The WII is dangerous

In case any of you are wondering, fret about it no further for I have discovered some things recently. The WII is dangerous. Yes, that is correct, it is dangerous, especially for us adults. I was partaking in some adult beverages last night and my 8 year old son wanted me to play WII Sports with him. I fugured, what the heck, everything was a repeat on TV. So we started with Tennis, then Bowling, and finally Baseball. One thing you need to remember, if your kids constantly play games, they will beat you. Don't let the liquor make you think you can win. And don't bet money you don't have. Needless to say, I had enough in me to think I was the greatest athlete in the world. My arm is sore and I owe my son $100. I should sue Nintendo.

Super Bowl is coming

I am really impressed and excited this year. Although the Cardinals had another good year, they were defeated this past weekend by the Saints. However, my team is the Minnesota Vikings. Next week the Vikings play the Saints and the Colts play the Jets. I predict for the Super Bowl, the Colts and Vikings, with the Vikings winning it. Although the Vikings had acquired Brett Favre this year, I am not one of his biggest fans. I've hated Favre since he was with Green Bay and had broken 3 remotes within a 2 year period when the Packers and Vikings played because Minnesota would be ahead and somehow in the last 30 seconds of the game, Favre would do his magic and Green Bay would win. Now that he got the Vikings to the playoffs, and possibly the Super Bowl, I'll have to admit I am starting to give him a chance.

Watched a few more movies this past weekend. S. DARKO is the sequel to DONNIE DARKO, which I had seen several years ago, but do not remember it that much. This sequel was not good. Not worth even a free rental to watch. FAME is a movie that was originally a tv show. I actually enjoyed this movie. POST GRAD was a good movie also. HALLOWEEN II, of course is a remake made by Rob Zombie. I don't remember the original one, so I am not sure if it even followed the original movie, but it was still good. I love Rob Zombie movies because they have more realistic blood and death.

Next Sunday, we go to the sister's house for my nephew's birthday. I guess that is when we will do our "run". My sister had informed me I will probably beat her in points, but, oh, well, we will see. I haven't ran since October and she runs more often than I do. So, we will see how it goes and probably do it again in June or July.

I am currently house hunting right now. I am waiting to get my taxes back so I can pay off the collections on my credit report and then go and prequalify. Right now in my neighborhood, I am finding many houses for sale for cheap. I am looking at a house right now that is 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, and over 3000 square foot going for $115,000. I am really leaning towards this one as long as it stays on the market long enough for me. They are getting ready to build a film studio for tv and movies about 12 miles from my house as well as an International Hotel and Resort. So I imagine in about 5-10 years, the housing market will be back on track and the value of the house will increase tremendously, but we will see.

That's all I got today.

IRS is open for business

Today, the IRS is now accepting tax returns for processing. I just called H & R Block and I am able to come in today to file. I had mainly called to ask about the 1098 for my college. I told them I want to do my taxes as soon as possible and I only took 2 classes last year, but I am using Tuition Assistance for it through the military. Since they said I am not paying out of pocket, I don't need to wait for it. I have everything else. So I will go and file tonight. Hopefully I will get it back quickly.

With my tax return, I have a few plans. First, I need to pay people I owe money to. Not too many people and not that much to pay. Next, clean my credit up as I am trying to buy a house and need to clean up my credit to pre-qualify. Lastly, I plan on buying my boys a couple of computers for them to play on so they quit destroying mine. I have been looking at WalMart for a laptop and found ones for like $300. It is good enough for them to get on and play games.

School is still going ok. Received a few positive comments from my instructor. I think this has to do with the way I write compared to everyone else in class. It is an English class and I can not believe how many people can not spell correctly or even use spellcheck. On top of that,they can't even make a complete sentence. It is so confusing trying to read something and you can't make heads or tails of it. So, yeah, I agree I am doing pretty good in this class.

Nothing coming up that I am looking forward to right now. Did watch a few movies. WORLD'S GREATEST DAD has Robin Williams in it. Bad movie. Doesn't even fit the title. I got it because of Robin Williams and was disappointed. Watched JENNIFER'S BODY with Megan Fox. It was pretty good. Also watched THE HURT LOCKER. It is about the EOD (Bomb Squad) for the Military. I really liked this movie, but after watching it, I wonder how people not in the movie will portray it like all people in the military are crazy or something. It was a great movie, though. Have a few others at home to watch, which I plan on watching this weekend.

Is it over yet?

I am waiting for a day off still. It seems like I have been working non stop for days. I have started looking into buying a house recently. Don't really know why, I just feel like I should buy a house now. I am looking in my neighborhood where I am at now so I don't have to have the kids change schools. I found a 5 bedroom, 2 story house for 100K. I am like, well I am paying $850 a month now, that would lower my mortgage to about $550-$650 depending on interest and everything. So I went to BofA yesterday to get pre-qualified. Didn't take long for them to tell me that they can't pre-qualify me at this time. My credit sucks. I printed up a couple of copies of my credit report to see what I can do. I basically have like 3 or 4 things in collection that I never bothered to take care of and they are all only a couple of hundred dollars each. I figure when I get my taxes, I'll pay them off and pay off my car loan. It only totals to around $2000. Then all I will have left on my credit is my van loan and student loan, which I don't really worry about. I had them run my debt to income ratio just for the heck of it and found out I will qualify for more than I thought I would...once I clean up my credit. They also said they look at the 12 month trend. I am like, so what, if the collections are paid off, it shows they were paid. So, I will have to wait until I do my taxes and get them back to pay these off and see if I can pre-qualify. Then it will be time to go house shopping.

Have my nephew and sister's birthdays coming up this month. Don't know when we are getting together for all that yet. My next drill is during Superbowl weekend. I plan on releasing everyone early so they can get to where they need to go for the game celebrations. It's ok, the Vikings will be in it this year. Well, we'll see after Sunday when they play Dallas. Cardinals did pretty good last week. I am glad they knoked out the Packers. I believe they play the Saints next. Well, gotta get back to work.

Another Monday

Well, it is Monday after drill. It kind of sucks because I work 12 days straight due to drill. On the drill weekends, I work more than I do during the week. I don't know why these Soldiers can't understand that if they need something, do it during the week when I am slow, not wait until we have drill. It just creates too much work which causes us to stay 12-15 hours on the weekend. Oh, well, procrastinators.

I was thinking about taking the APFT this weekend, but Soldiers had ticked me off too much before we took the test, I was too stressed out to concentrate on doing it. So, I didn't take it this wekkend. I also found out they are keeping our next drill over Superbowl weekend. Sure, they change their dates, but we have to keep ours. I think they are just upset with our platoons because we are making them look bad by having all of our stuff done on time and they continuously miss deadlines.

School is going ok. I am starting my second week of my class. I will have a paper due at the end of this week. Still waiting on tax documents to do my taxes, but it is starting to look more and more like I will be filing at the end of Jan/beginning of Feb. Which means I probably will not receive the taxes back until the end of Feb/beginning of March. Oh, well, I should be good until then.

All is...well....

Well, I went and picked up a fe movies last night to watch. THE FINAL DESTINATION, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, IN BRUGES, and WORLD'S GREATEST DAD. Well, I watched THE FINAL DESTINATION last night. I was not impressed with it at all. The only thing I did like in this movie were the deaths. Overall out of the 4 Final Destination movies, the first one is the best. I'm glad I didn't buy this movie like I had planned on. WORLD'S GREATEST DAD is with Robin Williams and I just got it to see if it was any good. These other three I have until Sunday to watch. IN BRUGES is a movie with Collin Farrell and I was told it was hilarious, but we will see. My buddy just finally got the last season of THE OFFICE. So when he is done watching it, he'll let me borrow it.

I have drill this weekend. All I can say is it will be interesting. It will be interesting for several reasons that I am not about to get into. It is the type of interesting that you kind of want to hold your breath and hope for the best. I am thinking about taking the PT test this weekend. I don't have to, but I figure what the hell0. My sister wants to challenge me at the end of this month on running. I do find it kind of funny how she wants to go by Army standards as far as age, time, and score. However, the way it is set up is to do push-ups, sit-ups, and a 2-mile run. Oh, well, I'll play. If she wins, she wins. All I have at stake is if I win, she'll watch my kids for a weekend. If she wins, she has the satisfaction of knowing she beat me. Again, this is going by age, sex, time, and score.

Other than all of that, I am trying to get everything in order to do my taxes. It seems I have to wait until the end of the month though because some of the places I am waiting on do not send them out until Jan 30. Morons. I want to do my taxes now, not next month. I have my W-2's already for the military and work. I am just waiting on a 1098 from my college and a 1098 from my student loan. Every little bit helps, I guess.

New Year...same crap

Today is day 3 of the New Year and it already seems like the same old shi*. It is now 7:20am on Jan 3rd. I received a call about an hour ago, and yes, I was asleep. Apparantly, it was a local city's police department calling me to notify me one of my Soldiers have been arrested and will be seeing a judge within the next hour and a half. Usually I would just say ok and go back to sleep. However, this Soldier is one of my Soldiers getting ready to fly out today to begin pre-mobilization as he he will be deploying within the next few months. Needless to say I can not do anything at this time as I have to wait for him to appear before a judge within the next 2 hours. I will more than likely have to pick him up. I did talk to the arresting officer and he told me tha more than likely he will be released with no Bail set. I was thinking, why couldn't I have been arrested in that city when I was arrested. Anyways, it is a waiting game right now. As long as he goes before a judge and gets released, I will pick him up and he should still be able to leave today as his flight is not unil after 2pm. I think I will kick his a$$ for getting me woke up so early, worrying about the situation, and having to pick him up to make sure he is where he is supposed to be.

So, I hope everyone else is having a good year so far. Heard from my little sister the other day, which is good because I was starting to worry as her phone was shut off. I guess that is what happens when you buy minutes for your phone and people call the wrong number and telemarketers use up all of your minutes. She has a new phone and new plan now, so I should be able to reach her more often now. Anyways, everyone have a good new year and hope it is better than the way mine is starting.

Almost there

Two more days until the New Year. All I can hope is that it will be better than this past year. I believe it will be since I do work AND get paid now. Of course next year will be the first time that I will make over a certain amount for the year and will no longer be able to qualify for the Earned Income Credit on my taxes in 2011. Oh, well. This is actually the best and highest paid job I have had in my life. Well, aside from being deployed since I make more when I am deployed.

I watched INGLORIOUS BASTERDS last night. Although I usually enjoy Quentin Tarantino movies, I did not enjoy this one. First, let me explain this. I have a 27-29" tv. My couch is about 15 feet away from the tv. 1/2 to 3/4 of the movie was in subtitles because they were speaking either German or French at one time or another. The subtitles were in yellow, which you can not really see when there is a bright background. On top of that, they were switching the subtitles faster than I could read them because of the blending in on the screen. My eyes hurt, my brain hurt, this movie sucked. Unless you have a big screen tv, do not watch or you will not understand it. Even if you do have a big screen tv, it is still a waste of time.

I feel better now. If there are any writers out there....make sure you have characters speak English. There are no subtitles in real life. If you can't have your characters speak English, show the movie somewhere else other than in my English speaking country. Your as bad as the individuals that are in my country and can't speak English. When I go to another country, I don't try to walk up to people and expect them to know my language.

Now look what has happened. I am getting all worked up again. Damn movie and damn non-english speaking people in my country.

Treaure Hunt

I am always looking for ways to get more money. I am currently attending school, receiving Tuition Assistance and the GI BILL. Of course the GI BILL they enrolled me in is only a couple of hundred dollars a month. I just submitted an application for a different GI BILL that I qualify for and once approved I will receive about $600 a month. A friend of mine that has already done this route is also telling me to get a student loan as well as I will receive whatever is not used at the end. Of course I am a little skeptical about doing all of that. I will save that for when I go for my Master's degree after I complete my Bachelors in about 2 1/2 years.

Another movie I forgot to mention that I saw was EXTRACT. It is made by Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead. It is also made by the creator of OFFICESPACE, which was a great movie. EXTRACT did not meet the expectations of OFFICESPACE, but did still have it's funny parts. Still have not watched INGLORIOUS BASTERDS yet. I've got it until Friday, so I will be watching it within the next couple of days.

Work is kind of slow right now and I wish I was taking a class right now. It seems my days are longer when I don't have things to do. My next class starts 05 Jan, so it is just another week away. That is all I have today.

Movie updates

Well, I rented a few movies to catch up on. First, THE HANGOVER-hilarious movie good to watch. G-FORCE is a Disney movie, watched with the kids. Typical Disney movie and was decent. ALL ABOUT STEVE was an ok movie, but not all that. It was semi-predictable. DISTRICT 9 was a waste of time for as much as it was hyped. I thought it would be good, but it was stupid. Also on the very stupid, B-rated scale was DARK COUNTRY. Not even worth watching if it was on tv for free. Last night I watched HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE. I was never into any of the Harry Potter films and this one is like all the others...uninteresting. Tonight I will be watching INGLORIOUS BASTERDS. I heard this is supposed to be a good film.

In a couple of weeks, THE FINAL DESTINATION and SAW VI will be out as well as HALLOWEEN II. So maybe by the end of the month, I will have more reviews. Not like my opinion matters, but if I can save people money and their time, then it is a benefit.

Nothing much planned this week. Just working and staying home for New Year's Eve. On New Year's Day, I will be heading to the sister's house again. Other than that, nothing else planned. Wish I would have won the lottery Sat night. Oh, well.