When I got home on Friday I was excited to play with my new phone but came home to find a note on my door from FedEx saying that I had to sign for the package! Ugh! I hate having to sign for packages. I get why I have to and I can see the value in doing it for consumer protection, but I just don’t like it. Luckily I only had to take a quick drive around the corner and down the street to the closest FedEx station to pick up my package and get on with my life! Once I got home I opened up the box and checked out my new phone. From the first site I knew I was going to like it. The EnV2 is solid and sturdy and has a quality keyboard with actual buttons! Unlike the Storm or the Chocolate (whos buttons are made of a single crappy piece of plastic) the keys are raised and individual. The QWERTY keyboard makes a huge difference and has made my texting faster and more efficient. It’s also just fun to flip up and play with. It looks cool (which everyone loves) and works exceptionally well. The Body Glove snap-on cover is also very cool! It has a textured rubber design which improves the grip and snaps on perfectly to my EnV2. It adds an extra layer to protect the front screen and also came with two options for the back of the cover. One insert is just a nub which fills the hole in the back. The other insert is used for attaching a clip for carrying on a belt or in a pocket. The cover is just as sturdy as the phone and adds a little more attitude to the phone as a whole. Finally I am pleased with my phone. The LG Env2 has the features I need, the look I want and the quality to make me want to keep it nice!

The dinner that night at Fogo de Chão was incredible! We had invited my good friend Carlos to go with us. Unfortunately his wife, Vange, was unable to join us… but we said we would try again another time! All three of us, Maria, Carlos and myself were very impressed with the quality of the food and with Carlos and myself being Capoeiristas, we’re well familiar with Brazilian Churrascaria’s all over the country and this one by far was one of the best. You did pay for it however, but when you figure out how much of the high quality meats and sides that you actually eat, it can be well worth it.

Now onto the debate! While we were at Fogo de Chão, I took a look at the wine list and t also included a fine selection of Courvoisiers. The one in particular that caught my attention was the listing that read the following: “L’Esprit de Courvoisier (1 oz.)…. 635.00″. I looked at Maria and showed her the listing and asked, “Is this for real? That’s a SHOT! $635 for a SHOT!” I then showed it to Carlos. “What! What the… Cheese and RICE!” (as Carlos often likes to say) We were all floored by the price and for the posterity of the moment I took a snapshot with my camera. A few weeks later we went out with Carlos, Vange and another couple (David and Victoria) and started to talk about how great the dinner at Fogo was. I then mentioned the crazy price of the single shot of Courvoisier. David said, “Nah, that’s gotta be per bottle.” I took out my phone, found the pic, and said check this out. It clearly says “1 oz.” The debate went on for a little while and I backed off the ridiculous topic and we went dancing.

The other day I was going through my phone photos and since my birthday is coming up, I was reminded of Fogo de Chão and that crazy photo I took. I decided to take a closer look at it and try to google the name of the Courvoisier. I put “L’Esprit de Courvoisier” into google and ended up with enough information to confirm that YES, a SINGLE SHOT of L’Esprit de Courvoisier is actually $635 at Fogo de Chão! While I was searching, I found a site as well as some others confirming the cost of L’Esprit de Courvoisier to be around $5,000 per bottle. It’s described as:

L’Esprit de Courvoisier is one of the most exquisite, most rare and most expansive cognacs in the world. Obtained with part of the reserve from Le Paradis cellar at the Courvoisier Chateau, this unique blend contains cognacs that date back as far as napoleon I. The youngest cognac in the blend is over 70 years old. Housed in hand-cut Lalique crystal decanters, it is a cognac that is beyond compare.’

So with the cost of a bottle being around $5,000, and reading about how old and refined it is, it’s easy to understand why it’s so expensive… How exactly, or why exactly the restaurant carries this rare blend and if they actually serve it has yet to be answered. The offical answer to the debate, however, has been epically proven!

#4: Bud Light Meeting
Great ad placed in a corporate setting. How do we save money? Let’s find out!

#3: CareerBuilder.com: Tips
Hilarious ad for CareerBuilder. Seems that since the job market is slow that it is a prime time to strike with the job placement website.

#2: Cash4gold.com
This one was tough. Between Cash4Gold.com and Careerbuilder.com I’d say that they were pretty close in competition but the addition of Ed McMahon and MC Hammer (basically) making fun of themselves just put this one over the top for me. You gotta love Ed looking at his solid gold toilet and saying, “Gooddbye Old Friend” Or how about MC Hammer saying he could send in his gold sledge hammer! Another thing that put it over for me was the fact that I thought it was a real commercial. Ed’s not doing well financially, that’s been well documented, so seeing him in a commercial like this (making light of said situation) just makes it even better! Here it is:

#1: Pepsi: Refresh Anthem
By far my favorite of the night. The Pepsi Refresh Anthem featuring Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” off the “Planet Waves” album. Not only is it one of my favorite renditions of “Forever Young” but the commercial itself is just awesome, mixing old and new with clips of Bruce Lee, John Belushi, and Bob Dylan along side with Will I Am from The Black-Eyed Peas, Jack Black and a little tribute to our fighting forces overseas. And even though it’s a Pepsi commercial it gave me a great feeling and just made the overall ad more memorable. *Note: Planet Waves rendition of Forever Young does not include rap by Will I Am… Just throwing that out there in case I get any Dylan haters. Check it out!

So those are my top picks for Super Bowl commercials this year. They weren’t the best ever, but certainly better than most that I’ve seen over the past couple years. Also, I didn’t include any of the 3D commercials since you needed the glasses to really appreciate them. While they were good and entertaining… and yes, those glasses worked, they were over produced, especially for the Super Bowl and required the glasses… in other words, they had an unfair advantage so I didn’t include them.

A few weeks back I had heard that Bruce Springsteen was going to be performing for the halftime show. I was very psyched to see The Boss bring some good music back to the Super Bowl Halftime Show. The NFL has tried for a number of years to get a valid and entertaining performer for the show. Recent memory brings Prince to mind, however I think that the response for Springsteen was much better. I had my doubts, but seeing the crowd sing the old favorites and seeing how they reacted to him made me think twice. The entire E-Street band was on stage and Bruce began with a tune that I didn’t recognize but turned out to be “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”. He later dropped into “Working On A Dream” as the 3rd song. The obvious highlights of the show were the second and last song, “Born To Run” and “Glory Days” respectively. It’s understandable why he would put some less-popular tracks or newer tracks into the mix, but I am of the opinion that when you have such a huge career and some many popular songs to pull from, why not just stick to the standards? I’ll be honest, the first and third song did nothing for me, but as soon as I heard the familiar riffs of Born to Run and Glory Days, I immediately perked up. In my opinion, it was a great halftime show. Well done, Boss… Give it up for the legend! In addition to the halftime show… well ahead of it actually were the three “Real 3D” movie and show trailers that followed the end of the second half. I had ordered some 3D glasses to see these commercials, one being for the new movie “Monsters Vs Aliens”. I was very surprised at how well the glasses worked and the quality of the commercials themselves. Understandably so I would think since I haven’t seen a 3D movie or had 3D glasses since I was in the single digits. (I do remember when TNT showed “Hondo” in 3D, I think I was in middle school, but I never watched it… Sorry, Duke) Anyway, the halftime show was worth sitting through this year, at least I would say it was. =)

The second half began and by the 4th quarter the Cardinals had the Steelers sweating. The Arizona Cardinals came back from one of the greatest deficits in Super Bowl history… actually, THE greatest deficit in Super Bowl history. The only problem, they didn’t win. It was truly a nail biter at the end of the game. The quiet Larry Fitzgerald sprung to life in the 4th picking up 2 very much needed touchdowns and putting the Steelers behind 20-23. The Cards began celebrating early but the Steelers weren’t phased. With the focus of a laser, Roethlisberger took the Steeler offense into the red zone paired with the 2 incredible receptions from Santonio Holmes and the final 3rd reception for a Pittsburgh game winning touchdown! With the good extra point the score was now 27-23 requiring the Cardinals to make a final touchdown with only seconds remaining on the clock. Unfortunately for the Arizona Cardinals, there was no coming back and the Pittsburgh Steelers clenched their sixth Super Bowl title, the most in NFL history. It was definitely one of the best Super Bowl games I have seen and the commercials weren’t too bad either, but that’s another post for later!

The film starts out well enough. You learn that Liam Neeson is separated and has a daughter. You also pick up early in the film that he has a bit of a background… perhaps one that would make him a formidable opponent to say… a kidnapping ring… Well turns out that Liam Neeson has a past with one of the big agencies and has “retired” so he can be closer to his daughter. His friends (who all seem normal enough) invite him to do a body guard gig. It’s there that you get to see Liam in action. I should probably re-watch the fight scenes but from what I saw it looked like a mix of JKD, Krav Maga and some very nasty improvisation! Bottom line, Liam kicks some butt and everyone is shocked he still has it, “I’m retired, I’m not dead.”

Later Liam’s daughter ask to go to Paris with a friend. He doesn’t trust it b/c of his experience in the world, but soon gives in to make his daughter happy. He soon learns that his daughter and friend are going to Europe to follow U2 on tour… (Yeah, I was a little “eh” about that part too, but you never see Bono, so don’t worry!) He stays quiet despite the fact that his daughter lied to him and waits for her to call like she said she would. Stupid stuff happens at the airport in Paris when the daughter’s friend starts flirting with a random stranger. The random stranger who seems nice enough is given all the info he needs about where to find the girls as he takes a cab ride with them to where they are staying. He is then privy to the fact that they will be all by themselves… (Maria and I were both like… IDIOTS! But it gets better) The stranger leaves and you see him on the phone, he says, “Two, about 18…”

Liam Neeson has been calling his daughter all day, finally he gets through. The music in the house where she is staying is too loud so she walks to the bathroom where she still has a view of her crazy friend dancing and yelling to said loud music. She then sees two big guys break in and take her friend away kicking and screaming. Terrified and on the phone with her dad, she breaks down and begins to tell her dad whats going on. Liam immediately begins to get tracking equipment and recording devices together and hooked into his phone. He tells her to get into the bedroom and under the bed and instructs her on whats going to happen in a matter of moments. “They are going to take you. Leave the phone on the floor and scream out as much as you can about what you see…” The men enter the room, talk a little and then leave… thinking she is okay she gets back on the phone but as she does she is taken away and begins to scream out like her dad told her to… then… nothing. Neeson is still on the phone listening and hears the kidnapper pick up… he gives the kidnapper an option, “leave her go and I will not chase you, I will not pursue you. Take her and I will pursue you, I will find you, and I will kill you.” The voice on the other end simply says, “Good Luck.”

With that, Liam is off on a mission. Those buddies of his, yeah they got the hook up in their own areas. Liam already knows where she was going and staying, his buddies inform him about the guy on the phone… using all the good CIA tools they tell Liam who the guy most likely is, that he’s part of a kidnapping ring where they steal women and sell them off underground for whatever purpose. He is also told that he has a maximum of 96 hours before she is gone forever. From there on it’s a wild goose chase with Liam finding the “random stranger” and running into an old friend of the agency… Eventually Liam does find his man… (and MAN does he take care of business) but there is more… plenty more… but enough of this. Let me tell you that I loved this movie. When I saw the ad I loved it, when I saw the movie I jumped up and clapped my hands, “YES!” finally someone got it right! I didn’t want to see any random love story, I didn’t want any BS, I just wanted to see Liam Neeson kill everyone and get his daughter back. And THAT is exactly what I got!!! Taken, it delivers what it promises! See it!!!

After that we downloaded Skype so Maria could talk to her friend Leah in Nebraska! We loaded it up, played around and eventually found Leah in the directory and started making calls! It took a few times to get the video right, but after restarting all the programs and starting clean, Leeer, Lil Violet and Keef came through with no problems! The sound was great and there was no lag, what a cool little app! And it’s free! I also tried to hook up Google Video Chat but may have jumped into it a bit prematurely without restarting and everything like we did when we talked to Leah. I attempted a chat with a buddy, Alex, but it was unsuccessful at the time. I had shut down and began watching TV for the night and never got back to him… sorry dude! Ill catch up with you later tho! So overall the purchase was a success. We now have our webcam, we are on Skype and I have DVD-Rs to support my habit! Life is good!

The Wrestler, like I said, is probably the closest thing to a come back Rourke will have. He has already been cast in a number of upcoming films and has recently won a Golden Globe for his portrail of the wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson. He is even making an appearance in the next Wrestlemania where he will face off against professional wrestler Chris Jericho. During his speech he said, “Sometimes when a man’s alone, all you got is your dog and they meant the world to me.” A very touching sentiment about how when Hollywood forgot about him all he had was his dogs. Some people will never understand that quote. Some media outlets will make fun of it and criticize Rourke for it, but I understand it. I get it. I thought it was a fitting “Thank You” for the little guys that got him through the tough times.

Along the lines of John Travolta, who came back to life with the ever-popular Pulp Fiction, and most notabley Robert Downey Jr., who just cant seem to turn down a role anymore; Mickey Rourke is on his way back to the top. With more movie companies realizing we want to see the big guns instead of the newbies in the latest films, it looks like there will be a solid place for Rourke to stand.

Call of Duty: World at War is a first-person shooter video game. It is developed by Treyarch and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. It is the fifth installment in the Call of Duty series. The game is set in the Pacific Theater and Eastern Front of World War II.

The story focuses on the final battles of World War II in the Pacific and Eastern Europe involving the United States, the Empire of Japan, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany. It is told from the perspectives of a Marine Raider and a Red Army soldier and is based on several historical battles, including the raid on Makin Island, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Peleliu, the Battle of Seelow Heights, the Battle of Okinawa, and the Battle of Berlin. The multiplayer portion of the game contains various game modes and contains a leveling system that allows the player to unlock additional weapons and rewards as they progress, which was originally implemented in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. A new feature to the Call of Duty series is cooperative mode, which can support up to four players online and two offline.

I purchased the game over last weekend when I found out that they were having a double XP weekend. What does that mean? Well, let me get geeky with you for a second. When you play multiplayer games (games with up to 20 players from all over connected by the internet and XBOX live servers) you receive points (XP) for kills and task you accomplish throughout the game. When you build up enough XP you move up in rank in the game and begin to unlock new features, weapons and challenges. Over the weekend they doubled the normal amount of points you receive for kills and task. This set me up for moving through the ranks fairly quickly. I had seen friends of mine playing the game for the last month or two since it came out. I tried to hold out but could resist no longer since my favor with Gears Of War 2 had gone. In other words, it got boring.

I enjoy playing the multiplayer matches with friends of mine (who happen to be really stinking good) and it really adds a nice comfort to the game. A nice perk of the recent XBOX update is the ability to party up outside of the game and then play the game in multiplayer mode. Normally in some games when your character dies, you loose communications, however if you party up outside and then go in, you can continue to speak with your teammates. This nice feature also eliminates the in-game chatter that you usually hear. Most of the time I can do with out the in-game chat. Too many times you get these little kids playing the game who have nothing better to do then talk trash, yell, curse, play annoying music and just generally make the game play suffer.

Some new features in the game are the addition of attack dogs in place of COD4’s helicopter support. A great feature to combat the hiding in buildings that usually happened in 4. This time you have the very mobile and vicious attack dogs that will run into building to attack you opponents. But don’t think they are invincible. Just as you can be shot or stabbed, so can the dogs. You’ll notice that dogs attacking you are black, dogs you send out have a typical German Shepherd look. Airstike has been replaced with Artillery strike. They work and act similarly… not as great as you’d hope! Some new perk features include shades which help you see through flares, fireproof for resistance to flame throwers and the flame thrower itself is a new addition which is quite wicked! So far I am very pleased with this game. I do like it more than Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in the regards of level design and game play. This edition of the series seems much more colorful and the levels have more natural barriers and barricades, hideaways and flanking routes that the last edition. It is overall, just more fun. I have yet to go through the actual single player game, but the first couple levels that I have completed have been no disappointment. So I would think it’s safe to say that Activision has another hit on it’s hands. Now if we can stop them from making a new Call Of Duty and just improve and add on to the current one, I think we’ll have a game we can play for a long long time!

If that wasn’t bad enough, there was a woman who came in with a folder full of “songs she wrote this year” as well as diagrams and “stuff off the internet” of various vocal chord images and structures, human anatomy and the best part about it was that she couldn’t pronounce a single bit of it. Her outfit was just as bad. It looked as if she came right off the street (as if she’d been living there) with her big coat, ripped jeans and the knee-high black boots which the jeans were tucked into. When interviewed by Seacrest she called the Trachea (tray-key-ah), “TRAYSHEEA”! Maria and I rolled laughing! “Oh my god, did she actually say that?” Not only did she say it, but she meant every word of it. After Seacrest corrected her, she corrected him back by once again calling it the “TRAYSHEEA”. Other nice faux pas included her referring to the Larynx (lair-inks), as the “LARNIX” and uses of the prefix “mis” in just about every word where it’s not appropriate. Overall I would say the night was pretty weak. There are many more mediocre singers and “performers” getting through. I’m not sure what this says about American Idol… I do know what it says for my prediction… SPOT ON! so far. For the folks not aware of the Larynx joke… man I hope you know why we’re making such a big deal about it… Here is some information about the Larynx:

The larynx (plural larynges), colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the trachea and sound production. The larynx houses the vocal folds, and is situated just below where the tract of the pharynx splits into the trachea and the esophagus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larynx