Last night Kim and I met up with our old friend MER.  He was passing through town and decided to get some friends together at Scruffy Murphy’s for open mic night.  He was first on the stage for the night and delivered a very solid five song performance.  There were many comments from the other performers that there was no way they could follow his act, and though they tried their hearts out, their earlier sentiments were the truth.  He played a couple of new songs that were nice to hear, as well as a couple of old favorites, and a cover of the Foo Fighter’s “Everlong.”  Besides the music, we were able to catch up and discuss this year’s Pig-Fest, though no details are available at this time.

It seems that my hockey team either loses a close game, or we complete dominate our opponents for the win, which doesn’t happen often enough.  Fortunately last night was one of those rare occurrences.  With a few key players at the Avalanche game, we were able to grab a couple of extra skaters who really helped us out.  Our opponents are one of the teams with the highest goals for all season, but our excellent defense and outstanding play from our goalie held them to only one goal.  We ended up with eight goals, one of which I had an assist on.  We still remain in last place, but don’t face any of the top teams for the rest of the season.  Hopefully we can get a few more big wins to pull out of last place as we look toward the playoffs in just over a month and a half.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had one of those moments where my online life mixed into my real-world life. I mentioned livingcraigslist.com a few weeks ago, and since then I have continued to follow the website. I later learned that the author had moved to the Denver area and figured that he was living somewhere in the downtown area of town, just like yours truly. On Saturday night, a group of us decided to head to an old favorite bar of ours, Ogden Street South.

It was karaoke night at the bar, and not long after entering the bar we were entertained by a rather good performance of “That Thing You Do.”  It wasn’t until I read livingcraigslist.com the other day, that I realized the singer was none other than the author of the site.  I wish I would have realized it at the time, as I’d love to chat with him about his experiences thus far.  Perhaps our paths will cross again.  A video of his performance can be viewed on his site.  Unfortunately, there is no video of my show closing performance of George Michael’s “Faith.”

On Saturday night, we did another thing that we’ve wanted to do, attend a roller derby bout.  The bout took place at the Fillmore Auditorium, which is normally a large concert hall.  Though a majority of the floor was occupied by the track, somehow the event sold-out.  Normally, the capacity of the Fillmore is 3,700 people, and though I’m sure there weren’t nearly that many attendees, it was still a pretty big crowd.  Much larger than I was anticipating.

The match-up for the night featured two Denver based teams, both part of the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls, The Sugar Kill Gang and The Dooms Daisies.  It all started around 7pm with Elvis singing the national anthem.  They provided a couple of rules over the loudspeakers, and also a very short general description inside of the program.  We had to figure out most of it as the bout proceeded.  One thing that was quickly apparent was that The Sugar Kill Gang was the far superior team.  After a close start between the two teams, they managed to build a double-digit lead rather quickly.

Overall, I was pretty entertained by the event, though I don’t think it was quite worth the $20 ticket price.  I would consider going again for a lower amount, but I’d much rather watch a concert for that price.  I can buy tickets for a professional lacrosse team for much less than the price for this amateur event.  though I have to admit that they must be doing something right if they can bring in a sellout crowd at the Fillmore.

Over the weekend, we finally went out and saw Avatar.  We tried to see it a couple of other times, but the IMAX 3D screening was always sold out.  So earlier last week, I bought tickets for us for the most popular Friday night screening.  Once the lights went down, the movie immediately started, without any previews.  I wasn’t aware that it was the movie and remarked after a few minutes that it was the longest preview I’d ever seen.  Once one of the characters said the word avatar, I realized that we were actually watching the movie.

The visual effects were pretty amazing, right from the start, but got even better when they started showing more of the outside world on the planet Pandora.  The creatures and landscape were so lifelike and the 3D images were superb.  I don’t think Kim was overly excited to see a sci-fi movie, but the underlying love story really helped her enjoyment.  Plus, the 3D has to appeal to nearly everyone.  I would definitely encourage anyone to see this movie, but you have to see it in 3D, and preferably at the IMAX.

Check us out in our stylish glasses!

Over the years I’ve become accustomed to receiving a rather large tax refund check around this time of year.  Last year, after filing our taxes, I went along with Turbo Taxes suggestion to rework our W-4’s so that we neither owe a large amount or receive a large refund.  The theory behind this is that we get to keep more of our earnings throughout the year so that we can invest it ourselves.  Well, it actually worked.  We will likely owe around $200 to the federal government, while our state refund will still be a few hundred bucks.  The question now is where exactly did all of that extra money go throughout the year.  I’m not really sure that we have much more invested than we normally do.  I guess we should put more of each paycheck aside this year so we can really see the difference it makes.

After Monday night’s game, my hockey team is back to our losing ways.  We have now lost three in a row, and are back in last place.  Had we actually won the game on Monday, we would have sent our opponents into last place instead of them sending us to last.  We did have a substitute goalie, who let in a few soft goals, but we still lost 9-3.  Hopefully we can turn things around next week when we face off against another one of the weaker teams in the league.  We only have seven games left before the playoffs, so something needs to happen.  I just found out that the championship game will be played at the Pepsi Center.  That would be awesome!

I attended a Colorado Mammoth game on Saturday night with a group of eight others.  Many in the group had never been to a lacrosse game before, let alone an indoor game.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, indoor lacrosse combines the physical play of hockey with the high scoring, fast pace and play-making style of basketball.  Everyone was quickly impressed with the sport and thoroughly enjoyed the game, despite the Mammoth loss.  One of our friends researched various aspects of the game and later told us that the average salary for the players is only $14,500 per season.  Obviously, the athletes are playing for the love of the game, and it really shows.  And with tickets starting at $5, you really can’t go wrong.

Friday night, Kim and I decided to stay in, order some food, and watch a movie.  After debating between sandwiches and pizza, we decided on pizza and ended up ordering from Extreme Pizza.  We knew we wanted a couple of different pizzas, but couldn’t decide between four different styles.  We finally decided to get all four, utilizing the half and half option.  Each of our selections were tasty, but I think my favorites of the group were the California Cactus and the Drag It Through The Garden.

As for our entertainment, we watched the Hurt Locker from our cable service On Demand menu.  “Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.”  The movie was full of suspense and  action.  Though it is a war movie, it’s not overly graphic or gory.  Kim and I both really enjoyed watching this movie and would definitely recommend it, if you haven’t seen it.