Month: July 2009

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Jet Blue – IAD to MCO

I am going to write as this flight progresses from IAD to MCO.

[14:30]
I was originally at a window seat with my brother and mother being the other two in my row. However, since we had a group of 16, there was an odd cousin who was sitting by herself. She asked to switch seats and after a little merry go round, my dad ended up in my row, my cousin across that row with a couple of other relatives and me in an empty row by myself.

[17:00]
There isn’t anything to complain right now as each seat has it’s own tv and with an empty row, it means I have multiple screens to watch. Right now I have ESPNews and GOLTV on which has been showing ridiculous goals since the flight took off.

[17:10]
The flight has been quite turbulent so far, definitely the most turbulence I’ve ever felt on a flight in my very light career in the air.

[17:29]
I was thinking about taking a nap by the crew came around asking what kind of drinks we want and I’m not going to nap and pass up my free drink.

Also on a side note, I just saw ESPN’s My Wish piece with Jimmy Rollins and a kid named Shaq. Such a great series that ESPN does once a year… great stuff.

[17:32]
Drinks are still not here and the yawns are getting more frequent. I’m not sure I’ll make it staying awake much longer.

[17:45]
The most ridiculous Ben Stiller movie is on. I just can’t remember the name right now but it’s the one with the museum and everything in it comes to life including dinosaurs and explorers such as Louis and Clark.

[18:02]
Even with all the turbulence, the arrival time is still 5 minutes ahead. It has been a pretty quick flight even though I have stayed awake the entire time… and for those that know me, that doesn’t happen very often.

[18:12]
The decent is well under way now. The sun is shining brightly through my window as I type this and the cars are very visible down on the street below. A much more populated area than I expected Orlando to look from up here but it could be that I don’t know what I’m talking about.

A cousin just asked aloud if you can see Dwight Howard from here and I’m sure if he was standing up on the ground, he would be visible.

Current weather looks very sunny, temperature was announced to be in the high 80s but the clouds here look to be very ominous. Please weather, do behave for my duration here until Wednesday.

[18:25]
Approaching the MCO Airport and here’s the land on the runway. A little bumpier than the other ones I have been on but I’m sure the weather had much to do with that.

I’m also pretty sure that I just saw a lightning strike a bit far away but the weather here again is still looking to be pretty good.

A very smooth flight overall and awesome JetBlue staff really showing why they are rated #1 in customer service.

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How Many Brown People Does It Take…

Here is the problem:

so here is a problem:

family of 4 – car
family of 4 – van
family of 3 – car
family of 5 – car

we’re going to end up parking one car at the airport since its only 15 minutes away.

what’s the best way to get everyone to the airport and be left with one car at the airport and all the other cars parked back at home?

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Fight Night Round 4

I played the demo for Fight Night Round 4 and it was truly amazing even though you couldn’t choose from more than 2 boxers (Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton). I had always wanted to buy one of the earlier games in this seris but never got around to it although I think I may finally get it this time around. The cover alone with two of the most iconic boxers of all time, Muhammad Ali (Greatest of All Time) and Iron Mike Tyson, being features makes me want to play that fight right now

It certainly helps that GameStop is running a Fight Night Round 4 Trade-In Deal which allows you to trade in 3 games (in working condition) to save $59.99 off the game.

It seems like a pretty good deal but it would help if I had any of the games on the list. I have no problems trading away Left 4 Dead because ever since the free DLC update, the game is no longer as enjoyable as it once was. I can’t remember how many hours in a night I would spend just trying to beat the game but minor tweaks in the game just don’t make it very fun anymore.

Two other games that I have which can be found on the list are Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. A couple of months ago, I probably would have traded away CoD4 without a problem but I have started playing it recently and there’s no way I’m letting go of that … until Modern Warfare 2 comes out.

I think my brother might have a couple of sports games that are on the list and if he is willing to part with them, I think I’ll go pick up a copy. The offer is set to expire on July 12th which is 3 day so if I’m going to do it, I need to decide before I leave for vacation. That doesn’t really leave too much time left but we’ll see what happens.

I have attached the link for a list of available games here, be sure to check it out. Also if you are getting the game, let me know and I’ll be sure to play against you sometime:

[download id=”2″]

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Twitter Has Been Way Too Good To Me

As the great Lou Gehrig famously said on this day 70 years ago, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” I probably wouldn’t go that far but I’ll continue to ride my little lucky streak as far as it will take me.

Twitter has been really, really good to me. I started using this about two years ago but I didn’t start using it full-time until about late last year. More recently as Twitter has become mainstream, bigger companies and corporations have started running PR contests and giveaways to get more followers and just get more publicity.

I should start off by saying that I have not had any help by another person in getting these answers and/or submitting them for me. It has mostly been a good combination of TweetDeck, Firefox and Google which have allowed me to succeed so far.

Here are my winnings so far (in order I won them, starting with the earliest):

[May 12, 2009]
1. The first thing I ever won on Twitter was a $10 Gift Certificate courtesy of @BaskinRobbins which was doing its 88 cent promotion Soft Serve promotion with a contest daily or twice a day. The question that I answered correctly figured to be a sports one and was

“What was the horse’s name that won the Kentucky derby in 1988?”

I would like to be able to say that I knew that off the top of my head that the winner was Winning Colors but let’s just leave it at a search engine helping me figure that one out.

[May 14, 2009]
2. Two days later, Angels and Demons movie account (@AandDMovie) ran a contest asking:

“What cam number are you looking at on AltarsOfScience.com?”

I am not sure if the camera number is still the same but it shows 84 right now and I think that was what I submitted. That ended up winning me a Making of Angels and Demons book which had behind the scene stills from the set and the green room in addition to descriptions about basically every scene in the movie. I was hoping it would be signed by Director Ron Howard as they had originally said but I won’t get too greedy.

[June 4, 2009]
3. My next two came at the hands of the @NBAStore during the Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic series in the NBA Finals. The first question was:

“How about a giveaway? First 2 with correct answer win a $50 gc. How many times have the #Lakers been to the NBA Finals?”

This one I simply got lucky by looking at my computer the exact moment my TweetDeck updated with the latest tweets. I had been watching the game, playing some halo and talking to @imadjustin and @cellmonkey over XBox Live but had my laptop in front of me just in case. The answer of “30 times” I had heard earlier on in the week on SportsCenter didn’t even require a Google search and I felt good about my chances of winning a $50 Gift Certificate.

[June 14, 2009]
4. This was the second trivia question during the series and I am pretty sure I was in the same scenario of having my laptop ready while watching the game with a couple of friends. The question this time around was:

“Alright #giveaway time. A $100 online gift cert to NBAStore.com up for grabs. 6 #Lakers players have won the FINALS MVP award. Name them.”

The answer being: Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy and Shaquille O’Neal. I was certain on 5 out of the 6 and would have definitely missed James Worthy had the question not said name 6 MVPs. Luckily there are plenty of Lakers fan out there (not me) that have websites devoted to who won the award and when in quite a convenient list format.

There was a slight confusion when the winner was announced as @sahyder1 and publicly awarded him the $100 GC. I was certain I had submitted my answer before him and @NBAStore was pretty cool about admitting their mistake and gave me a code as well via Direct Message.

[June 22, 2009]
5. This one I will gladly take because I am such a fan of the Science Channel and anything related to outer space. @ScienceChannel gave away 50 Spaceman stress relievers. I had originally missed their message but saw a RT from @mrothb and I was fortunate enough to get one as well. So thanks Matt!

First 50 RT’s get a spaceman! Ever wonder what planet is your perfect match? Video fun for #SpaceWeek http://ow.ly/fy1o

[July 3, 2009]
6. Last but definitely not least would be me winning a pair of Yankee tickets from WFAN 660 (@wfan660) and Craig Carton (@cc660). Carton had previously tweeted that the question was going to be Derek Jeter related, so naturally I had his career statistics page opened up on the great Baseball-Reference website. However, the question threw me off:

What movie did derek jeter appear in with roger clemens in 2003 and what tv show was he on once in 2001? Good luck.

Luckily for the Internet Movie Database (aka IMDB) which seems to have an answer for any and everything that ever hit the big screen theater or just the little screen television… even professional athletes making guest appearances or hosting tv shows.

The movie as my brother pointed to me as well was Anger Management something that was clearly listed for 2003 on IMDB but the tv show was tricky. I wasn’t sure if SNL would count but I really couldn’t find anything else that would qualify. Almost admitting to myself that I was not going to win this one, I sent him the answer of Anger Management and Saturday Night Live. In less than a minute, I had a response back saying

congrats u r the winner i will be in touch on monday

Now the waiting game continues until Monday but that’s a game I’ll gladly play.