5 Things on a Friday: Acoustic Metallica!

Friday!  Let’s get it on!!!

#SBRLLR: Losing My Father (Part 1)

 “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”

― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2

“You need to come home,” my mother said during a phone call in early February 2007.

Again? I thought.  “What’s going on?”

Quick Thoughts: Ralph Breaks the Internet

Sally, the kids, and I saw Ralph Breaks the Internet over the weekend, and we all liked it.  Most of the reviews I’ve seen talk about the ways in which the movie cleverly captures the quirks of online life, and I agree that they did a nice job with that.  But the movie also went to kind of a lot of trouble to get into issues of toxic masculinity and girl power, and while I think those aspects are great in concept, it’s this that I wanted to talk about.  Bottom line, I didn’t love some of the movie’s basic premise nor the way the plot resolved itself.

*Spoilers Below*

No seriously.  I am gonna get straight into the movie’s climax right after the jump.

5 Things on a Friday: It’s Officially Christmas Season

I'm actually excited for Christmas this year.  I think that marks a certain amount of personal growth.

This is how I plan to commute to New York City this month.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite days of the year.  There aren't any presents to worry about, lots of football is on TV, and we have abundant friends to keep us in good cheer.  It's great!  This year, we're headed over to our friends Bruce and Tammy's house.  I don't even have to grill the turkey because Bruce is doing it.

I'm getting over!

#SBRLLR: Building a Life (Part 3)

My mom came up for ten days right after we brought Hannah home from the hospital.  I don’t know why I thought this would be a good idea.  She second-guessed our every move, tried to undermine Sally’s confidence as a mother by insisting that Hannah liked my mother more than she liked Sally, complained endlessly when we made her go out onto the fire escape to smoke her cigarettes, and generally drove us as crazy as she possibly could.  She refused to cook, got inexplicably angry when we tried to eat healthy, natural foods instead of pre-processed crap out of cans, and complained constantly about having to walk up the three flights of stairs to get to our apartment.  By the time she left, Sally made me promise that we wouldn’t have to see her again for a good, long while.  I had little choice but to agree.

Pics from Senior Day: Army 28, Colgate 14

Sally and I took nearly 200 pictures at the game on Saturday.  I wound up using just a few in my write-up, but there were lots more that were worth sharing.

Selected additions are below.  What a game!

Obligatory selfie at Michie Stadium.

Go Army!  Beat Navy!!!

Black Flag!

AFF and Academy Casual are running a limited-time sale.  If you've been looking for a way to support As For Football (and my writing in general), here's your chance.

Black Flag t-shirt from Academy Casual.

Shirts are $28.  Flags are $30.  Proceeds go towards offsetting the costs associated with running AsForFootball.Com.

Thanks for your support.

Saturday New & Notes: Beat Colgate!

Hey folks.  The Saturday Celebration posts weren't doing a lot over at AFF, so we tried something new and moved that particular discussion to Thursday.  I'm not sure it did any better on Thursday, but the end result freed up the Saturday spot here, and here we are.

Some of the stories I'm following this weekend are after the jump.

5 Things on a Friday: Did I Mention That It Snowed?

Happy Friday, folks.  We’re 'bout to get our weekend started right!

Thursday turned out to be a cold day in Hell.

#SBRLLR: Building a Life (Part 2)

My wife fell pregnant about a week after we got back from our honeymoon, and we decided that she should take some time off from teaching once the school year ended.  This wasn’t meant to be permanent, but the way things worked out, she never made it back into the classroom.  

I was on out one night working on a hit utility pole in the North Bronx when Sally called me hysterically to tell me that she was bleeding.  I rushed home, thankful for once that my boss had been on the scene with me.  I held my wife in my arms and wondered helplessly what I could do.

5 Things on a Friday: The As For Football College Football Show

Happy Friday, everybody!  Let’s go.

#SBRLLR: Building a Life (Part 1)

 “Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

― George Bernard Shaw

Sally and I had dinner at a little Italian restaurant called La Scalla a couple of months after she got back from Romania.  We weren’t sure where we were going to get married, but we knew that it would be a small ceremony.  Neither of us had a lot of friends in Hoboken, nor did we want to waste money on an event that we were most certainly going to have to finance on our own.  I studied La Scalla’s menu, decided on a steak topped with gorgonzola cheese, and looked up to find Sally staring at me expectantly.

Saturday Celebration!

Via Instagram.

Talking about all the big games today and a couple of the little ones.  Link: AsForFootball.Com.

Thanks to my buddy Brian for taking this shot at last year's beat-down.  We used it in the post-game recap.

5 Things on a Friday: End of Season Projections

Happy Friday, folks.

Man, this week has been crawling.  I am so ready to head up to Michie Stadium and...

Let’s go!

SBRLLR: Choosing Something Real (Part 3)

Time passed in a blur.  Sally and I met at Pier A, hung out, and then got smoothies at the local shake shop.  We met again the following Friday for a dinner date at one of the local Italian places, Sally in a slinky black dress.  The owner brought out complimentary shots of some Italian liqueur that left us both stumbling onto the sidewalk afterwards, and from there we walked back down to Pier A, kissed on the park benches, and decided to go to a New Jersey water park the next day.  Sally showed up for that wearing a black string bikini, and I was astonished to realize that I hadn’t even noticed her pin-up girl’s figure until our fourth date.  We spent a glorious day splashing aimlessly alongside the park's various slides and fountains before coming back to my place, putting on a movie, and falling asleep in one another’s arms.  

In mere days, Sally had become a fixture in my life.  She was the piece I’d been missing.  We’d both gone through rough patches, but together I thought we could take on anything.