Battle of the Bands Aftermath

The Battle of the Bands show last night went very well with ten bands competing for a grand prize worth over $1200.  The day of the show two bands had backed out giving very little notice which wasn’t too cool, but ten bands was still plenty of competition.

Isrobel was drawn to open the show and their rock and roll filled the Goat Head starting at 7pm.  Paul Kitch played next and just riffed on his guitar for fifteen minutes before giving the stage up to Regicide who came down from flagstaff to wake the crowd up with their Thrash Metal sound.  Losing God, Hi-Fi Beta, The Morning After, Fat Tree, Three Fold Fate and B4T8 (Before The Hate) all played in succession one after the other.  When the last band played we took a few moments to total the judges scores and Fat Tree won the competition by 7 points with B4T8 and Three Fold Fate coming in 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

My wife and I got home around 2am and were just exhausted, I just got up to write this post now and will be taking the kids to McDonalds for lunch today.

-Justin Germino

Awesome Band Competition Tonight in Mesa Arizona

Rock Along Productions which is the production company my wife owns has a grand event tonight in Mesa, AZ at the Goat Head Saloon. This Battle of the Bands pits musicians from all different genres (Rap, Rock, Thrash Metal, Reggae) in a competition where they will be rated by 5 judges. The winning band gets over $1200 in prizes and bragging rights as being able to out perform eleven other bands in one night.

I will be helping run the door and greeting all attendee’s and look forward to seeing all friends and fans of Rock Along Productions and the various bands tonight at the show.

Here are the list of bands competing tonight in Battle of the Bands:

Cigarbox

B4THEH8

Threefold Fate

isrobel

HI-FI Beta

REGICIDE

Losing God

The Morning After

Paul Kitch

Terry and diane mccabe

Fat Tree

A Careless Skyline

Come join us if you live in Arizona, tickets are only $8 at the door and event starts at 6pm and runs until 2am.

-Justin Germino

Review of Geno’s Famous Philly in Casa Grande

There are so few new restaurants that open in Casa Grande on a regular basis that when one finally does the whole city seems to flock to give the new joint a taste. Geno’s Pizza had opened last year and must have reached success because Geno’s Famous Philly opened just a few streets over on the same road. Now Geno’s Famous Philly is a place that stands out as unique in the Casa Grande Restaurant scene. Sure you have your sub shops like Blimpies, Subway and Quizno’s and your Italian Pizza places but they really have no restaurants specializing in Philly Cheese Steaks.

My wife and I brought the kids along last weekend and I decided to order a few different entree’s from the menu. Speaking of the menu, they don’t have a large amount of choices but what they had was enticing.

Geno’s Famous Philly with Grilled onions and Cheese Sauce, BBQ Philly, Ruben Philly, Pizza Philly just to name a few of the Cheese Steak specialties. My Kids ordered the Geno’s Italian sub which comes with Ham, Pepperoni, Salami, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Onion, Provolone Cheese, Mayo and House dressing.

I ordered one of their 1/4 pound Hot Dogs and one of the Geno’s Famous Philly Cheese Steaks but added grilled mushrooms and green peppers to my sandwich. My wife ordered the same thing as I did but omitted green peppers and added extra onions.

First I though the Cheese Steaks were delicious though the sauce is a cheddar type of cheese rather than provolone which you picture when envisioning a Cheese Steak. It does however capture your taste buds and hold them for ransom for each bite. I was not however satisfied with the Hot Dog, it was very large and thick but I didn’t think the dog itself was particularly flavorful or anything to rave about. The Italian Sub was good (my kids let me try a bit) but I would have preferred they use Genoa Salami instead of hard salami for the salami portion to help even out the flavors of the Italian meats more. The hard salami overpowered the Pepperoni and ham instead of harmonizing with it.

My wife said next time she would like to try with Provolone cheese instead of the Cheddar sauce, but I actually enjoyed the Cheddar sauce and for those who aren’t in the mood for Cheese Steaks you can find Hamburgers, Fish Burgers and even good old fashioned Sloppy Joe on the menu.

All in all I think Geno’s Famous Philly will be welcome in the Casa Grande Restaurant scene and the staff was very friendly and very eager to keep their customers happy. The atmosphere was excellent and the place is off to a promising start.

-Justin Germino

Geno’s Famous Philly

1609 E Florence Blvd
Casa Grande, AZ 85122
(520) 836-9700

A Sunday Spent Tweaking

I had spent four hours last Sunday doing nothing but blog tweaks and tuning for everything from AdSense Ads to Widgets and logo’s. Most of the tweaks are minor, like the new “page fold” on DragonBlogger.com and the new Tweetroll Widget. I also removed the Twittley buttons from all my sites and added an AdSense Wide Skyscraper to Wanderer Thoughts Poetry blog. My goal is to tune my blogs subtly to get a little more bang for my AdSense buck plus to free up some more widget space on my side bars and remove the clutter that doesn’t matter. The twittley button itself turned out to be non beneficial as of late, especially to my poetry and personal blogs so I decided to remove them and swap them out for Google Buzz buttons. Though I may switch that to Topsy or some other social submit button.

Does anyone find a particular combo of social submit buttons beneficial to them over any others, like FaceBook, TweetMeme, Digg and StumbleUpon? What are your favorite Social Button combo’s in your blog posts? Write a blog post about your favorite social submit buttons and I will include a link here to your blog post.

-Justin Germino

Best Sports for Little Kids

Though I am not a real sports guy by any stretch of the word I believe that sports and physical activity have a tremendous amount of benefits for kids of all ages, especially toddlers whose limited hand eye coordination can benefit greatly from practicing certain sports and activities.

For little kids you will want to stick with games that don’t really involve catching a ball, they have slower reflexes and poor ability to estimate speed and spacial distance of objects so tossing a ball at the face of a toddler is likely to just bonk him on the nose and he will have little ability to improve as his reflexes are just too slow at this age to adapt.

Soccer

Soccer is one of the most common and perhaps one of the best games for little kids as they use all core muscles in their body and kicking and blocking a ball with their bodies and feet is much easier for them than catching with their hands. Just remember to set small field sizes and small goals for them since their little bodies can’t cover a wide area. My three year old loves to play “kick ball” and will often run around kicking the ball at goals attempting to out maneuver his six year old brother.

Fencing & Sword Play

While little kids can’t catch balls very easily they are just learning how to react to objects coming toward them.  Playing sword fights with foam swords and shields is an ideal way for them to improve their agility and reflexes because you can tailor the speed of your blows to how fast they can respond.    You can increase your speeds slightly to keep them a little challenged and help them learn to swing and deliberately let them score more hits than misses to keep them engaged and having fun.  My kids love engaging me in sword play and Nerf makes some fine Foam Swords that you can safely use without worrying about cutting or bruising each other.  (Though an eager and aggressive toddler can hit pack a whallup when they hit you with those foam swords, particularly when you are hit in the particulars.)

Running & Track and Field

Kids love to run and having running competitions can boost their endurance and help them become better sprinters.  Just remember that small kids trip very often and should always were fitting sneakers, never have your kid run in flip flops or sandals which are more likely to make them trip.  Keep in mind that you will want to have them wear long pants (preferably jeans which help absorb impact and reduce scrapes).  If you live near grassy area’s or beaches, running along sand and grass will help avoid injuries when falls occur.  If you must run on concrete then keep even steady paces rather than racing as fast as possible.

There are so many other simple physical activities and sports you can do and I recommend bouncing a beach ball or basketball for little ones, bowling plastic balls at plastic pins (heavy bowling balls are not a good mix for a three year old who can crush their little fingers and toes).  Just make sure you reduce the weight and size of objects appropriately when involving your little kids and opt for foam sports equipment wherever possible to reduce the risk of injuries.

-Justin Germino

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