sleeves on their jean jackets. Though I could be wrong.

It’s your birfday…  too.