And the Academy Award Goes To...

Song of the Week: Go! by Common who just won an Oscar for his song Glory in the movie Selma. Turns out my Aunt and Uncle went to highschool with him! Amazing!

Tuesday February 17th, Rachel and I had some soup and bread for dinner and watched the movie Pay it Forward. Such an inspiring movie about a boy with a plan that in the end, comes true. Although I thought the end of the movie was rushed, it got the point of the movie across even more.

Wednesday February 18th, after work I did some organizing and cleaning, find old toys such as this home made toy bomb that was made with batteries from probably 1999. Oh childhood. I also finished the second novel in the Mitch Rapp Series by Vince Flynn, Kill Shot. Got to love how much of a badass that Mitch Rapp is. 

On Thursday February 19th Rachel and I made a delicious stir fry that we enjoyed whiling watching an episode of Mad Men season 5. 

Friday February 20th was another record setting day. This time I set a new personal record, shooting 98 mph with my right hand and 92 mph with my left hand. Both are 1 mph more than I shot a week ago. At this rate I will hit 100 in 2 weeks, but probably not unless I get into shape! After work I headed home and did some more cleaning and organizing.

I began Saturday February 21st with an early morning practice. After that practice I headed home and then Rachel and I went out to The Other Side bar for some lunch. We split a hamburger and chicken tenders while I enjoyed a Sheep IPA beer. This bar was really cool and I will definitely be back, considering while I was there they played great music (no country or rap), had delicious and inexpensive food (a hamburger and fries for $6.99!?), and the staff and environment was warm and welcoming. After that we headed over to my Aunt Jan's for a little family game night. We played games similar to charades and then charades as well. We enjoyed some pizza, whiling having fun with the family. Sophia & Nikolas were there as well and cute as ever. Baby Nikolas is always laughing and smiling, such a good baby! I also was able to play a little prank on Emma and Anna by changing their sign "Coat Service" to "Goat Service." Ahh I'm so funny. We played some spoons to end the night and then Rachel and I headed home and then went to bed.

Sunday February 22nd was another early morning for me as I had to go coach. After a scheduling meeting which was terribly designed and unorganized, I came back home and chilled before making some delicious chicken alfredo pasta for dinner. After dinner, Rachel and I planned on having the 87th Annual Academy Awards ceremony on as we did other things, however, we ended up watching the whole show in its entirety with Neil Patrick Harris hosting. With having only seen The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, & The Grand Budapest Hotel I thought all the Oscars given out were appropriate, but really I have no clue since I haven't seen any of the other movies. I filled out an Oscar sheet and only got 5 of the categories correct. There were some great inspirational speeches, focusing on giving thanks and loving your parents, suicide prevention, equality for women, equality for all people of other race, gender, sexual orientation, & religion, and being yourself & being weird. The big winners from the night when it came to total number of awards won was The Grand Budapest Hotel  and the film Birdman. I can't wait to get my hands on all of the films that were nominated and see if the winners were truly deserving. 

Here is a list of all the nominees and winners.

With that being said, here is a picture of Rachel and I from game night that I am now posting in honor of the Best Picture: Birdman.

Monday February 23rd was a simple day. I wrote my blog, then Mozilla crashed and I lost it all, so I had to rewrite it, losing some of the original spunk it had. Went to work and then went home and watched The Walking Dead episode from the night before and started to watch a 30 for 30 about the Russians side of Miracle on Ice, interesting perspective and awesome coaching techniques so far!

Video of the Week: Live performance of Oscar nominated Everything is Awesome. I had no idea it was written/performed by Tegan & Sara as well as The Lonely Island!

Movie of the Week: Oscar winning short film, Feast!

Coaching is about to get real busy.

Talk in 7.

Josh

Retro Gaming

Tuesday October 21, I watched a South Korean filmed titled Old Boy. Pretty disturbing with the twist at the end, but a great movie that I highly suggest if you want a thrilling psychological film about a man who is kept captive for over 15 years. That night Rachel and I watched some House of Cards.

On Wednesday October 22, I learned some important life facts. Salad and Spinach only have a lifespan of 3-5 days. Salad turns brown when bad, spinach turns black and smelled like poop. Later in the day I watched Cinema Paradiso, an Italian film about a movie theater back in the day running on film. The movie ended with this solid quote, "Life isn't like the movies. Life is much harder." I like this quote because it is true. Often we see movies and get an unrealistic perception of what life is or should be. Most often than not, we have to fight through tough times and it doesn't all work out the exact way we want. However, on the flip side, life is easier than movies a lot of times as well. The movie actually ended with the greatest kissing compilation of all time, since the priest wouldn't let them be shown during the actual movies, the film guy cut the clips out and made a compilation, which was way more complicated to do back then.

Thursday October 23, Rachel and I headed to Triva in Wrigley at Vines with Brian, Adam, Becca, & Jamie. The first round of trivia was solid for us, but it went downhill after that. I got the Vines Burger for dinner with curly fries. Fried HotDog on the burger, Yum. I realized that I have difficulties talking to people and ordering food. Ahh.

Friday morning of October 24th, I watched A Nightmare Before Christmas. I think I had seen it before, but only as a child when it scared me. It was a creepy but solid claymation film. I worked out and then followed up this workout with a triple steakburger from Steak N Shake before work. That evening, John came by my work, and I drove him to Chicago. We had some drinks with Rachel once we got back and then headed out to HeadQuarters to meet up with Adam, Brian, Phil, & Ryan. A beercade that is full of arcade games for free. Difficulty is finding one that is open, but luckily a VIP party ended after about 45 minutes and we were able to jump on all their free games they weren't playing. We played some Shinobi fighting game for awhile, and then some Rampage. As I was destroying buildings, Rachel was playing Space Invaders. Her first time ever playing this game which amazed me! After a while at HQ, we headed home and got some sleep. Check out the gallery from the night of Retro Gaming!

On Saturday October 25, it was the day of Adam's bachelor party. John and I had a couple of gummies before we headed out on an adventure. We first walked 1.5 miles to Patagonia and checked out their selection, then we headed over to Whirlyball but still had to time to kill, so we stopped at Moose Jaw and played a game of pingpong in the back. They have a ping pong table set up for customers to play and I edged John out in a headed match. The butcher stayed at home for the day. Barnes and Noble was next door so we went in and browsed around. On our way out, we stopped at the new samsung tabs. I loaded up some angry birds, and John loaded up Jcubed's 1000 pushups. He put it on high volume and we walked out of their giggling like little boys. Because honestly, it was hilarious. We then thought of some young child, or old lady walking up and seeing this:

After we left Barnes and Nobles cracking up, we were feeling pretty hungry and had a taste for 20 nugs, so we searched for a McDs. I swear we walked another 1.4 miles down Clybourne until we finally found a McDonalds right before Whirlyball. We were blessed with 40 nuggets, 3 cookies, 2 apple pies, and 6 buffalo sauces for 12 bucks. What a tasty deal. We ate up, then walked the rest of the way to meet up with the bros for some Whirlyball action. Whirlyball is an awesome game that is a combination of bumper cars, lacrosse, & basketball. I am not gonna say that I dominated, because I was really bad at passing and shooting, but I dominated handling the wiffle ball, driving around like a mad man, picking up ground balls, and blindsiding my opponents with every chance I could. We had 2 hours of fun and then played a couple more games that required tokens before heading out. Shot some hoops, played some air hockey, some foozeball, some retro gaming. 

John and I were able to get a ride back to my place from Brian and then we headed over to Brian's for the evening celebrations to begin. For dinner we got some deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's. I ended up eating 6 pieces, 2 short of a large pizza and felt pretty darn full. We played some drinking games, and hung out for a long while, then headed out to some bars to close out the night. 

When we got back to my apartment around 3, Rachel had left us a little present. Two glasses of water and some ibuprofen. Seriously, what an amazing girlfriend I have! I am so lucky!

On Sunday October 26th, we had a family party at my Aunt Jan's. Before getting there I had to drop off John at the train, then picked up my grandma on the way there. We had tacos for dinner, which was a first in our family parties. They were very delicious though! After the party, Rachel and I shopped at a super inexpensive market near my grandma and got some great prices on fresh fruit and lunchmeat. That evening I began to watch American Horror Story season 1. Watched the first 2 episodes that night.

Here is a hilarious spoof of Breaking Bad I found the other day as well:

The morning of Monday October 27, I watched 2 more episodes of American Horror Story, went to work, then came home and had Jet's pizza and watched 5 more episodes of American Horror Story. I guess I am in the Halloween mood and like this spooky stuff right now?

The big 3 years coming up this next week. Woo Woo

Josh