DANGER BLOG!

Ali rocks more than anyone could ever hope to.  She treats me like gold, puts up with my crap and spoils me rotten.

I couldn’t be luckier.

Love you, Ali!

(Yankee Stadium blog to come soon)

More to come at some point.

I want to thank you on behalf of my mother for donating to her walk against breast cancer. She is currently $200 away from her goal, and she should be hitting it soon.

My aunt, however, needs a lot of help to reach her goal. She is quite a ways away from her goal, and if it is at all possible, your donations would be gratefully appreciated.

Thank you!

Here come the YANKEES
Let’s get behind and cheer the YANKEES
They’re gonna learn to fear the YANKEES
Everyone knows they play to win, cause

They’re the New York YANKEES
Show them today why you’re the YANKEES
No other way when you’re the YANKEES
Wadda ya say we win a brand, new, ballgame

We’re gonna shout when ya powder the ball
We’re gonna scream, “put it over the wall”
The other teams gonna know what it means to play the Y.A.N.K.E.E.S
We love the Yankees

Shout it out loud , We Love The YANKEES
We’re really proud of our YANKEES
And we’re gonna win today
2, 3, 4, Hit, Run, Fight, Score, Go! Go! Go!

We’re gonna shout when ya powder the ball
We’re gonna scream “put it over the wall yo”
The other teams gonna know what it means to play the Y.A.N.K.E.E.S
We love the Yankees

Shout it out loud, We Love The YANKEES
We’re really proud of our YANKEES
And we’re gonna win today

Y.A.N.K.E.E.S. Yes
Y.A.N.K.E.E.S. Yes

I entered a radio contest to try and win Yankees/Astros tickets this weekend in Houston, and I was one of the five selected! This morning I was #1 with almost 60% of the vote! I just fell to second place to some blonde with a crush on Jeter. Help me beat her so a real fan can go see the Yankees!

(Click for full size)

Name - Mike Rastiello

Birth Date - August 9, 1981

Where you’re from - New Jersey originally, but I have been living in Houston for 2+ years

Why You’re The Biggest Fan - Since birth I’ve been a Yankees fan, passed down to me from my father. I can remember watching games on television and listening to them on the radio. On my eighth birthday, my parents gave me tickets to my first game at Yankee Stadium ever.

Every game I went to since that game, I got the same feeling as the first time I walked out of the tunnel into the box seats. The bright sun, the green grass, the sounds of the ball cracking off the bat during batting practice. That experience has stayed with me for 20 years. I’ve lived and died with every playoff and World Series game in the mid to late ’90’s, I even put up banners outside my parents house during the playoffs. Well, not so much a banner as it was a spray painted bed sheet. It also tears me up that the Red Sox have won 2 World Series in the past 4 years.

When I found out that the Yankees were coming to Houston, I immediately logged on to the Astro’s site to get tickets but learned I needed to enter a raffle to buy tickets, which I missed by a long time. I was crushed to say the least. I haven’t seen the Yankees play in 5 years, and now that they are playing in my own backyard and I am going to miss it? That kills me. (Unless I win, that is)

In case you can’t tell from the picture, there are:

-17 Yankee hats (most get worn on a regular basis)

-3 jerseys (1 authentic home Mickey Mantle jersey, 1 retro jersey, and one hockey style jersey).

-2 floor mats for my car

-2 Yankee flags

-2 Yankee street signs

-2 framed photographs, (1 of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, the other kids standing outside of old Yankee Stadium)

-2 books, Chasing The Dream: My Lifelong Journey by Joe Torre and and 101 Reasons to Love the Yankees (Like I need 101 reasons)

-1 autographed ball signed by Roger Clemens (pre Mitchell Report)

-1 Derek Jeter bobblehead doll

-1 set of Russian nesting dolls (actually from Russia) The players are from smallest to largest: Bernie Williams, Jason Giambi, Mike, Mussina, Roger Clemens and Derek Jeter

-1 promotional banner listing all of the Yankees 26 championship years

-1 ceramic replica Yankee Stadium

-1 ceramic Yankee “Fan Shop”

-1 promotional baseball “signed” by the championship 2000 Yankees

-1 mug with an interlocking NY

-1 oversized Charlie Brown Pez dispenser that plays “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” when you lift the head to get a pack of Pez

-1 mini baseball bat with the Yankees logo on it

-The desktop picture on my laptop is an interlocking NY

And probably my favorite piece I own, a ticket to the Yankees game the night of September 11, 2001. I could never bring myself to trade it in for another game.

Sadly, not everything I own is pictured here. There is still some stuff, books, DVDs, and more hats that are in boxes in my parent’s basement in Jersey. Also, my girlfriend sleeps in all my old Yankee t-shirts, which also aren’t pictured.

Please pass this on to your friends!

I need your votes!! Vote for Mike Rastiello! http://tinyurl.com/5mr3m5

You can see the full size pics of all the entrants here: http://rodryan.thebuzz.com/cc-common/gallery/display.html?album_id=120339

And vote here, for me: http://rodryan.thebuzz.com/pages/yankeesfan.html

Last night I finally hooked up my PC after the move. In last apartment, Ali and I shared a desk and monitor for two computers. That was fine because I didn’t use my PC for much of anything besides a jukebox (It’s nickname is “Music Bitch”).

Well the second bedroom in our new apartment is huge. Much bigger than our old master bedroom, so it was finally doable for me to have my own desk. But this was a problem. We only have one monitor which we used to switch between PCs via a KVM switch.

But after a Planet video gig we had a little extra money one week, and thanks to a sale at Circuit City we got Ali a pretty cool new monitor and I took her old one. I don’t need anything special or new, so I decided to give the new one to her instead of me.

So now that Music Bitch is up and running, I had a stock pile of about 2 gigs worth of new music to put into iTunes since it’s been down for over 2 months. I got all that situated there are now 11,086 songs in iTunes (my e-Penis is huge) but 5,548 (6,806 before the first sync in over 2 months) songs have a play count of zero. That is just over half of my entire library of songs that I (or Ali, now that she has an iPod) have not listened to.

I decided to make a smart playlist of songs that have a play count of zero and I plan to work through it until, at least my music, is listened to at least once. What’s the point of having all this music if you never listen to it, right?

So right now the play list is at 5,539 songs and they will automatically remove themselves from the list once the play count goes to one.

By the way, the last time I made a note of my iTunes library (February 2007), I had 2,792 fewer songs.

I am right at my goal of a full month’s worth of nonstop, no repeating music. I’m pretty happy about that. Now I just need to do that pesky thing. You know. Listen to it.

Once again my Mom is participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer around the isle of Manhattan. Yes, the whole island. Just under the 40 mile mark over two days. It takes an incredible amount of dedication and training for a feat like this, and I am extremely proud of her.

This year breast cancer has come even closer to our family. My mother’s best friend, and my “second mother” was diagnosed as well as another very close family friend. Sadly, my mother’s godfather lost his battle with breast cancer. It’s not only women who are affected by this terrible disease.

In 2006 my Mom first did this walk and she raised $3,260, and I would love to see her top $4,000 this year. Please help as much as you can, even if it’s just passing the link along to others. It’s for a great cause, our wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and even the men in our lives.

I know it’s a tough year, and that things are tight for a lot of us, but anything you can do is greatly, greatly appreciated.

Thank you, everybody.

If you would like to write a check, email me and I can get you the necessary information.