The Return to West Springfield

So apparently, one of my new neighbors decided to take a test drive half way across the country.  32 year old, Aleh Kot decided to test drive his 2010 Honda Accord at speeds over 125 mph in a trip from West Springfield to Wisconsin.  He was eventually pulled over speeding and reckless driving at 4 in the morning.  If these are the type of drivers that now inhabit West Springfield, it seems like an even more scary place than Stamford.

Halloween

Halloween: a night every person under the age of 35 looks forward to every year. If you do not have fun on Halloween, the only excuse is you didn't wear a costume.  Both boys and girls can dress however they like for better or worse. If you are ugly, nobody will know.  If you hot, you can dress to promote your hottness even more without anybody slandering you.  The Juice doesn't have concrete Halloween plans just yet, since he is moving from his own apartment back into his mother's house on Halloween day.  I hope to finish as early as I can in the day and potentially travel to Boston, to act a fool with all of the Boston clowns.  Luckily, I think I finished developing my costume yesterday, and it is a doozy. Today I have a job interview in Nyack, NY and have to focus for, then go out with friends for my last night in Stamford and wake up bright and early and move all my stuff down four flights of stairs in my historic Black Bear residence.  God Speed Stamford.  Everybody have fun this weekend. Stay Positive and give me a call if you are in Boston Saturday night.  I just got a new phone last week so I don't have every bodies numbers back yet.  Up to minute updates on www.twitter.com/zeusjuice

The Mayor vs The Muppet

I am having a serious debate in my head, which fictional character brings more joy to me? It has come down to Sad Kermit, who I have blogged about previously, and the upstart Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.  Oswald, the rap slayer, is the front runner with overwhelming support from this man. I have heard lots of support from others for Oswald as well, but I doubt they have watched Sad Kermit sing "Hurt" and understand what he is going through.  Lets start with Miss Piggy, that lady ripped out his heart and ate it, she forced him into the downward spiral of drugs and alcohol and even forced him to get involved with Fozzy Bear.  Kermit has finally gotten back behind the microphone and this time decided to give his rendition of "Creep."




Not to be outdone, Oswald released this video to disprove Sad Kermit's dominance in the American Idol circles.

Only good news coming out of the Stamford front

Apparently piggie flu cases are on the rise hard in Stamford. 15% of the school district was out sick today.  Good thing, I'm going out, and going out hard tonight, watching the hated Yanks lose, even in this not so pleasant weather. Swine Flu or not, the juice is on the loose tonight baby.

The Great Depression

Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple of days.  I have been dreading putting this up for several weeks.  Farewell Tour: Stamford Edition is in full effect. After living and working here for a little under two and a half years I am now moving back home with my mother in West Springfield, where I haven't lived in six years. I have been busy trying to pack all my stuff up to move as well as somehow prepare myself for Halloween, which I still don't know what I'm doing.  The only hope left is the two interviews I have in the next week or so, one in Nyack, NY and the other in Pittsfield, MA.  Never fear though, the Z Files should be firing at full cylinders in a week or so after I settle back into West Springfield and have nothing to do during the day except search for jobs, blog, play DJ Hero, and think about how much I hate my life.   Goodbye the old apartment, you treated me well.

Another episode of WHERES ZEUS?

the village voice found me at roxys playground!

World Series

So we got Philles & Yankees. So far I am rooting for the Phils, strictly based on the girls they have working for the local news stations. I watch almost strictly new york news stations and am sad to report, they don't usually hire the eye candy that gets people to watch. This kid is having a good time, don't blame him.


EMBED-Phillies Fan Dry Humps Hot Reporter on Live TV - Watch more free videos


BONUS CLIP: Phillies fans are smart (as represented by this video below and Always Sunny in Philadelphia last week)


Phillies Fan Falls Off Moving Cab - Watch more Funny Videos

Tollsbooths

There is a reason why Connecticut got rid of all the toll booths in the state around 20 years ago.  As seen above, you don't want your highway covered in meat when a big rig crashes into the toll booth and backs up traffic for many miles.  Also there were tons of tomatoes on the scene.  Luckily,  nobody was hurt in this accident.  There are stats that back up the fact that highway toll booths are the leading cause of highways accidents and deaths.   Luckily the officials made the right decision and let everybody go through for free for the hours following the accident so the traffic could move at least a little bit.

Question?

Am I the only one that can keep it going louder after 2 in Connecticut? Looks really good for my future, anybody got a job? Not afraid to post this twice, I love it that much. If your a gambling individual, this will be in top ten singles of the year. Plus Nina Sky keeps it sexy and fresh, tough combo to pull, ask Britney. Also, I hope this is what tripping on acid is what like, never experienced it, but going from cartoon to live action, spacejam/ roger rabbit style is pretty sweet.

Football Spread Picks Week 7

So I'm taking a break from watching every episode of Breakfast at Sulimays to put together a winning lottery ticket for all you out there.  I jumped over 10 percentile points in the last two weeks, so like cheese I just get better with age.  I almost made a 50% correct week with getting 6 out of 13 matchups correct.  This looks like a week where people can make a lot of money, just be careful of developing flaming dick syndrome from your excitement (seen above)

Green Bay (-7.5) over CLEVELAND - Brady Quinn misses out on his 10 million dollar bonus by not playing a snap in this game.  The biggest question in Cleveland is who is their third string quarterback, he may be the only hope left in that franchise.

San Diego (-4.5) over KANSAS CITY - After watching SD on MNF last week, they have all the pieces to put together a run, LDT looks like he is slowly but surely getting his act back together.  They just ran into a hot Denver team.  Kansas City looks like another team with little hope left.

San Fran ( +3.5) over HOUSTON - I have backed the Texans too many times before and gotten burned.  I think a healthy Frank Gore, coming back from the bye week, will be able to carry this team to a first round play off loss.

Indy (-13.5) over St. Louis - This line makes me nervous because I think that Manning will not play much in the 2nd half.  I haven't seen a team give up so badly in a long time as the Rams have.  Where did the parity go NFL?

DA BURGGG (-4.5) over Minnesota - After nobody noticed when the big burger dropped over 400 yards last week, everybody is going to notice when Brett Farve starts going back to his old ways throwing picks and blaming everybody but himself.  It is definitely going ot be a statement game for the Steelers and a reality check for the Vikings.

TAMPA BAY (+14.5) over New England - London game: no idea of crowd or field conditions, but apparently Tom Brady proved last week that it doesn't matter.  Patriots win, just not by more than two touchdowns.

Buffalo (+7.5) over CAROLINA - Did I black out for a week where Vegas decided that the Panthers deserved to be favored, lets not even talk about more than a touchdown.

CINCINNATI (-1.5) over Chicago - Tough call, just two average teams, went with home team.

Atlanta (+3.5) over DALLAS - Does the new stadium really make that big a swing in the spread?  Dallas has not done a thing this whole season to impress me.  Just because they get all the hype by being "America's Team," the oddsmakers show them love. (so they can steal their money)

NYJ (-6.5) over Oakland - Oakland gave me the biggest shock of the season by beating Philly, but not enough for me to back them the next week.  Especially with an angry Jets defense going against JaMarcus Russell, who doesn't even complete 40% on his passes.  The Sanchize did not surprise me throwing all those picks, you knew it was going to come eventually, just not against a Bills team.

MIAMI (+6.5) over New Orleans - Yes, the Saints put up the most impressive game of the seasons and are without question the best team in football, buttt I really think the Dolphins can surprise people.  I did not believe in the Wildcat initially, but after seeing the last few Dolphins game, it is hard to stop Ronnie Brown and a rejuvenated and weed-free Ricky Williams. The AFC East is actually turning into good division again with NE, NYJ, and Miami all legitimate playoff contenders

Arizona (+7.5) over NYG - The Giants are embarrassed.  The Cardinals want to prove the Super Bowl run wasn't a fluke. This game is closer than a touchdown.

Philly (+7.5) over WASHINGTON - The Redskins are that bad.

BEST BETS OF WEEK : The Jets and the Bills.  My best bets are improving, just wait, its been 4 in a row for those of you counting out there. (6-7 all time)

Breakfast at Sulimays

I spent two hours yesterday watching this stuff. It is compelling video. Three old people sitting at breakfast watching modern indie, hip-hop and dance videos and giving there analysis. There is like 36 episodes each varying from around 4 to 9 minutes long, I watch around half yesterday. My favorite is the really old dude that sits on the right side with the glasses, he gives good critical analysis in comparison to the WWII era music. NPR and G4 (he calls T.I.=tie, great humor) have both been all over these guys already. There are two of my favorite. In the first, they review MGMT - Kids video, and they get scared of it. The second contains Young Jeezy and the much beloved Animal Collective. I'm happy that finally somebody is putting Animal Collective in their place. "As repetitious as Rocket Man." "They will never get out of Baltimore," if only that was true. (Bonus : Young Jeezy drops a Talapia line as the old dude says the last 200 years of work by the black race is ruined by Young Jeezy) TTFN!!!

Attack of the Sea Gulls

It's On

Vikings

A story I had on the agenda for a while now.  A few weeks ago, while I was at homecoming at my old stomping grounds in Durham, NH, I witnessed one of the strangest events.   As I was heading to tailgate at the football field, I looked inside the laundromat I used to do my laundry at every week.  Inside was the strangest scene, it was a bunch of people dressed up as Vikings.  Apparently, there was a Leif Erikson parade with 30 people in attendance.   But, here is the thing, they march from the landromat to the breakfast restaurant right next door, around a 15 foot difference.  (This stuff didn't happen when I went there, I think there was more focus on waking up for tailgating)  They chanted, "For noble deeds and daring done, we all salute Leif Erickson. Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!"  This is apparently done a few days before Columbus Day to anger the Italians and show that the Vikings discovered America and the Scandavanians should get honored instead.  If starting a fight in Viking costumes is the way to go, I'm all for it.

Diary of an ATL Brave

Donnis - Diary of an ATL Brave (download)

Got my hands on this free mixtape a few weeks ago.  It is nothing groundbreaking, but music is a game of copycats. Donnis blends a Kanye and Kid Cudi together here cohesively. The first time I've heard somebody sound like Kanye successfully.  Donnis got it sponsored by 10. Deep who previously put out Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon and Wale - A Mixtape About Nothing (so the Donnis album makes some sense)  Both very good albums and got those guys record deals on major labels.  Recently, I found out that A-trak signed Donnis to Fool's Gold after Donnis spoke with Kid Cudi about their ability to push a single. This is a kid that is definitely going somewhere, even if he doesn't make it to the mainstream, flow and beats are sexy smooth.

Miles Davis and the Cool - Weekend Recap

Thursday:

"Nevermind the weather, we are the Gaslight Anthem"-Gaslight Anthem as they walked out to Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Their first headline set at Terminal 5 in New York City with the rainiest and coldest weather so far this fall going on outside was a treat.  Terminal5 gets a lot  of bad mouthing through the many blog of NYC for their sound quality, but I disagree, I really like the venue, layout and sound quality.  It is usually loud but not deafening, it doesn't make my ears ring the next day.  Gaslight Anthem finally took the stage at around 10:30 and played well past midnight.  Primarily focusing on tracks from their brilliant "The '59' Sound" they had much better energy and stage presence than when I last saw them at Webster Hall, four months ago. (setlist)  Lead singer, Brian Fallon, stated they “slept in a lot of dirty places to get to the show”much to the crows chagrin, it was the largest venue they have played so far as a band (excluding festivals.)  After that got out, had to venture from the far west side at Terminal 5 to this unnamed warehouse venue (called Roxys Playground for the night) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for a late show.

When I got to the venue, I actually walked by the entrance three separate times because it is unmarked.  Finally, I saw a large black man, the bouncer, who checked our IDs and directed us in the right door.  Then the legendary Diplo, spun some dance tracks with the Skerrit Bwoy, Major Lazer, Mad Decent and other crews.  He didn't get on  until around 2 or so and played til around 3:30.  In the middle of the set, Mad Decent's Maluca, played a set with a live band with the help of Amanda Blank. Apparently it had some Pepsi sponsoring.  After getting sweaty there had to take train home to Stamford at like 5 in the morning, it was a long night and had to do it again on Friday.

Lets play the game can you find Zeus? Hint, hes not facing the camera.

More photos here and here.

Friday:

Sold out Chromeo at Irving Plaza. The Phenomenal Handclap Band opened, going on at around almost 10.  The crowd was already packed since doors opened at 8 and set times were listed as 9:30 and 10:15 for Chromeo.  The Phenomenal Hanclap Band did impress me live, they did a lot of handclapping and a lot of dancing.  I have listened to a few of their studio tracks and it doesn't have the same energy at all.  But soon enough the whole room was chanting "Chromeo-ooOOOOoo" from the intro to Fancy Footwork.  Once they got on stage Dave 1 said, "Hey, were gonna play every song from Fancy Footwork tonight so get your dancing shoes on."  They played everything from Fancy Footwork and around half from She's In Control.  The encore consisted of their new Eagles cover, "I Can't Tell You Why," which was the slowest song of the night and brought it down a little, but then they immediately went into the crowd pleaser 100% to end it.  Also there was a very well recieved debut of Night By Night.

Weather

(Zeus trying to stay warm)

It is getting difficult to blog as much now, because I cannot keep my fingers out typing unless I want to get frostbite.  Until the heat in my apartment comes on.  Watch this trippy video to keep you happy.  Hopefully updates from this weekends extravaganzas coming later today.


Major Lazer- "Keep It Goin Louder" from trunk animation on Vimeo.

Football Spread Picks Week 6

Dont have time or effort to write analysis. Diplo rocked out too hard last night.  Gotta get energy back up for Chromeo tonight. Here is the picks.  Did really well last week, got 8 out of 13.

CINCINNATI (-4.5) over Houston
DETROIT (+13.5) over Green Bay
Baltimore (+2.5) over MINNESOTA  -   Favre breaks down
NYG (+3.5) over NEW ORLEANS
TAMPA BAY (+2.5) over Carolina
Kansas City (+6.5) over WASHINGTON
JACKSONVILLE (-9.5) over St. L
Cleveland (+14.5) over DA BURGGG
Arizona (+2.5) over SEATTLE
Philly (-14.5) over OAKLAND
Buffalo (+9.5) over NYJ
NEW ENGLAND (+9.5) over Tennessee
Chicago (+3.5) over ATLANTA
SAN DIEGO (-4.5) over Denver

LOCK OF WEEK -  Kansas City & Buffalo (overall 4-7)

Big Things Poppin

Zeus is trying to go out of Stamford with a bang.  Tonight, feel free to buy him a beer at the Gaslight Anthem show at Terminal 5 with Murder By Death, and the old fogie Jesse Malin.  If you are into the late night thing, he may be wondering around Williamsburg following Diplo.  In strange news, Diplo/Switch aka Major Lazer is apparently working with Christina Aguliera on her new album. To top things off, going to get grimey tomorow night at my favorite venue in NY, Irving Plaza, with Chromeo.  If anybody wants a ticket to the sold out show, I have an extra, all I ask is face value, let me know.

Binghamton Bearcats

All these big name schools get headlines for letting in basketball thugs, specifically Allen Iverson at Georgetown, but that's just a myth, welcome to the whacky world of the Binghamton Bearcats in Binghamton, NY.  First in 2008, we had the "Serbian thug" basketball player, Miladin Kovacevic, that beat a man into a coma for two months, near death, then fled to Serbia to avoid prosecution.  Now, this year, we have a player, Emanuel "Tiki" Mayben, arrested for attempting to distribute cocaine, (after getting arrested for weed possession earlier in the month) who showed up in court wearing his green basketball shorts and a white t-shirt.  But, the Bing basketball story continues. Following kicking Mayben off the team, the coach then kicks five more players off the squad a few days later, for undisclosed reasons, included the teams top three scores from last season.  This looks like a model franchise, I wonder if even Bill Belichick was sent there he could clean it up.  One of the players, was charged with stealing condoms. (should that even be a crime, come on the kid was embarrassed) This is a basketball team that has made the NCAA big dance in the past few years and is now holding open tryout to anybody on campus.  My roommate, who went to this school, saw at least a 300 person line waiting to try out while he was up there for alumni weekend. To add insult to injury, the NCAA ended the open tryout, because it violates NCAA rules.  I understand teams going off the deep end, but this is like dropping the program off in the middle of the Pacific with nothing, if they win a game in the next 3 years I'll be impressed.

BONUS: To make the school look even classier, a 23 year old young lady, pictured above,  from the Bing was student teaching at a local high school went out of her way to make love with a 15 year old boy.

Back in the Laboratory!

Sorry, for no updates today, hopefully I will have a few posts tomorow.  I am back in the lab, putting together some new mixes for you. I am tell you this, these will be better than anything I have put together before, I rounded up over 70 samples today to use.  The mixtape "Shock, Lock N Awe It" hopefully will be unleashed to the world by the end of next week.

Z Book Review #5

Jim Carroll - The Basketball Diaries

Finished up this book a few weeks ago, took me a while to get to writing my review. It's the tale of a very young, I mean real young between 12 and 16, and talented basketball player growing up in New York City in the 1960's. He was playing with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on all-star teams. It follows his day to day attempts to score drugs, specifically heroin, as well as the issues of girls, Cold-War scares, and prostitution. It is a coming of age story ten years before people normally have it in their lives, so it gives a unique and haze filled perspective. This is definitely not a book that I would recommend to anybody looking for casual reading, but if you like reading Kerouac stuff, it is similar, yet the sentences are much more structured and easy to follow. Apparently this was turned into a movie starring Leo DiCaprio, I have yet to see it, but it is on my Netflix queue.

Jay Z

One of my favorite ads in recent months that is not humorous. Its a really cool idea to have Jay Z walk through all this album covers.

If you are ever feeling down....

If you are ever feeling down, just realize that kermit the frog has it worse than you. Watch this video and enjoy. Kermit get emotional covering a cover song, one of my favorite youtube videos of all time.

Homecoming Recap

I know its Columbus day and a few of you have it off, but here at the Z Files, Zeus never takes breaks, now onto the homecoming recap. The morale level had been running pretty low the last few weeks, at approximately 1.5, but it took a shot of  HGH and moved to an 11 for two days and two days only.  UNH Homecoming : where spirits and BAC's run high.  Friday night, visited a few friends at their respective houses, even got the cops called on us.  Not for noise mind you, they said we were being too vulgur.  Then, I moved to my new favorite pub in Portsmouth, the Daniel Street Tavern. Look at the glowing reviews it has. How can you go wrong with a bar that has no liquor and $2.50 PBR pounders with karaokie? Woke up at 6:30am without an alarm in preparation for the annual 9am storm. We thought arriving in beautiful Dur ham at 8am for gates opening at 9am would be okay, not true, we still had to sit in a 2 mile line and wait a long long time. Once again, the #5 ranked UNH football team won, this time beating the #2 Villanova, and nobody made it in to the game. Tailgating is without question the highlight of the weekend every year, everyone of your friends from college is in the mudbowl having casual drinks. And this is a direct address to anybody who was negative at homecoming,and I know a few of you, luckily you were a very very small minority, don't go again ever. To repond to anybody that said we were too old for homecoming?  Did that town not get its socks rocked off, it just now takes a little longer to recover.  And to anybody that missed my dancing later in the night, Im sorry, it was a sight to behold, happily there is no photographical evidence that I have found so far.  Now, its Monday and back to real life aka sitting on couch and trying to think of ways to stay positive, happy that homecoming is only one weekend a year.

Jerry Springer Round 2

Here are two clips of the Jerry Springer show. Get ready to laugh.  Homecoming recap coming soon.

So Far Gone

I know I am late to the bandwagon right now, but I got my hands on Drake's mixtape.  Apparently this guy got his start on the great teen drama Degrassi, which sadly I have never seen.  He got shot in the back on the show and became paralyzed, explaining the wheelchair.  He then led a dual life, pursuing a music career on both his show and real life.  After fledgling in the music industry with two mixtapes, he dropped "So Far Gone" with the help of Lil Wayne.  Now, it is a immediate success backed by single "Best I Ever Had."  It is making me start to wonder if Lil Wayne is trying to do what Kanye has done in the past, find an artist that he thinks and bring him immediately to the national forefront.  Drake uses some interesting samples on it, sust as "Lets Call it Off" by Peter, Bjorn & John, "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel, "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay, and the obligatory Santogold with "Unstoppable." (Even if songs of these songs have already been used by the likes of Wale, Jay-Z, and others) This kid is still young at 22, and already is featured in a song called "I Invented Sex."  This style is interesting, flowing from R&B to rap, without being D'Angelo or Twista.

Grab mp3 here

I really like this mash-up by The Hood Internet

Football Spread Picks Week 5

j

Once again,my genius has been foiled.  After thinking picking all away teams would cover, I completely got rocked only getting 3 of 14 games right. That is definitely worth a FAIL. Back to the 31 percentile.  Does anybody win gambling? Does anybody truly enjoy gambling? Further to that point, does anybody enjoy fantasy football.  It makes you wicked nervous about the games, the only upside is it gives you interest in every game each weekend. (maybe not this one since there are only 1 or 2 marquee matchups)

BUFFALO (-6.5) over Cleveland - Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Home team brings it, plus Braylon Edwards drunkenly attacked LeBron.  That will get you cut in a heartbeat in any city.

Pittsburgh (-10.5) over DETROIT - Everybody remember the 0-16 Lions last year when Dante Culpepper started? Well those days are back again this week.

KC (+8.5) over Dallas - I don't think either of these teams are very good, but I have to go with a winless Chiefs team at home, just playing for a little respect.

Minnesota (-10.5) over ST LOUIS - The Vikings looked really good on MNF, (as much as I hate Favre) their defense is like Hannibal riding over the mountains. (Happy to have them on my fantasy squad)  The Rams are the worst team in professional football, that's not my opinion, its a fact.

NYG (-16.5) over Oakland - Things always get dicey, when you have an over two touchdown spread.  JaMarcus Russell is that bad, that I think the Raiders deserve it, especially with the Giants at home.  I am not at all worried about Eli's plantar injury.

PHILLY (-13.5) over Tampa Bay - This is the week of big spreads and bad games.  This game makes me nervous about the QB situation. Obviously the Eagles will win, but by how much is the question.  I feel confident that the Bucs are that bad.

Washington (+1.5) over CAROLINA - I've tried to think the Panthers would break out at some point this season every week this year, so now I think the Skins are going to get two wins in a row after the abysmal loss to the Lions.

BALTIMORE (-8.5) over Cincinnati - I think this is going to be the Ravens statement game, after narrowly losing to the Pats last weekend.  I think the Ravens can bounce back, plus Cincinnati was having a lot of trouble just beating the Browns.

SF (-2.5) over Atlanta - Learning from my mistakes, this is almost too close to call, so I went with the home team. I still don't trust the 49ers yet, but I think thats how the gambling gods get ya.

SEATTLE (-1.5) over Jacksonville - Another bad game between two bad teams, I think Seneca Wallace has one more win in him before he gives the job back to its rightful owner, Hasselbeck.

Houston (+5.5) over ARIZONA - These are two tough to read teams, Houston lost to Jets early before we knew how good the Jets were.  The Cards did make the Super Bowl last year and have a 70 year old Arena League quarterback.  This time I didn't learn my lession, taking the away team.

New England (-3.5) over DENVER - The Patriots have played an undefeated team in every game so far this season.  This game will expose all of the Broncos flaws, and reinstate Brady as an elite quarterback.

Indy (-3.5) over TENNESSEE - This is the no brainer of the weekend. Hard to bet against Peyton Manning right now, and hard to bet for the Titans.  Last year in Tennessee was a flash in the pan, but people don't believe it yet.

NYJ (-1.5) over MIAMI - The Monday night matchup, Miami has a new quarterback under center, but he only takes 40% of the snaps with the wildcat offense being used so frequently.  I think the hungry Jets defense will be ready and shut it down.

BET OF WEEK - The Colts trample the Titans (OVERALL 3-7)

Homecoming

Its that time of year again!!!!! The annual UNH Homecoming event, where fellow alum from all across the United States pretend that they are still in college.  Fueled by alcohol and bad decisions, this always makes for a great weekend every year.  The main competition is how long can you stay standing after starting on the bottle at 8 or 9 in the morning, after being out til the wee hours in the morning, tailgating with all of your college friends.  The Zeus Slur (C) usually comes out around 11:30, so its usually a sight to behold anytime after that.  As usual, I'm going up there with no gameplans, except for the stay in Williamson or Christianson (freshman dorms).  Just as the doctor ordered there will be a stop at the Knot. Look at their delicious drink menu and prices. To address the grumblings that say we are too old, give me a break, its not about who is there now, its about who was there when you were there, its about being with the people you lived and slept with for 4 years and now see only once a year.  I am just worried about rain, potential snow flurries, and ice cold temperatures.  Already thought about bringing pancho villa to stop the rain.

Click to make larger so you can read it.

For good measure, just look at the intensity in Ryan Slo'Mahoney's eyes.

Also, if you like it or not, my football picks are coming later today.

West Springfield Love

So Shepard Smith hates the Big E, the 6th largest attended fair in the country, and West Springfield, the home of the Big E, because of some food?  Now, in a Z File exclusive, I have spoken with a man that has eaten this burger and survived another day.

Introducing, my brother Matthew, pictured above (it may not be clear what exactly he is looking at in this photo) He told me with confidence, this 1,500 calorie burger is a life-changing experience. Even the Big E promotes it as such, "No single ingredient dominates the burger. They all complement each other with artistry expected from a celebrity chef. The glaze smooths over the burger and oozes into a foreign but delicious combination with the crisp of the bacon."  The burger costs only $5, so price is a steal, it comes with 2 krispy kreme donuts, 1/3lb angus burger, slice of American cheese, 2 slices of maple bacon, plus the standard lettuce and other toppings. (view video at bottom for a how-to)  This burger is then thrown on a grill, "the bacon is the most delicious because it blends really well with the donut,"no truer words have been spoken by Matthew Zaskey. After eating it Matthew reports, "Initally, I was full and could not eat any more carnival food, and I was really excited to have a corn dog.  But then around an hour later, I felt as if my heart was going to stop.  But that aside, I would 100% get it again, but only once a year."  Making this concoction even more intriguing, is that EZ Cafe that sells it is situated right next to a building aptly called, The Better Living Center, selling over 2,000 burgers day on weekends.

To see the burger actually being made, view this, from my hometown news station WWLP

h

Now, I have read that it is also called the Luther Burger, because Luther Vandross loves it so much.

MLB Playoffs

Nevermind that the first games were yesterday, everybody knew the Yanks, Phils and Dodger would win their respective first game.  The trend of home team will end today though. Here is a brief analysis of all matchups.

American League:

Yankees & Twins : Twins wasted all their pitching in the last three weeks to make the playoffs.  They are happy just to make the playoffs, they don't expect to get any further. Plus, since MLB does have some influence on who they want to see in the later round of the playoffs, what type of national audience would want to watch the Twins? 

Prediction : Yankees in 4 games

Red Sox & Angels : This matchup has been lopsided over the past ten years or so.  The Angels do make me nervous this series though, they have speed everywhere in their line-up and the Red Sox catchers could throw out a runner if they had Genghis Khan running full speed at them on an elephant.  The Angels do also have a sense of purpose with the tragic passing of their rookie pitcher after his first start.  But, the Sox have been here before and its hard to bet against a Lester, Beckett starting combo.  David Ortiz started in a massive slump, but since the beginning of July he has led the major league in HRs.  Jason Bay came in 2nd in the AL at RBIs, so the team knows how to score when they have to in the past few months.  If we get the MLB influence theory involved here....

Prediction : Red Sox in 5

National League :

Phillies & Rockies : The Rockies in the last few years have been making unexpected runs into the playoffs on a wicked hot streak.  Sadly, Colorado is already preoccupied by the Belicheck bred, Josh McDaniel 4-0 Denver Broncos.  I have spoken with around 4 Colorodians the last week and every one said, nobody cares about baseball out there, its all about the Broncos. 

Prediction : Phillies in 4

Dodgers & Cardinals : This is without question the hardest matchup to predict. On one hand, you got a heating up Manny and a playoff-proven manager (which is always underrated, ask Jim Leyland or Grady Little) but on the other, nobody in LA cares about baseball much, except for the Latinos, the weather is warm and the sun shines bright.  For the Cards,  I like their pitching staff but have 0 trust in Pinero after his brief stint with the Sox a few years back.

Prediction : Dodgers in 5

After invoking the MLB influence clause and common sense, these matchups will bring baseball the most exposure in several years with the tradition of these franchise and consistant winning ways.  Coming later today.  League Championship Series & World Series Predictions.

Man on the Moon

I can already hear what you're saying, another over-hyped hipster rapper.  Well, you are pretty much right, Kid Cudi's new album "Man on the Moon : The End of Day" is pretty much a recycling of everything he did really well on his mixtape "A Kid Named Cudi."   This is not to say that I don't like this album, his slow yet forceful rapping style is different than what you hear everyday.  Common narrates through the different "acts" of the album, each with a different theme.  Where Cudi really takes off is the end of the album, acts 4 & 5.  He keeps it interesting in these last acts with collaborations with Ratatat and MGMT providing big beats and hooks for singles.  His label GOOD, run by Kanye, even insisted on putting the over two year old hit single Day N Night.  With that being said my two favorite tracks are "Up, Up and Away," his second stoner anthem, and "Alive"

Kitchen Nightmares

Stamford's own Sabatiello's Italian Steakhouse was featured on Kitchen Nightmares, a show on the Fox where Gordan Ramsey tries to save a failing businses, last November.  While apparently the show went off without a hitch, but it did have save the business.  Tough break for the owners without a doubt.  Then, they go out and completely trash their restuarant.  Causing over $20,000 worth of damage in broken glass and windows before being evicted from his restaurant.  To add fuel to the fire, he also kept taking deposits for private parties after going out of busniess and using towards other ventures for another $20,000.  I really don't understand how all this wild stuff continues to happen in Stamford, but it continuously cracks me up.  A guy got a bad break in the restaurant business after getting support from a reality tv show, then he decides to bust up his own place!  Thats really going to help his new restaurant he just opened in Greenwich.  He allegedly invested over a million dollars in the place.  To add insult to injury, he had to post another $20,000 bail for his arrest on these charges.

Bank Robbery!

UPDATE: PHOTO OF MAN, BE ON LOOKOUT

Stamford has done it again!  Now on Tuesday, we had a bank robbery 200 feet from where the karaoke beating took place and within 100 feet of my apartment.  All these wacky crimes, together with Travis the chimp make, according to FBI, Stamford was the ninth-safest city in the United States with more than 100,000 residents.  The area where the bank was robbed is usually filled with pedestrian and vehicular traffic at all hours, which makes this even more bizarre. The newspaper is not reporting how much money was stolen, that's a pretty important number, as well as what the punishment is if he gets caught. But I think that could either be a deterrent or a temptation. For some reason, I feel no fear at all after this.

Primal Scream!

Jerry Springer

On Monday, I had the privilege to attend a live taping of the Jerry Springer show along with compadre, Dong Moore.  We arrived at the studio in downtown Stamford and waiting around a half hour to enter the theatre.  When we entered, we were immediately seated in the 2nd row right behind one of the bodyguards.  Jerry comes out does a stand-up routine to get the crowd ready for the show with raunchy humor.  Then come the guests, first we had a cheating boyfriend with girl on side, which led to a black lady with buck teeth getting her wig ripped off repeatedly during the 2 minute brawl.  The next segment involved two homosexuals, one wanted a child with a random girl and the other didn't, yet one of they gays developed feelings for the girl.  Once again there was another brawl between the gays, which lead to the highlight chant of "Fight Like a Man!" which in turn led to small amounts of blood being drawn from one of the guys.  Finally, the last segment was two seriously obese black women fighting over an anorexic small black guy.  This is where things got crazy, it was an all out riot, men fighting women, women fighting men, women fighting women and included a marriage proposal.  It was like the heavyweight title match for the belt.  During every one of the fights the security guards egg on the brawlers to do more with the crowd up out of their seats cheering them on.  Another highlight was the question segment at the end for all of the guests on the show.  The large black girls in the last segment were repeatedly called Kool-Aid, she as wearing a red shirt and looked like the kool-aid man.  A man with a dragon face tattoo wanted to bed one of the gays from the 2nd segment and there were two pairs of audience breasts exposed.  The crowd was not as redneck overall as I thought it would be, many of the disrupting people were seated in the  back to begin with so they could not interrupt the show, the seaters do their job pretty well.  All in all, an enjoyable experience, my stomach hurt afterwards from laughter.  Next step, going to see Maury in the next few weeks.

Man, I wish I got to see this episode, which was also taped in Stamford.

Music Blogs

Starting December 1st, music blogs will now have to disclose if their are being run on payola schemes similar to what we see on the radio, specifically z100 in new york, or get fined up to $11,000.  I am trying to figure out which large music blogs this could influence, and the only two I came up with is stereogum and pitchfork. Here is some of the exact wording, "the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement."  Now, I don't think this means much to the music blogs because they are still going to love to post about the most obscure act they can find, so they can go around saying they found them first.  But then again, we may not ever see the blog buzz surround a band, such as MGMT or Vampire Weekend, again.

Atlantic City

Here is a story that is boondoggling to me.  I'm starting to think blackmail is the new trend, first we had Letterman, which he took as a joke both the blackmail and his indiscretions. Now, we got these amateur videographers from Atlantic City.  These guys hired a prostitute to seduce an Atlantic City city councilman and attempted to videotape it.  Where do people get these ideas?  Where are these people that come up with these ideas?

Just Because

Football Spread Picks Week 4

That picture represents my picks from the last few weeks.  A hot girl drops a huge log and has to get dirty and plunge it out herself. We have all been there, some have even been there without the plunger. Last week I went 7 for 16, so that is 3 straight weeks of under .500 ball. Thats not going to make the playoffs. To add insult to injury my fantasy team is also 0-3, mostly due to the fact that I have 0 wide receivers, trades wanted.  I did jump from the 30th percentile to the 34.5 percentile. So as we get further into the season, one could only predict that my picks will be more accurate.

Detroit (+10.5) over CHICAGO - Am I the only one that doesn't think the Bears are very good.  But then again, I think the Lions are better than they have been in the last four seasons, which isn't that hard to do.  If the Lions could pull off two wins in a row, there will be riots in Detroit bigger than the Rodney King riots.

Cincinnati (-5.5) over CLEVELAND - Each Cleveland QB played a half last week, one threw one pick and was named the starter at the beginning of the season and the other threw three picks with a QB rating of 30.9%.  Its obvious the Mangenius would put Derek Anderson in the starting role this week right?

INDY (-8.5) over Seattle -  Seattle is not good and Indy is.

Giants (-10.5) over KC - The Chiefs are not trying this season, what other reason would they practically give away Tony Gonzo?

Tampa Bay (+7.5) over WASHINGTON - How can the team that just lost to Detroit be favored by over a touchdown a week later?

Tennesee (-2.5) over JACKSONVILLE - Its now or never for the Titans, I really mean it this week, the Titans looked really good in the 2nd half against the Jets, now they can finally get their act in gear against the lowly Jags.

Oakland (+9.5) over HOUSTON - This is the week that JaMarcus Russell completes more than 30% of his pass attempts.

Baltimore (+2.5) over NEW ENGLAND - Has New England put together a full good game yet? I haven't seen it.

Jets (+6.5) over NEW ORLEANS - I don't think the Jets will win, but I do think they will keep it close, around a field goal.

Buffalo (-1.5) over MIAMI - I am coming from the new school and think that the Bills are actually not a bad football team, plus the new QB in Miami makes me nervous.

Dallas (-3.5) over DENVER - The Broncos improbable run is over and Americas team gets back on track.

St. Louis (+10.5) over SAN FRAN - I don't know where the ten point love for the Niners is coming from especially with a hurt Frank Gore.

San Diego (+6.5) over PITTSBURG - DA BURG wins this game, but Rivers keeps this game closer.  I think the Steelers still have big problems running the ball.

Green Bay (+3.5) over MINNESOTA - This is Aaron Rodgers coming out party, giving the big middle finger to the three ring traveling Farve show.

Some casual observations, I only chose one home team to cover, the Colts.  To gain big rewards you have to make big risks.

BEST BET OF WEEK - Tampa Bay & Tennesee & Buffalo, can anybody say teaser? (overall 2-5)

Molotov Cocktails

I haven't mentioned where I grew up much on this blog, so I decided it was need to make a reference.  Recently, there was a 22 year old individual in Springfield, after a night of getting drunk, probably on Worthington Street, decided it was a great idea to throw a Molotov cocktail at an enemies house.  Apparently they had bad blood the week before.  He has pleaded guilty in court, but also makes the old, if I wasn't drunk I wouldn't have done it.  He also claims that he doesn't remember it.  I have had a few drinks in my life, but never once has it crossed my mind to throw a molotov cocktail at an archenemy house.  Yes, I have thought, wow it would be fun to kick that kids ass, but never acted on it.  I don't see being drunk as an excuse to firebomb somebodies house.  Also, how do you make a Molotov cocktail, do you just put a rag in a bottle of booze and light it on fire?  Is it common knowledge how to make molotov cocktails?

UFO's in CT (continued)

Upon further review, the UFO's were not only in Greenwich, they are apparently in Stamford according to this iPhone photo (click to make image larger).  This website has more information.  Yesterday, Sept 30, around between 1-2, three flying saucer type objects could be seen in the sky hovering over the Long Island Sound.  I am really missed the trend here, next week, I will be walking outside the whole week, even if I have to wear a winter hat and gloves.  Also, blogger was broken the other day and I could not stagger my posts, so there have been like 10 in the last day or two if you missed any feel free to check the archives.

Counting Crows

I'll admit, I like a lot of Counting Crow songs, but I cannot understand how Adam Duritz continuously pulls some of the hottest tail in the entertainment industry. He has already conquered the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds girl), and Terri Hatcher. I do understand that chicks dig rock stars, but ones that are consistently depressed and overweight? Apparently now, he is dating a girl that I have liked for a long time and even own an album by her. Emmy Rossum, seen below in my favorite song by her, left her husband to get some crow flu. This guy is so good, guys even get full out back tatoos of his face.

 Instead of trying to get a job, I should just write sad songs, and I'm talking like cut yourself sad songs, on an acoustic guitar with a backbeat, oh wait that's what Matt Kearney already does. I got ton of sad song ideas in my head, let me know if you want to collaborate.   It's beeen a long deeeecemberrrr, and theres reason to believe............

Emmy Rossum - Slow Me Down Music Video





Now, I find out, this guy is working with Broken Lizard (Super Troopers, Club Dread, Beerfest) for a new movie?  Now why in your right mind would funny people want just a depressing character around your crew?