Posted by Rob on January 1, 2012 – 11:52 am
Filed under Music, My Personal Life, Randomness, Sacred 2, Site Updates, TV Shows, Video Games
Tagged as 2011, american idiot, big bad bob, bigbadbob, character build guide, firefox, ghost, google analytics, google chrome, green day, high elf, internet explorer, jurassic: the hunted, nedna, oneonta, PlayStation 3, PS3, ps3 review, rogue, Sacred 2, safari, shadow warrior, Simpsons, skyrim, stumbleupon, top ten, undertaker, web traffic, wrestlemania, wwe
With the start of the new year, I will once again take a brief look at my ten most popular blogs of the past year (thanks to the cool tools available through Google Analytics. I’m really curious to see which old blogs are still getting activity, and which new ones were strong enough to make their way into the top ten. Before I get into that, I just want to spout out some statistical info:
- My site had 69,771 unique visitors over the past year
- 9,536 of these visitors liked my blog so much that they became repeat visitors
42,852 of these viewers found my blog off of a typical Google search, while 16,831 came across my site via StumbleUpon
42,969 visitors were from the United States, 6,282 were from Canada and 5,536 were rocking from the UK
The average visitor spent 31 seconds looking at a particular post before leaving the site
31,240 visitors used Firefox, 20,858 used Chrome, 11,540 used Internet Explorer and 8,665 used Safari (I wonder if next year will be the year that Safari beats IE)
Now on to the blogs!!!
Posted by Rob on October 11, 2011 – 4:57 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as apartment, big bad bob, bigbadbob, charlotte, History, important americans, jobs, moving, north carolina, terra nova, transformers 3, x-men: first class
Man, it has been a crazy couple of weeks. Most of that time has been spent moving and getting the new apartment in order, but I’ve been doing other stuff as well. Here’s a recap on what’s going on:
- Moved to North Carolina last weekend. We are now living in Charlotte, NC. It took about five days to get all the boxes open and emptied and to get our apartment the way we want it. It’s similar to our old one in Albany in that it has two bedrooms, but the living space is a bit larger. It feels good to be able to sit back on our couch and recliner again and watch random TV and play games.
- I’ve also been working on a second website. I previously mentioned that it would remain a secret, but now I don’t really care. I ended up removing comment options on that site so that it would look a bit more professional. The site is importantamericans.com, and as the name suggests it contains articles about key individuals from American History. I did this for a few reasons; to keep my writing up, to keep my researching up, to have something to do that I feel good about, to educate people who don’t know all that much about history, and also as a resume booster. I started out writing two articles a week, but with the move I dropped it down to one. Now that things are settling down I’ll be devoting more time to it.
- Still looking for work. I’ve put my resume out to schools, museums, and government agencies and am waiting to hear back. Read More »
Posted by Rob on August 2, 2011 – 4:22 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as battlefield, BBQ, beer, big bad bob, bigbadbob, blue and gray, boating, bumpass, civil war, droid, fishing, fredericksburg, google, google maps, gps, grill, harry potter, internet, lake anna, monopoly deal, monticello, Movies, pool, risk, rock band, scattergories, spotsylvania, summer, swimming, tavern on the rail, thomas jefferson, trivial pursuit, vacation, virginia, wilderness
It’s been a bit too quiet on this blog lately, and that’s mostly because I was away last week on a family vacation. My parents rented a lake house in Virginia (in the town appropriately named “Bumpass“), and Shell, my sister, my bro-in-law and myself all joined them. It was a lot of fun and we all really enjoyed our time there. We did quite a few things too. Here’s a brief breakdown of what we did on our summer vacation at Lake Anna: Read More »
Posted by Rob on July 5, 2011 – 6:25 am
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as beach, big bad bob, bigbadbob, burger, captain morgan tattoo, family, fireworks, Food & Drink, Fourth of July, golf cart, History, hot dog, how few remain, independence day, long island, myrtle beach, parade, sangria, south, south carolina
Independence Day has always been one of my favorite holidays; not only because I’m a history buff, but also because I love the food. Turkey and ham are all well and fine, but a fresh burger off the grill sometimes beats them all. I also love the fireworks, but living in New York led to some disappointing Fourth of July’s, due to the illegality of fireworks. It wasn’t always like that though. Growing up on Long Island in the 80s, fireworks were legal. Back then we would have huge block parties, where both ends of the block would be blocked off by the town so that we could have free reign of the streets without worrying about cars driving by. Whether it was at my grandparents or my cousins house, there was plenty of food, fireworks, family, friends, and fun! But then the fireworks eventually became illegal, and we moved away from family to Middletown. The only way to see fireworks there was to go to one of the town-run fireworks shows which always sucked, especially since the place was always jam packed. But I digress.
This year we spent the Fourth of July right here in Myrtle Beach, and it was one of the best ever. If there’s one thing the South does right, it’s celebrating Independence Day (though I’m sure some people down here would prefer to celebrate a Confederate Independence Day.) Fireworks are extremely legal down here, and not only that but you can buy them ANYWHERE. Don’t have time to head down to the local fireworks store? Then jump in the car and hit up the nearest gas station or Wal-Mart. The South in general makes for a very patriotic Fourth of July, and here’s how I spent mine. Read More »
Posted by Rob on June 27, 2011 – 8:57 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as bathing suit, beach, big bad bob, bigbadbob, burger, cherry limeade, ice cream, ribs, sonic, south carolina, storage, u-haul, wal-mart, wally world
Today was our first full day down in South Carolina, since we had just gotten in last night. It was a busy day, but ended up being quite relaxing.
The first thing on the agenda was to pack up the contents of the moving truck into a storage unit. We had originally selected one, but then realized that it did not have climate control. I didn’t want to risk damaging our stuff in a unit that would reach over 120F on a hot summer day, so we went to another nearby unit that had climate controlled units. It took about two hours, but Shell, her dad and I managed to miraculously squeeze all our stuff into a 10×15 unit…and it was one hell of a close fit!
After turning in the U-Haul truck, we decided to relax after all that work by heading to the beach. Unfortunately, I have no idea what box my bathing suits were packed in so it’s probably lost in the storage unit somewhere. That meant we had to head to Wal-Mart to grab a new suit for me, as well as some other beach-goer gear. Read More »
Posted by Rob on June 27, 2011 – 5:59 am
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as aaa, albany, big bad bob, bigbadbob, cats, cheerwine, delaware, donut, flat tire, hotel, middletown, moving, myrtle beach, new york, oneonta, rest stop, south carolina, tire lube express, tle, truck, u-haul, virginia, wal-mart, wally world
This is my first blog post from down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, meaning the move was a success. This was not my first move, but was definitely the biggest of my life so far. I grew up on Long Island, and in the middle of 7th grade we moved up to Middletown and rented a home that was, shockingly, on almost the same road as Shell’s parents house. Then we moved to my parents current house, and they’ve been there ever since. Though I did move to Oneonta twice, but they weren’t as big of moves since it was only to my college apartments. After I graduated Oneonta, Shell and I moved in together in an apartment in Albany, and that was a pretty big move. And now here we are, moved down to South Carolina.
It was a big move not only in distance, but also in terms of how much stuff we had. Living at our apartment for three years, we had accumulated a lot of furniture and other stuff. We ended up renting a 17 foot U-Haul truck, but by the time I drove it back to the apartment to start loading it up, I was concerned that it wouldn’t be big enough. When our parents arrived they had the same thoughts, but U-Haul did not have any bigger trucks in stock then, so we had to work with what we had. We spent several hours cramming the contents of our apartment into the truck and our cars, and by 4pm we were ready to hit the road. Read More »
Posted by Rob on June 19, 2011 – 11:17 am
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as alice in wonderland, alice: madness returns, big bad bob, bigbadbob, dungeon siege III, gamefly, moving, myrtle beach, new york, PlayStation 3, PS3, south carolina, work
It’s finally come…next weekend is the big move. Shell and I will be heading down to South Carolina and start the next stage of our adventure through life together. It also means that the next week will be close to chaotic as we rush to get last minute things figured out. We did take a day of rest yesterday and headed down to my parents house, where family and friends were gathered to wish us off. It was nice to be able to see my grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins one last time before we head south, since I don’t know when we’ll together again. I also got to see my high school buddy Pete one last time before the move, and it was good to sit back and shoot the shit with him again.
As for the rest of the week, it’s probably going to go by in a blur. Tomorrow I need to meet my dad again to get some last minute stuff done, so that will eat up most of my Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll be home by myself getting stuff together here. Shell’s last day of work is Wednesday, but she will be saying goodbye to friends on Thursday. So that leaves Friday as pretty much the last day we have to get every last thing done. On Saturday morning our parents are coming up, we’ll load up the truck, and then we’ll be off for the long, long drive down to Myrtle Beach. Read More »
Posted by Rob on June 13, 2011 – 2:41 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as 360, big bad bob, bigbadbob, blog, controller, geocache, Geocaching, guys weekend in, moving, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, PS3, south, south carolina, Wii, work, xbox
There is now officially less than two weeks before I hop in the car and make the grueling drive down to Myrtle Beach, SC to begin the next phase of my life. There is much to do around here and we just started packing up stuff yesterday. It was sad to begin boxing up my video games, particularly the Wii. To conserve space I popped all my PS3 and 360 discs into a binder, and that will go in a attache case with my controllers and other accessories for those systems so that I will still be able to play down south. I just didn’t see the point in doing the same with the Wii since it gets limited play time compared to the other systems, plus there are just sooo many accessories for it!
Also, this is my last week of work, with Thursday being my last day! Man, I will not missing being up at 2:45am…at least until Shell starts popping out some kids. She will be working into next week so I’ll be home doing a lot of the packing and other stuff that needs to get done before we leave.
That being said, I’m already backed up on here as it is. I have a draft about “Guys Weekend In” that was the weekend of June 4th as well as a geocaching adventure that is about 80% complete. I hope to have those finished by the end of the week, but don’t be expecting much else from me until the move is completed. Not that I have a hardcore following of fans who will say “hey, Rob’s been slacking off lately”…
Posted by Rob on May 30, 2011 – 2:14 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as anniversary, art, beals, big bad bob, bigbadbob, boat, boston, calamari, capt. elis, capt. morgan, clam chowder, clam roll, connecticut, crackers, droid, edamame, fairfield, freeport, fries, gavi, gilberts chowder house, hobo, hobophobia, hotel, humpback, ice cream, jelly beans, jelly belly, jon stewart, kennebunkport, kittery, l.l.bean, lobster, lobster roll, maine, memorial day, minke, miyake, morrisons chowder house, nausea, ocean, old navy, old orchard beach, outlet, portland, portland lobster company, portland museum of art, portland observatory, ritz, roberts maine grill, root beer, scarborough, sea sick, seafood, street and co., sushi, sushi roll, swordfish, telescope, thomas cole, tourists, townhouse, tuna, wedding, whale watching, whales, whoopie pie, whoopie pies, wicked whoopies, wine, yelp
Shell and I just got back from our weekend excursion to Maine. We had wanted to go there before we moved down south, and Memorial Day weekend wasn’t only a four-day weekend, but it also happened to be our anniversary, so it made sense to kill a couple of birds with one stone. Our “Maine” destination was the city of Portland, but also had stops in Freeport, Old Orchard Beach, Kenebunkport, and Kittery. Here’s how things played out, and also some pics to go along with it:
We started out Friday morning bright and early at 8am for the four hour, forty-five minute car ride up to Portland. We decided not to go directly to Portland, and made a stop for lunch and exploring in the town of Freeport. The main attraction at Freeport was a series of outlet stores, the most impressive of which was L.L. Bean’s. They didn’t just have an outlet store…they had like an outlet campus/complex. There must have been at least five separate stores which specialized in different things, such as clothing, biking/sports, hunting & fishing, etc. It was all built on a beautiful grassy area and was very clean and well-kept. The other thing we did in Freeport was eat. Read More »
Posted by Rob on May 27, 2011 – 5:13 am
Monday will be our first wedding anniversary, and to celebrate we’ll be spending the weekend in Portland, Maine. Neither of us have ever been there before, so we wanted to go once before we make the move down south next month. Yesterday I made reservations at a couple of restaurants and also booked us for a whale watching trip tomorrow morning, which I’m really looking forward to. The weather should be much cooler than here; the weekend in NY should be in the mid 80s with rain, while the weekend in Maine should be in the low 70s with no rain (except for a little today, but I’m not counting that.) You know I’ll be giving a full report of what we saw, where we ate, and all that good stuff upon our return, so if you’re interested in seeing whats going down in Portland town, stay tuned.
Posted by Rob on May 16, 2011 – 4:47 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as big bad bob, bigbadbob, chess, dark tower, darth maul, darth vader, DVD, gamecube, garage sale, hulk hogan, lightsaber, lord of the rings, luke skywalker, salvation army, stephen king
With us moving to the Carolinas next month, we wanted to have one last garage sale to get rid of as much crud as possible. I had accumulated a lot of crap over the years and it really had no place in our new home. So I priced everything on the cheap and we headed down to Shell’s dad’s house to hold the garage sale in his neighborhood.
Saturday was a huge success, and we made more money and got rid of more crap than last year. It was cloudy and cold all day, but luckily it did not rain, so we had a steady flow of people coming in to check out our wares. Unfortunately, Sunday did not work out as well, due to the nasty, rainy weather all day. We had planned on having the garage sale from 8-1, but by 11:00 we had only had four people come by, and no one bought anything. We decided to close up shop and spent the rest of the day packing all our unsold goods up for donations to the Salvation Army and other organizations. Read More »
Posted by Rob on May 8, 2011 – 6:27 am
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as big bad bob, bigbadbob, ccg, jack, lord of the rings, mom, mothers day, nerd, PlayStation 3, PS3, Sci-Fi, star trek, Star Wars, the hobbit, the silmarillion
I wasn’t planning on writing this, but as I just finished my previous blog, it made me think more about what my mom’s meant to me over the years. I don’t mean this to be sappy or anything, but I think she deserves a ton of credit not only dealing with me, but for also cultivating the nerd within me. My earliest “nerdy” memory of my mom is her trying to read The Hobbit to me when I was like five years old. I wasn’t into it at that age, but I soon got into Star Wars from watching the family VHS tapes, and I think that’s where my nerd really started. But I didn’t get my full nerd on until my teen years, and when I was ready to embrace it, my mom was ready to help along also.
Below are a list of things I would like to thank my mom for on this Mother’s Day:
- Going with me to see all three Lord of the Rings movies, as well as the Star Wars movies (both the prequels and the “special edition” theater release of the original trilogy
- Playing the Star Wars, Middle-Earth, and X-Files CCG with me, despite the fact that I cheated and blew up her planet with the Death Star when it actually should have failed (though she wouldn’t play for awhile since she was mad after she caught me cheating)
- Introducing me to the works of Tolkien by lending me her copies of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion
- Watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. I never got fully into it, but by sitting down and watching it whenever she was, I learned that maybe “Trekkies” weren’t so bad after all, and had an idea of what good sci-fi was
- Buying me a PS3 game each year for Christmas even though she wasn’t supposed to know I went out and spent my money on it (cause she would say that paying off your student loan is more important than a PS3)
- Not killing me when coming home drunk that one time and puked in the driveway and in my car
- For just always being there to support me, whether it was on the best day of my life or I was doing some of the stupidest things I’ve ever done
Thanks mom, and Happy Mother’s Day! Read More »
Posted by Rob on May 8, 2011 – 6:03 am
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as 7th seas, alf, big bad bob, bigbadbob, board game, carolinas, ccg, collectibles, crosby, customizable card game, garage sale, hat, hockey, knife, lightsaber, lord of the rings, lundqvist, mask, micro machines, middle-earth, moving, north carolina, posters, robert jordan, Simpsons, south carolina, Star Wars, stephen king, swords, toys, video games, weapons, x-files
With only a few weeks left living in New York before we move down to the Carolinas (we will be staying with Shell’s mom in South Carolina until we can line up a place of our own in North Carolina) we have been preparing for another garage sale at Shell’s dad’s house. We had a garage sale last summer, but it was more of a way for us to make some extra cash and get rid of stuff. Since it wasn’t as big a deal, I didn’t really put out too much of my “nerdy” stuff that’s been holed up in my old bedroom at my parent’s house. This time around, since we’re actually moving, I had more of a need to get rid of this stuff. It was a very hard thing to do, and for a brief moment I knew what those people on those “hoarder” shows were feeling.
The main problem was that I worked a lot as a kid,and had decent paying jobs as a kid. With all that extra cash, instead of saving it (which I really, REALLY wish I had) I spent it on all sorts of random crap that I didn’t need. My closet was full of clothes I bought and never wore…some of the shirts and jeans still had tags on them from the 90′s! But at least clothing was practical in some sense…the other stuff in the “closet of doom” was just ridiculous. I had a ton of nerdy board games, whether it was Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Simpsons, or warfare-related. They were games that I only played like once with friends or my mother (yup, she is quite the nerd and while I couldn’t get her to play video games, she was always willing for a game of Star Wars CCG or the Lord of the Rings boardgame) and were just sitting in that closet collecting dust. I had three plastic lightsabers with the light and sound, and while the Darth Maul one sounded like the lightsaber crystal was drained, the other two worked perfectly well. I also had some random hats, helmets, and masks in there, and as I’m sure will be much to Steve’s dismay, I am getting rid of the infamous “ALF” mask. I also threw in some old VHS tapes and books (mostly Stephen King and Robert Jordan) to get sold off. Read More »
Posted by Rob on May 2, 2011 – 1:13 pm
Believe it or not, my first anniversary is coming up. It feels like only yesterday I was hung over and praying that I would feel better so that I could coherently say my vows at the alter…
But with our first anniversary coming up, Shell and I did want to go somewhere to celebrate. With us leaving for the Carolinas next month, we wanted to make sure we saw everything we wanted to see up here. We both realized that we had never been to Maine, so that’s where we’re headed. After scoping out a little and seeing what would be convenient for us, we saw that Portland was a bigger city with plenty to do that was also a closer drive for us than other major cities there.
So if anyone’s ever been to Portland and has some advice of things to check out or awesome restaurants, leave me a comment.
Posted by Rob on April 22, 2011 – 7:22 pm
Since starting my new job, I’ve risen up through the ranks. What started as a 17 hour, three day a week job has now turned into a five day a week job, running Monday through Friday from 4am-11amEST. I’m scheduled 32 hours, but it will end up being 36+ hours, since I end up staying late most days to finish up the day’s workload. This is good and bad; good because I’ll be making mad moneys. Also, isn’t 36 hours like full time? Where’s my benefits?!
The bad, of course, comes down to less time playing games. Now that I’m working a bit earlier on some days and no longer have a day or two off during the week, I’ll be missing out on some gaming time. I don’t like doing it, but I’m going to have to start taking naps when I get home from work during the day. Read More »
Posted by Rob on April 17, 2011 – 8:28 am
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as 21st century breakdown, american idiot, BBQ, big bad bob, bigbadbob, billie joe armstrong, birthday, broadway, bulls head tavern, drinks, droid, google maps, green day, hill country, nyc, playwright tavern, poughkeepsie, st. james theater, st. jimmy, subway
Even though my birthday was Friday, the true celebration kicked off yesterday (Saturday) as Shell and I made our way down to NYC for a day of subway rides, loud music, BBQ, and booze. For my birthday, I decided that I wanted to go down and see the American Idiot Broadway show before it closed (it closes next week on the 24th.) I love Green Day, and I loved the American Idiot album, so I really wanted to see the story behind the album on stage, because it’s hard to imagine what was going through Armstrong’s head when he wrote it.
So we left Albany early on Saturday morning and drove down to Poughkeepsie, where we caught a train into Grand Central. From there, thanks to the Droid and Google Maps, we were able to navigate to 44th street where the St. James Theater was. Before the show we stopped at The Playwright Tavern for a quick bite to eat. After lunch we headed over to the theater and prepared to enjoy the show. Read More »
Posted by Rob on April 15, 2011 – 8:43 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
Tagged as american idiot, ben & jerrys, big bad bob, bigbadbob, billy joe armstrong, birthday, boars head, boston cream pie, broadway, chicken parmesan, dentist, green day, hill country, ice cream, nyc, price chopper, riesling, roast beef, time bandits, tortellini, wwe allstars
I had a pretty good day today…much better than my last birthday when I had to go to the dentist!
Today I got up early to get to work. Luckily work was a slow day today, and we were done with our job 1/2 hour early (that includes some slacking time in between), so we just hung around until 11. When I got off work I headed on over to Price Chopper to do the grocery shopping for the week. While I was there I picked up a some Boars Head roast beef and made an awesome sandwich when I got home.
After lunch I cleaned up around the house a little bit. Once everything was neat and tidy I plopped down on the couch and watched a ridiculous 80s movie called Time Bandits. I was surprised I had never watched it before, but it was definitely classic cheesiness. Once the movie was over I played a little WWE All Stars until Shell got home (and she even bought me a balloon.)
Read More »
Posted by Rob on April 1, 2011 – 7:02 pm
Filed under My Personal Life, TV Shows, Video Games
Tagged as big bad bob, bigbadbob, co-op, dead nation, farscape, firefly, force unleashed ii, free realms, gamefly, job, mmo, netflix, north carolina, online, PlayStation 3, PS3, review, RPG, Star Wars, work, wwe allstars
So as you can see, it’s been pretty quiet around here lately. I blame the new job, which has definitely been kicking my butt since I have to get up at 2:45am. I usually don’t get home until after 12, so by that time I’m just so exhausted that I drag myself into the shower and then flop down on the couch. Yet it saddens my heart to see this blog not being updated, so today I started up on a few posts which will be finalized over the coming days.
As far as video games goes, my drought is finally over. For the past two weeks I’ve had nothing really to play, which was pretty sad. But this week has been nuts, and I’ve had a bunch of games thrown at me: Read More »
