So a few weeks ago Jesse was gone and the rest of us were talking about Facebook.  I had mentioned that I really like reconnecting with friends from high school and college…and I do!  It’s fun to find out what people have been doing for the past 20 years, see pictures of their families, relive old memories, etc.

The discussion centered on who you “friend” and who you don’t.  A friend of mine from high school sent me a “friend suggestion”, which is where you suggest to someone that they add a mutual friend. The suggestion was for my high school girlfriend.  We were together for about four years from high school to college.  To say it ended badly would be an understatement, but I was under the impression we had made nice at least to the point where we were still friends.  I had left the request alone for a few weeks at the point of our conversation.  Had she sent me a friend request, I would accept - being the good guy that I am.  But if I sent the request, it would put me out there in an uncomfortable place.  I discussed it with the rest of the show, and Amanda and Chuck said yes send it… intern Ty said not to.

I went with the consensus and sent the friend request.  That was two weeks ago.  Today I was writing something on a different classmate’s wall and saw the ex-girlfriend’s picture in her friend’s column, so I checked the status. She has not accepted my friend request.  So, now I look like a tool.  This especially stinks because as high school sweethearts, we hung out with all the same people.  I should have just gone with my gut (and Ty’s advice) and just deleted it.

The moral of the story… don’t follow Amanda’s advice.

This morning we were talking about one of my favorite college jobs, working at Disc Jockey Records at the Oakwood Mall in Eau Claire, WI.  It was the best job ever!  We got to hear all the new music as (or before) it came out, and while there was plenty of work to get done, we always managed to screw around and have fun.

The topic came up because we were talking about the So You Think You Can Dance auditions coming to Denver this Thursday and Jesse took the opportunity to have me dance for everybody.  Back when we used to work at the record store, my buddy Jeff and I used to stop whatever we were doing and do the Color Me Badd dance whenever the “I Wanna Sex You Up” video came on.  In reality, this probably lasted only a week or two, but it was damn funny.  You can watch the video of me doing the dance on the Jesse & Shotgun show page on 925thewolf.com.

The other thing that rocked about working in the mall was what we called the Mall Professional Lunch.  We had it down.  You would go to a different restaurant for each part of your meal.  For example, Arby’s fries, a chili cheese burrito from Taco Bell, and a frosty from Wendy’s.  We’d also take advantage of whoever was having specials that day.  Ah, to be 19 with money in my pocket and no bills again.

As a self professed fan of Harry Potter, the subject of which movies are “cult movies” or not is a recurring topic on our show.  My co-host Jesse seems to be under the impression that it includes any movie in which he has no interest that makes lots of money.  LOL.  Let’s take a second to clear up the confusion…

From Wikipedia: A cult film is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside of the small fanbases Cult films often become the source of a thriving, obsessive, and elaborate subculture of fandom, hence the analogy to cults. However, not every film with a rabid fanbase is necessarily a cult film.

The term cult film is used to describe a film that has had little to no success commercially and critically upon its initial release but has later spawned a small, but devoted and usually obsessive fanbase.

So movies that Jesse considers cult movies
Dark Knight - $158 million opening weekend - $997 million total.
Harry Potter (we’ll just the first movie) - $88 million opening weekend - $878 million total.
Lord of the Rings (again… just the first one) - $47 million opening weekend - $870 million total.
Pirates of the Caribbean (yep… 1st one) $46 million opening weekend - $654 million total.

Movies he digs:
Friday Night Lights - 20 million opening weekend, 61 million total.
Road House - $5.9 million opening weekend - $30 million total.
Animal House - $276 thousand opening weekend.  141 million total.

So, if we are sticking to the definition of what cult films are rather than what is perceived to be cool… I don’t appear to be the one in the cult.  Ha ha ha…

I’ll check in with you next week, I have to go pick up my Hogwarts uniform from the cleaners.  Grif-fin-dor!

As many of you know, I’ve been working on some weight loss for over a year.  With the help of Slim 4 Life, I’m 40 pounds lighter than I was at this time last year.  I’m at the weight I should be now and pretty much just have to watch my portions and be careful of the food I eat.  As I tell my 8-year-old, you never stop being on a diet.

The hardest thing when watching your weight is eating out at restaurants.  Now the truth is, any and all restaurants have healthy(er) options on the menu for you to choose.  These are NOT those options… I came across a list of the Worst Food in America of 2009 according to Men’s Health magazine.  Keep in mind while reading this that the average adult should consume about 2,000 - 2,500 calories DAILY!

The Worst Food in America: Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake 2,600 calories 135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats) 263 g sugars 1,700 mg sodium

Worst Pasta of 2009: Romano’s Macaroni Grill Spaghetti and Meatballs with Meat Sauce 2,430 calories

Worst Appetizer of 2009: Uno Chicago Grill Pizza Skins (full order) 2,400 calories 155 g fat (50 g saturated) 3,600 mg sodium

Worst Pizza of 2009: Uno Chicago Grill Chicago Classic Deep Dish Pizza 2,310 calories 162 g fat 123 g carbohydrates 4,470 mg sodium

Worst Ribs of 2009: Outback Steakhouse Baby Back Ribs (full rack) 2,260 calories

Worst Sandwich of 2009: Quizno’s Tuna Melt (large) 2,090 calories 175 g fat (31 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats) 2,190 mg sodium

Worst Breakfast of 2009: Bob Evans Stacked and Stuffed Caramel Banana Pecan Hotcakes 1,543 calories 77 g fat (26 g saturated; 9 g trans) 2,259 mg sodium 198 g carbs 109 g sugars

Worst Burger of 2009: Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing 2,040 calories 150 g fat (53 g saturated) 110 g protein 4,900 mg sodium

Worst Mexican Entrée of 2009: Chili’s Buffalo Chicken Fajitas with The Works (Ranch Dressing, Guacamole, Sour Cream, Cheese, and Pico de Gallo + 4 tortillas) 1,730 calories 117 g fat (31 g saturated fat) 5,690 mg sodium

Worst Chinese Entrée of 2009: P.F. Chang’s Tam’s Noodles 1, 678 calories 93 g fat (17 g saturated fat)

Worst “Healthy” Sandwich of 2009: Blimpie Veggie Supreme (12”) 1,106 calories 56 g fat (33 g saturated fat) 2,831 mg sodium

Worst Breakfast Sandwich: of 2009 Hardee’s Monster Biscuit 710 calories 51 g fat (17 g saturated) 2,250 mg sodium

Worst Dessert of 2009: Romano’s Macaroni Grill Dessert Ravioli 1,630 calories 74 g fat 33 g saturated fat 1150 mg sodium 223 g carbohydrates

Worst Kids’ Meal of 2009: Chili’s Pepper Pals Country-Fried Chicken Crispers with Ranch Dressing and Homestyle Fries 1,110 calories 82 g fat (15 g saturated) 1,980 mg sodium 56 g carbohydrates

Worst Fast-Food Chicken Meal of 2009: Dairy Queen 6-Piece Chicken Strip Basket 1,270 calories 67 g fat (11 g saturated

Worst Salad of 2009: T.G.I. Fridays Pecan Crusted Chicken Salad 1,360 calories Fat: unknown (The company refuses to disclose the nutritional content of the food they’re serving you.) Sodium: unknown

I eat at all of these restaurants and love their food.  You should too, but make smart choices!  And drink lots of water.

Shotgun Weddings are back this Valentine’s Day.  It’s one of my favorite events of the year.  If you’re new to the show or the blog, each year on Valentine’s Day I “tie the knot” for a few couples live on our show.  It’s a fun time for all of us on the show.  I perform the actual ceremony, Jesse is the Best Man and Vicky is the honorary Maid of Honor.

Jesse and I are both ordained ministers, but “Jesse Weddings” aren’t funny.  LOL.  The stations promotions department always puts together some great prizes from local clients and gives our winners a pretty terrific package.

If you are thinking about getting married, sign up to win at 925thewolf.com.  Already happily married?  Tune in for the fun Friday morning, Feb. 13th.

Over 165 countries are connected to the Internet. The number grows everyday, but it is estimated that approximately 47.5 million people use the Internet in the US alone.  We are all connected in one way or another to the information we get online, whether it’s sports scores, weather information or movie times.

I try to claim that “it’s for work”, but I’m online probably at least three to four hours a day.  Checking emails, reading gossip blogs, updating facebook, etc.  So this weekend was especially painful when my internet service was down ALL WEEKEND.  I actually had to spend time talking to my wife and kids!  Seriously though, everyone expects to get a blip in service from time to time, but for two solid days is ridiculous.  I finally got on the phone with their service people yesterday from their pleasant call center overseas and after almost an hour on the phone she informed me that after double-checking my address that there was an outage in my area that was as yet unresolved.  That’s a crock of bull.  Fix the damn thing!

As of this morning, still no internet service at my house.  My first call to the service department was pleasant.  They won’t want to hear from me today!

Facebook status: “Shotgun is- a little past irritated”

(From wikipedia) The concept of spacetime combines space and time within a single coordinate system, typically with three spatial dimensions: length, width, height, and one temporal dimension: time.

Now I didn’t finish college, so I don’t really understand that stuff, but I can surely grasp the concept of time slowing down to a crawl at the beginning of a new year.  At my house the countdown to Christmas starts a few weeks before Halloween.  Seems early, but bear with me.  My girls are still young enough to be excited about trick-or-treating, so the countdown is always on for that.  My birthday is in early November.  My oldest daughter’s birthday is around Thanksgiving.  Two weeks later we’re celebrating the youngest daughter’s birthday, and then it’s just a short two weeks to Christmas.

Just about everybody looks forward to the holidays.  Even the people who rally against religious holidays can look forward to a couple free days off(Hypocrites).  Things just seem to slow down.  We all take more time to think about family and friends.  Sure the gift buying and traveling can be hectic, but especially between Christmas and New Years Eve we all find ourselves dozing off on the couch while watching football.

Then, just as our bodies start to get used to sleeping in, staying up late, and lounging around… it’s back into the rat race.  And nothing to look forward to until Memorial Day weekend.

No wonder this week is moving so slow.

My youngest daughter turned eight last week.  Having a birthday close to Christmas can be kind of a bummer.  We always go out of our way to make it special.

This year she wanted to have a bowling party, but we waited too long to book it and two weeks out they were booked solid.  So instead we decided to have a party at home.  With the weather taking a turn for the frigid, we hosted a Luau.  It was really cute.  I had a dozen second graders in my house all wearing grass skirts, flower leis, and flower ring on their heads.  They did the limbo, some beach ball games, and pin the coconut on the palm tree.  We did kind of tie in the holiday season, though.  Instead of a birthday cake, Gillian opted for a huge sheet sugar cookie.  We cut it into segments, picked up some of that squeeze frosting, and let the kids decorate and eat their own cookies.  That was a LOT of frosting, believe me.

I’m sure it was a bit of a shock to leave our house and step out into temps in the teens and snow.  The kids all had a blast… and I’ll be picking up pieces of dried grass out of my carpet for weeks.

(Mele Kalikimaka - “Merry Christmas” in Hawaiian)

I went in for my annual physical with my doctor yesterday.  Is there anything more frustrating than going to the doctors office and waiting for EVER!  If YOU are five minutes late, God help you.  But if you show up on time or even early… get ready for some quality alone time.

I had an appointment at 1:00pm yesterday.  I arrived at 12:45pm.  It was 1:30 before the nurse came to get me.  She took my weight, blood pressure and left me to sit in the examination with the normal paper toga.  Almost a full FORTY FIVE MINUTES LATER, the doctor comes in.  After about two minutes of “how are you feeling?”, the nurse comes in and tells her she has a phone call.  Terrific, another 10 minutes of reading ancient magazines in a paper toga.  Good thing they took my blood pressure early, because I’m thinking it was pretty hopping by this point.

As for the physical, my doctor was pleasantly surprised that I’d dropped 30 pounds, but still wants me to get more exercise.  I go in for some routine bloodwork later this week.  The doctor asked if I’d been fasting, but I said no.  I didn’t know I was supposed to?!?  My wife says that I’m old now and should just expect that every time. 

Nice.

Every year I take grief from Jesse because I have a fake tree. I blogged about it around this time last year where I detailed some of the reasons I don’t get a real tree.

This year I just want to point out that I am not alone and that many people who are not (as has been said on our show) “scrooges, shut-in’s, or old” still prefer the beauty and convenience of an artificial tree.

Here’s some excerpts of a recent CBS news article about the rise in popularity of artificial Christmas trees:
“Some would recoil at the thought of an artificial tree, but it’s a choice that many Americans make. Traditionalists love real trees for their scent, and some people like cutting their own tree. But artificial trees leave no needles to clean up and come in a variety of styles and colors. Prelit Christmas trees, which come with the lights already on them, are very popular.

Buying a Christmas tree is practically like buying a car, what with all the options. [Like] an upside-down corner tree and a half tree that can be used as a space saver. Some trees are made out of polyvinyl chloride.

Prelit trees also come with a variety of lights: white, colored, two-tone, fiber optic, and LEDs, or light emitting diodes. Some lights look like pinecones with melting snow.

There are also the trees that don’t try to hide their fakeness, like tinsel tree and ice crystal tree.

Certainly the artificial trees are fast and easy — two qualities Americans look for in everything. More than half the Christmas trees displayed in our homes this year will be artificial.”

If doing the real tree forest trek is your thing… that’s cool. I’ll be sitting in my living room - with the tree already done - watching Jimmy Stewart on TV and drinking hot chocolate.

Ho Ho Ho!