Nostradamus'd!

The weekend went pretty much exactly as predicted, minus Just Hamburgers, all the xbox playing, and Merry Anns got moved to Friday night somehow. Oh, and Murphs was closed, so we wound up at Legends with about 892 people in an impromptu P-town reunion, which rocked the butt.

Merry late xmas, all my loyal readers! (all 2 of you).

premature

Instead of waiting till tomorrow, I'll tell you of my illustrious holiday plans pre-holiday leaving day (that'd be right now), because I'm bored as shit and avoiding doing real work.

As a bonus, I'm including tonight.

Tonight: Go home, put on some grubby jeans, put the Mustang in the air, tighten down the rear end to hopefully eliminate some oddball clunking and ensure it doesn't fly off the road this weekend. Eat a burrito, install Sirius in Eric's car, cuz I'm nice like that. Play Gears of War. Drink beer.

Friday: Try to sneak out early, take dog to kennel, drive to Chambana, go to some hotel party for Rachel's bday. Still not sure why it's a hotel party, or what it'll actually entail. Presumably get plowed, eat Merry Ann's, pass out.

Saturday: Drive up to Ptown, hopefully get Just Hamburgers, see grandma, apparently go out with mom and finally meet her 'new' boyfriend she's been seeing for like a year. Then up to the Lake to do something with the Camps/Wards/Eyres/???. Then back to Champaign to meet the crew @ Murphy's, drink a lot, eat Merry Anns, pass out.

Sunday: Do the family thing some more, chill the fuck out, recover from hangover. Drink beer.

Monday: Wake up, do the fam thing s'more, eat, do the awkward Kingston xmas exchange, lounge around for a while, and possibly (probably) drive back to Collinsville that night.

Tuesday: Sleep in, pick up dog, play Gears of war, drink beer.

Wed-Fri: "Work"

Saturday: Wake up mo-ass early, catch 7am flight, get to detroit at like 930, eat at Toast (hopefully), do random shit until C&C show up at whenever they show up.

Sunday: No clue. Eat dinner somewhere awesome with everyone, go back to Liz's and drink till we're idiots, cheer in the new year.

Monday: Sleep off hangover, drink beer probably.

Tuesday: Uh...sleep off hangover, drink beer? Not sure.

Wednesday: Wake up mo-ass early, catch 930 flight back to IL, get dog from kennel again, play Gears.

Thursday/Friday: Cry due to having to work. But I get a 3day weekend the 13th, so that's cherry.

Long pointless post, w00t.

dammit

Why can't people sneak up behind me when I'm actually working, instead of doing it while I'm mindlessly surfing to keep my sanity?

Don't be a hero

I don't care how much of a man you think you are.

Chocolate Lucky Charms is too much sugar for one man.

I has a weekend.

Friday: Got home from work, turned around, got Lowns, headed to Soulard for outdoor firepit and beer lovin at some Bear Something-or-other bar with Lammles and Kim, along with a horrible band and loud 80s music, but beer and fire. Had a good time. Split ways, and Beth randomly called her cousin on the way out of Soulard, who said he was just on his way back to Soulard (he lives there), and that we should meet him. So we turn around, and head to his apartment, which is directly above a bar and the coolest fucking bachelor pad ever in creation of earth.
TVs built into the walls and framed? Check.
Pool table in the living room? Check.
Multiple bars that swing down from the walls for parties? Check.
Bedroom with electric fireplace, fake bearskin rug, and another TV in the wall? Check, check, check.
Closet with built-in minifridge to keep his roomies from stealing his beer? Check.
Awesome loft with ladder bolted to wall? Check.
Dudes skateboarding through the living room? Check.
"Drinko" (Plinko, but drink numbers) game? Check.

Seriously, my head exploded in there. After hanging out for a bit, we him and his buddiesat McGurks, where they quickly went off to do things much cooler and younger than hang out with married people. Stood around McGurks until they closed down 1:10am (??), watching Ellen and the Lowns get sloppy, drove home, got denied Waffle House. Sad. Went to bed.

Saturday: Woke up very tired due to getting to bed at 3, and waking up at 9. Spent the morning cleaning the rest of the storm damage wood out of yard, and trimming up the tree at the back of the lot. Then off to Fairview for attempts at Xmas shopping. Mostly failed due to lock of stock and lack of desire to fuck with idiots. Resolved to go shopping during the week at 8pm this week instead. Due to tiredness, decided to not compulsively drive to Carbondale and get sloppy, instead wound up hitting Blockbuster and ordering in pizza. Watched MI:3 (rocked my ass so hard), and the first half hour of Miami Vice (omg fuckinhorrible). Killed Miami Vice and went to bed.

Sunday: Woke up, drove to O'fallon, swapped exhaust with a guy (car is all loud and screamy now, but doesn't drone as bad on the highway, which is good). Dropped DVD off @ Rob's, headed home. Watched the Bears win, fucked with Ellen's car for a bit, then went groc shopping, and did other random shit. In bed by 9 due to having to be in today at 630. Still tired.

So tired.

This week's goal is only to finish Xmas shopping. That's it. Heading home Friday night. And by home I mean stopping in Champaign to go to Rachel's bday party at some hotel, getting plowed and sleeping there. Then Reunion-y fun on Saturday, xmas shit sunday and monday, and probably going home Monday night.

melt melt baby

Just an aside, and yet another comment on retarded Midwest weather: It's 60 today, yesterday, and higher the rest of the week. Yay December! On the severe plus side, our power bills have been pretty damn low (relatively) this year. Which is awesome.

I should be working

But I'll blog.

I think I just reached a new level of maturity. I've managed so far today (in the 2 hours I've been at work) to _not_ buy a totally bitchin' miter saw. Why? Because, I don't need one right now.

Think about that. I don't need one. That's a pretty big step for me.

No point. Just don't need a miter saw. I'd like one, but I have zero use for one right now. I know I'll buy one eventually, which was my initial justification, but fuck it. No saw hee haw. Rickshaw.

My desk is a damn mess. My desire to do any real work is nil. I did some research on a couple things, but that's about it. I'm waiting on some parts to come in so I can upgrade a couple servers, so in the meantime I'm just kinda chilling. I have plenty to do, but it's all Technology Plan documents and policy editing work and other stuff i need to be in a certain mindset for, that I just ain't right now. Also, I'm on the verge of a pretty nasty cold I think. Something to do with hanging around kids all weekend, then spending 6+ hours working on a deck in the middle of December, I'm sure.

Perhaps.

Hrm.

I'm updating this because I may or may not have received shit from Liz for not updating.

Although, I have not much to offer outside of another weekend update that I forgot to do yesterday because I was actually working my arse off oddly.

Friday: Drove into the city after work, went to Ellen's work holiday party. Had fun. Saw Old Justin, which was awesome, because I'm gonna be an incredible dancer in 15 years. Can't wait.

After the official party was over, the drunk social workers made their way over to Donny Gitto's in south city for some cram-packed karaokee action. I really liked the crowd at the bar for the most part, but I sobered up, Ellen got way drunker, then the crowding combined with soberness at 2am just got to me, and I basically dragged Ellen out of there. She babbled most the way home, and passed out, then we went to bed after the dog exploded on us from being locked in the house for 9 hours.

Saturday: Drove back into the city to get Ellen's car from work, drove back to the house, drove to walmart to pick up Grandma Ashton's pills, drove to shop n' save for a veggie tray, then drove to bellville for Ward Xmas. LOTS of Wards there...cousins and shit. So I drank. A lot. Was way plowstered by 8pm, as was Ellen's dad, who got all sentimental and rambly, it was grand. Left around 10 or so....ate meatloaf and rambled, then passed out.

Sunday: Woke up entirely too early. Drove back to Belleville, got more presents from the Wards, then proceeded to help Chet finish his deck for the next 6 hours or so. My butt muscles and legs are killing me from kneeling and getting up 289329 times. Came home, crashed hard.

Um...I found the chex mix container in my trunk today, and i brought it into my office. This was a mistake. So full of chex.

Ice Ice Baby

Hooray for storms!

Thursday: Got out of work early due to doomsday ice/snow storm en route. Spent the majority of the extra time running around Collinsville gathering provisions (Xbox games, DVDs, gloves, shovel, beer) to hunker down for the duration. Got storm'd. Watched Accepted. Ask me about my weiner!

Friday: Woke up to find a whole lot of tree in the yard. Stupid tree. Lots of damage everywhere, but so pretty with ice and shit, so I was torn as to whether it sucked or not. Nate called me to see if I could get out of my house since they had the majority of a tree fall across their driveway, trapping them in. Pulled the tree parts from in front of the garage, and set out int he Mustang on rescue mission. Yay for traction control.

Picked up Nate/beth, dropped beth off @ the house since they had no power as well, headed to Sears to buy chainsaw. No power. Did donut in parking lot. Went to wal-mart. No power. Did donut in parking lot. Did more donuts and power slides while nate called around neighboring towns. All lines were busy, so we decided to just trek out to Fview Heights blindly. First stop was Home Depot. Gathered with the other manly men while we waited for a forklift to pull the last pallet of gas chainsaws they had off the ceiling. Mad rush. Got one. I grabbed a black&deck Alligator chainsaw/pruner mutation for myself. Loves it.

Headed back to Nates, his neighbor randomly decided to help, so bowsaw, pruners, and chainsaws went at it. 3 beers, 2 Marborolo lights, and 40 minutes later, Nate was able to free his cars from the icey abyss. Went over to my place to meet Helen & Eric who rocked us with the burger king. Nate & I cleared the tree guts off my yard, enough so the dog could get out back and actually piss.

Hung out for quite a bit, ellen & beth wound up going to Fview to do baby shopping for Kelly, they came back eventually. Lowns split, Ellen & I and Helen/Eric hung out around the house for the rest of the day since helen had no power as well. Went out to Ramon's for the messican love, saw some dude fall hard and knock himself out. EMT/Drama was had. Went back to... actually, no clue what we did Friday. Oh! Hurricane's, duh. Met up with the Lowns, drank entirely too many Redbull/vodkas and Crown/cokes to counteract physical tiredness from lumberjacking all day. Made Eric drive back home. Slept hard.

Saturday: Helen still had no power, they hung out for a while watching some crappy movie I can't remember. Eventually we all split our seperate ways, we wound up doing the consumer whore thing, which basically consisted of going to Home Depot again, and spending way too much money on new closet doors and stain. Ate Red Lobster for some reason. Watched Clerks II, Headed to Robdreas for the quickest game of Monopoly ever and some Stella. Drove home late, crashed hard.

Sunday: Slept in. Ellen went to baby shower, I played a shitload of Gears of War and did laundry. Fuggin love that game. Wow.

Cliffnotes--Storm'd.

Also, Coors Winterfest beer is amazingly awesome.

Whitey's

I learned a very valuable lesson this weekend.

Two men (at least two men without gastric death wishes) cannot finish a White Castle Crave Case (30 bugers) in one sitting. I have no doubt in my eating abilities, and given a day to plan around it, I could easily eat 20 in one very short sitting, but in a normal social setting, all future Crave Case purchases shall require a minimum of three (3) able-bodied Whiteys-lovin' males to be present and willing participants.

To wit, I've been eating leftover sliders off and on for 5 days now. Amazingly enough, they take very kindly to being reheated in the microwave.

I'm debating taking the remaining 5 in one sitting, but it's definitely going against my entire "lose some fucking weight" regime. So I'm torn.

pseudo-long weekend update

Thursday: Since it was freaking awesome outside, washed cars, Ellen cooked, we eventually ate food then watched movies I think.

Friday: Went to work, it sucked. Came back, went to Schiappas with Helen & Eric, got Calzone'd pretty hard. Damn good tho. Went out to Good Times for a bit. Dropped off H&E, Ellen and I went to Ducks, caught a band for a bit, then headed over to Hurricane's where we shut the place down, met some real interesting randoms and had an awesome time. Still wired, we hit the jacuzzi around 2, I rocked the Arturo Fuente, Ellen, more beer, and went to bed around 4.

Saturday: Woke up entirely too fucking early, around 9. Stupid dog. Was dead of death the majority of the day. Wound up shopping somehow, bought a closet organizer and some weird LED xmas lights that are actually blue instead of white. Woops. H&E came back over. After much debate, we split ways, Eric and I went on a run for xbox controllers and 30 whitecastle burgers, the girls for girly drinks and pizza rolls and assorted shit. Re-convened, Eric and I gorged on Whiteys. Played a quick round of Screw the Dealer as a warm-up for our games of drunk (drinking) Uno, which actually works great as a drinking game. After that we rocked the Fuzion Frenzy for a while and drank more. Good times. They left due to drunken Eric around midnight, I hit the sack hard shortly after due to tiredness.

Sunday: Ate more whiteys. Decided to swap bedrooms in the house. The office is now pimptastical in our old bedroom, and our new bedroom...needs work. But it'll be nice when it's done.

Also, it's fucking hot out. I've had the top down on the Mustang every day since Friday. And it's the end of November. Dubya Tee Eff. Loves it. Of course, it's supposed to snow like a mofo Thursday.

Also, going to Detroit for New Years. As Liz said, if you start your year in Detroit, it can only get better from there.

of monies and booze

So, when I installed the new version of MS Money 6 months ago, I started from scratch, and decided to add a line item in my expenses for "Beer". This is normally ATM withdrawls specifically for bars, shit for parties, kegs, etc.

Now, I can't figure out what's sadder:

1) I have a line item in my accounting program for beer.
2) I've spent over $700 on that item in the past 6 months.
3) I've spent less than $700 on "groceries" in the same time span.

weeeeekkekeekekkekeend.

Friday: Went out to OMO to eat a huge ass pre-tgiving dinner with a lot of people. Ate/drank entirely too much, all awesome. Won poker, also awesome. Drank more, also awesome. Rode home babbling the whole way apparently until I passed out. Slept.

Saturday: Awaken by mutt at 7a. Bastard. Couldn't get back to bed. Ellen went shopping, I putzed around with her car most the afternoon wiring up her satellite more permanently. Hung out for a while, tried and failed to take nap, ate some food. Went out to Erin & Chets to hang out and cogradulate Chet on his new job in Cali. Oh, they're moving to Fairfield, CA in like....2 weeks? Crazy. Hung out until I could barely stay up, went home and crashed hard.

Sunday: Slept till 10 or so. Ellen went shopping again (damn women). I wandered Walmart for a couple hours and managed to blow over $100 on stuff we've needed for a while. Changed the jacuzzi, hung out with Ellen, watched Nacho Libre (better than i thought it'd be), ate pizza.

Pretty chill weekend, happy for me. No driving this week, as I have to work Friday, so Ellen is doin the cook thing Thursday, should be cool. Looking forward to having another totally chill weekend, especially after oktoberfest

Forgot to mention

Reason #28917844 I know I'm getting old:

I own a leafblower.

Yah.. That's pretty much what I did with my Friday off. Yard work. I rule. Rule the leaves. Die leaves, die. 16:1 reduction mulching rules my ass, though maple leaves clog it like mad.

I was pretty proud of myself actually, I talked myself down from the gas blower (I woulda wound up spending $200, because I would have had to buy a 4 cycle instead of a 2 cycle cuz I know I'd never want to mess with gas mixing), and instead bought the $60 high-end electric one, which works fine.

Yah. Leafblower post.

"She's big into Star Wars" "Yah, well....she'll always be a chiropractor."

Weekend:

Friday: Elloween. Retardedness. So drunk. Ellen was incoherently babbling just prior to puking her guts out and curling up over a bowl on the floor. It was hilarious. The babbling, not the puking so much. A few stragglers resigned to the jacuzzi at 3 to drink 6 more pitchers of beer until after 6am.


Saturday: Hung out with Jim/Rachel until they left....went back to bed due to retarded tiredness. Ate lunch at some point I guess. Slept till 7. Got up, got Hooters. Came home, watched Stay, had my mind fucked with (by it). Went back to bed, had severely fucked up dreams due to movie.

Sunday: Looked up stuff about Stay due to dream. Hung out, did basically nothing. Watched Cinderella Man. Drove out to Steve's for low-low-limit poker at 6. Won a stagginger 20 bux. Had fun though, his work buddies are cool, one of them completely reminds me (looks/acts like) Champaign DustinC. Bizarre. Beer and dumbness was had. Good times.

<3 the midwest weather shit

It's November 8th. It's 75. I've got the top down the Mustang. What's better?

Man

So, I called my great-grandma yesterday to wish her happy 90th and stuff. Had to tell her that we weren't coming up for T-giving (library is open on the friday after, wtf), woulda thought I'd just killed her non-existant dog or something, it was really sad. So, I'm a bad great-grandson. Thatisall.

In other news, I started beating the shit out of the heavy bag last night. I stopped and started a lot so I could do a bit, then go read and watch some vids online to see how I should actually do stuff. Think I got a pretty good feel for it, and I was sweating my balls off, especially after I was able to throw some AC/DC on the DVD player downstairs instead of listening to the Boogie Nights soundtrack. Definitely sore today; across my shoulders and my pecs are just dead. Trapezius? I dunno, I suck at medicine. Hopefully this will be something I can stick to for more than a month; I really have trouble finding something that's exercis-y that won't bore me to death, and I subsequently stop doing.

Thanks to Rob for showing me the Headblade last night. I'd seen this thing when it first came out, and thought, "damn, that's neat". But I didn't shave my head at the time, so I kinda forgot about it. Rob stumbled upon the site and linky'd me yesterday, and I went to Walgreens and grabbed one last night. We'll see. I don't have a huge issue with using a Mach3, but if this works better, then awesome.

Work is nutso this week. Not sure why, but I haven't had 10 minutes to blog. So sad. Short week though, got Friday off for Vet's day. Which will be spent washing the car, raking the yard, and prepping for the party (after playing xbox until 2pm or so)

Also, I don't think I've worked a full 5 day workweek since September. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

If TIME$="Weekend" THEN Update++

I just developed a new programming language, C+Basic for this post title. I rule.

Friday: Came home... that was weird. Haven't been home, not on the road on a Friday in over a month. Met the Lown's at Ramon's for the loud mariachi (old marraca guy was off tonight, sad) and the bombest-ass chimi I've had in a while, along with requisite Negra Modelo. Headed to Good Times shortly after for flat coke with plenty of Crown in it. Became thoroughly trashed way too early. Lowns went home, we went home for a bit, got txted by Lori, went out to Fireside in M-ville to listen to the scariest shitty DJ ever (250 lb white woman screaming at people to dance, then playing 2 minutes of a song, stopping, playing another song, then playing the same song 15 minutes later). It was weird. Drank more. Went home around 1, ate chili dog. Not sure.

Saturday: Woke up, autopsyd' the Mustang to figure out what evil death grinding sound was being caused by on the rear brakes. Turned out I lost a caliper bolt somewhere in my travels. Spent most of the morning scouring Collinsville for a M12-1.75mm thread 35mm long bolt. Found a 40mm one, got pissed, drove to Fairview, found the needed bolt @ Lowes. Spent approximately 2 hours acquiring bolt, about 15 minutes fixing car. Lame. Went Elloween costume shopping after that. Aquired shit on the cheap. Got home, Helen/Eric came over, and we rolled back to Fview to eat some grub, wound up at Houlihan's. Decent. Went back to Cville again, landed at Hurricanes where we watched some insane dart-throwing motherfuckers, drank entirely too many strong-ass crown&cokes (viva Hurricane's pour). Hung out for a while, then I guess went home. Maybe it was Saturday night I had chili dogs.

Sunday: Woke up, lounged hardcore. Went back to fairview to procure boxing materials. Acquired heavy bag and gloves. Drove home, dropped off the bag, then went to work until like 7. weaksauce.

Just when you think you know someone...

I learned three astounding things about my wife last weekend:

1) She's apparently never ate a Twinkie before.
2) She had no idea who "that cowboy thing" was on the package.
3) She doesn't like Twinkies.

Seriously?

Stupid Dutch

So, Chris, Nate and I all signed up for the Marines. And as such, they put us on a ship leaving Paxton, to go to Holland. It was a really quick boat apparently, because we were there immediately. In whatever town in Holland we were in, it was all old-school cobblestone roads and shit, and the townsfolk were dumping booze out their windows into our mouths. For some reason, Chris freaked out as we were called back to the ship after our leave, and he summoned some Volkswagen to come pick him up. I jumped in the back window at the last minute as the car was taking off.

Since we were AWOL apparently, we hid out with our driver at this grocery store, where the guy had set up a small apartment in the freezer section, eating still-frozen pizza and tater tots. That's about the extent of what I remember.

Here ya go

Here's a nice small ambigious post for ya today:

I'm so awesome at not burning bridges, that I actually just spray water on them and post hat-wearing bears on either side of said bridges to prevent anything resembling a fire from coming close to them.

That's how I roll.

Potentiality for things getting all wonky in my life make me kinda wake up. I think I actually strive for chaos. It's invigorating.

-fin

Octoberfest'd!!

Man, I'm glad this is over.

Friday: Wound up taking off at noon in order to get to Joliet in a timely manner. Glad we did, as there was apparently a monsoon between Cville and Springfield, and it took us over 4 hours to get to J-town, maybe closer to 5. Hung out for a few minutes after checking it, and Liz/John showed up with Sarah in tow. Hung out waiting for Matt/Jeremy to pick up Sarah, and then rolled out to explore Joliet and find some grub.

Wound up at a Mexican joint called Señor Tequila, where the salsa was mind-numbing hot (awesome), the waiters were pushing the 46 oz. Margaritas (awesome), and also had holsters with bottles of tequila in them (awesome). Ordered some combo plate I can't remember the name of that whooped my ass something fierce with some incredible steak thing goin on. (awesome.) Headed to Jewel to get provisions for the weekend and stocking the fridge in our room, which apparently was the only fridge-equipped room in the Hampton. Figures. That comes into play later.

Watched the end of the World Series in our room whilest John and I drank Old Style Lite while the womens had vodka/juice products, and we played some random drinking games, drank too much, then decided it was a good idea to swim/jacuzzi. Played some drunken reverse chicken, had 9' swimming races. Good times. Went our seperate ways after that (I think). Went to bed at some point, I think.

Saturday: Woke up at some point, met Kerwins for shady continental breakfast. Hung out in room for a short while, met up with the Soon-to-be Schweigharts. Rolled out to the Mansion just before noon for rehersal action. Mansion was awesome. Wedding was rehearsed. Went back to hotel afterwards to chill out I think? I don't remember. Maybe not. Oh...no. Went to the mall afterwards. Women waitied around to get nails done, guys got tuxes and tried them on, and then food court food was had. Went back to the hotel after that for a bit. That sounds right. I worked on my best man speech, and people...watched TV and drank in our room I think. Maybe. I dunno.

Eventually made our way (after getting lost, and forgetting to tell Jim we were leaving) to the resturaunt for the rehersal dinner. Open bar with a halfway retarded bartender. (No, there's no Malibu in a Sapphire and Tonic. Also, my "Crown and Coke" was apparently poured out of some mystery cup of whiskey that we couldn't identify). But free booze is free booze, so I boozed it up. Had an awesome time hanging out with everyone, meeting new people, and having an incredible meal. Drank more. Headed back to the hotel, where we....drank more. Chris eventually gathered up all the guys and handed out the groomsmen gifts; fucking incredible personalized humidors stocked with Fuentes and all the trimmings. Way awesome. Went outside to freeze our balls off and smoke some stogies. Romeo was the man and rolled with a cooler bag, so we hung out around the lobby alternately smoking and drinking his beer until it was gone around 3a.

Sunday: I was awoken at 7:30 by the herds of women congregating in my room, which was volunteered for hair/makeup staging. Thusly, I was kicked out and left to my own devices. Took my laptop to the lobby, had some food, and finished composing my speech. Then being the awesome man I am, headed back to Jewel to get Mimosa items and fruit for the ladies. Had to kill time since they don't sell before 10a on sundays in joliet (bastards). Killed time, spent a shiteload of cash on items, and headed back. Delivered items, then tried to find a spot to plant my displaced self. Attempted to crash in Jim's room for a short while before giving up, then headed to Nate's room, slept for approxmiately 10 minutes, then decided to give up the idea of rest since we needed to eat, and I needed to bathe and prep for the wedding. Had some BK, which instantly made me non-hungover and awake. Thanks King!

Went back to the hotel, found a room to bathe and change in, then rolled to the mansion, where I was immediately innundated with one mini-catastrophe after another (where's this music, where's the frantic Japanese lady, where's the groom at, where are the unity candles, etc). Showtime came, and despite all the freaking out, the ceremony went awesome aside from some asshole blaring Ludacris through half of it. Cocktails, hours de vours were had during pictures, then the reception began, leading off with my suddenly-shaky self plodding through my best man speech and nearly knocking my glass over in an effort to toast the happy couple. Food and much more booze was had (hooray for open bars). Thriller, Footloose, James Brown, jig, dance-off, the Worm, and other random shite went down. Good party for a Sunday night. Wrapped around 11, made our way back to the hotel where our room was once again declared party central while the hardcore folks made their way to the casino. We basically kicked people out around 130, and hit the sack.

Monday: I woke up around 6 with the urge to hurl and a stomach that woudln't quit convulsing. Calmed items down with a string of burps and farts that would embarrass a llama. Helen's mom knocked on the door at 7, and we were up. In proper Kingston style, we crammed shit into bags, grabbed a quickie breakfast and were on the road at 8:30a. Cruise control was locked on 85, except for the cop festival outside of Springfield, and somehow we made it back to Collinsville in 3 hours flat via some sort of I55 south timewarp. Hit Ruby Tuesday for lunch, got the dog, headed home, unpacked, and I took a much-deserved nap until 6p. Was awoken by Ellen around then, had sex and chili dog (not at the same time), ellen went to bed shortly after watching a bit of TV, I stayed up till about 10 doinking around on the computer and playing xbox.

This weekend entails NOTHING. It'll rock.

Congrats once again to Chris and Cari, y'all rock. It was awesome seeing everyone and their brother, and meeting some decent Californians.

Red bull, take me away.

Oh man.

Here's yet another reason the world is screwed if I ever have a kid...

http://www.modifiedpowerwheels.com/forum/

um..

yah, i'm seriously non-functional today. my brain is mush. i can't focus, or type. I hope nothing important happens today.

Holy hell

In accordance with man law #28912, I can't divulge the full details of this weekend. This is partially because I don't remember, though. Here's your highlight reel.

Friday: Meet up, drink, drink, eat a ton of steak and crab and wine, buy BB guns drunk @ wal-mart, play poker until 6a.
Saturday: Play hockey, go to STC, race karts (Awesome), head back, meet rob for supper, drink a shitload of sake and sapporo, eat mucho sushi. Bounce around bars/clubs on landing, play blackjack, go to strip clubs, take cab home at 6a.
Sunday: Watch football, eat BWW, watch Hard Candy, eat pie, sleep.

Things I learned:
-Racing suits hug the nuts.
-Do NOT hit the brakes late coming into turn 4.
-Rob can drink 3 martinis in the time it takes to train in from IL to downtown.
-Everything can be put on a scale of 1-10, including inebriation.
-Nate did NOT cause the poop flood of 06.
-Off-duty strippers are friendly
-Shaved heads apparently get all the hoes. This is something I coulda stood to learn like 10 years ago.
-I apparently look like I was in town for the mixed martial arts matches. This only solidifies the fact that I need to work out more (at all).
-Always double down on 11.
-Rolando has a beautiful singing voice.
-Chris has a way with cabbies.
-Strip-club bratwurst are fucking incredible.
-Smell Nate's glasses.
-Lesbian chair.
-Jim did NOT puke in the back of the cab.
-Friends are awesome.
-I'm broke.

1 more weekend of hell, then my body can collapse upon itself. Luckily, I have sick time now. Airborne and Redbull this week.

Yah buddy

I had Hot n' Spicy Chex Mix a minute ago. It was fucking fab. My breath reeks now, however. I figured I should tell someone.

Today is already wasted, methinks. I may start loading a server for the new version of websense, or start playing with virtualization, not sure. I need to go check in on some construction minions building me a new server room. That's all's I got's. Tomorrow is the beginning of the "weekend of debauchery" section of Oktoberfest. This week went by real fucking fast. Awesome.

Ellen made me get a 'bar shirt' for Saturday. Apparently I need to look decent for the hoes. Macy's hooked me up with some button-down action and and OE shirt. Yes, I shall be pimpin.

Look out hoes.

This weekend should rock. The 4 of us haven't really hung out in any real capacity since early college years. Now we're old. So it should prove interesting. And strippers.

Oy.

I hate the immediate post-last-bite buyer's remorse when eating McDonald's. It's something generally along the lines of "ugh, wtf did I just eat that for". But, I didn't get a chance to eat breakfast this morning, something about waking up at 7:15 instead of 6:45. So I was hungry. And didn't have time to make a sammich obviously.

So, there you go.

I did get more Monopoly pieces, which is key to putting more shit on my desk.

Da Bears?

So, I really wanted to watch the Bears/Cardinals game last night. It really sucked ass for the first 3.25 quarters, so I passed out at the start of the 4th quarter due to physical exhaustion. DVR failed me due to 29 reviews during the game, so it quit recording at 9:00 left in the 4th.

My goal this morning is to find out wtf happened in the last 9:00. I know the Bears won, I just wanna see it though.

Oktoberfest Weekend #1

Speed version of the weekend, in an attempt to solidify the insane-ness of it all.

Thursday: Drove to Loda. Slept.

Friday: Took Ellen to Mahomet, took Rob to Enterprise, Staples, Best Buy, Subway, and hotel. Got hotel room. Took dump. Tried on tux. Drove to Paxton. Washed car. Got Helen. Drove to Fisher. Got there at 3:15. Tried to find something to do in Fisher. Found nothing but cows. Stalked the Schwan's man. Drove part way to Gibson City. Drove around Fisher some more. Found Steve. Waited around for people. People showed up. Waited around for minister. Minister showed up. Did rehearsal. Went to Champaign. Ate messican fuud and drank beer on Mr. Lammle. It was good. Went to Murphy's, met up Kerwins and Hanner. Drank carbombs. Drank beer. Drank more carbombs. Go cards. Went to Legends. Drank more beer. Went to the hotel. Got callled by Grice. Went to Merry Ann's. 80 cups of coffee waiting on Grice. Had Stack. More coffee. Went to hotel. Passed out.

Saturday: Woke up. Got dressed, drove to Paxton. Hung out with family. Got Subway. Drove to Champaign. Ate Subway, put on tux. Got scotch. Drove to Fisher. Got photographed. Watched Nate and Monte play the most hardcore pingpong ever. Played headless foosball with Steve. Hung out, found video games on our way upstairs, damn. Waited around for a bit, then Rob got married. Then we went to Champaign again. Reception'd! Met Soniya and Erik (Harvard Law) finally. Drank entirely too much, ate salad from a martini glass. Had scotch. Had stogie. Got schooled by Cline on Scotch. Watched people make asses of themselves. Got hugged by JK. A lot. Yay Thriller! American Pie. Went downtown. 2EMain/Guidos. Met Pete en route. Awesome guy. Had drinks, figured out where the PBL contingent went. Lots of people thought I was a bouncer. Checked some ID's. Fucked with really drunk guy via intimidation. Got hat. Helen is a pirate hooker. Explained intricacies of Karma to Ellen/Helen. Drank more. Went to Merry Ann's. Had more coffee and another Stack. Went to hotel. Drank more Scotch. Got called a silly son of a bitch. Wandered halls looking for life at 3a. No luck. Called people. Left voicemails. Passed out at some point.

Sunday: Woke up. Packed. Drove to Tuscola. Ate Monical's. Drove to Collinsville. Unpacked. Took nap. Ordered Pizza Hut. Watched Posidon. It sucked. Watched Heros. It rocked the ass hardcore. Went to bed.

1 weekend of hell down, 2 to go. Bears play tonight. Must tivo since I'll probably be asleep at 7.

The Redbull does nothing!

Ungowa.

Currently operating at 83%.

Seriously. NyQuil and Airborne. I hate the fact that it works, but my 2 day cold is a testament.

I'm seriously rocking butt at work. Through my spurts of doing nothing, I come through with da quickness when it actually matters. Meetings about crap I've stirred up are happening all week.

I have entirely too much cash in my checking account, considering most my bills are paid for the month. I'm in a weird part of my bi-weekly pay rotation. I'm scared to do anything with that money because I'm sure next week I'll be broke. Also, wedding hell. I did splurge on... oil last night for the cars. You know, the little prizes to yourself. Tried to buy brakes for Ellen's car, but the computer at Advance Auto thinks I'm wrong and insists that only Jetta GLS made in 2002 that was a 4 cyl was also a turbo, which is wrong. Or her car isn't a GLS. But I'm pretty sure that's what the VIN said. Regardless, I didn't buy brakes.

Planning for Chris' bachelor party has gone awry. And by that, I mean the logistics and money are killing my soul. And it's next weekend. I know in the grand scheme it doesn't matter cuz we're just gonna get plowed, but I'd like to ensure that we're not stuck out in the middle of East St. Louis at 4am on a Saturday. But to do that, we have to spend a buttload on a limo, which we'd only use to get back and forth from Sauget. Therein lies the quandry.

Today's goals are:
--Meetings regarding server relocation and major digitzation project that I kinda flipped on end
--Find kennel for the dog for this weekend
--Maintain current levels of operation, attempt to increase without the aid of DayQuil
--Clean office

Short week, so that's nice. Next week is also short. The week after that is a full week, but then the next two weeks after that are short weeks too. Then another full week, then it's Thanksgiving. Damn.

Non-witty-ly titled weekend update

Friday: Met up with Helen and her new potential beau, Eric at Ramon's for the standard ultra-loud mariachi, food and booze. Went back to the homestead to chill afterwards, where much booze was consumed, games were played, then hit the jacuzzi for newly-regulated (yay new thermostat) hot bubbly water goodness. They bailed out...at some point. I was plowed, and the water and booze were inviting, so we stayed in a bit longer, I apparently txted nate to come over and "gt wet". We got out shortly after though since we were waterlogged. Resisted urges to drunkenly eat everything, and hit the sack.

Saturday: Woke up at some point, put the top down on the Mustang and headed south on Rte 159 in search of the elusive Michelob Golden Draft/Light. Our travels took us past the Chili festivus in Belleville, through a bunch of stupid farm towns, past a bunch of tractors, and into Red Bud, IL. We went in and bought all their warm Michelob, which was 12 6 packs worth, which is oddly all I can fit in the truck of the Mustang. $70 and an hour later, we were on our way back north. Wound up north of Collinsville in Glen Carbon for Radio Shack and Goodwill lovin. Went back south on 159 again to Collinsville to unpack, then got back on 159 south again to meet up with Chet/Erin/mom and dad Ward at J. Bucks where damn good fish sandwich lovin, more beer, and crown and cokes were had. Headed over to Chets to watch the Yankees game, and watch people get drunk. It was about this time the cold I'd been staving off for 3 weeks decided to kick in. Came home around 10/11 cuz I felt like shit. Took some Nyquil and went to bed while Ellen researched Elloween costumes.

Sunday: Woke up sometime around noon, took Dayquil and mass doses of Airborne. Slept off and on all day, cursed the lovliness of the day since I was stuck inside sick. Watched Rounders for the first time and Wedding Crashers for the 038902th time (stupid HBO). Took more NyQuil around 9 and went back to bed. That was it.

Trying desperately to get over said cold this week. Sad as it is to say, Airborne really does work. Stupid snake oil. That works.

I lied about the weather.

It was 94 yesterday. Today's high is 64. Take THAT Midwest!

Or something.

It's Thursday. I've got absolutely jack shit to do right now. My website project was ready to roll out on Monday like I had planned, but I'm stuck waiting on blessing from the Director to push it live. And he's in Chicago. So I'm sittin on my butt. I'm doing preliminary work for a big ass digitization project for the paper here, but our head of Genealogy is...in Chicago I think, so I can't do much more on that, and I'm waiting on emails back from a couple different firms with quotes.

Workorders are all caught up, workstation upgrades are mostly done. Most the workstations have been wiped clean in prep for donation/recycling. I'm kinda drawing a blank here. I was going to upgrade to the new version of websense, but I'm waiting for the old web server to use as the new websense server, and I can't do that until I bring the new webserver online.

Quandries.

So, I'm doing this. And listening to Pearl Jam. I forgot how much I love PJ.

Seriously, I have no clue what to do. I could start on this Bob Grahl project, but I don't know wtf I'm doing with it. :) I'm waiting on our laywer to ratify our RFP for the new phone system, so I can't do anything with that.

Really, I'm just waiting. I've got shit cleared out in anticipation of all these huge projects, but I can't do anything with them, so...i'm... yah. Bored.

LOST kinda hurt my head last night. But in a good way. Though it seemed there was a commercial every 2 seconds. Bastards. I really wish I could DVR HD stuff. Not $200 wish, but still.

I just burped Cinnamon Life. You know it.

Gonna be a long day.

Fuck shit Jesus is right...

If you feel like having your head explode today, you should read the entire character bio page for 12 Oz. Mouse on Wikipedia.

A status breifing on a small scottish man named Kend.

Pretty much mirrors Rob's, since I was with him, so I'll recap and fill in the blanks.

Friday: Day off, went to Schnucks and managed to spend $100 buying only liquor, donuts, and ice. I really think that's my crowning achievement of the quarter. I hope it comes up in my review.
Hung out with Rob/Nate until Steve showed, played xbox, drank beer, and shot cans off the jacuzzi from the back porch cuz we're WT like that. Drove to the cabin. Drank.

Drank Heavily.

Went through the majority of 2 fifths of Jager, at least a fifth of Jack, and a shit-lode of beer. Watched the Drunkest Monte I've ever seen do shit with hilarity. Guys went to bed at some point, Nate, Steve and I meandered back to the neighboring cabin to try and crash a wedding party, then wandered to the docks where we chatted, talked about hotwiring boats, and attempted to steal an unladed boat trailer with fantastic results. Somehow missed the fact there was a playground. (!!)

Saturday: I bounced up at the asscrack of 7 feeling like a trillion bux. Got on boat, I drank a lot of beer unsuccessfully while also fishing...unsuccessfully. Long day of waterness wore our asses out, and we just chilled, played poker, and that was about it.

Sunday: Woke up at like 3a with a case of the "what the fuck did you put in me"s from my body. Something was wholey rejected, be it the day old kraut/brats, the cabin-bathtub-defrosted steaks or what. Recovered through the day via mucho sleeping. Had food, dissasembled kitchen in prep for the countertop delivery today, watched Lucky # Slevin (fun flick).

Bud-dee-ba-dee-ba... That's it.

I <3 the Midwest

Friday afternoon I think it was maybe 70 out. Today, 90. Tomorrow? 94. Thursday? 75. With all likeliness, Monday will be 30. Regardless, the top is down, and the car got washed over lunch.

Ode to NyQuil

NyQuil, NyQuil, you never let me down;
Whenever I need you, you're always around,
To dry up my mucus when it's all green and brown.

You make me sleep like a fuckin log,
and out of my throat you keep the snog*.
(*-Snog, in this case, referring to the crap that drains down your throat when you sleep. I actually just made up the word so it fit, I hope no one notices.)
I used to feel all crappy and in a funk
But thanks to you, this weekend I shall be able to get rowdy and be all drunk.

You know it

Happy pop n' lock Thursday!

Mandate Proposition

I'm proposing the following:

If the proceeding are all true:
A) You own a convertible
B) It's sunny out
C) It's over 75 degrees

Your top should be required to be down. People who don't comply with these guidelines are pissing me off for some reason. Since this whole convertible thing is new to me, I'm the dumbass going 80 on the highway when it's 60 out with the top down getting an earache and loving the shit out of it. This, I don't expect of Foe Mofo.

All I'm sayin is, if it's absolutely perfect convertible weather out, and you have your top up, why did you pay the extra cash and put up with the extra wind/road noise of a convertible?


In other news, I'm lovin' me some independantly suspended rear-end love... It's like a totally different less-brutal car now.

Uncle JK

So, I'm gonna have a niece apparently, Ann just found out like 10 minutes ago or something. There's no point to this post, I just am sick of staring at this website I'm working on.

twofertuesday

Not sure what I'm referring to there.

How about a late weekend update?

Sure, don't mind if I do.

Friday: Hung out with the dog. Drank some beer. Caught up on my banking shit. Played Xbox.
Saturday: 9am-Drove to Granite City to start the swapping of my solid axle rear end for the independent suspension rear out of another guy's 01 Cobra.
1am-Came home to sleep after having every possible thing go wrong and take entirely too long on the swap, including me snapping one of my brake lines.
Sunday: 9am-Drove to Granite to finish out the rest of the swap, minus brakes.
6pm-Had Steve drive me to Enterprise to rent a car while we figured out how to get mine somewhere to get the brake line patched.
9pm-Slept.

There was the weekend.

Yesterday worked out fairly well. Had it towed to Carx in Granite at 3, they were done with it by 530, I was able to get the rental back to Enterprise w/o being charged for 2 days. So the total cost of the swap including incidentals (brake lines) was $167.49. Oh well. I have some independantly suspended rear lovin now, and it's pretty damn nice.

For those that give a shit, there's even a nice 4 step pictorial of the swap. Note the complexity difference between the IRS (pic 4) and the solid rear (pic 5).
http://forums.stlmustangs.com/index.php?showtopic=69067&st=0

Beyond getting my car actually finished yesterday, we got our house appraisal finally finished yesterday, and the countertop folks called to setup the install date for next monday, w00t. Funny enough, the appraiser thought that our current shitty countertops were nice and noted it in the appraisal, before Ellen told him that they were getting replaced.

FYI

For those who care, Hillary had her kid(s) this morning, two girls I think.

My subconcious is stupid and apparently sterotypes.

Actually had a dream about the E. Coli spinach last night. This is bizarre for two reasons:

1. I never dream about current "events".
2. I played Dead Rising for about 2 hours directly before going to bed last night.

Anyway, it played out like a crappy ABC movie. Apparently, the E. Coli spinach was deliberatly contaminated with the idea that only gay people like spinach salads, and thusly was a ploy to make all homosexuals sick.

Now, I absolutely have no idea where my brain got that from. I personally don't care for spinach salad myself, but I'm sure plenty of straight people do. And I'm equally sure plenty of homosexuals don't care for spinach salads. So obviously this is fundamentally flawed. I'm just relaying what my subconcious was watching on the dream television. It was weird.

General Tso Full

I really, really hope that the fine people at New China in Collinsville don't think that the General Tso's combo is a meal for one person. I've been eating on this fucker for 3 days now. I finally finished it off today for lunch, only because I was sick of looking at it in the fridge at work. And I'm completely fuxing stuffed.

I really want to put this under the tag "Chinese Food", but I just dont' think I talk about Chinese food enough on here.

I will say this, however. I greatly miss Yen Ching in Urbana.

And Lil Porgy's. Which is still there, but I just never get to go.

Schwiggity-schwang.

Knowledge Me Again

I had to school Ellen on Rap History 101 this weekend.

Here's what's she learned:
House of Pain is comprised of members of the Caucasian race.

TheMoreYouKnow'd!

'nother wierd one

So, there's apparently some code you can type into a Tivo (07701634, not sure why), but it will reveal the future. But not on TV, you actually experience it somehow. It was fucking weird. I was walking around in a prison jumpsuit, I remembered looking for this chick I knew, and she was like a rotting corpse.

The code actually was told to me (in dream) by some kid who was living in this basement dungeon-type thing. Just really bizarre dream.

Monday thang

Whew.

Friday: Dinner with El/Hel @ Ramon's. Came back, I drank jack for some reason (so tasty, probably). Watched The Jerk. Slept.

Saturday: Putzed around for a while, went to Fairview, bought some clothes, Dead Rising for the 360, and a RC Plane. Came home, flew plane for about 10 minutes, Ellen flew plane directly into large tree. It rocked. Endless shit was given.

About 6 or so, went over to Helens, and headed downtown for ItalianFest, where we met up with Nate and Beth. Much pseudo-Italian food and $3 16oz beers were had. We setup base between the liquor store and portapotties, and it was good. Eventually Clayton/Rachel met up with us. Did the I-fest for a while, then consolidated cars. Headed to Ducks, where drunken pool was played (my best game evar), expensive Jagerbombs were had, and we left due to shitty service (1 person working the whole place wtf). Headed over to Good Times, where good times were had. More shots, more beer, my hat got stolen by a 400lb bridesmaid. Which I'm really fine with, since it was $15, and she was gunning for my new John Deere shirt....and trying to take it off me in the bar. So, I was happy to let her 'borrow' the hat. Rachel took it upon herself to search the purses of the giant hookers in the parking lot, which I thought was funny, because while the prinicple of the matter sucked, it was a $15 hat, and definitely not worth getting Rachel's ass kicked over. I digress.

Headed home after that, hopped in the jacuzzi and continued to drink until sunrise, as it goes. Think we finally hit the sack around 730 or something retarded.

Sunday: Dog woke me up at noon. Bastard. Ate frozen pizza, fell asleep at 1 watching some shit on History. Woke up at 5. Got Chinese. Watched Inside Man. Went back to bed around 10. Oddly, I wasn't hungover at all, which was completely awesome. I thank Coors for that. I always seem to have diminished or non-existant hangovers on Coors Light. You'd think I'd learn that and drink more of it. I shall.

Good weekend. Ellen's gone next weekend, so I shall play with Mustangs and generally relax a lot prolly, before the Ides of October are upon us.

Skillet!

http://www.bahnder.com/images/Skillet

Pics of the squirrel encounter.

I whooped Mighty Thor's ass

So last night (beyond playing with squirrels) was the true test of Thor's valor. Ellen did a double-up vacuum job with the regular vac until it stopped finding Boris-hair. Then we sent Thor on a mission, and he got...more fucking hair and dust outta the carpet. Awesome. Set him loose bedroom, and apparently under the bed is dust hell.

I fucking love Thor.

Of baby squirrels and table tennis

So, let the dog out to piss when I got home last night. As he was running inside, I heard this squeaking, and say something kinda moving towards the yard. Pushed the dog inside before he saw whatever it was and freaked out. Wound up being a baby squirrel. Freakin' cute. Shakes a lot. Having never dealt with a baby squirrel before, we learned a lot of things yesterday:

-They enjoy climbing on khakis.
-They like riding on shovels
-It's hard to use a shovel to put a squirrel back in a tree
-They shake a lot.
-When baby squirrels fall from a shovel about 6' in the air, they make very pathetic sounds.

We wound up just puttin him (Skillet) down in the neighbor's yard, out of the dog's reach. Not sure if he wound up surviving or not. We have a lot of random baby squirrel pics now.

Um, oh, Ellen whoops my ass hardcore in Table Tennis on the 360. I need to practice. It's rather embarrassing.

Awesome.

So, since I've moved to Illinois, I've been randomly pulled for emissions inspection on my car twice. Of course, the title awesome is referring to this fact: both times I've recieved notice, it's been after I've sold said car.

Ergo, awesome.


So, I'm sure they're a little suspicious, that the 2 times they've ever sent me anything, I've already gotten rid of the car. Just bad/awesome timing I guess.

You know what's funny?

The Chevy Aveo. Holy crap. Hilarious.

Seriously.


Ellen's Jetta is in the shop, and that's what they gave her. I laugh. Ha. Ha. Funny little car.

Matt Damon

Really fucked up dream last night.

I'm not sure what was going on exactly, but it kinda felt like a Bourne movie. Except Matt Damon was just hanging out with this Asian chick. We were having some sort of BBQ at the house, and Matt had made some sort of puzzler out of a patio umbrella by bending the neck of it.

Someone had made an opposite bend in the umbrella later on that resulted in it being straight(ish) again, and Matt marveled at it. Eventually we went inside, where Matt had made these assorted deserts. I gave him a lot of shit for his portion sizes. The gooseberry pie (??) he had made was in like 4 huge pieces, which he gave one to the chick he was with. I went to get a piece of peach cobbler, and the pieces were super-tiny. So I gave him a lot of crap over how he cut up stuff.

Woe is me

Entertainment options are mind-boggling. One the one hand, it's a great thing that this is really the biggest worry in my life. I'm not worried about getting bombed or anything, just what my entertainment options are. Kinda puts things in perspective.

Anyway, our contract with Charter is up this month. The cheeky bastards won't let me change my service prior to our deal expiring, lest we get hit with a $250 termination fee. So for one bill, our cable will be $100. And that, my friends, is lame. Especially since there's still the $60 phone/internet bill to be paid.

So the options are:
1. Stay with Charter, see if my SBC contract is close to termination, drop SBC, get a Cable/Internet pack from Charter, get a Tivo for standard def stuff, and use an anetnna for HD and not DVR it. Total initial cost: $0 Total monthly: $80ish

2. Drop Charter, stay with SBC, get back with Dish. Awesome HD pack, dual-tuner HD DVR, and HD locals (including ABC finally). Total initial cost: $250 Total monthly: $100ish

Of course, this shit is all kinda contingent on 1) My SBC contract being over with or close to it, and 2) If Dish will consider me a 'new' customer if I have a new address and haven't been a customer for over a year. May have to have Ellen be the customer.

Or, I could just sell my TV and become a hermit.

Doglog

I think the training is officially over an official. He kinda aimlessly wandered into it the other night when i had him on his long lease, and freaked the fuck out since he didn't get much of a warning.

Anyway, yesterday we started going sans leash, and just supervising him. (actually keeping a leash on him so we can grab him if need be, but he's just pulling it around). This morning I took him out to piss before work, with no leash at all. I was really hoping there'd be some critters out and about, and sure enough there were a couple rabbits in the neighbors yard.

Dog caught sight of them...stared them down for a minute...checked out the flags, and then made a bolt for it. Made it to the flags, got beeped (no zap), and stopped dead in his tracks and ran down the flag line. Shits yah. That was pretty much the ultimate litmus test of this thing working. So, I'm glad it works, and I'm also glad I didn't have to chase down the dog this morning.

So, huzzah victory, success and whatnot.

Oh...

Go Bears!

Of robots and vacuums

Aside, got our Roomba (named Thor) the other day. Holy fucking mother of shit this thing rules my ass on about 289 levels. I love it. Dog hates it. That's really all there is to it. Long live the mighty Thor.

Update of the weekend prior

We did so much, yet nothing.

Friday: Came home, changed, then headed to the Dub-G (Webster Groves if you're nasty) to meet up with some of Ellen's MERS people for drinks and an apparent game night. Went to Brian (the infamous Catfood Bagman) and Kristey's place, awesome little house. Drank some drank, wound up playing Balderdash for entirely too fucking long with a couple other...couples. Ellen got plowed, we wound up hanging out for a bit after the other folks left, got home around 1ish I think.

Saturday: Woken up by Monte calling, got ready at some point, had a bitchin breakfast burrito from Sonic, headed to O'Mo to help Monte et al clean up his condo in prep for selling it. Split around 2 or so, headed home, took a nap, met up with the Lowns around 6 and headed down south of Festus for Richstock, which is basically a big party/bonfire in the middle of BFE. Had a great time, good seeing the people who actually decided to show. Almost obtained a new dog (Lab Shar-Pei mix named Fathead, but decided against it). We originally were going to camp out, but since there was such a little turnout, we (I) decided to stop drinking and just drive home eventually, eventually being 2:30a or so. Sucky hour+ drive. Got home, hit the sack HARD.

Sunday: Slept till noon. Had eggs. Sat around the hoosegow. Dragged Ellen and the Dog up to Fairview to get some toys and crap for the dog and some shit for the fish tank. Got home, turned around and went back to F-view to meet Lowns for some Fortel's Pizza lovin. Fucking love that place. Rueben pizza FTW. Came home, watched 11:14, which was kinda interesting, but fell horribly flat at the end. Talked to mom for a bit, for the first time in at least 3-4 weeks (I'm a horrible son). Changed out the sand in the fish tank while Ellen read. She wound up giong to bed early, I wound up staying up till midnight or so fucking around on Youtube and burning CDs of my MP3s and whatnot.

There ya go.

The shit's starting to get a little hectic now. This weekend I'm hoping to do a rear-end swap on my car with a local Cobra owner for some independantly suspended lovin. Next weekend, Ellen is going somewhere for Andrea's bachelorette party, and I'm assuming there'll be some 'guys night' action. Weekend after that is Rob's bachelor party, which brings us into Hell Month (October). Ungowa.

Since I feel like I'm keeping a log on the dog (doglog?)

Dog is still smart, still didn't shock itself. He's actually a bit too smart. On his chain (when he's not wearing the shock collar), he apparently can reach some of the flags marking the boundry. He ate one. Stupid flags.

Fairly positive

I'm almost definitely sure I just ate the best Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich ever created.

Holy wow.

Dag

I got mayonnaise on my keyboard.


While that may sound like a euphemism, it's really not.


In other news, Ellen's parents had to put Murphy (the dog) down the other day. I guess it had a cyst/lump on it's back that had wound up being cancer... They knew about it for a while, but didn't tell any of the kids. Eventually it caught up to her, so they decided to put her out of her misery I guess Wednesday. Ellen was kinda sad about it since Murph was her birthday present like 13 years ago.


In other dog related news, electric fence training is going really well with Boris still. We started on perimeter training last night, where I walk around outside the area with him untied, and chuck treats at him for not coming towards me. He wandered off into an area by the deck that has a really fucked up boundry, and the collar beeped at him, and he made a b-line for the back door, so he definitely knows what's up and doesn't wanna get shocked, so that's good.

I feel like we probably should have started with the non-deadly collar first (the 6v one that runs on button batteries instead of the big vibrating/beeping beast that runs on a 9V and i'm afraid to test on myself), just because of how much the 9V one obviously hurts. But the smaller one has a different range, so I'm kinda hesitant to fuck up the boundry he's already learned, also, if he didn't respond to that shock, it'd kinda defeat most of the training.

Luckily, he's not retarded, and is scared shitless of the big collar shocking him, so I don't think its gonna be an issue. He kinda gets in "the zone" anyway when he's in chase, and I think the big fucker might be a necessary evil to keep him in check. We'll start distraction training this weekend, should be interesting. I need to find some squirrels. They've oddly all scattered since we started training...dunno if they can hear the fence or what.

Yay for smart dogs

After only getting the bloody pissed shocked out of him twice, Boris has definitely figured out "hey, if I cross those flags, that sucks." He' won't go within like 5 feet of them, which is perfect. The training method (throw a bunch of treats at him inside the area, then toss one over the line and see if he still goes for it) is cruel as hell, but apparently effective as a motherfucker.

Today we start mild distraction training, where I have to walk around the outside of the boundry and make sure he doesn't try to come to me.

Then the real test, we need to have the neighbor walk his dog by the yard, or figure out how to train a squirrel to run around outside the perimeter to test the will of the mutt. He got close to the line once the other day, and the beep alone scared the shit out of him and he made a b-line back about 2 feet to avoid the shock.

So, there you have it. Electrical shock conditioning works. On dogs. That aren't retarded.

Weekend update

Long one, here we gooooooo!

Friday: Came home...uh...wow. No clue what we did. Sat around a lot....I think we may have gone to blockbuster or something at one point, but decided there was nothing out we wanted to watch. Drove around a bit.... Seriously we didn't do jack shit. Might have jacuzzi'd. Oh, yah, we did.

Saturday: Woke up at some point, Ellen made breakfast, and we headed out to Fairview to start on the house nightmare (nightmare being the part where we spend gobs of fucking money). Went with the intention of pricing out flooring options for the house. Found out that places make a damn killing on installation charges for installing laminate flooring. Found "the perfect" dark non-cheap-looking-kinda-almost-looks-like-real-wood laminate in "Brazilian Cherry" at Beckys. Obviously wasn't cheap. I've been pro-carpet for quite a while, until I saw what Ellen wanted in carpet if she didn't get her 'wood' floors. So now I'm on the wood wagon. Doh.

Went to Home Depot to check out some other options, wound up in the countertops. Sat down with a sales person, went over the options grabbed about 200 samples, came home, tried out samples, drove back to fairview, put in the order for the countertop. I managed to talk Ellen down from the Corian/stone stuff into a higher-end laminate, which saved us ungodly amounts of cash. Flush with stupidity, we left the confines of HD and headed to Chili's, where I had an out-fucking-standing Philly. Went home again.

I started in on the invisible dog fence installation, only to find out that we were only given enough wire to make it approximately 1/2 way down the shortest side of our lot. Drove BACK to Fairview/HD to get more wire and flags for the system. I cannot wait until the HD in C-ville is finally done.

Came back, got going proper on the initial layout, just stapling the wire down to the ground to test it all out. Got the layout done, then had to prep the fish tank setup for break-down since it finally got sold. Said a farewell to my aquatic friends, and loaded the whole shootin match up in some guys truck after recieving a wad o' cash.

Helen came over at some point, Ellen made pizza, and I started drinking. About 10 or so we decided to go watch Beerfest, on the recommendation of Lance. Since I was slightly buzzed at this point, I was all for it. Drove BACK to Fairview, Beerfest actually wasn't horrible, but given my not-completely-sober condition, I could see it sucking hard ass otherwise. So, see it drunk.

Came back to C-ville, helen was sick, so she left, and we hit the sack around 1 or so.

Sunday: With the fish tank out of the way, Ellen decided it was time to paint the living room (again). Went to Sears to buy massively-on-sale paint ($10/gallon, w00t). Wound up with some sort of greenish/yellow hue, which looked like baby vomit on the walls. Luckily this was figured out that it sucked about 10 minutes into painting. Ellen went back on her own and came back with some "Stonehedge something or other rock" color, which is basically a light bluestone color, really neat. She painted, and I proceeded to actually bury the wire for the invisible fence. Got the whole back lot done, went to Fairview Heights (AGAIN), to pick up the Lown's dogs since they were on their way back from WV. Got them in, went back home. Ellen finished up painting, we chilled out for a bit, then decided to try out Boris' car harness on him and take him for a spin in the 'vert since it was really nice out.

Thing actually works great, only took him a couple tugs before he figured out he couldn't go anywhere, and being a dog, he fuckign loved the open air of the vert. Took him over to play with the Lowns' dogs for a bit, then back out on an ice cream run. Ate, hit the sack around midnight.

Monday: Woke up, ate, and I finally finished running all the wire for the invisible dog fence. Our lot is laid out in such a screwball way, that I had to get really inventive with the wire placement; it actually runs underneath the house so the dog has full access to the back door. Sucks. Anyway, after that was done, I went around and tested it all out and tweaked things, set out the boundry flags, and started with the training. Felt bad for the dog, he jumped up and freaked the fuck out the first time the thing hit him. But, being a quick learner, he figured out what the flags meant, and we've only got 2 days of initial training left on him. He's already avoiding the boundrys even without the shock collar on, which is good. Spent the rest of the day re-arranging the living room, jacuzzi'ing, and watchin TV.

Looong weekend. Too much shit got done. Ready to drink.

I <3 drunken IMs still

Funny shit waiting on my desktop at work for me this morning:

[02:04] basler312: xfkgmb s;gjknsgdk;bj
[02:13] basler312: jk what would you doooooooooo for a klondike bar?
[02:14] basler312: i think you're sleeping so you can just let me know later.

Brilliant.

For my money..

The best way to look super-duper busy is to ensure the following things are up on your screen, all in overlapping windows:

• At least 1 Notepad with a stupidly huge log file in it
• Some browser window with a bunch of charts and shit in the background
• At least 1-3 DOS boxes
• Calculator running in expanded/hex mode

You'll look like a freaking genius. I don't even want to do any work, I just want to look at how productive my screens look while I blog.

Ow my music.

So, I'm going through my music collection and re-creating a batch of MP3 CDs for the car. I generally breaks stuff up by genre, which is hard enough sometimes (I wound up with Gnarls Barkley in Alternative, I think that's fair). But then it gets really stupid trying to group albums together on a disc in a coheret fashion, while filling up as much of the disc as possible w/o going over 700MB.

Obviously I attempt to group the same artist together...and get fancy, I've got a CD with every House of Pain CD, then every Everlast CD... Then I start to get desperate. There's a CD of rappers produced by Dre, but I didn't have room for NWA on there, which has Dre in it, so it wound up on the disc with all the Public Enemy stuff becuase they were big during the same period. My "White Jewish Rap" disc (Beastie Boys, Matisyahu) came up at like 500MB, so I'm trying to figure out wtf else to lump onto that disc. It's really a much bigger pain in the ass than it sounds. I've got southern rap on my midwest disc, but I didn't have room for my 5 Outkast CDs. So they're on their own disc now.

Really, I just need to nut up, and spend the $300+ on an iPod and iPod adapter for the car stereo, but as much Sirius as I listen to, I just can't bring myself to do that.

I'm so fucking conflicted.

Tone heLoc

Once again, I claim it's entirely too easy to get credit in America. I've never even stepped foot inside an office or met my broker, and we're already in underwriting.

On the plus side, based on "a statistical analysis of the zip code combined with square footage", our house apparently has appreciated 15 grand in a year. So that's something. Now to dump some more cash into it.

Also on the plus side, despite buying 2 cars in the past month, Ellen and my credit scores are both over 700, so that's neat.

Windows, flooring and countertops....and that's it. Hopefully. Found a pretty decent deal on Low e/argon double-hung windows, so that makes me happy and hopefully will put an end to those $200+ power bills in the summer. And I don't have to scrape/paint the old windows to boot. Yay?

I'm definitely playing this house like an extended flip. Too much A&E and HGTV/Discovery have rotted my brain. Yet again on the plus side, I feel like we're making very good decisions on the improvements, and actually kinda know what we're doing.

Fat guy on a little bike

Now, I'm all for the rights of the obese. Do whatever the hell you want. But.... Please stop selling 400+ pound guys tiny motorcycles. Really, at that point, any motorcycle you put the dude under is just going to look like a bear riding a tricycle. Now, don't get me wrong; it's funny, and I appreciate funny things on my morning drive. But, I at the same time, I know that a lot of other people think that's funny, and for that, I'm sad for the Fat Guy on a Little Bike.

You heard it here first.

If Anheuser Busch ever releases a "Dear Beer Santa" ad campaign, that was my freakin' idea.

Also, if this happens, you will know that:
a) They actually do read the comment cards from the hospitality room at the end of the brewery tour.
b) I rock.

Where's the beef?

Right here, mofo.

Howzabout a late-ened weekend update, rapid fire style?

Friday: Home, grilled, people, Hurricanes, darts, LJ Ducks, stolen bag of ice, cowboy hat.

Saturday: Movie channels, "Get off my plane", brewery tour, Mich Golden, Llewylns, Funny Bone, drunken cards

Sunday: VH1....uh.....hrm. I don't really recall Sunday I guess.

Hello world

Dude, I'm totally going to log my thoughts on a web site.