Good morning Pixlpeeps! So it is Friday, and I have to run some crazy errand right after this so I might have to make a shorter Quick Hits blog…or maybe I can just type faster and not get sidetracked. Let’s see how that goes. Before I started my blog I like to check my favorite college’s athletic message board and well I had to write a response to some yahoo who along with a couple of other folks still think it’s the 1970s (seriously they do) and anything positive the University does is terrible. Let’s back up a bit. A couple of days ago SDSU released a tweet with a picture about something big coming to the Mesa. It kind of looked interesting because it was part of the Aztec Calendar. The next day another tweet with the outline of a football player, and something about big news at 10am. 10am rolls around and this video was uploaded to YouTube.

Out of the blue SDSU football has new uniforms and I absolutely love, L-O-V-E the helmets.

The back of the helmet

And the front, side of the helmet. This is the first unique helmet SDSU has ever had. There have been countless teams with team name on the side of the helmet, or just logos on the side, but how many have the Aztec Calendar on the sides? It’s about time the program incorporated elements from the team name.

Ok now the majority of fans love the uniforms, folks on Reddit love the uniforms, and hell it even made SportsCenter, but the vocal minority (why are they always the loudest?) try to nitpick about it not being classic enough/doesn’t have the Aztec name (yeah because when you see Aztec Calendar you think Egyptians) and one guy this morning bitched because it looks like Utah. Normally I chalk all this up to fan stupidity and not reply but I had to just to point out why we have such great uniforms. Pointless? You bet. But I’m tired of older alums who think the only great time to be fans was their time. Frankly I think they are full of crap (obviously I wanted to use a much more enjoyable four letter word.) I loved my time at SDSU but I am jealous of current and incoming students because of all the campus improvements, as well as the success of the athletic programs. I’m not going to crap on their time, as much as I can I tell folks to enjoy the ride. Why can’t the old alums do the same?

Alright enough with the negative minority of that message board, let’s get some Quick Hits started!

Chris Watches…

Below Deck Marathon: For the folks who don’t know I love bad reality TV, and my favorite reality show based on a yacht is coming back so Bravo decided to have a marathon of season one. I missed most of this season so it was nice catching up and see why I really didn’t care for a handful of folks. I can’t wait for Season 3!

Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, Making The Team: This show started a new season last night but what the hell CMT, 11pm? I was out by that point. What happened to 10pm on Friday? I want to see DCC hopefuls try and make the team

Chris Takes Pictures…

Sorry folks only one shot this week and it was with my phone. Yesterday a random thunderstorm showed up and hit parts of the valley. This was the scene as I was walking out to the truck

On the drive home you could see a lot of lightning hitting the lower valley.

Thanks for looking at my picture!

Chris Listens To…

This is going to be a combo Chris listens to and pickups because a couple of days ago the local mom & pop had an infusion of new stuff in the $1.99 section and I bought more than normal. The majority of stuff is albums I needed to plug more holes in the library, along with a couple of albums I took a chance on as well as some finds from the freebie bin.

I enjoy Yo-Yo Ma, and his Bach work on Master and Commander is really good.

I don’t know much about Nellie McKay but I remember the magazine Blender* trying to hype her up

*Blender magazine was a music mag that was made by the folks who publish Maxim. It was a short-lived magazine but I loved that it had articles like “100 new artists you should download,” really embraced the digital age.

Joao Gilberto I actually found out about through Stan Getz albums. I’m interested to listen to the solo stuff. Funny thing about 8 Mile: I like the music, own the movie, and I have never seen it. Lose Yourself was on a mix CD I made in college and that was what I listened to walking back to my dorm at 9pm in the dark.

I saw the Staple Singers and said why not, they’re the “I’ll Take You There” singers. Turns out their music is religious. Who knew? Mary J. because of one track, Family Affair. I can’t remember when I had it on a mix CD, but I know I did.

I like Chris Rock and this is a Greatest Hits of some of his standup. LA Confidential because its such a good movie and I wanted to have the soundtrack to accompany my copy of the movie.

I thought the Mystery Men movie was quirky but fun, so why not give the soundtrack a try, plus it has Smash Mouth’s All Star. One of many soundtracks to have All-Star. I bought Edith Piaf because this album was printed in Denmark. I already have her Greatest Hits, but I don’t run into many European releases so if its cheap, I’ll pick it up. Who knows, I might find a different version of a track I have in the library.

I’m not a big Barenaked Ladies fan but the song One Week was one of the songs I listened to a lot while working at Disneyland. I still don’t know what they are saying in certain sections but I think Aquaman was part of the lyrics. This is the album Big Mountain covered Peter Frampton’s “Baby I Love Your Way” and it made its way to the Reality Bites Soundtrack (I also own that album.) I’ve always owned Big Mountain singles including this one

And it was one of the first songs I heard on the radio that I was able to play on my saxophone.

It’s the B-52’s Anthology, and Todd Rundgren goes with my 70s stuff.

I found some new Toad The Wet Sprocket stuff.

I had that Method Man album digitally and now I can replace it with a physical copy. Not a huge fan of KT Tunstall but off her other album I found a couple of tracks I really liked and hopefully I can find more of the same here.

I don’t know much about Beenie Man other than he did a track with Janet Jackson so this album should be an interesting listen. Eve because well it’s Eve and I liked Ruff Ryders back in the day

So that was the all the Buy 5 for $1.99 get 5 free stuff. Here is the stuff I found in the freebie box

I picked up Black Box because of this single

Middle School Chris dug this song. How do you say no to Opera? There has to be some good stuff on here.

Apparently I already have Soul II Soul so I’ll most likely just donate this CD. K-9 Posse is your typical early 90s rap group but after checking them out on Wikipedia they are related to Charlie Murphy from Chappelle Show.

And the final CD is this guy

And it turns out I already own a copy. Oh well another album on the donation pile.

I have a pile of records and a couple of CDs I am going to donate. I should slim down my vinyl collection a bit more and just keep the stuff I really want. I might do that this weekend.

Pickups

Games

At GameStop one random night I found this game for my $5 Hour

If I had a Wii Board I could have used it with this game. I also had another racing game but the employee couldn’t find it. It’s a shame because it looked really bad, and almost worth trying for a buck.

Target had a deal where you buy a $1 reservation card for one of the select upcoming games and you can get one of their handful of selected games for 50% off. Target still had this version of Lego Jurassic World so for $30 I got this

I get the Dr. Wu minifigure. This beats GameStop’s special Raptor figure, but it would have been cool to have that as well. Oh well. I’m only 2% in but black box spoiler time:

You get a trophy for jumping into the mountain of Dino dung.

Toys

I saw that everyone on the Hot Wheels Reddit page loved this car so when I saw naturally I had to pick it up (I still don’t know why, but the model is cool)

Plastic Building Blocks

Target had their Oyo’s on clearance so it was time to pick these sets up

I got the Padres infield with three figures along with two blind box figures. The figures usually retail for $10, which is crazy, but at $3 they were Lego priced

The field is flimsy and I had to use a Lego base to keep it together. The figures are nice, and after owning a couple of Mike Trout figures, its fun to actually open them and check out the build quality. The hats are a little low but they are solid figures. The only problem I had was getting the elbow sections to connect to the hands. Other than that, they were a piece of cake. Each figure other than the umpire came with a ball, and glove.

As for Lego, I found some new stuff at Toys R Us

I found the new Scooby-Doo sets and this polybag

I think I will try and collect the Scooby-Doo sets because they look really good and in order to get Daphine and Velma you have to buy the big haunted house.

The Mystery Machine

The Joker Polybag is a nice little set. The bumper car is solid and the Joker figure is the same one that I have from the Batwing/Joker Helicopter playset.

UPDATE!

Ok so I got back from my outing around 2 ish and then fell asleep. Who knew I was this exhausted. Anyays I am up and I might as well finish off this edition of Quick Hits. While roaming around a shopping center that is at the base of a chain of hills I took this shot

The funny thing is that I never noticed this section of hills. There is a path on the other section that zig zags on the face of the hill that is around two miles and gives you a nice view of the mountains.

While eating lunch at this little seafood spot where there is a plate filled with Calamari, Cod, Scallops, Shrimp, and another kind of animal that is fried called the Seafood Boat (the only thing I order there) I spotted this while getting something non caffeinated to drink

I’ve never seen Gatorade at a fountain machine. The Gatorade didn’t taste that good so I got some root beer after finishing off the Gatorade. Oh and its been over a year since I have had a drink with caffeine. Anyways some pickups from earlier today

There are some new Lego Spider-man sets including one with Carnage. I now have a Carnage figure to go along with my Venom figure

And this set was on clearance for $7. I finally have a Wyldstyle figure.

This was $5 and I didn’t have the new three songs that are on it

Yep the New Kids and Backstreet.

On the way home I was browsing through iTunes and noticed that Compton was available for purchase

Right after I screen shot that screen I went from LTE to 3G. Thanks Cell Phone carrier. Alright I should end this blog right here before I get sidetracked again. I just picked my seats for my flight next month after watching a story on local news about flights. Have a good weekend Pixlpeeps!

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris