We aren’t even safe in our own homes from killer beasts. A lady in our community found an alligator in her kitchen after returning from a friends house. Apparently the gator busted through her screened in lanai and she like many people in the neighborhood just leave their sliding glass doors open to let the breeze through. Well this gator busted through and wandered into her kitchen. The lady called 911 and the operator, who I’m sure thought this was a prank call, asked the lady if she was sure it wasn’t an iguana or gecko. The damn thing was 8 and a half feet long.

Luckily this wasn’t at our place, our animals would have been swallowed up. Haley would have tried to play with the thing, Jeter would have sniffed it’s butt then been chewed on, and then Rocko probably would have just ran away so he would’ve have lived. I would have crapped my pants and then peed all over myself just for extra measure. It’s scary to think the hundreds of times I’ve gone outside at night, not thinking about it to take Haley out. From now on all doors are closed and no one leaves the house past 9.

I would just like to give a big shout out to worthless America. I’m talking about all you douches who decided to take out loans you can’t actually afford and screw over the banks. Then you have this crazy idea that the Government should bail you out of your sorrow, that you got yourself into. Because of you Mr. and Mrs. Douchebag, banks and lenders have put the wraps on approving honest borrowers like myself.

It’s funny that the Government wants to “fix” this whole mess by allowing lenders to give more “affordable” loans to those that have already borrowed money. So apparently someone who can’t pay their bills will get help while people that do pay their bills get nothing at all. Then as a first time home-buyer I’m left with the same tight restrictions because those same people that are going to get “help” couldn’t pay their bills in the first place. Really this entire crisis is because people don’t know how to invest in a home purchase and thought they would buy these extravagant houses on a variable rate loan because in 3 years their house would appreciate so much that they could turn around and sell it. These people still think Enron would be a great investment for their portfolios.

People need to take responsibility for their horrible decision to invest their entire life savings into a house they couldn’t afford. You made a bad investment. When you lose money in the stock market do you expect the company that you invest in to pay you back? No. I say to hell with these people and you deserve to be kicked out on your ass. It’s called an apartment complex, go live there.

Everyday I drive through our neighbor hood about 4 or 5 times day. I’m constantly reminded that people don’t rent their entire lives and do grow up and actually buy a house. Right now Reena and I are renting a Villa/Townhome place from my boss. It’s a perfect place cause I have about a 10 minute drive to work and it’s centrally located to everything we need. Close to Reena’s school, Target, and Publix. The problem is, trying to find a home in this neighborhood would cost at least 300k and I don’t really care to triple our monthly payment.

So I have started researching mortgages, homes in the Odessa and Land O Lakes area. They are about 30 minutes away from work and are actually pretty conveniently located from Tampa, malls, the airport. The market right now is quite favorable for buyers and in the area we are looking we can get a pretty decent sized house for the price. I’m currently reviewing some agents to help us out and will be touring some houses I’m sure in the next few weeks. It’s a pretty exciting feeling, so I’ll be sure to keep you all updated. Hopefully I can get some pictures of some of the houses we tour.

I wonder sometimes, when building a new site, does design even matter that much? Sure there are things like making sure the navigation and certain elements are easy to find.. I get that. But do the actual designed elements of the site even matter? Take a look at www.paparazzi-boutique.com and tell me if you find that at all visually appealing? At first glance to me, I was repulsed. There are so many bad things going on with the site, but the navigation is relatively easy to find, the basic functions of the site work, and it loads alright.

Reena took a look at this site and couldn’t see anything wrong with it. She thought it was fine and couldn’t understand why I had such a problem with it. Granted she does spend 10 hours on Myspace everyday, so her idea of “design” is a little skewed. Now what really gets my blood boiling with a site like this is how someone can pay a company to design and develop something like this, and then on top of that, go back to this company and have them develop a shopping cart system as well.

Does the average user, the main visitor of a site, really care if the site is visually appealing, or do they just care about getting the information they need? Does it matter how that information is delivered? Has Myspace ruined any progress that the design world has tried to make in the last 10 years?

So I found out on Friday that I will be a father to a baby boy in July. Probably the most exciting day of my life. I never thought anything would pass up the day I got the call from the Rangers, but last Friday beat it by a landslide. So take that Texas Rangers, you are nothing to me, oh wait I was nothing to you so techinically you won. Anyways, seeing the developing spine for some reason took my breath away. It has totally passed up the heart beat in the nascar race that is amazing sonogram things. Shake and bake. Shake and bake.

One day my child is flicker on the screen, now he has a spine. Simply the most amazing experience of my life. I did find myself wondering if it was appropriate to play beer pong and have a child. Not sure how that got in there during the sonogram, but my mind is wonderland. I think he would be cool with it. Daddy is really bad at beer pong so he would get drunk and make a fool out of himself and what child does not enjoy seeing their parents act like idiots. Plus he would could hear Brett say “Drano” and then we could both make fun of him and Brett would be outnumbered and have no comeback. mmmmm, I am sure children services would look down on it, but it might work. Might want to ask the wife before hand though so I will get back to you on that one.

On a sad note, this is the final year for Dodger Town. This truly saddens me. Baseball needs Dodger towns and its other historic icons. With Roger, Barry and their kind ruining the game, this place is baseball in its purist form. If you have not been, please make sure you go, well worth the trip. I will always remember Tommy Lasorda giving a speech to a bunch of minor leaguers and just hammerin away on them. You just don’t get that close to icons.

Also, Al Lang field in St. Petersburg is its final year. St. Petersburg has been the home of the Cardinals, Yankees, Mets and D-Rays. All time greats have called this place home. The Devil Rays are moving to Port Toilet next year and no team is set to take their place. Another iconic place looses out. Hopefully something will happen.

On the Devil Rays front I am excited for this season. Wathcing Kazmir, Shields and Garza should make more games interesting. My little league bullpen was probably deeper, but at least they made an effort. Plus no more Dukes and Young. They give cancer a bad name. Seriously, the D-Rays need to go meet with the Twins front office on how to build talent. Have you ever seen a bonus baby from the Twins act like an idiot? I think not. They play the game right. Hopefully Upton will continue with his positive transformation, if not, get rid of him.

All I got, going to Just Surrender on Tuesday with Brett, so we can let you know how sweet the show is. I am going to rate it a 8 out of 10 prior to going in. Might be a 10 out of 10 depending on the number of PBRs i have.

I like taking a trip every now and then to Barnes and Noble to pick up the most recent Practical Web Design magazine. I then find myself browsing through all of the other techie books that I should really read. I get about 3 or 4 in my hand then add up the prices on those bad boys. It’s usually always over 100 dollars. I mean 100 dollars is a small price to pay to help better your computer hacking skills.. but it’s still 100 dollars. What I have been doing lately is checking out the books I want real quick then once I get home just jump on Amazon. I can find ALL the books I want for half price easily.

Last night I had magazines/books that would have totaled about 130 bucks. I was about 2 minutes from just getting them because I’m extremely impatient like that. Instead I put them back and hopped on Amazon when I got home. Got everything for 50 bucks. The other awesome thing about Amazon, is their shipping. For some reason even if you just get the standard shipping rate, you’ll have your order in about 2 days. It’s pretty sweet buying something on Saturday and it showing up on your doorstep on Monday.. without having to fork over 30 bucks for overnight delivery. Amazon is definitely the way to go.

There are a couple of songs in my iTunes that when come on, just instantly motivate me and get me all jazzed up. Some are from the baseball days, when I’d listen to Death Metal to get myself geared up. I got me thinking of what other types of songs people listen to to get themselves pumped up and excited. For getting ready for a baseball game or beating the snot out of 12 year olds in Call of Duty 4 I listen to either/or:

Three Days Grace - “Animal I have Become”
Slipknot - “Wait and Bleed”
Emarosa - “Utah”
A Day to Remember - “Speak of the Devil”
Tears Don’t Fall - “Bullet for My Valentine”

Slipknot would probably be the best for getting me insanely worked up. I used to listen to that song before every game I pitched in college. I would make sure to be the last one off the bus while I waited back and pulled a mini Dwight Shrute by rocking out to that song. Really any song that has heavy guitar riffs, loud drums, and good intense screaming will get the blood flowing. Later I’ll follow up with a list of songs that calms me down and makes me more productive.

Recently I have been slowly creeping back into the gaming world. I used to be a huge Xbox Live fan but for awhile I was just to busy to keep paying for something I hardly used. Just the other day I hopped back on and played some Call of Duty 4. The online play of this game is amazing. It isn’t just running around killing 12 and 13 year olds yelling “OWND!” that makes this game so much fun, it’s the ranking system. As you play the game there are challenges and milestones you accomplish to boost your rank and open up more weapons and fun!

This got me thinking about some of the great video games. Online gaming is on another realm compared to regular single player games, so I can’t take those into consideration for “Best Video Game Ever”. The game that stands out the most for me is Final Fantasy VII. I can remember getting the game during Christmas break, I believe it was my junior or senior year of High School. I had never played a Final Fantasy before this one, but had watched my older brother play countless hours and never really understood the excitement about it.

The Final Fantasy series continues to grow and grow, but in it’s early stages it was Zelda but 100 times slower. It wasn’t until VII that the game took off in a new direction. Although my recollection of the storyline today is a little hazy, I do remember it capturing my attention and not allowing me to put down the controller for a solid week. There were so many things about the game that pulled me in. At one time you want to beat the game but then at the same time you don’t want it to be over. Aside from the main quest of the story there were multiple side adventures that you could do to waste even more time of your life. From Chocobo racing to trying to beat the Machines, the game seemed endless.. until it actually did end. VII, I believe, is the Best Video Game Ever.