CityCynic.com

Going to Medieval Times in New Jersey is a family tradition for my Dad’s birthday every June.

This year was no different and we found ourselves in Northern Jersey cheering on the Red & Yellow Knight, while we consumed a meal fit for a nobleman of a half chicken, a rib, potato, tomato bisque, garlic bread, and an apple turnover. (All without utensils.)

We even bought my dad the Father’s Day package and he got a special photo of him sitting in a royal throne, along with getting his name announced as a special guest, and getting a special flag to wave.

For those of you who haven’t been to Medieval Times, the story involves several good knights and an evil and jealous Green Knight that basically tries to kill everyone.

So, of course, our knight was the Green Knight’s first victim, suffering a most mortal would after getting knocked off his horse (literally) during a fight-to-the-death jousting session.

We all enjoyed the one-on-one combat and the story line, even if it has gotten somewhat familiar after several times there. And the hawk that they let fly loose around the arena is also pretty cool, despite the fact that I always feel tempted to lift up my chicken leg to suddenly become part of the show.

The only drawback this year was that the actor playing the King sounded so whiny and nasally that we had trouble understanding what he was saying. Some king that was… sounded like a cross between Milhouse from The Simpsons and Gilbert Godfried.

But along with the entertainment and a few royal steins of beer we all enjoyed ourselves and will likely be back again next year.

Today marks my one year anniversary with my girlfriend, Melissa.

This past year has been both amazing and exhilarating. We’ve traveled and we’ve spent time together at home. We’ve both seen new places and met new people that have made our lives better. We’ve learned just how great helping each other feels. We’ve enjoyed being in sync and seen more than enough signs of “446″ together.

We’ve tweeted, blogged, and dailyboothed. We’ve used thousands and thousands of cellphone minutes.

She’s inspired me to express myself again in word and photographs. We created a baseball blog together about our favorite MLB teams, the Dodgers and the Mets.

We’ve shared new foods together and enjoyed new experiences. We both loved going to the movies and listening to music together. We’ve decided on and then watched our television shows together.

We’ve shared our love of dinosaurs and history together. We’ve traded baseball stats and players our teams have shared.

We’ve heard our song, You & Me by Dave Matthews Band, many many times, just about everywhere:

And we’ve laughed, cried, joked, debated, discussed, lived, and loved together more than either of us every have before.

And all of that is exactly why our relationship works so well and why she means so much to me.

I’m looking forward to what the next years will bring! Love you, sweetie! <#

I have two 6-year-old poodles that I absolutely love.

They are brothers with very different personalities, but both of them are very intelligent and cute doggies, look:

Oh, I also love my cat, Cali, too!

Ever get stuck waiting for a subway train in New York City when you’re in a hurry and mutter “FML!” under your breath? Then this one’s for you…

Chiara Atik from Guest of a Guest points out that the MTA has its very own FML subway stop at the Union Square station:

FML, on the NYC Subway. I'm still waiting for the WTF subway stop. (Photo credit Julia Kaganskiy.)

I wonder if the MTA plans of changing the order of the lines on that sign in the future or if anyone there even realizes.

Speaking of the future, check out this Subway sign from THE FUTCHA:

In the year 2044...

Ah, the Subway. Only in NEW YORK!

Its World Cup time again, which to most Americans means absolutely nothing.

Yet today, there was some palpable excitement about the match between USA and England. Twitter was a abuzz with “fans” asking why the clock counts up instead of down, what the rules are, and how its called soccer and not football.

So with an increased level of attention from sports fans in the United States, you would think the two teams would try and put on a very exciting show to continue capturing our attention.

And wow, what a great game it was when the U.S. tied it up 1-1 before the first half. Even I began to think that maybe this game was exciting to watch.

Then the second half went by without either team scoring. And then the game ended in a 1-1 tie.

Way to make a lame sport seem even lamer, guys.

WAIT, WHAT?!?!?

A once-every-four-years WORLD tournament doesn’t even have overtime?

NO OT?!?

Even NHL games suspend the idiotic overtime shoot-out rule to allow overtime periods in the playoffs. But not World Cup soccer!

And with a game that had Americans excited, no matter how briefly, we can’t even call out our England FC club fans by taunting them about losing to the U.S. team.

How do you like that tie, England? Wow, how lame.

Yeah, thanks for proving that soccer sucks.

Dinosaur lovers like me have a new attraction to travel to this summer and its called Dinosaur World.

Not that the dino park is new, but its definitely new to me! Plus it allows me to live out all of the Jurassic Park fantasies I’ve ever had…

I don’t have any immediate plans to stop by Florida, Texas, or Kentucky anytime soon, but think of all the possibilities a forest full of dinosaurs has photographically!

(via Kate Linendoll)

U2 has announced their huge North American concert tour has been postponed because lead singer Bono has to recover from emergency back surgery.

That includes the Irish rock band’s show at the New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey, which I happened to have tickets to see with my U2-loving family.

So much for my big summer concert plans.

A dramatization of how Bono might have injured his Irish back.

I really was looking forward to seeing U2 perform at the brand new football stadium in July, too.

And so far, all that us ticket holders have been told is that the tour will be rescheduled in 2011… sometime. Gee, I sure hope I’m free whenever that is…

I understand that people love LOST. I really got into the show, even if I have to watch it all over again to really figure it out.

But how much do you have to love LOST to spend the time doing this?

4 8 15 16 23 42: As seen on the Long Island Expressway, 2010.

I didn’t get a chance to ask the blond-haired lady driving the Jeep, as she sped away, weaving in an out of cars.

Must have been rushing to re-watch the series from the beginning…

Happy Birthday, Melissa! <#

You are wonderful and amazing and special and I thought the best way to show you how much I appreciate that was to try to capture all that you are in a work of art.

I proudly present the one and only birthday girl, umm, you:

Love you, darling! <# <# <#

Well let my blog updating frequency be an indication of the choppy and uncertain ways my life has been twisting and turning the last few months. (Of course, you’d never know it from my tweeting frequency, but that’s a different story…)

I’ve switched job locations involuntarily and been dumped into an entirely different set of challenges and circumstance within the same company. Even though I know what to do it feels like working for an entirely different company.

Its all rather unsettling.

Throw in  a couple of missteps and mess-ups, the majority of which were directly caused by massive amount of time I’ve had to put into work lately, and you have me not frequently writing a lot and updating my blog lately.

And being put into a not-so-comfortable place overall.

It’s strange to have some parts of my life working better than I could have ever expected while simultaneously having a terrible situation of work stresses and problems to get through on the other hand.

It will get better.

Oh, I’m sure it will get better, but its going to have to be through a great amount of change. That may be just what I need in fact, but I don’t think getting to that transition’s going to be particularly easy.

The worst part about the whole situation is that it has been infringing on me getting to do all of the things that I so enjoy: writing here at CityCynic.com, covering my Metsies at MetsTalk.com and BicoastalBaseball.com, and just going out and photographing things and places and people like I had been doing every time that I got a break.

I mean the obvious solution is to get into a career of writing and/or photographing for a living. That would solve a bunch of problems at once. I just have to figure out how to make that happen, I guess…

As for you, my readers, at least I can promise to make a greater effort into updating my blog with interesting and strange news and opinions and entertainment as I work on getting everything back in order around here.

Sorry I got distracted, sometimes life is hard.