No Pregame Drink

Looks like my ass is going to be stuck at work right up until the game as well. Someone have a beer for me, but not six or seven or you won't be able to kick. Remember folks, it's not whether you win or lose, it's whether you win or get made fun of.

My friend's photos

Hey first ballers! My friend from high school has an exhibition of his photos online. He takes pictures of restaraunts. I think he's a "culinary photo documentalist" or something. Check it out by visiting his main site or by going straight to the photos.

Speaking of nerdery...

Today's excitement was supplied by this email coming in around 10:46AM

"Good afternoon,
I would like to invite you all to join us for lunch this afternoon and to witness our good friend, Bob Denver*, try to eat about 4 pounds of food. Mr. Denver is going to attempt to consume an entire Chipotle burrito AND THEN a calzone from the Washington Deli during a normal one hour lunch period...and as many of you might know Bob does not seem intimidated by this task. We're going to meet around 12:15 to go get lunch and then we will eat upstairs on the sixth floor. This should be entertaining either way..."

*Name Changed

Needless to say, Bob was unable to complete the task. I made it for the end of the binge and watch as he turned white, backed away from the calzone and admitted defeat. I told him he should eat the calzone first because he could get away with spilling a lot of the burrito when he got full towards the end. Alas, I told him after he had already eaten the burrito and only succeeded in rubbing his loss in like so much sauce rubbed into a calzone.

Off to Old Glory for a coworker's goodbye dinner at 7 and then straight over to 930 for the Supergrass concert. I'll report back about how truly fascinating it all was!

holler

Access panel?

claude - I'm not sure what kind of bathtub you have, but it sounds a lot more like some kind of nerd tank. Access panel. Ridiculous. And kids are just like cats with less hairballs and more litterboxes. Just make sure you have a lot of fancy feast around if you're going to have kids, unless, of course, you want unfancy kids with three teeth and meth addictions.

Internet radio...

...is also strictly forbidden at my office, but I'm strictly a rebel.... until I get caught... just like Marlon Brando was in "The Wild Ones" until he got caught being fat and living on an island.

Holla! Internet radio kicks some serious ass and I'm down with it 9 hours a day. I have a bunch of stations that I switch around between, which I'm listing below (don't worry, I copied this from something else and didn't just spend the time to write them all down). I switch between air america and bbc6 music these days, but used to listen to a lot of NPR before I need something more liberal. The "live" links go directly to the radio, whereas the names go to the webpages for those stations. Enjoy:
Radiobbc:live news:6music:live:wamu:live:wnyc:live:swedish:msn:air america:live:unfiltered blog:

That's Me...

For those of you who will be reading GMOT this week, the Rambo head ref they are talking about, was me. Now, I will be the first to admit, it wasn't a happy game. The other ref and I really had no clue with what we were doing and the nuances of the game (tagging up with a ball bouncing in hand), not all there. I do not take officiating a game as seriously as i probably should- my bad.
But, I will say, it wasn't as bad as they made it out to be (but I also didn't lose by one). The other ref and I weren't sure if the ball hit her knee or if it was higher, so I decided to keep the game going. Apparently, that wasn't the best decision.
I would just like to apologize to the team for any ill-will that you will be receiving this week and in future weeks from any other teams.

All new series premiere... No kidding

How is it that four 15 minute quarters of football can last 3 hours? Oh yeah, commericals. Speaking of which, if anyone has been watching the redskins-cowboys game, you might have noticed that they keep advertising for "the best new reality show", "Wife Swap." Listen for them saying, "watch an all new epsiode of wife swap on the series premiere." Makes me want to vomit. Of course it's new! It's a new series! It still sucks!
And Erik, I'm totally considering ordering the nerdy-ass </Bush>

Poor Florida...

If having 4 hurricane's isn't enough, they get to host the first debate. When will the destruction end!?!
It sounds like I missed out on a big friday night. I think it would be entertaining to see claudia take down a frat boy.
Yes, Greg. I did have this draft started and didn't send it. I kept getting distracted. Oh, I got the shot, I just haven't felt the same.
Ok, I am watching the Daily Show and ...is it bad when your issue (my case drunk driving) is mocked on the show? and am I am laughing? OF COURSE!!
I welcome Peggy and Sara to the blog.
Can mention any more unrelated issues? Oh yeah, I will not be at the game on Thursday. My ass will be working overtime in Dallas. At a place touted as opreyland on steroids. Pray I survive.
I hope to read about many stories of how we won and people yelled profanities at "The Bush".
Check this out for t-shirts.

Everybody check out fundrace.org to see who's donating to who in your neighborhood and around the whatnot. And Erik, post your post already.. I see a draft in there...

Jorge: count me in for the debates. Bar's are all good and fun, but watching W embarass himself and yelling at a television with a beer in my hand sounds good too.
Clauia: Just figure out the flickr.com thing, if you want to post pictures. It's not tough.
If the problem is that you don't have a digital camera and you want to post those ones that you're seeing from when you develop your film:
(1) Right click on the picture when you're looking at it on the web and choose "Save Picture As..." (put it somewhere where you can find it, you fool).
(2) Upload the image to flickr
(3) click the Blog button.
That's simple.
If you want to get rid of the big purple stuff on the top and the bottom of the image, things start to get a bit more complicated. You could probably just download a free little image editing program, like infran view, in which you can just draw a box around the picture immediately and click on Edit-> Crop selection to get rid of the border before uploading.
That's all the nerdery I've got for one night. Peace out.

Conspiracy Theory Alert

Make sure you have shockwave installed and then watch this when you're not at work.

Erik, you need to get this vaccine.
Is it really bad if not even I understand/remember that entry from last night? It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I've instructed Rosanna to keep me away from the computer when I've been drinking... but she doesn't take well to being instructed and is now punching me in the temples (they hurt!).
Needless to say, I'm definitely taking the night off. Little L&O SVU some SNL, a nap and a light snack.
Holler.

Some f*ck*n' t*mes...

You're sitting around on a Friday night thinking, "Hey, I dont' care if I'm Jewish/Islamic/Catholiced/Hindued, I think silly things are funny!"
Then, you stop. You think to your stupid, stupid self, "mother of God, I think I must have eaten some sweet, sweet lead-filled paint."
Sometimes, in life, things just... work out...
Being Santa Claus and having people not care how drunk you get is a perfect example.


I don't want to sit around again and talk about how much we rule. It's impossible to summarize that much kickassedness in a single statment. Let's just cut to the chase and say, "You're darn right, my friend."

Hell Yes! Good Linkin'!

Way to go erik on figuring out how to link to stuff!
I really felt like I had something to blog about... but have now come up with nothing... wait! I remember!
I finally figured out that I should buy the movie office space and it was waiting for me in the g'dang mail when I got home from the bar. So there!
Who wants to watch the thing? When? I say tomorrow, but some would say "next week." To all of those that say "next week", I say "you probably haven't seen Office Space recently enough and next week is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to wait. So buck up and say 'Yes, Greg. I'd like to watch that movie.' Because if you don't, I'll watch it without you, quote it a lot, and make you feel silly for not having seen it."
Ok, I'm off to bed so that I can wake up in time to get to work, so that I can earn money and pay to have a place to put my bed so that I have somewhere to rest up for kickball.
RAMBO! VIGILANCE!

2 and three-quarters

Jorge, you spelled her name correctly at 1:30 in the AM. It is
Ashlee. You are good to go. And I hope everyone appreciates the link. It took me about 8 minutes to get it work right. I know, I know, but what can i say... I am a genius.
And I am not sure if I have an equally strong game charge as Jefe- "no need for Sparks here, my ass will be running on pure, 100% Latino adrenaline".
Caucasian adrenaline..... really not the same as Latino adrenaline. I guess that's why i need to drink. What can I say?

GMO.. Whu?

I have no idea what the hell GMOT #7 means.... wait a second! it's that montly newsletter thing that I always link to on the right side, but never read! Holy shit!
Left work at 8:30 tonight and 10:30 last night.
I need to get a new job.... like being a war profiteer or something. Maybe Richard Perle has some new sh*t that I could get into.
I've had another blog for over a year, so technically, I'm cheating on this blog. I mostly use it as a launch point to get to all of my favorite sites, but will occasionally use it to gripe about something.
Who got their "voting is for old people" T-shirt today? Greg did.
Don't anybody foh-git yo' red head band tomorrow! Don't forget your pants shoes or shirt either.


A quick lesson on linking to other websites.
(1) type <a href = "http://www.websitewhatnot.com" target="_blank">
(2) type whatever text you want to be the text you click on.
(3) type </a> to end the link
You're done.

Por Ejemplo:
If I wanted to link to rambo: firstballs, I would type:
<a href="http://firstballs.blogspot.com" target="_blank">rambo: firstballs</a>
The "target="_blank"" part of the code there means that the site will open in a new window. If you leave it off, it will open in the same window. that's it!

I posted this on my other blog, but thought the info deserved to be known here as well:
Did you forget about Janet Jackson's Super Bowl boob incident? I did too, and then today the FCC fined CBS $550,000 for it, which, oddly, is only $50,000 less than the amount that Halle Berry was paid to do double the work when she bore herself in swordfish.
What does this teach us all? It teaches us that some breasts are worth paying half a million dollars to bare and others are worth paying the same amount to keep covered. Is this chest discrimination? You bet it is.
Is this another great excuse for every newspaper to show that picture of Janet's blurry boob again? Darn straight.

I'm still at work! Boy does this blow! At least I've already alerted uppers that I will have to leave "early" for kickball on Thursday.
Rambo wouldn't take this kind of crap, would he?

Not too much traffic on the blog today. What, was everybody working or something?
Go here. Play the game. HUGE waste of time. It's fantastic! Then go here. Play another game. Waste more time.

Sparks? Daschle? Holla?

Ok, so I haven't blogged for a while. But I hear if you do it too much, you go blind.
One-flip is right (as well as greg) we need more people here. It has been proven that you can do it whenever- drunk, hungover or at work ("Blogging- paid for by your tax dollars").
I am a college football fan, but missed out on all games this weekend- I was learning how to drive a fire engine. And let me say this, if you don't like to parallel park your car, give a Fire Engine a shot. Damn! At least I know that a cone can't sue me for damages!
I miss my kickballin'! I have been out too long, I can feel it. I also miss my first balls (and some of those second balls).
So, everyone keep it up and I'll see ya sooner than you probably want.

I love a good trouncing of a conservative jackass on Meet the Press. But now it's over and I'm considering going back to sleep. Hrrrrm...
Anyone else notice how many ads their are for Exxon/Mobil, Lockheed Martin, and GE during Meet the Press? I understand GE, they own NBC and advertise on there all the time, but what's up with weapons companies adverstising? I'm not in the market for patriot missles or heads-up-displays.
Enjoy the game everyone.

There's No Shame in Blogging... Or Sparks

Sparks! Good God, that's a way to get yourself into trouble. I know someone who tore their ACL as a direct result of drinking sparks and tripping over a sprinkler. See?!? Trouble!
And when people ask what you're typing, don't ever be ashamed to say you're blogging. Think about the first people to write things down. People probably laughed at them too and what we're doing here on this site is just as (if not more) important.

Nice Work

Way to go on the tickets one-flip! And yes. We're reading.
Did anyone else wake up feeling fine and then get a hangover around 5:17pm? I hate when that happens.
Sorry I won't be able to join y'all for the fight or the flag-football event, but I have tickets to see the Thrills and if I don't go, it would have been pointless to buy the tickets in the first place. Logic is forcing me into this, people.
Blogging on a Saturday? If I could stand daylight or loud noises, I wouldn't be writing this.

Good Job on Showing Up!

Hey everybody,
Nice work on showing up at the midseason party! Everybody did a really good job of coming out and showing their whatnot for how kickass Rambo: First Balls really is.
Several people have been asking me, "how in the gee-wizz can I put on a picture on this thing?" Well, here's your answer: go to flickr.com and sign up. It's not hard, seriously. Once you're signed up, you can upload pictures from your PC and then press on the Blog button (it's orange and has a big white B on it, you fool).
I'm putting a link to the flickr site to the right so that you can all figure it out for yourselves. Don't mess around, upload some pictures.

So close to violating a monkey...

Or so I heard.......hmmmm? Did they throw their poo? Maybe you need warm monkey balls for that?
You guys rock! I hear you played well, had fun and represented the First Balls in grand fashion. My heart ached to miss you all and then I didn't even get to play with a helicopter! (I had medevac training, but the copter got called out)
Greg-- You can blog me anytime. To be able to drunken transcribe, that is an awesome skill. And great pictures. You all looked HOT with those headbands.
3 games until we show everyone up in the playoffs! keep the ammo fresh!

At least I didn't sleep with LUNDBERG!

Your game has already come and gone, but I can sense you have won. Nice work ladies and fellas. I hope someone has saved an honorary red head-kerchief for me. Nice fucking work with this blog, too.

With a few beers....

With a few beers in me, I've decided that I can't think and write at the same time. Thus, I've decided to take dictation from Rosanna. Heregoes:
Really? No NO no. Don't That's not funny I'm serious. DOn't. DOn't put that.
I knew it. Ummm.... Please don't put, I don't want you to put this down... what I say. Ok?
You're an ass, but OK.
(laughter)
Do you want me to make you macaroni and Cheese? Because I won't if you keep this up. (makes mouth locking motion with hand)
(gives that look like "really, y9ou idiot. Stop typing")
"You spelled "you" wrong, Idiot."
Talk about how awesome our team is.
(Greg writing now)
Who cares how much beer I have in my tummy-tum. Rosanna's given me an order and that's as much as I need to start blathering about nonsense:
Our team kicks so much ass! It's insane. How good are we at losing by a few points and then sitting around discussing office politics?!? I'll tell you how good we are. Pretty darn good!
Well, Sam mentioned something to me tonight and I coudln't help but let it sitck in my short, short memory. He said, "you know, our team gives great blog."
And I thought to myself, "what an amazingly sexual way to talk about blogging!"
then I thought, "Sam's right. We do give good blog!"
Then Sam said, "...but we need to get everybody blogging, not just some people. Everybody should just write up whatever they're thinking."
This is where I nearly threw up from agreement. How could one person realize so much the need for this entire team to blather on endlessly on a website that only we will ever read? That's a rhetorical question so don't go trying to explain differenent levels of realizing stuff.
So, therefore, if you're reading this nonsense and thinking to yourself, "what an idiot. I could probably say something a little bit less interesting, but think that it was more interesting because I wrote it," then, please, write it now.
We need your help. You're on the team. Why not write something stupid and plublish it for the five people that read this thing to see?Enough nonsense. The noodles are nearly ready. Then the butter, then the powder, then the milk. You all know the drill. God I'm starving!

And Oh My! It appears I wasn't so inebriated that I couldn't add some pictures:

The Marie Reed Field Address

Four weeks and five days ago our fathers brought forth upon this division a new team, conceived in kickball goodness and dedicated to the proposition that no other team was created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great war, testing whether that team, or any team so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We will meet on a great community center battlefield of that war. We will meet to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those balls that gave their last air that the team might kick other big red balls. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow the ground at Marie Reed. The brave men and women, kicking and fielding, who struggled here last week, have consecrated it far above out poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember, what I write here, but it can never forget what we will do at Marie Reed. It is for us, the first balls, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that we have thus far so nobly begun. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored losses we take increased devotion to that cause for which we gave last week's full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these losses shall not have occurred in vain; that the team shall, under influence of alcoholic beverages, have a new birth of ability, and that a WAKA of the first balls, by the first balls, for the first balls, shall not perish from the District.****

FIRSTBALLS!!!!!

****Modeled after the ending of Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure, which I hear was modeled after something a president once said at some battefield somewhere.

"PC Load Letter," what the f*ck does that mean?

I say this every time I stand in front of the printer, even if things go perfectly.
And not one comment on the photoshop skills that managed to get the word "balls" in perfectly on the picture at the right. I'm just going to assume that the job was so well done that no one noticed.

Ok. Rosanna and I are going out to get cloth for headbands tomorrow, so nobody else get all proactive by going to get them. We'll try to match them as closely as we can to the picture on the right. Who on the team looks the most like stallone, anyway? I vote Nathan!

Game on!

A busy few days as work may have prevented me from giving my message to the team, but don't let that get you down.
We're going to beat the ever-living tar/crap out of whatever team we're playing this week... I feel like it might be a group that likes to make out with eachother.
Don't let the other teams promiscuity distract.
Kick far.
Catch fast.
Practice saying "I got it!"
See everyone tonight.

Added a picture to the top of the site. I know. Not everyone is in the picture. That's all the more reason for us to take a real team photo next week. Out game is at 8:45, so the light should be just right (i.e. completely wrong). If they wanted to, everyone could just take a picture of themselves and I can stitch them together in photoshop, but that sounds like an awful lot of work to do for a kickball team.
Site suggestions anyone? Anyone else on the team know anything about HTML and want to be able to edit? write me.

I know that this is a kickball site... and I shouldn't post anything political. But we all get one freebie and this is mine: Bush by the Numbers from the Independent of the UK.

RAMBO....... FIRST BALLS!!!

That's the way to play!! we had fun, the napkin had it's use and ... oh yeah... we won!
Ok, it was only 3 innings, but I'll take it. And my night vision is getting much better. Towards the end, I think I actually saw the ball. It was magical.
Speaking of magical... way to go flip cuppers. And Jorge.... you are a MONSTER! I normally put a little amount of sweet nectar in my cup, but no, not Jorge. He fills his cup half full and goes to town! That is quite a show for the first night out.

I hope everyone enjoys their Labor day and plays safely. If you are going to get hurt, it better happen during an intense game of Kickball, not rock climbing or speed boat racing. Those are tame sports.

We win! We win! We win! We don't lose! We win!

4-2 First Balls. That's a score I can get used to.
The win was bittersweet at first due to some intense team rivalry sparked by both sides deciding that the game might be important and that we should start arguing calls that had already gone our way.
This rivalry seemed to be settled after two beers.
If only the Israeli - Palestinian conflict could be solved in similar fashion.

To the Team,

Team:
The game is tomorrow. The time for kicking is nigh.
What can I say? We can throw words around; words like "winner", "champions", "kickball gods", and "shitboot". But these words won't mean anything unless we pull up our kickball bootstraps and really show this "bearly legal" group of winos what's really in our arsenal.
Who are we?
What do we represent?
Why does one of our members feel the urge to write insane rantings that almost make it seem like he's taking this game seriously?
These are questions that we should ask not only ourselves, but our respective employers sometime during the day tomorrow (I recommend early afternoon, shortly after you announce to the office that you'll be leaving at a reasonable hour to go do something with your life other than work for the man).
You've got things to do.
You've got balls to kick, bases to run, beer to swill and cups to flip.
You're a somebody.
You're a member of Rambo: FIRST BALLS
(please stop reading this if you're not a member, because honestly, you'll never be if you can't respect the team's privacy).