Mark Sickmiller

"my mom's such a shopaholic. she likes to buy a lot of alcohol."

"i hate racists. they don't even make any sense. are mexicans lazy or are they stealing our jobs? it can't be both."

those came from nbc's last comic standing. i'm not sure why i've never seen this show before. it's the best of those 'eliminate-someone' shows. I think i even like it better than 'america's next top model.'

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Mr. and Mrs. Greg and Jenna Wasz!

They were wed on May 13th, 2006 at the Verdin Bell and Clock Museum.

I went to the Bellevue Kroger tonight and was stupefied by the prices.

I concluded that it was a mine field of ripoffs. It seemed that every aisle was rigged with some sort of pricing scam explosion.

First, I'm fairly certain that Kroger has this approach to getting rid of inventory: put a ton of "sale" stickers on any given product (for example, pasta sauce). But, jack up the sale prices so nothing is really cheaper than usual. Then, make one of the products an obviously better deal than the others. But it's still not a good deal because the other prices are jacked up.

Secondly, Kroger is so annoying with their 3 for $5, 6 for $10, 17 for $22 pricing scheme. While I am able to do the math and figure out how much one item costs, I'm guessing that not everyone can. And also, some people might not realize you don't actually have to buy 3 for $5, you can just get one.

If Kroger is really trying to be a friend of the consumer, why don't they just price things PER ITEM, so the prices make sense to all consumers?

Because they're not a friend of the consumer. At all.

If only I could start a garden that would grow pizzas.

Opening Day 2006 included the following sightings/meetings (in chronological order):

-Bob Huggins
-Luke Ellwood & friends (from OU)
-Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory
-Nick Lachey (who apparently attempted to enter a club area but was denied)
-President George HW Bush
-Adam Dunn bobbling/dropping several balls

Here are pictures:

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In the end, the Reds lost by like 2341 runs.

After the game Jen and I went to a downtown pub called ZA where we warmed up.

Then we went back to my apartment and tried to write a blog entry together which took about three times as long as if one of us had written it on our own.

Jen and I are getting ready to head downtown for Cincy's opening day celebration, considered to be the largest opening day gathering in the US!

We have standing room only tickets, whatever that means. I guess we'll find out.

President Bush is throwing out the first pitch, which will be sure to cause a myriad of security slowdowns for people getting into the ball park.

I'm taking the camera and I'll be sure to post pictures.

I received birthday gifts from Adam and Danielle today! They were apparently purchased during Adam and Dani's recent vacation to Greece.

Adam made me aware that I was going to get something in the mail. At first, he said he was slightly concerned about the perishables in the package.

Then, yesterday, he said on IM "i'm a little worried about the cheese." "er, perishables. oh, crap."

They sent me a block of cheese, a package of marinated olives and an iron statue of a historic Greek warrior. It's really cool, here is the picture of everything:


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The cheese and olives came in sealed plastic packaging with liquid inside to keep the items from drying out.

Of course, I had to open both items and try them immediately. They're both awesome. The cheese is sort of like feta but not as dry. The olives have pits and taste very good.

The soldier is watching guard over the items, which I put in the refrigerator in tupperware.

I gave a small crumble of cheese to each of the cats and Chelsea tried to bury hers, so I don't think she was too fond. Bear sniffed and then ignored.

I'll be 27 on April 16th.

This morning, President George W. Bush held a news conference on national TV. Now, I'm not sure how this works, exactly, but since his poll numbers are slipping, I'm guessing his advisors are trying to improve the numbers.

But, this morning, all President Bush did was say the same things he always does, but with an increasing angry and defensive tone. Is this supposed to improve ratings?

Meanwhile, it looks like the President is going to be throwing out the first pitch at Reds' opening day on April 3rd. Apparently, the new Reds owner is best buds with the President. And I have tickets to the game. Remember in high school when the home team would have newspapers to hold in front of their faces when the visiting team would take the field?

Anyway, I have some pictures to post:





upper left: It snowed about 3 inches today, a record for cincinnati on march 21, when the average high temperature is 56 degrees.

upper right: chelsea dressed up for st. patrick's day

lower left: it wouldn't be fair if i didn't include a handsome pose of bear

lower right: a night picture from the eden park overlook, a few minute walk from my apartment. it's rather dark but i made it my desktop. the moon was rising over kentucky and was quite beautiful.

Last year I spent like 20 bucks submitting brackets and ended up winning about $50, so it was a decent investment... financially.

However, I found that I spent all day wondering who would win and looking up scores. So, basically I got $30 for three weeks worth of work. Translation: I'm not really much of a basketball fan. I might not do any brackets this year and just ignore the whole thing.

I'm not really sure why I don't like basketball much. Probably because I'm terrible at it. And, I had nightmares about basketball when I was in the 7th grade, because I joined the team and hated it so much that I quit after like two weeks. It was the only thing I had ever started and not finished up to that point.

I got a "make your own pizza" kit at Save a Lot the other week for $2.50. It came with packets of powder that you mix with water to make the crust, and it also had sauce and some parmesan cheese.

I remember "making your own pizza" as not being very good when we made it at home as a kid, so I was skeptical.

Friday night, i made one of the pizzas, and it was unbelievable. The crust was perfect and tasted like something at a restaurant, and the only topping i had was cheese.

I'm going to look up some recipes on making my own crust. I can probably do so for pretty cheap, probably just flour and yeast and sauce is dirt cheap. cheese is usually on sale. I'm pretty excited about this.

If you're still checking this regularly, I apologize and I intend to change these lulls in content.

That said, what's going on?

Currently I'm sitting in my sofa/recliner with headphones on listening to Griffin House, whom I'm going to see this weekend up the street in Oakley. I recommend taking a gander at his music at http://www.griffinhousemusic.com. He's fairly new and is gaining more popularity every day, which spiked when CBS Sunday Morning mentioned him a couple of months ago.

Earlier tonight I was at RCIA, which I don't believe I've mentioned on here, but it's the group I've met with every Thursday night since early January regarding joining the Catholic church. It's just a few of us and we discuss scripture, faith and Catholic practice. This coming weekend is a big one in terms of our process in joining the church. It's the Rite of Election, which basically means the Archbishop grants us peace in our journey in faith. Baptism, Eucharist and Confirmation take place on April 15, the day before Easter.

This tradition stems from early Christianity when the church was heavily persecuted. Those interested in joining would have to endure a process meant to show their true intentions so the church could avoid "members" who would join only to alert authorities to the identities of Christian leaders. Is this process necessary to be a Christian these days? Of course not. The importance of various practices lies in the individual and how he or she chooses to express his or her faith.

Jen's in Vail, Colorado, this weekend, visiting two college roommates and skiing. The trip was low-cost because of two reasons: our friend is a ski instructor in Vail and acquires free lift tickets and the second reason is Jen's dad has approximately 1 billion frequent flier miles which were incorporated in the trip. I drove jen to the airport at 5:30 a.m. today, apparently. I wasn't too awake and once I came home, went to sleep and woke up, it all seemed like a dream.