Dish Cable for Only $9.99!

Hey there friends. I received my satellite bill and I must say, I feel like I need to chop an arm and a leg just to get it paid. With a new addition to our family on his or her way, I'm taking a close look at our expenditures, dropping or trimming expenses where I can. Though I love my football, I have come to except that I may have to cut our satellite TV programming for something more affordable and reliable. Well, how does $9.99 a month sound to you?

That's right. Our good friends at the Dish Network have put a package together where you can get cable TV for the low price of $9.99 a month. It doesn't get much better than this. Oh wait, it does! If you sign up now, you may be eligible to receive one of 4 gifts. How about an Apple Ipod, with 50 free downloads sound to you? Or how about a home theater system to compliment your new Dish Network cable?

And boy, do they know how to sweeten the pot. Sign up now and you'll receive a free HD upgrade. Which includes 6 months of free HD programming and 3 months free of HBO and Starz movie channels. This is something that is definitely a good deal. For more information, click out the image below and read about this great offer. Later!

Guitar Hero: Metallica - Dyers Eve

Hey there. HOLY CRAP! I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL SUNDAY!!!

Bioshock: Vita-Chambers = No Acheivement

Hey there. Last night, I finally got to getting through Bioshock on the hardest difficulty, HARD. It took some time because my initial run through of the game was just to get through it. Well, because the XBOX 360 has achievements, I just had to go through the game again to obtain them. One of the more difficult achievements require you to get through the game without dying. Any gamer that can do that, will be awarded with the achievement badge and can be displayed proudly on XBOX Live. I managed to do it. I finally got through all the Big Daddies, all the Little Sisters and kicked Atlas' ass. What? No achievement?!?!?! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Time to Check Out the Dolphins

Hey there friends. It's the first day of Spring and the Winter cold is about to subdue. Cloudy skies will be less frequent and the sun will begin to warm us up more and more as Summer approaches. Now is the perfect time to start planning, and saving, for a trip to SeaWorld. San Diego is about a 2 hour drive from Los Angeles and, personally, I've never been there. The last family trip down to San Diego ended up being a trip to the San Diego Zoo. Not a bad family trip, but boy, was it hot and we constantly mentioned that Sea World would have been a lot cooler, considering that there would be water everywhere. I promised the family a trip to Sea World the next time around and why not now rather then later?

Maybe it's just me, but there also seems to be this wave of dolphin mania sweeping the States. There have been reports of pink dolphins swimming in the wild, which definitely turned heads, and there seems to be more and more intellectual "findings", if not just to mention, dolphins in the news. Even ABC's World News did a piece on dolphins and their natural phenomenon, dolphin bubbles .



Just look at those amazing rings? They're beautiful. They way they form just seems to defy the natural laws but look at how effortlessly they're created by the dolphin's blow holes. But not only are they able to create them, they can manipulate them as well. Look at how they make them change direction or seem to pass them back and forth with each other as if the dolphin bubbles are balls. Are dolphins are simply one of the worlds most talented and graceful creatures.

I know that Sea World Orlando has the dolphin cove where you can witness this in person. I'm not sure if the San Diego Sea World does, so I need to call them up to see if I can witness this in person. I'm sure that the kids will get a trip out of this, since they huge animal lovers and when we go to Sea World, this would definitely be a sight to see.

Check out the Dolphin Bubbles site for all things dolphins. Facts, pictures, video, they have it all. You can can also interact with other dolphin enthusiasts by leaving bubbles (comments) on their posts.

A Baby Shredder?!?

Hey there. I work in an office. There's all kinds of standard office machines here: copy machine, fax machine, "pdf" machine, etc. We also have a shredder, which I don't really use but it's nice to know that we have it. Well, yesterday, I took a good hard look at our shredder. Looks pretty high tech and it has this glowing blue light on it... and it's shiny. lol Men are usually attracted to shiny things and this was no different.

So while looking at the machine, I see the warning symbol and I assumed that the symbols below are the things to avoid putting in the shredder. Let's see, there's the standard stuff there, like hair. Gotta make sure your hair isn't caught in the machine. There's the hand. You don't want to have you hand sliced off. There's the tie. Don't want it to get caught and then you get choked to death. There's also a spray symbol. I'm assuming that the liquid would screw with the electronic components. Then there's the baby. Wait... WHAT?!?!! A BABY? Are you serious?


Zoom in on the symbols, if you can't see it very well. I'm having a hard time believing that the manufacturer of this machine was compelled to advise the consumer to NOT place a baby in the shredder. Did this happen somewhere that I was not aware of? The slot is not big enough for a baby so why even think of putting a symbol for something that is not physically possible? C'mon now. Are we that stupid that we need to be reminded that a baby does not go in the shredder? Then again, if a woman is calling 911 because a McDonalds ran out of chicken nuggets, I guess we do. Later!

The Worst Childhood Punishment

Hey there. We love the Kevin & Bean show on the "World Famous KROQ" radio station. We listen to it every morning on our way to work. For those of you that are not familiar with it, it's a talk radio show filled with silly discussions, lots of comedy, some idiotic antics thrown in for flavor, with some pretty bad ass music sprinkled in from time to time. One of today's topics of discussion was childhood punishments. They read an Email from a fan stating how her mother used to lick her face or armpit to keep her in check. Face or armpit... I don't think I have ever heard of a parent licking their kid to keep 'em in check. I do see how it could work, though. You embarrass the hell out of them and see if they'll do it again knowing that you're on the prowl ready to lick them. lol Some of the others that were mentioned as punishments included hot wax, soap in the mouth, and belt snapping. There was also the more traditional go to bed without dinner (which my mother in law finds extremely cruel), grounding, and timeouts. I didn't get a chance to hear the whole discussion but I was tempted to call in with some of the punishments that were handed down to me as a child.

Let me be frank. I was horrible. Jumping off of roofs, jumping off balconies, smashing windows, throwing "dirt" rocks at cars, which sometimes were not dirt... Young Metallman was a real pain in the ass. I remember being punished constantly. I remember running away from my aunt cause she was ready to whip me for being bad. I'm pretty sure she ended up getting me, since we lived in the same place. lol She'd whip us with an extension cord. That's right, regular old belt had no effect on us. lol I also used to be locked in the bathroom as punishment. I remember someone putting in one of those bar sliding locks on the out side of the door to keep someone from coming out of the bathroom. lol I guess those were my "time outs" since the bathroom is one boring ass place to just be in. Especially when you don't have to use it. And they were lengthy stays, too. Up to an hour, if I remember correctly. Then there was the "hand to the flame" thing. Whenever I got caught stealing or touching/breaking something that I shouldn't have been messing around with, I'd get the, "Te voy a quemar las manos!!!" (I'm going to burn your hands!) My grandma was usually the one that would carry this one out. She'd turn on one of the burners on the stove and grabbed my hand and slowly inched towards the flame. She never really burned my hand, but always got it close enough where you definitely felt the heat.

I deserved those punishments. You have to pay the price if you plan on doing the crime. Where they effective? I don't know. lol I'm not stealing, breaking windows, or being bad now, so I guess they worked. But then again, it could just be that I grew out of it.

I'm sure that many of us parents have our own methods, traditional or unorthodox, of punishing our kids. Of the above methods, I've really only used the bathroom punishment, but I did not go as far as installing a lock on the outside. If the kids really wanted, they could probably just walk out when they pleased. We usually do this to our little one, who sometimes just refuses to listen or clean up. After several warnings, we tell her that she's going to get timeout. She spends no more than a minute in there but I'm sure for a child that age, it must be hell.

Thinking back, I'm wondering if the methods used on me were considered "normal". A comment made on the Kevin & Bean show sparked that debate, since the child who got licked thought it was normal until a friend of hers told her otherwise. What kind of methods do you use to keep in line? What kind were used on you as kid? Think back, friends. lol We all had a little bad side to us, even if most of us don't want to admit it. Later!