You'd never know that you were in a theme park.
Or that I took these with my phone.

Last Thursday is a day that has already jumped into my top 5 of best days ever. Here's how it went down:

Rach and I woke up very casually because we both had the day off, and it seems that happens not as frequently as we would like of to, so we took full advantage. Upon fully waking up and getting dressed we headed to the delicious Dunkin Donuts, and as anyone from the northeast will tell you, it was wicked awesome. I know we have Dunkin Donuts brand coffee at home, but it just doesn't compare. Anyway after that tasty put stop we went to Ripley's Believe It Or Not for some touristy type fun, but mostly because it was free to all Sea World employees and guests on that day. We got some sweet pictures of us sitting in obnoxiously large chairs and standing inside insanely large and heavy tires, and capping it all off was a techo fueled walk through a black lit swirling tunnel. Not bad for zero dollars.
Upon returning to the car the day was still very young and Rach made the suggestion to use her free pass and my always free admission to Universal. It was a very nice day so we were worried about there being a lot of people there, and since waiting in line at all, let alone insanely huge lines, is neither of our sting suits you can imagine our hesitation. However it was the middle of the week so we decided to chance it. Good thing we did because the longest line lasted about 10 minutes! This came as a very sharp contradiction to the time last year with Rachel and her Mom where the shortest line lasted about 2 hours!!! So we rode all the roller coasters that we felt necessary and even enjoyed a 6 dollar beer each while waiting to get on Dueling Dragons. We bid Islands of Adventure ado and headed home to rest before our date night dinner.
Now I could probably write a short story describing the awesomeness of our dinner, but I will keep it brief. We ate our romantic dinner at Roy's which, for being a chain restaurant, has better service and food than almost any other place in Orlando. We ate and drank to our hearts content, but only because of a generous gift card from my family and a $20 off card that the restaurant had send me only two days prior, what timing.
This day was by no means crazy, lavish, or exotic which some people might say it has to be to go into a top 5. It was just a very nice day. We did a lot but were never rushed, and because of the for mentioned free passes and gift cards it barely cost us a penny, although it felt like a million bucks.

With The Power Of Ale You Can Not Fail!!

Being an huge "music in general" fan I was beginning to believe that I wasn't going to be seeing any new styles of music again, until maybe a new instrument was invented. However, the other night at Backbooth the impossible happened. I was introduced to "True Scottish Pirate Metal" though the music of Alestorm. Looking at the four individuals that make up Alestorm, you wouldn't immediately think, "My face is about to be melted by these guys." You, however, would be wrong. The lead singer, and keytar player, (let that sink in) looks like Weird Al in both physical build and in hair and the bassist looks like Eric Foreman, from That 70s Show, with long hair. Only their guitarist looks like he would actually be in a metal band.
Now with general looks aside I'd like to go back to the fact that the lead singer plays a keytar... Before attending this show I listened to some samples of their music on the internet and really enjoyed the organ that plays throughout the record. It never dawned on me that these noises were emanating from anything other than an actual organ let alone a keytar. Now, with all preconceived notions about the keytar aside, because the music sounded so good, I watched this man proceed to go into about 7-10 keytar solos throughout the set and never once shook my head in disappointment.
The set left me with a smile that wouldn't quit for days and a new found hope that there actually is still original music to be made. if you get the chance, and there's no reason you shouldn't, give Alestorm a listen if for nothing more than a few laughs. A simple search on YouTube will give you a pleathora of songs to listen to, and I'm sure they have a myspace as well. My suggestions are: Set Sail and Conquer, Over the Seas, and Nancy the Tavern Wench.

So my parents were in town this weekend and it was seeming more and more like Rachel wasn't going to be able to get out of bed let alone join us on any of our outings. However, through devine intervention or maybe it was the amazing combination of meds that she was on Rach rose on Saturday morning and exclaimed to me, "I feel better!" And with that, we were off. The day started off fairly simply with a trip to BJs to buy large quantities of food and paper goods. This included the largest bag of Dunkin Donuts coffee that is manufactured. Seriously it says "our largest size" right on the label. Anyway, then we went to target to get more food because our house was barren. Following our epic food buying binge we ventures to Orlando RV, which turned out to be quite an adventure. Exploring all the different models and the vegas-like interior of most was very entertaining. After pretending to be gypsies for an hour or so we visited Found and followed that up with a delicious beer at Mcraineys, which if becoming more and more a favorite haunt of Rach and I.
We all returned home to wind down a bit before dinner and to put away the mass of groceries that we had amassed.
Dinner was at Wazzabi and was amazing. Sushi just never leaves us feeling unsatisfied and when it's really great sushi there is nothing better.
Dinner was followed by a night cap at The Red Fox Lounge, which is also becoming a frequent haunt of ours. However, for totaly different reasons. I could write a whole post just explaining The Red Fox, and very well might, but just do a google search for "The Red Fox Lounge" in Winter Park and you might begin to understand why it is so amazing. Fantastic day and evening all around.

Today I'm at work and it's raining, which means it'll be a very quiet day here at the world of seas. Tonight the lady and I, she doesn't know if she's coming yet but I've already decided that she is, are going to Back Booth to see Adam's band open up for Alestorm (see pirate punk rock). Needless to say it should be pretty fun.

I've got three hours to kill here at work and I'd like to take this time to talk about an epidemic that I've been noticing more and more lately. What follows will probably end up being more of a rant than a proper essay and please forgive my misspellings and gramatical errors because I am typing this on my phone.

The lack of common curtesy of the general public has become rather aparent to me over the last few weeks. Now to be fair I do notice it more when I am at work, at a theme park, than when I'm out around town but I think it's just because I am at work so much. Whether it is not holding the door for the person behind you, walking directally into someone elses path so as causing them to stop abruptly or trip, not being able to wait your turn in any sort of line, or simply just saying thank you when someone manages to exercise common curtesy towards you. Now I know that people can be busy or having a bad day, but really does it take a lot of time or energy to do any of these things? How much of your time could it take to look behind you to see if someone is walking out a door that you're opening anyway and then hold that door till they walk through? And if you're having a bad day is it really going to make you feel worse to say thank you to someone who just did something nice for you?
So I am calling for a radical change in everyones outlook towards common curtesy. I'm not asking for a lot and it really shouldn't be that hard to do. Just take an extra minute to observe what's going on around you. Maybe if others see you making the effort they will get in line as well. Thank you.

I'm using Ping.fm for the first time to see if it is a viable way to update my blog using my phone.

Blink 182 Reuniting

P.S. the fact that AC Slater is doing this interview makes it like 50 times more amazing.