Weekend

Friday: Left work about 4:45, trodded through the clusterfuck that is 170/Brentwood to head to Ellen's office for her work xmas party. Drive took just under 1.5 hours instead of the 30 minutes it actually should take. Awesome. Had some free booze, stood around with husbands, watched a lot of really drunk social workers be drunk. Headed to Nick's Pub on Manchester to meet people, only to find out they went somewhere else instead. Worried about impending snow doom, I made the motion to go back to CVille and bar it up instead, which I won, because I was sober and driving. :)

Headed to Friday's South, where Paul was pourin' it up. We were initially kinda bla about everything, declaring we'd just have a couple drinks and call it a night. But, as Friday's tends to do, we got sucked in to funness and comp'd booze. Ellen wound up getting hit on by the chick that she was trying to get interested in random dude of the night, which was funny. Went home around 2:30, Ellen stayed up drunken babbling until about 4.

Saturday: Woke up around 8:30, then flopped around and tried to sleep more, got out of bed at 11ish. Met Lowns and Camp-Davie at Especweslda's, the resturaunt that used to be another Mexican place. Wound up being pretty decent, so that was happiness. Stopped by HD and WalMart afterwards for supplies. Went home, I attempted to nap but the dog wouldn't let me. People showed up around 7ish, dirty martinis and choco-covered cherry drinks were had, beer was consumed, drunk sledding was done, and drunkness was..dranken. Or something. People left at some point, Ellen passed out from tired at 1, I stayed up drinking and internetting till about 4.

Sunday: Slept till 12:45, which was AWESOME. Had a small bite, then went out to finish xmas shopping. Killed the list with the quickness. Headed into the city to pick up Ellen's car, stopping by PF Changs first for the over-priced Chinese goodness. Got her car, headed home, watched Captivity, which was decent, and Elisha Cuthbert is still haaawt. Watched the Dexter season finale, which was awesome, love that show. Mediocre Simpsons. Ellen went to bed around 9, I stayed up watching some Military Channel documentary till 11.

oh

I weighed myself Friday. 219. Consdering I'm doing nothing, I should probably be happy with this result.

weekend

Friday: Went home, picked up rental car from Enterprise, went to work xmas party, which was tolerable, but not awesome by any means. Out of there by 8 or so, then to Friday's South where we hung out a lot, and both got hit on severely, it was weird. Lori met up with us at some point and we drank till about 2. Headed over to Duck's to catch the 2:30 fight. Got there at last call, there were 3 SEVERELY drunk southern (like Alabama/Mississippi) dudes in there, it was weird. Saw the drunkest person of my life, ever. Let him borrow my lighter, then he was back asking for a light 2 seconds later. I gave him my lighter at that point. He asked me to light it for him because he was too drunk ("but not a fag"), then asked if he could hug me because I lit it for him. Got kicked out of Ducks at 2:30. Went back to the house and drank more, lori left at like 330 or something. Watched Ellen babble incoherently and fall (Mouthwash is heavy) for a while, plowed. Bed around 5?

Saturday: Fucking dog woke me up at 8 and I couldn't get back to sleep. Made ellen get sonic. Ate, watched TV, passed out on the couch. Woke up around 5, got dressed, headed out to Chesterfield to meat lowns and lammles at Bacara, a brazilian meat-death joint.
Full review on my new site, http://www.thingsjkeats.com. Bam.
Finished, drove home, passed out on the couch promptly. In bed by 11.

Sunday: Woke up at 8 again, (fucking dog). Putzed around the morning, started tearing apart the car at noon to re-do all the stereo shit. Took lots of breaks, went to BW3 to watch the good part of the Bears/Giants game, came back, fought the car on some points, got everything put back together at 12, attempted to wind down, failed, went to bed, flopped around for a few hours until my alarm went off mo-ass early since we had to take my car to the body shop at 7 to fix the deer shit.

Red Bull no longer affects me, I don't think.

Going home this weekend for the in-law xmas stuff. Yay?

longish weekend update

Wednesday: Met up with Lown's for Ramon's lovin, split up, Ellen and I landed @ Fridays' South, where much gin was drank, hung out with.. April? Some short chick, really nice. Crowd thickened severely at midnight or so, saw our neighbor, chilled more, left around 2-2:30. Wrong bartender got our tab, so we weren't comped, which kidna sucked, but whatarayagonnado. Passed out hard.

Thursday: Much ado about chilling. Slept till like 11. Ellen made some breafkast. Hung out, watched movies, had a small basic Tgiving meal (turk, stuff, greenbeancass, gravy), hung out more.

Friday: Worked, stabbed face in boredom. Drove out to St. P after work to help Rob demo his current built-in entertainment center, and plan on the fly for the new one, and start framing things out. Recipricating saws are fucking fun. Worked till about 11:30 or so. Drove home, hit a deer about 4 blocks from the house, which sucked. Broke at least 2 of its legs. Luckily (for me), I caught it in mid-air, so I just took its legs out from under it, and it kinda bounced off the hood. Called 911, and watched it flop around in front of the fire station. Before the cops could show, she'd ran off into someone's yard, and I'd lost it, so the cop sent his backup looking for the deer while he wrapped up paperwork. Went to leave the scene, and found the deer behind one of the firefighter's cars. Left at that point, since I wasn't sure I needed to stick around for the killing of the deer.

Because of the way I hit it, there was really minimal damage. Broke my grill, put a gouge in my bumper, and took a chunk out of the hood, broke a support up by the engine. Probably a grand or so worth of damage if I'd had a shop do it, so I went ahead and filed a claim. Allstate seems awesome sofar, taking it in tomorrow morning to get my check.

Saturday: Slept in late, plodded around the house for the morning. Left around 2 to go to Fview and meet my half-brother and his wife. Got to the bar about 2:30, we were supposed to be there at 3. I pounded 3 Buds and a crown and coke before they even showed up, yay anxiousness! They showed up, it was severely awkward to start, so I was drinking VERY heavily, and smoking like a chimney. Things kinda got more comfortable after a bit, but I kept drinking. My body was completely rejecting the alcohol, because I never once got drunk depite drinking 9+ drinks over the course of the meeting. Wound up parting ways around 9. Kinda cool, the second I walked out the door (assuming when my body shut off the adrenaline flow) I was plowed beyond belief.

Went to Jimmy Johns to eat, then met up with Eric/Aaron/Helen at Sharkeys for some bad pool and more booze. Then headed to LJ Ducks for bad DJing and more booze. I wound up smoking a grand total of 38 cigarettes, and drinking for 12 hours straight. Good times. Came home around 2:30 and ate two plates of leftovers.

Sunday:
Woke up around 11, of course hungover as hell. Gathered my wits, and rolled out to St. Peters again to help rob hang some drywall. Rolled back to Cville, didn't kill anything. Had a taco and a turkey sandwich, watched Ocean's 13, and passed out on the couch around 7 while ellen watched something else. Rolled into bed, exhausted at 9.

flawless

CA trip booked. 12/28-1/4. We're connecting in Minneapolis both ways (the only way we could get tickets less than $550/ea). Minneapolis in late December, what could go wrong?

Meat and meat and meat

One more. So, when I finally was on my way home from the truck debacle last night (see post below), it was about 8. I was going to just run through McD's, but at the last minute I decided I hadn't really ate all day, so I went to Hardee's to try their semi-latest (they had it last year, but I never got to try it) burger abomination: the Philly Cheesesteak Thickburger.

Picture, if you will, a burger. I'm going to just go through the layers of this bastard starting at the bottom:

Bun.
Hamburger.
Chee... NO!!! Wait. No cheese! Not yet! MORE MEAT. Yah, thin-sliced 'steak' whateverness. I need meat on my meat dammit. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Ok, now two kinds of melted-ass cheese.
Mushroom/sauteed onion/green pepper sprinklings.
Bun #2.

The press photo paints a pretty picture that's a bit extreme.
There's nowhere near that much philly meat, and the two cheeses on mine were intertwined, but completely melted, which was awesome. Seriously, I may have been really hungry or something, but this thing was fucking great.

Of course, I cam nowhere near finishing it. But it was incredible.

Hello, Lowes? Yah, it's JK. Eat a dick.

So, last night was Mission: Get Couch (see weekend update below). Commissioned Eric to help with the movering. Ran over to Home Depot in O'Fallon, IL straight from work to grab their rental truck since I knew Collinsville HD didn't have one yet. Home Depot guy informs us that corporate came in last Thursday and took their truck. "Where to?" I ask. "Collinsville." Fuck.

In a moment of clarity, I had him call over before I made the trip back to make sure it was there. They hadn't got it in their system yet, so they couldn't rent it out. Fuck. Headed to Lowe's. Walk up to the service counter. This is the part that made me kill my soul.

"Hi, I need to rent one of your trucks."
"Ok, do you need to make your purchase still?"
"No, just renting the truck."
"Sorry, our policy states the trucks are for customers only, so you need to buy something that requires a truck to move"
"Um... Is there a price minimum or size minimum?"
"Nope."
"So.... like.... what?"
"If you want, just go back to lumber and buy some wood, and then I can get it going."
"So..... what? Can I just go back there and buy one board?"
"Sure."
"So.... I'm going to go back to lumber, buy one $2 2x4 and bring it back, and we'll get the truck."
"Right. I also need a credit card, insurance, and a driver's license."
"K. But I just need to buy one 2x4."
"Yah."
"You do realize that's completely stupid, right?"
"Yeah, but they make us do it."
"Wow."

So, I walk back to lumber, get my 2x4 stud ($2.50) and come back up to the counter.

"OK, I just have to find someone to pull the truck around for you."
"Um, I have one 2x4. I can just carry it to the truck, I'm kinda in a hurry." Furniture place loading dock closed at 7. It was 6:30 at this point.
"Sorry, we have to have an employee move it up front."

So, we wait for Ray to get the truck while we stand out in front of the store with a 2x4, like comlete douchbags. Put the 2x4 in the back, drive over to Lane to get sofa. Get sofa loaded, realize the 2x4 won't fit in the truck, leave it at Lane.

Drove home, got the thing unloaded, took it back.

"Did the truck work out OK?"
"Yah, that 2x4 was very heavy and hard to get in the house, that's what took so long."

Then I killed everyone. The end.

Happy belated weekend update

Friday: Uhhhhhh..... Oh. Wait. Yah. Met up with the Lowns at 17th Street for the BBQ lovin, I loved it, Ellen didn't, sad. Went and saw American Gangster, which follows the standard Goodfellas/Scarface/Blow formula to a T: Guy comes up, guy sells drugs, guy gets shitloads of money, kills some folks, guy slips, guy gets pinned by the feds. I'll still watch it every time though. I'm sick of Collin Ferrell.

Saturday: Uhhh.... Oh. Met up with the Lowns at Friday's South for food and beer lunch. Had food (Sub-par Philly Sandwich (band name)) and way too much Scottish Ale for noon on a Saturday. Had my ass handed to me at darts. Went to Rock Hill/Glendale/Webster to go to Bryan and Kristey's post-elope party thinger. Drank a bit more, hung out with some cool peoples. Left there around 8 or 9, decided to check out the "new" Casino Queen. After getting turned around, and finding what is possibly the most seedy strip club in East St. Louis (I'm assuming strip club because it said GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS on the sign, but the building looked like a Ned Kellys, so I was very confused) and seeing hookers/hitchikers (2 of em), we made our way back to the casino, where we marveled at how much nicer it was, then we marveled at how fast I plowed through $40 on slots and video poker. Ellen did decent enough to break even and cover our (cheap) drinks, so whatever. Left there, went home, fell asleep.

Sunday: Woke up, went shopping for Ellen's family xmas shit, which we're doing on the 8th. Consumerism abounded. Had BW3 while watching the first 2 plays of the Bears/Seahawks game, which was definitely the high point of the whole debacle. After leaving Target, we saw the pretty-new Lane store was going out of business, so we stopped in to poked around. Bought a 5 piece sectional cuz we're idiots like that and it was 1/3rd price. Came home, ellen wrapped presents while I researched ottomans or something.

Woot

Tickets for Cali at the end of the year booked. Flying into Sacramende on the 28th, back on the 4th.

Impossible to find anything approaching a deal at the end of the year, and to top it all off we're connecting in Minneapolis both ways.....so that has the potential to eat all balls in late December.

Wednesday=weekned update?

Sure, why the hell not.

Friday: Took off early to wrap cleanup/construction on the garage, Chris/Cari showed up, we hung out for a bit, then headed over to Lucas Park for Ellen's bday, which was awesome because they updated their menu, and it rocked. Horseradish crusted NY Strip was in-fuggin credible. After that we took them up to the CWE to hang out at Mandarin, which was cool as always, then poked into Sub-Zero to check it out, was definitely un-impressed with it as a whole, especially the sushi (got a roll just to check it out). Headed back east, hopped into Friday's South for a bit, then I guess we went home?

Saturday: Attempted and failed at sleeping in. Ellen made food, it was good. Putzed around the house most of the day. Headed to Edwardsville to hit one of the last remaining Wendy's in IL, it was awesome. Hit Wood River for keg action (closest place that didn't have a selection of Bud/BudLight, we got Select. Der). Came back, setup shop for the party. People showed up, drank, it was fun. People left, passed out, I dragged people to LJ Ducks at 2 I guess, came back and passed out on the kitchen floor.

Sunday: Hangover. Watched Hostel II, which was suprisingly non-sucky for a sequel. Sat around most of the remainder of the day, due to Sundayness. Dont' remember what we did.

Monday: I was off for Veteran's day (yay gov job), spent a good chunk playin COD4 (which is incredible), then another part planning my layout for the remainder of the garage, and mounting the amp in the mustang after ripping apart the trunk and staring at it for an hour.

Sanding sucks.

I gave up on doing semi-daily updates because well, it's just drywall and shit.

After two coats of mud (yes, I'm lazy, it's a garage), primer and cheap-ass white Glidden paint with mix-in sand texture:



Its...a wall. Back left corner is getting covered with painted plywood so I have easy access to the electrical shit back there.

The other wall, where I decided to listen to "everyone on the Internet"'s advice:

Yes, going horizontally is worlds easier, but next to impossible to do by yourself. My advice: call in favors when hanging this shit. Got Nate to help with this wall, and it was soo flippin quick. Tonight this wall gets the final sanding, primed and painted. Then it's time to clear out shit, and partially assemble everything. The back right corner of that wall didn't get finished because I'm lazy and Figure I'll just do it at the same time as the back/front walls, which won't get touched for a couple weeks because I'm very much sick of screwing with this. :)

Of Khakis and Polos

I like shopping in my work clothes over my lunch break. Usually I just get asked if I work wear I'm at (tip: don't go shopping at Target the day you're wearing a red shirt). Today at Home Depot one of the employees asked me if I was a vendor. Which I didn't completely get, but I wasn't.

Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you.

I can't remember where I read/heard it now, but I can't listen to Coheed & Cambria without hearing Geddy Lee singing vocals, which just really makes me want to stab my eyes out on multiple levels. Mainly the eye level, though.

Weekend?

Haven't done one of these in a while, I don't think.

Friday: Came home...uh... I think I was still sick. Ate at Houlihan's, hit Blockbuster, came home, watched 28 Weeks Later, crashed fairly early.

Saturday: Ate breakfast, hit Home Depot for drywall accountraments and new porch paint. Ellen spent the day painting the front/back porches while I worked on the garage. Got the north wall pretty much completely hung, then helped Ellen finish the porches. Met Helen/Eric @ Ramon's for the Mexican lovin. Hit the bowling alley for... bowling, I sucked arse, teenagers are annoying. Went to Hurricanes and Fridays for 2 minutes each before finally landing at LJ Ducks, which was a surreal scene. Eric & I were the only dudes in the place for an hour or so. Then the crowd switched up, and some dude named "J" who was plowed out of his gourd and we're pretty sure was on E befriended us, and touched Eric and I a lot.

With DST ending, I think the gods got confused, and the 2:30 fight took place around 12:30 or 1, can't remember. It was a doozy though, involving the DJs drunk-ass woman, then someone getting ganged-up-on in the parking lot. Upon coming back in, "J" and gravel-voice guy got into it, and there were two other fights going on. A Runts machine got broken, which really upset the 60-year-old Grandma lady at the bar, who was hilarious. Another fight broke out inside the DJ's SUV. When we closed our tab and snuck out under the cover of blood, there were 2 cruisers at the bar, and we heard at least 2 other cop cars coming from across town with full sirens going while we made our way home. I laughed the entire way home. The best part, of course, was that someone finally witnessed the 2:30 fight, and it just happened to be the most cluster-fucked one ever. So that was fun.

Sunday: Was awaken way too early and hungover to go grab some breakfast at Bob Evans. Hit Home Depot afterwards for more drywall shit. Came home, started taping and mudding the north wall. Nate came over, and we completely kicked ass on the south wall, clearing all the shit out of the garage, pulling down existing shelves and shit, insulating pretty much the whole wall, and getting the majority of the drywall up by 5pm. Considering Nate got there at 12:30 or so, we shot BB guns for a good 30 minutes and took multiple beer/smoke breaks, I thought that was amazing.

Tonight we have the top 2' of the south wall to put up, some trim pieces near the east wall, mudding and taping the south wall, knocking down the high spots on the north wall, and doing the 2nd coat of mud.

Tomorrow, Rob the Plumber comes to install our hot water heater, and I'll do the 2nd coat of mud on the south wall, and finish the north wall, maybe start spraying up texture, depending on when Rob gets done. Wednesday will be finishing the south wall, and probably start priming/painting. Hopefully Thursday I'll put shelves and shit back up and restore the garage to garage condition, in time for the party Saturday.

Hooray for starting major projects before parties! I feel like I'm on one of those house-flipper shows.

Garage progress

I'm going to call it Day 2, since it was day 2 of actual work. Real Day 2 was spent trying to figure out wiring issues, and day 3 was spent eating at BW3 and not f'ing with the garage.

Day 2:
Installed the majority of the 2nd of 7 roll of insulation, hung 3 of 20 of the drywall sheets, went back and added the first upper section just to see how bad it'd be.

Things learned:
It's very easy to get carried away with a rotozip-type tool when cutting out outlet boxes (whoops)
Hanging 8x4 sheets of drywall by yourself is a massive PITA.
I suck at hanging drywall. My first sheet wound up wonky, even though it was perfectly butted against a wall stud on the corner. 2nd sheet followed suit, so I corrected with the 3rd sheet, actually leveling the top, resulting in the nice-ass gap. I'm putting a lot of faith in tape and joint compound.

Pics:



The 'fun' part is gonna be that window. And by fun, I mean "something I'll surely screw up". All in all, I'm pretty happy with the progress, considering I only have 2 actual nights of work in this, about 3 hours a night, and last night I stopped to eat and make a Sears run. This weekend is lost to Champaign. Monday night I'll button up all the wiring on this wall (need to replace some 14/2 wiring with 12/2 to keep my mind at ease), and hope to have all the drywall hung on this wall by Tuesday/Wednesday, hopefully have it taped and mudded and sanded by Friday. That will give me the weekend to doink with wiring on the other wall, move shit, and start the other side, which should go pretty quick since there's no windows/cabinets in the way.

Project'd!

So, here's what we went to HD for Sunday.... Gonna put up insulation and drywall/paint the garage, basically just finish the thing out so it's a little nicer/cleaner.

I didn't think to take an actual before pic, best I could do is get pics of the place after I'd already cleared off a wall:

Then, all the crap from that wall shoved over to the other side of the garage:



First step was to pull all the shelving and 20 years of random nails and screws put into the studs over time, drill out the studs up top to run the outdoor speaker wiring, and start throwin up the insulation. Here's bag 1 of 7 installed:




The goal is to have the entire thing done before Elloween (11/10). Of course, we're going home this weekend, so this is basically gonna consume my weeknights for a couple weeks. The demo is taking the longest, because of ALL the crap that's on these studs, just tons of random nails and shit. Also, there's a dead outlet on the other wall I want to fix before I drywall it in place, and I might add another outlet or two while I'm at it, so I have to spend some time in the attic, which is where a shitload of birds were living this summer. Hoping they're gone.

Creeping (up) :(

Morning report: 221. Odd only because I didn't do my normal amount of binge drinking this weekend, so I figured the loss of extra empty calories woulda helped, but on the flip, it might be the lack of dehydration/water weight. Or, I just need to stop eating like shit. :)

The definition of a "good news day"

When "Deputy mayor dies in monkey attack" and "Waffle House brawl lands Kid Rock in jail" share the front page of CNN.com.

Dedicated to the blogger strike of 07.

Let's see... Haven't done this in a while. I'll start with my life in descending order of occurrence, up to the point I can recall and/or is interesting. In as many one-sentence fragments/run-ons as possible. With bullets.

• Rocked the hottub after a long day of shit, awesome, always say "we should use this more", but fail.
• Watched Transformers on HD-DVD, fuggin awesome in terms of ooooh/ahh, movie wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but definitely had moments I wanted to punch my TV.
• Went to the mall, attempted to buy shoes, failed, went to Orange Julius, tried the Strawberry Julius, discovered my meaning in life, which is to order Strawberry Juliusesses. (Julii?)
• Decided to go home next weekend, forgoing Beatallica, cuz of logistics and whatnot.
• Went to Home Depot, bought 20 sheets of drywall and 500' of insulation for garage, pimped the $19 HD rental truck, love that damn deal.
• Sugarmomma Ellen bougth me some much-needed clothes at Kohls.
• Went to shoe carnival, where there was no funnel cakes, but plenty of shoes, yet nothing I liked.
• Fuggin dog woke me up, had a redbull and bagels, was wired.
• Passed out after the Illini game, rouging the punter, more like roughing the game up for your dumbasses, who names their kid Juice?
• Helen locked herself out of the house, so was hanging out at ours when we got back from BW3, Eric came over a little later.
• Ate BW3, grabbed Transformers HDDVD @ Bestbuy, Asian checkout lady was all OMGAWESOME.
• Spent most of saturday on couch, watched Vice Versa with Fred Savage/Judge Reinhold, who names their kid Judge?
• So hungover.
• Went to bed at 330 after chatting with Brett about random IT/career/Champaign shit.
• Karaokee'd at Lil Peeps, which is a complete shithole, filled with bad KJs and 10 other people, danced to random 80s shit in a manner unfitting to a lady, or sober person.
• Hit Fridays south, Paul hooked us up, per usual, Champaign guys are too good at Golden Tee
• Chillaxed at Hurricanes, had shots, played much Cricket
• Chatted with guy outside Hurricanes about Mustangs for seriously 30 minutes, really cool guy, proceeded to buy me a shot, ellen thought he was hitting on me until she saw him hit on chicks at the bar.
• Cruised blaring some Pantera cuz we're dumb
• Ate Ramon's, fuggin awesome for some reason, prolly Magaritas.
• Rachel, Brett, Barry, and Jess arrived, and we drank a bit.

Some shit happened last weekend, but I honestly don't recall what.

The end. Or beginning.

Downward spiral... kinda

Morning weight... 217. I did got a bit of bender last night, so I'm assuming that's mostly water weight, but who knows.

New career path:

Hot sauce namer-guy

Sir Fartalot's Hot Sauce 1315-01
Habanero Mustard From 1546-01
Hell
See Dick Burn Hot Sauce 1367-01

--------

100% Awesome.

Of Poptarts and Alzheimers

So, I was running late this morning. As such, I didn't have time to eat any breakfast at the house. I had to run through the store on my way into work anyway to stock up on Diet Dew, so I figured I'd just swing through the cereal aisle en route and grab a box of Pop-Tarts. Simple enough, right?

Holy shit. Have you bought Pop-Tarts lately? I was faced with a wall of possibilities that went on for what seemed like an eternity. Mint Chocolate Chip. Apple Strudel. Strawberry Milkshake. Wildberry. Hot Fudge Sundae. Double Berry.

I figure, well, I guess shit evolves. The last time I made a serious in-store "box of Pop-Tarts" purchase was probably 1998, so something's bound to change. My problem was this, though. I had gone in with very high expectations of walking in, grabbing "Old Faitful", the Frosted Strawberry love, and rolling through my day. Instead, I stood in the aisle, mumbling like Ronald Regan, trying to find the most basic pillar of the Pop-Tart family, while trying to figure out the new Half & Half series.

Finally, I did find that which I sought, nestled between the Mint Chocolate Chip (which I'd picked up and pondered for a good 2 minutes) and the Half Chocolate/Half Vanilla pastry abortion.

I'm normally a man of variety, but I was starving this morning, and my stomach had already decided nothing could be done but be filled with the Frosted Strawberry love, thus my dillema.

Anyway, got my shit, I think I was somewhere between 4 minutes and 2.5 hours late for work this morning due to my detour through foil-wrapped varietal hell.

Steady as she goes

Morning weight: 219.0 american US pounds of mass.

I'm pretty happy with that, considering how I ate last week/weekend with Ellen out of town (read: Taco Bell(x2), Wendys, McDonalds, Pizza, beeeeer).

Was fun while it lasted, but I'm back on the semi-wagon now. Waiting for it to cool down a bit so I can clean up the basement and start on the heavy bag again, and buy yet another weight bench I'll use for 2 months and let dust pile up on, before subsequently turning around and putting on craigslist.

It's not dry yet....

Really, the best part of my job today is watching a computer to see if it goes to sleep mode, then hibernation mode when it's clearly set in the policy to not do so. This involves turning on a computer and watching it for about 30 minutes. Damn, this job is interesting today.

I-L-L....

Everytime someone mentions our Inter-Library Loan department system, they always call it ILL.

Of course, I must constantly fight the instinct to yell "INI" while at work.

Really, it's the only reason I hang around, is to fight nature and reflexes. Keeps things interesting.

Yowza.

Friday: Golf with Nate and Rob, with a tee time of 8:30. PM. It was bizarre, but fun, even though it was a bit cold. Got home around midnight, exhausted, hit the sack hard.

Saturday: Spent the day putzing around, detailed the Mustang, played xbox, had some beers, got ordained, had a stogie, wandered up to Ducks. Ran into Derrek and Dane, drank till 2a, then decided to go to The Oz (24/7 club). Got home around 5:30 or 6.

Sunday: Set an alarm for 11, woke up begrudgenly, headed to STL for a STLMustangs.com BBQ thing down in soco. Hung out for a few hours before the Red Bull wore off. Headed home to catch the 2nd quarter of the Bears/Chiefs game which was incredible. Ellen came home, I put the game on Record, and we watched Arrested Development and ate Steak n' Shake. In bed by 8:30.

This week is low-key, with Italianfest this weekend and Grice and Mrs. Grice coming down for Italian lovin.

My actual goal for the weekend of working on the garage was not met. New goal is to have garage project complete by Elloween.

Also, it's supposed to be in the 90s this week, which is making my head hurt cuz I hate Midwest weather still.

Beer + Boredom =

...Ordained Minister.

If anyone needs married or baby named, or whatever else Ministers do...

******************************

************************
This notice hereby confirms that

Justin Kingston
xxxx xxxxxxx St.

Collinsville
IL
62234
United States

is an ordained member of the clergy of
The Church of Spiritual Humanism
Date of Ordination: September 15, 2007
Ordained by R. A. Zorger, President
www.SpiritualHumanism.org
******************************************************

CONGRATULATIONS AND WELCOME!

The Church of Spiritual Humanism is happy to inform you that your ordination request has been reviewed and approved, and you are now an officially ordained clergy member.


Fuck. Yes.

riddle me this:

Q: What's better than a two cheesburger meal from McD's on a Thursday hangover-stomach?

A: Nothing.

We also would have accepted "calling in sick".

In other news, I bought an HD-DVD player the other day against my own advice. It completely rocks my world, and the deeply discounted box set of Planet Earth that I bought from Buy.com yesterday is getting delivered today, even though I picked 3-4 day shipping and they said it wouldn't leave the warehouse for at least 2 days. So these all conspire to make me a happy bastard.

Finally, I think the epitome of regular-ness is starting at your normal bar, running into one of the bartneders off-duty, and going with him to another bar. Surreal.

Ellen left for Loda last night, I'm flying solo this week. The dog completely is loving it, since he got her side of the bed all night last night. It's like steak to a dog.

Finally, my apparent phrase de jour is "you could do worse..." I noticed it yesterday that I think I've used it at least once a day this week.

PS. I really need to try the Cheesy Awesome Meaty thinger from Taco Bell, but my McDonald's lunch ruined the chances for that due to my informal "no more than one fastfood meal a day" rule. I've already bent this because I was running so late for work I had to eat a pop-tart this morning instead of real food, so I consider that 1.5 meals of fastish food total at this point.

PPS. I had unofficially and unannoucedly quit smoking when I was in CU for PFunk. I was very weak last night and bummed two smokes off Lown though, and this morning it tasted like someone pooped in my mouth overnight, which is a very real possibility, but I think mostly I'm just over smoking again for the immediate future. I wish the IL nonsmoking thing would hurry up and take effect (Jan 1), so I wasn't tempted so much. Stupid temptation.

PPPS, I wish I didn't finalize my paragraph 3 paragraphs ago, because this is turning into a quality post, and I feel like I may have stunted its development by putting a finite term in there. Damn me to hell.

PPPPS, I really don't wanna be at work right now.

Jumped the gun there..

Yah, I shouldn't do my strangest whatever of the day posts until the actual end of the day.

When walking out of the office after making the below post, there was a dude on the park bench completely tearing ass on a banjo. Just sitting there, by himself, middle of smalltown nothing, no one around, just ripping the shit out of that banjo. It was surreal, and awesome "Walking to the Car After Work on a Cool, Sunny Afternoon" theme music.

Hrmm...

Strangest thing I've heard today:

Soul Asylum cover of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing".

...it's... interesting.

laborday!!

Friday: Took off early, ran errands, got home around 4:30. Picked up the Kerwins from Lambert at 8ish, then to Lleywewellweselwlllwllwsyns for beer, chips and yumminess. Headed east from there, arriving at Friday's South, where Lori and the crew were at, which was cool. Hung with them for a bit, more beer, then over to LJ Ducks where the bar unicorn known as Dane was at, along with more beer. Things get pretty blurry at that point. There was jacuzzi action and then sleeping at 5, not sure when we got home, if we did anything prior to jacuzzi, or afterwards though. Lots of good convo though, as what normally leads to watery time-travelling. That, and copious amounts of booze. Oh, and cigars. Yah. I remember that now. Wow.

Saturday: Woke up severly disabled from Friday. Spent the majority of the day doing absolutely nothing. Hit Spring Garden for the love, then chilled. Watched Hostel. Eventually got ready, and headed to Wash Ave for some food lovin. Downtown was a clusterfuck due to a perfect storm of UI/Mizzou Game, Cards Game and Blues Festival all at the same time. Valet lot at Lucas was closed, somehow we found street parking a block away though. Big-ass awesome meal at Lucas with the Camp-Davies and Heleln's friend Michelle, then meandering we went. I somehow had it in my head there were more lounge places in the immediate area, so I failed there, cuz there wasn't anything that grabbed us. Eric suggested the Dubliner, which we hit, and was awesome. 4 hot scottish chicks rocking out on the accordian/violin/drums/keyboard with semi-traditional music, and retardedly-drunken Mizzou fans made for good entertainment. Split after that, saw the most drunk man ever meandering the sidewalk, left the Davies, then back to Cville, where the effects of Friday were still weighing heavily on us. Don't recall what we did, actually. In bed semi-early I think.

Sunday: Woke up semi-late, ellen rocked the blueberry pancakes and egg/bacon lovin. Played some Xbox, Got ready, and rolled out to City Museum for climbing and the usual joy. Met up with the Lammles at Hacienda afterwards where we downed multiple pitchers of margarita, and I had the best damn crabmeat enchilada of my life. Seriously love that thing so much. Took the Kerwins on the nickel tour of the Central St. Louis burbs, then headed east again, where we procured 30 Stones, mini Coors lights, and some other booze, and fired up the beer pong table where John & I kicked arse. Then the longest game of cutthroat cricket ever, followed
by a semi-drunken viewing of Chris' movie, and passing out.

Monday: Woke up, ate again, Ellen had some sort of bloodsugar issue, so she was very incapacitated, it was a little scary, actually. Took the Kerwins to Lambert, hauled ass back to check on Ellen, she was faring a little better. Got some non-sugary food into her and got her moved to the living room for detox. I headed over to Helen & Erics for a bit to watch the Cardinals get ass-raped by the Pirates and a have a few beers. Went back home to check on Ellen who was still beat. Grabbed some food, and she finally levelled off, but still tired. Watched the rest of Arrested Dev Season 1, caught up on DVR shit, and were in bed by nine.

Today, I'm tired, discombobulated and still suffering sinus death, which I managed to stave off all weekend fairly well by drowing it with booze, but now it's back with a vengance and I feel particluarlly shitty. Yay.

Better late than never

I'm en route to my original plan of hitting 215 before my 10 year reunion (which was in July, whoops). I passed the 220 mark this morning, down to 219. Ellen being on a psycho carbless diet is really the biggest catalyst at this point. Since she generally guys the grocs, we've got all sorts of healthy shit in the house now, and I don't/can't gorge myself when I get home like I'm used to.

Exercise routine right now is...nothing. Planning on getting (another) weight set this fall and bust out some mad reps, yo. I figure if I blog this, it'll make me kinda responsible and wanna maintain. But probably not. My ultimate goal is to get back down to the 200 range, like I was when I moved back from CO (after going there weighing 280+), but with some sort of tone, instead of just kinda skinny (for my frame). So basically, the shape I was in during high school, which is apparently the goal you set when you near 30.

Yay

The best lawn tool ever developed in the history of man:

4 cycle weed eater. Holy crap. No gas mixing, fired up on the first shot out of the box, quiet (compared to a 2 stroker), just sweet.

tear the roof off the motha

Friday: Ellen had some MERS-people thing that night, so I ate Hardee's, played Bioshock for a while, and watched some football till Helen/Eric came over. We rolled up to Hurricane's for a bit, where Helen got hammered and they abondoned me downtown at my request around 10 I think. Had a couple more drinks there, then mosied on down to Friday's South where I drank more, hung out with some colorful characters, and eventually Lori made an appearance. We hung, then Ellen called, I directed her to where I was. Closed down the joint, walked out with a $10 tab, viva being a regular/VIP/alcoholic. Got Tacos on the Back-end(R), passed out around 3:30a.

Saturday: Woke up late, Ellen made us kick-ass omlets. Lounged around for a while, then hit the road to C-U for some funk. Decent trip, except for the 84 in a 65 I got in Decatur on I72. Stupid instant-on Ka band radar bastards. Luckily (and the cop agreed), I wasn't going 1mph faster. Bigger fines and whatnot. Really cool cop though, so that was nice. First ticket in like 10 years, so I was really due. Slow ride the remainder of the way into CU. Met up with Grice and Sadie at their place, then rolled over to Jupiter's for Tucher and ass-kicking BBQ Chicken pizza. Hit Piccadilly for provisions, then back to the house for some pre-game drinking and pool in Ben's garage. Neat.

Hopped in his jeep and headed over to the Urbana Sweet Corn Festival around 8 to get a place to stand for the P-Funk. Awesome crowd, cheap (for a festival) beer. P-Funk definitely brought the A-game. I'd never seen them live, and even with George or Bootsie, it was definitely funkadelic. They wrapped around 11. We headed back to Grice's, where Sadie split off to hit the sack, leaving Grice and I to do what we do.

Headed to campus since it was close, decided that we are right on the cusp of being entirely too old to be on campus. Had a drink at Legends then went on a short walkabout by COs just for grins. Lamented what Green street was becoming while mocking the bed-head boy kids and over-dressed plowed 18 year old chicks. Got back in the car and went downtown, stopping off at Tumble Inn for some townie action. Crowd sucked, so we migrated north to Guido's. Had a couple drinks upstairs, then went to show Grice the basement, which he didn't know existed. Had another drink, and ran into Jamie Reppert. Come to find out her boyfriend owns Bacaro downtown, and she wanted Grice to meet him, via the chef connection and what have you. So, we went to the joint, which was obviously closed, had a little private shin-dig with Thad, Carlos, who owns Jupiter, and apparently like 5 other joints in town, and some doctor dude who was cool. Had a nice little setup in Thad's new wine area, where he was pouring some incredible red that I couldn't pronounce. I'm not a wine person per-say, but this shit was just awesome. Had a couple glasses, Carlos/Thad/Grice did the networking thing, Grice got some awesome leads on locations for his catering shit he's working on, Jamie and I had a good convo about the reunion and life and shit, some confusion regarding my choice of words though:

me to Jamie: "What'd you think of that trainwreck last month?" (referring to the reunion)
doctor dude: "What trainwreck? Trainwrecks are never good! How could a trainwreck be anything but bad?"

Funny shit. Anyway, the chill session broke up around 3:30 or so, and we headed over to Merry Ann's for the fastest service known to man. Stack action was superb. Headed back to Grices, passed out hard.

Sunday: Woke up around 8:00 or so, got ready, and hit the road under the cover of mid-morning, foregoing breakfast with my hosts in favor of getting home early. Turns out, I missed breakfast with Pfunk at Cracker Barrel. Figures. After a careful 75mph drive home (avoiding I72, but still seeing 20,000 cops), I got back before noon with time to spare. Hit up Wal-Mart/HomeDepot for home-repair items in anticipation of the Kerwin visitation this weekend. Sent way too much cash. Had some BW3 goodness. Took extended nap. Was up for a couple hours to catch up on DVR shit, then back in bed by 10.

Phew.

Of the bald

So whilest at K Sunday, I grabbed a Headblade Sport, which is basically a Headblade with wheels. Wow, big difference. Seriously. It's awesome. It also came with this HeadSlick cream, which is also awesome. Didn't think it'd make a difference, but alas, here we are. It also came with a 3-blade razor instead of the 2-blade, which is clearly superior in terms of clog-resistance. Because, let me tell you, nothing sucks more than having your blade clog and then bow a little bit, causing the blade to start digging into the head. That is very un-Fonzie.

It's all weekendy and updatey and stuff.

Friday: Maintained low tones. Had a few cocktails, and bumped into Nate on Xbox live, figured I'd get a game of Bomberman in before we did other shit. Then Ben popped online. Then Jimmy. Then Nate got Pam playing. Then I got Ellen going on it. Played multi-state, 6-man bomberman tournaments for way too long. Ellen was going cross-eyed from Bomberman action, so we bowed out and watched Groove, which was like the MTV Real Life version of Go. Made me miss Denver, when I was into that whole electronic scene.

Saturday: Slept in, spent the day lounging around the house, alternating between xbox and gameboy and DVR shit and internet, with Ellen doing the same. Finally left the house at 4. Went to Target to buy pants/dress for wedding we had that night. Got back home, quick-changed, met Nate/Beth for supper @ Chilis, then hit the wedding reception for Matt & Jodi, who are Nate & Beth's neighbors, and who we also know through Lori. Weird. Anyway, nice reception, lots of free beer. Ran into a STLM guy at the party I hadn't seen in a while. Bounced around 10:30 to meet Helen & Eric @ Friday's South in Cville for further boozering.

They hung out until about 12:30 or 1 I guess, good times, covered a lot of random shit, talked with one of the owners for a while about some random shit as well. Then Lori and Steve and some other folks from the wedding showed up. There was a near fight, I bouncer'd some guy outta the bar cuz I was drunk and bald and dressed up and looked the part. Then I bought beer for all the remaining fighters. Some fire department Backdraft stuff, but they were all worked up and needed beer.

Closed the joint down, then got the bright idea to jacuzzi. Had a couple brews, ellen passed out. Got her out before she drowned, then went inside where my liver finished metabolizing all the night's booze and I was plowstered beyond belief. Ate beans. Went to bed around 5a.

Sunday: Woke up around 1pm with the worst ass-pounding headache known to man. Nate and Beth randomly stopped by shortly after I woke up, wound up meeing them up @ Ruby Tuesday for lunch. Then hit the Big K for random toiletries and bucket of Ibuprofen.

Got home, took drugs, put comfy clothes back on and stayed inside the rest of the day. Watched Zodiac, which was awesome. Caught up on more DVR shit, I was back in bed by 9.

This week is....i dunno. Nothing yet. Lots of people are gonna be outta town it looks like, so who knows. I'm sure I'll entertain myself somehow. Planning on doing some house projects in anticipation of Kerwin visit. Apparently find out about my raise today, and if I need to start looking for employment elsewhere, or be very happy. Yay.

I'm so excited.... I'm so... scared....

I bought a case of Diet Pepsi MAX today instead of my regular regiment of Diet Mt. Dew. Yay additives and energy!

Extended weekend update thinger.

Thursday: Took the day off, slept in a bit. Made eggs. Took the dog to the kennel. Ran the car through the carwash. Drove to Helena, AL, south of Birmingham (7 hours, 45 minutes, fuck construction.) Bluetooth GPS for the phone was aweseome, except MS Live search doesn't know it's way around Nashville for shit. Otherwise, neat. Arrived at Amy and Scotts, proceeded to pound many beers. Hung out for a while, went to sleep at some point.

Friday: Slept in, watched TV, hit the pool at their subdivision for drinking and swimming and shit. Hung out a lot. Drank more. Ate mexican. Hit the most expensive liquor store in the world. Went back to the house. Drank more. Went to sleep at some point.

Saturday: Slept in. Ate breakfast, hung out for a while, had a beer. Went to some sports bar to watch football and Busch race. Drank a lot, good wings. Went to some other bar, played pool, drank a lot more. Went back to their house, drank more. Passed out at some point, entirely too late.

Sunday: Slept in. Ate breakfast, drove home (7 hours, 5 minutes, woulda made it under 7, but decided to stop in Paducha, KY and actually eat inside due to hangover). Turned on the AC, waited for the house to cool down from 92*, went to Helen's for a bit, then DQ. Came home to an 88* house. Watched Breach, didn't drink.

Monday: Slept in. Ate breakfast, got the dog. Got a wild hair up my ass and decided to put Nate's chainsaw to use and trim the maple at the back of the lot. Not sure why. It was fucking hot. Spent most of the day working on that, alternating between doing shit, and cooling off and buying tools to not kill myself trimming back tree. Also bought a bitching weedeater. 4cycle gas beast with attachment system. So sweet. Ellen made a roast for some reason, so we ate that, caught up on DVR action.

At work again, it sucks. Yay! Luckily, short week this week, regular week next week, then kerwins are (probably) coming down, so that'll rock.

Advertising gone wrong

Ran across this on another blog (Toolmonger).



I wish I could make shit like this up. God only knows how sick I was of paying out the ass for sweet ringtones featuring all my favorite power saws, drills, and lathes.

Now, I can download "DeWalt 10 inch Miter Saw on Oak" for FREE!!! Or, when my girl calls, I can use a dedicated ringtone, and hear the sweet sounds of "Craftsman Plunge Router on Cherry".

Shit, by having these free Wood Cutting Ringtones, I'll probably save an easy $30.00/month.

Now, if I could just find a sie with Free Vegetable Cutting Ringtones...

Weekend...pre-date?

Since I didn't do a weekend update last week, (here's a wrapup: I drank a lot, it was fun) I'll do a pre-update this week. I'm not sure what you'd actually call that, so I'm calling it a pre-date.

Friday: Ellen has happy hour with her work peepZ, so I'm either going to go home and doink around the house or go to a bar by myself in retaliation of not having any local friends. Take THAT! She'll come home at some point, and we'll probably drink or watch movies or something.

Saturday: We're having peoples over for a grill n' chill, so ellen will clean while I procure meats and other asundries. I'm pretty sure that's not the right word, and according to Google, it's not spelled right, but that's what I'm getting, dammit. Then there will be drinkin, grillin, and chillin. It'll be fab.

Sunday: Movies and probable hang-over, if I feel nutty, I may work on the basement some, since it's gonna be too fucking hot to step foot outside the air-conditioned confines of the abode.

Next weekend is Birmingham, the weekend following is Kim invasion, then a weekend off, and a Detroitian Visitation if the NWA and government gods play nice.

I gotta poo like a rockstar.

Just an idea...

If you're upgrading someone's network equipment, and something goes horribly wrong, don't use that same network to e-mail the handler of the network that the network is fucking down.

Dammit, people!

Seriously. You may as well email me to tell me the email server is down.

In better news, the switch wasn't bricked, the upgrades had just made it hate my external media converters. So I figured that out and got us back up and running. I R HERO.

Damn you John Kingston

I don't really think I have a nemesis in life, cuz I'm a likable person like that. But, apparently by grabbing my gmail address early, and getting @gmail.com, I've angered the internet gods and brought a blight of wrong numbers upon myself. I've gotten plenty of ads for Rent-A-Center, I apparently have a showing scheduled for some apartment complex in MD on Wednesday.

Apparently Josh Kingston also doesn't know his email address, since I've also recieved two job offeres for runner/dishwasher at a joint in Texas. So I got that going for me, too.

Drew Carey's Dick is so big, it is gonna host the Price is Right....

You see what I did there? I took a headline about Drew Carey getting the Price Is Right host gig, and shoe-horned it into the form of a big dick joke from Carey's "Dirty Jokes & Beer" book, (which incidentally, is the last "real" book I read. Sad.)

Anyway, I'm way too excited about this. As someone (a fuggin dork) who actually DVR'd TPIR (the price is right, duh) for a couple months leading up to Bob's departure, I consider myself a fan. I wasn't exactly thrilled about any of the publicized front runners, I was completely un-thrilled (read: stabby) over Rosie even trying to get her greasy palms on the gig.

This Carey thing kinda snuck in under the radar on the news sites, and I was pumped at the prospect, but now I see here that he got it. As an overweight, beer-drinking "regular white guy" myself, I fully support those of us overweight, beer-drinking "regular white guys" who've made it. Carey, Belushi, Lange, Farley, etc. The guys who you just wanna go have a beer with, and you know (or at least you imagine in your head), that they'd be totally cool and normal and maybe bum a cig off of ya.

So, that said, congrats Drew, and the next round's on you.

"You can never go home again, Oatman... but I guess you can shop there. "

Yah, lots of Gross Pointe Blank quotes rattling around the ole noggin this weekend, as it was 10 year reunion time. Yay?

Oddly, GPB came out in 97, which was when I graduated. And really, everything was exactly like the movie, but with only slightly less contract killing. And no Dan Aykroyd. At least not that I'm aware of.

Anyway, took off at noon on Friday to roll up to P-town so we'd actually have time to visit with the family unit. Hung out for a while, ate Monicals, hung out some more, my great-grandma threatened to steal my Mustang while we were walking back over to Mom's house, which ended with a bout of hilarity and shitty cell phone pics:



You should be able to make out the top of my 90-year-old great-grandmother's head in that picture. This was where she made her way into the car, but was unable to figure out how to open the door to get out. Funny. After that debacle, we made our way up to Liz's parents house at Lake Iroquis for "beer and yard games", which ended with mostly beer, and being mildly electrocuted by Basler's new fitness toy.

Saturday: Woke up kinda late, got dressed, hung out with mom/grandma again, waited in line a freaking half hour for Just Hamburgers, which was completely worth it. Ate, headed across town to hang out with Grandma Jackie for a bit. Went back home, got dressed and met up with our carpool at Chris's house at 4, with Nate/Pam, Liz/John, Chris/Cari. Shoehorned everyone into the Pilot (note: the 3rd row seat of a Honda Pilot is not fit for 6' tall, 200lb+ dudes.)

Got to Gibson, and after a slight DJ scare (he didn't show until close to 5:45), it was go time. With the help of cheap and plentiful liquid courage (I was on my 4th drink by 6), the whole reunion thing wasn't as god-awful as I had built it up to likely end up in my head. Everyone's basically the same, except they have jobs and shit now. And we can legally drink. And that's basically what it wound up being, a bunch of people standing around, drinking/smoking/talking. It was a bar scene where people kinda knew each other. There was the standard bunching-off of people, just like in school, and just like in school, I was hopping around between groups. Just drunk this time.

The party wrapped up at midnight, and after paying our ($40!!!!) bar tab, we headed back east to P-town via Loda. Let me just point out that bar tab amount and remark on it's remarkable-ness. Ellen and I started drinking at 4pm. We left at 12am. Ellen drank primarily Tangeray and Tonic, I drank mainly Crown & Coke (with a lime, dammit), and had a few 312s. $40. I paid out cash for a few rounds where I was buying shit for other people, but I only spent about $30 in that manner. So that was awesome. I also smoked pretty much a full pack in that timespan, again just due to mild stress and not knowing what else to do. So there's that. Oh, Chris also applauded after grace before supper, which was hilarious.

Anyway, for some idiotic reason, we decided we needed to drink more, so Ellen & I headed over to Nate's parent's house for more beers, and me getting gnawed on by his massive, old dog. Left there around 2a or so.

Sunday: Woke up amazingly not-as-hungover-as-i-shoulda-been, got on the road by 11, made it from P-town to Collinsville in 2 hours, 35 minutes, which is great. I love the barren wasteland/autobahn that is I72. Glad I started taking that route. Got home, watched TV, at BW3, napped, and passed out at 10.

Really, the reunion wasn't as bad as I'd built it up to be in my head. I'm not sure why I was stressing it so much. I generally hate crap where I'm forced to socialize with people I normally wouldn't, which is basically all a reunion is. So, there's that. It was interesting to see what happened to everyone, but I didn't have any breakthroughs with anyone or forge any new friendships. Just general bullshit chit-chat, and lots of booze. I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with not doing that again for another 10 years or so.

Oh, update to my previous bitching (below)

The rep from Dish finally called us back, and refunded our early termination shit. DirecTV is awesome for now. Yay, resolution.

Weekend

Friday: Went home after work around 5:30p, to find Ellen waiting around for the Dish guy to come (between noon and 5 of course) still. She called in, rep told her that we were in the next slot for install, and that he'd be there shortly. 7p came and went, she put in another call, and the next rep told us that the appointment never made it to the contractor, so Ellen had wasted a day off waiting for the mofo who was never going to show, and then got lied to by the first rep.

Ellen threatened to cancel the remainder of the contract and move to DirecTV, to which they offered her a month of free local channels as compensation..... Which is a whole $5.00/mo. So, that was funny. She obviously cancelled the HD/DVR upgrade, and told the rep we'd be calling back to cancel service Monday. I fired off a quick email to ceo@dishnetwork.com, which I saw was the best way to get someone who will actually do something, just to let them know what was up. Of course, I typo'd the domain, so I had to resend it Sunday, but I got a response back in 15 minutes with an "executive communications" person wanting to call me back to discuss the issue. Saturday we put in an order with DirecTV for their HD pack, and was able to schedule the install between 6a-8a, which was awesome, and setup for Wednesday. Of course, there's no fee if I cancel before then, which I will if Dish is able to sufficiently kiss my ass (they still haven't called back yet).

Whew.

Anyway, headed to BW3 for much-needed wingsandbeer. Ate, and headed to Maryville for the Maryville Fireman's homecoming, which is apparently S. IL speak for cheap beer fundraiser thingy. Awesome people watching, saw every bartender we know in Cville at the thing, which was odd. Went to Duck's for a bit afterwards, left around 1.

Saturday: Woke up kinda late, was completely unproductive waiting for monte/ann to call us to meet up. Got the call, were remaining lazy for a bit, then headed west for to help clean/paint Monte's condo to prep for re-selling again. Did the painting thing till 7 I guess? Headed back, cleaned up and headed over to Matt & Jodi's for wedding shower thinger, which I brought a fifth of Jager as a gift, which was very well-recieved. Hung out, played with a fucking badass Puggle puppy, watched firefighters try to make fire, and drank till about midnight.

Bailed, met Lori up @ Fridays South for awesome jukeboxery via myself, and tons of people-watching and general merriment. Sam Adams Cherry Wheat on draft. Also, worked the "regular" angle, scoring multiple rounds, including 4 redbull/vodkas, at least 4 bud lights, and 2 SACW for a total bar tap of $26.00. Fuck to the yah. Closed da bar, headed home and crashed hard around 4.

Sunday: Hangover day. Slept till about 11. Hit Blockbuster, Taco Bell. Watched Reno movie, which was meh-ish. Got treats @ Sonic. Wound up taking a nap until like 7 or something. Made the semi-weekly trip to Pizza Man, tried it with the French, basically Monicals, which is outstanding. Watched Shooter, which was decent enough, though Danny Glover's mushmouth detracted a lot from it. Wound up staying up till like 1 due to naps and shit. Passed out hard.

RIP Q LMNOP

Well, apparently the life expectancy on a MOTO Q is 10 weeks, to the day. Fired up the phone this morning (after charging it a bit, the battery was dead), and got this glorious DOS screen:

Motorola Flash Mode
Bootloader Version:
BOOT_C-0.0800R_MRAP

Please Connect USB Cable

The interweb forums all point to deadness/corruptedness as the irrecoverable cause and whatnot, so I'll be visiting my friendly neighborhood Sprint store this afternoon for a replacement, or I may be retarded and see if I can just upgrade to a sweet, sweet, Mogul for a minimal fee.

Beginning of the end.

K, so last night the board basically approved expansion at the mall. They want an opening date of March 2008 (which is better than that Dec 07 I was told originally).

It was nice knowing you all. I'll be at work for the next 8 months. Non-stop.

Gargleboarbaseblll.

Ben Franklin hates dogs

I'm sure nothing confuses a dog more than accidentally licking an extension cord and getting his tounge shocked.

fin de semana de nada

Whole lotta nothing!

Friday: Was gonna go see Steve Ewing in Webster, but Lowns bowed out, so I lost my ride into the city, and didn't want to have dual cars (Ellen had happy hour and was gonna meet us), so I stayed home and drank alone and played Forza2 until about 10 when Ellen showed up, and we hit the bars. Whole lotta nothing goin on, and Ellen went over the drunk edge pretty quick, so we hit Taco Bell and passed out kinda early.

Saturday: Woke up kinda late. Ellen made some bitchin poached eggs. Sat around a lot. Don't really think we actually did anything but watch TV or something. I really don't remember. Rolled out to Robdrea's for some grill action, went and saw 1408 on the way. Pretty good movie. Got massive meats @ Dierburgs, and headed over to Lammle's for chillin and grillin. Chilled/grilled, got icecream, then went back to tend to the mutt. Ellen crashed upon arrival (actually was asleep most the way home), I stayed up till about 2 doinking around online.

Sunday: Woke up way later. Didn't shower, didn't leave the house except to mow the yard at like 7. Ellen grabbed some icecream cuz she's awesome. Watched movies all freaking day. Four Rooms, Jackass 2, Slackers. Ellen passed out around 9, I wound up staying up till 12:30 or so playing Forza2 trying to wrap up a racing series (which I did, dammit). So, I'm kinda tired today.

An offer he can't refuse..

Confession time: I've never seen any of the Godfather movies until last weekend.

I'm all caught up now, though, and a better person for it. 2 > 1 > 3. Obviously. I still can't abide by 3 hour (+!!) long movies, though. I must have mild ADD.

Also, I'm the same cat who didn't see any of the original Star Wars movies until like 1996 or something. Hi.

Oh, weekend...

Friday: Whole lotta not much. Met up with Lowns/FutureDavies, and Alice at Friday's South after work. Drank a bit. Think I ate food at some point. Davies/Alice/Carol left, Lowns and us made our way to Blues on Main, where Lashonda proceeded to pour the stiffest fucking drinks ever in the history of mankind. Seriously. A crown and coke, in a 5 oz. tumbler consisted of approximately 4.5oz of Crown, and .5oz of Coke. This isn't an exaggeration either. Awesome. Hung out for a bit, then Lowns split, and we headed home shortly after. Maybe we got Taco Bell. Not sure. Oh, went to LJ Ducks. Left due to deadness.

Saturday: Ellen had to go dress shopping with Helen/Alice/Carol, so I was left to my own devices, which included:

Sleeping till 11:30
Eating Hardee's
Brushing the dog
Playing a lot of Forza2
Playing a lot of poker online

It rocked. Ate O'Charleys, which we hadn't had in forever, but it O'Suckedass. So we figured out why we never go. The bread alone can't sustain that place. Met up with Davies/Carol/Alice at Hurricane's later on. Drank. Went home, hit the jacuzzi, had a CAO and drank a bit more, bed around 3.

Sunday: Tended to the Lowns dogs, watched The Godfather finally. That's about it. Awesome chilled out weekend.

Best quote of yesterday

"I sprayed da Axe, where the ladies at??" - Some random dude at Wal-Mart in the deodorant aisle, who did, in fact, spray Axe on himself. In Wal-Mart.

Age=knowledge

I used to hate sprouts. On a whim, I got sprouts on my #4 from Jimmy Johns today at lunch. I've noticed that generally, as I get older, my tastes actually have changed, so I'm re-visiting some stuff I've always hated.

But, I still hate sprouts. I don't get the draw of the "flavor of grass" on a sandwich.

It's like electric sex gleaming in the living room window...

Only like...more at peace with the world.

Seriously, wtf? Fuck you, Wal-Mart.

Marketing!!! 'd!

I bought Axe deodorant. It smells nice. I can't find the Degree shit i've been buying for years anymore, so i'm making the rounds trying to find a new fashang. I can't keep the hoes offa me now.

District of Columbia...'d.

Friday: Flew out to DC for Librarian conference deally. Uhm....did I do anything? I can't remember. I don't think so, really. Hung out, ate food at some point I think. Wtf did I do? Wow. Uhmmm... Well, I probably ate, went for a walk around Alexandria downtown cuz I was bored offa my arse. Wound up back at the hotel bar, had a few rounds and chatted with some Minnesota dude with a Minnesotan accent that was killing me to not laugh at, wound up talking about GPS and cropdusting, pretty interesting and random. Went to sleep at some point. I guess. Oh, IRC'd for some reason, just like old times.

Saturday: Woke up, had awesome breakfast at this little diner-y joint. Went to convention, walked my ass off around exhibit halls for like 4 hours. It sucked. Ate a hot dog. Tasty. Went back to hotel, plopped down at the bar again, wound up talking to the dude that owned the joint. Random. Decided to hop a cab down to King Street, landed at Murphy's Unoriginally-name Irish Pub. Found a spot at the bar and proceeded the downward spiral while chatting up more randoms, and listening to a badass Irish guitarist-man singing Irish shit then hopping over to Jon Denver and other random stuffs. Way awesome, crowd was rowdy as shit and singing along, pretty awesome. Wound up hanging out with some geek chick who was fresh from a WoW session. No, I'm serious. She was cool otherwise though. Um, got pulled for some random arm-wrestling match with a drunken irish guy (who saw that coming), and lost horribly. Hung out with some airforce guy who just got back for Iraq, like 2 hours prior. Bought him many beers cuz I'm patriotic and shit. Drank way too much way different stuffs, had Yuengling finally, but was too plowed to taste it.

Closed the bar down around 2, stumbled back to the hotel after apparently stopping at a gas station, and buying a Snickers and bottle of water. Apparently drunk dialed Chris and Liz, not sure how that went. Apparently hit the snack machine at the hotel, bought a bottle of ginger ale, lemon cookies and Fridays potato skin chips. Hadn't ate the snickers/water yet. So I had a lot of snack items. Ate some random shit, fought the urge to puke, and watched Poker on TV.

Sunday: Slept until like 2. So hungover. Still burping beer/vodka, actually. Went to convention center again after eating Wendys. Wandered around for a bit, then went to a RFID mixer thing with free beer, awesome. Had awesome italian food. Came back and blogged. Oh wait, I just caught up. Um, I guess that's it. Flying out tomorrow afternoon.

I saw many sights in DC, including DC's awesome (compared to STL) train system, saw the Washington Monument (from the train), saw the White house (from the hotel where the RFID thing was). Did I mention I'm not into sightseeing?

Ok, I'm out.

holy neat

I'm definitely sitting at Lambert, which is wifi-less, and bloggering cuz I'm a complete badass. Definitely tethered my Q to my laptop with PDANet, and it's the most coolest awesome shit on the face of the earth, comma, holycrap.

Chattanooga...'d?

Thursday: Snuck out of the office at noon. Swung through this tiny cigar shop downtown Alton I kept seeing, awesome place. Close to work. I'm screwed. Got gas, and hauled ass. Made awesome time until I hit the big red line in Nashville, TN that was on my Google Maps (love you, Moto Q). Waited around in traffic for the better part of an hour. Sucked. My dumbass somehow managed to land in the the Friday rush at 5pm. Awesome. Got through that, stopped and ate some McD's, got gas, dropped the top, and was back on the road again.

Went to pass someone, when I heard a screwball "pop-pop-pop-pop" under the hood. Hrm. Hit gas. Pop-pop-pop. Hrm. Pulled over, popped hood, saw the Coil-on-plug module for the #3 cylinder dancing to the beat of the popping. Fuck. See, the 99-02 2v GT heads have a pretty common flaw in that there's only about two threads holding the spark plugs in, and under light detonation or boost, the cylinder pressure will pop them out, taking those 2 threads out of the head with it, usually requiring at least a heli-coil, sometimes a new head (MSRP-$1k+labor). If you're lucky, the threads stay on the plug, and out of the engine.

Assuming the worst, and knowing I was nowhere near anything and about 60 miles outside of Chattanooga, I was pissssssed. Got on the phone with Allstate Motorclub to get a tow truck, and my brain melted.
Me: "Yeah, need a towtruck"
AS Retard: "OK, where are you?"
me: "No clue. I'm sitting in front of the sign for exit 117 on 24E"
ASR: "Well, what town is that?"
me: "bla bla airforce something"
ASR: "What was the last town you passed?"
me: "wasn't paying attention, didn't plan on breaking down and having to call for a tow, can't you look that up in any way?"

I'm subsequentially put on hold for about 10 minutes while she tries to find me. Meanwhile, two TN troopers pull up behind me and sit for about 5 minutes. I figure they're running my tags, and I get out (with my hands up) and walk up, and find out I'm outside of Manchester, TN. Hang up, and put in a new call for a tow, and wait (and smoke like 5 cigs).

Truck shows up about 20m later, and after deciphering what the driver is saying, we're en route back up the road to Al White Ford in beautiful downtown Manchester, TN:



Dealership was closed by this time, so we just dumped the car in the lot, and the driver directed me to De Ja Vu, the bar across the street, and noted it was karaokee night. Fab. I had Nate en route from Chatty, so I mosey'd over to drown my sorrow/anger in booze and Camel Lights.

Met a few of the locals, "BoDawg", whose favorite color is clear, and his large, denim-shirt-with-no-sleeves-and-half-unbuttoned-shirt-wearing friend, either Scooter or Stubby or Smarty or smoething. Nice folk.

Of note: you can't buy hard alcohol in a bar in Manchester, TN. You can, however, go to the gas station next door, buy some booze, bring it back, and they can put Coke in it for you.

Anyway, Nate finally showed up, and we rolled back into Chatty, met up with Chris, and drank copious amounts of beer until 4am.

Friday: Since Al White Ford didn't have a keydrop box, Chris and I had to wake up at 6:30, and drive the hour back to Manchester to drop of my key and get the Mustang looked at when they opened at 7:30. Suck. Dropped off the car with the service manager, who said they'd get right to it. Which normally means, "we'll fix it when we're good and ready, you arrogant Yank prick". But to my amazement, they pulled it in and had it apart before I'd finished signing off on the paperwork. Chris & I headed up to Cracker Barrell for some much-needed coffee and gravy-covered foodstuffs. Got back, and the car was done. $78 later, the spark plug had apparnetly just worked itself loose (again, due to the short threads), but left everything intact. The roadtrip Gods had smiled upon me, and I made multiple mental notes to create a comprehensive car-based toolbox.

Drove back to Nate's, slept till about noon. Or two. Sometime. Woke up, got cleaned up, and went to Steve's Landing for some sweet tay (tea) and fan-fucking-tastic rib lovin'. Got back, drank some more beers, and headed downtown to CBC, which was this awesome pool hall/cigar bar/regular bar multi-level thing downtown. Again, they were rocking the library-style bar with ladder. Must be the new thing. Hot chicks abounded, beer and pool was cheap and plentiful.

Left around midnight, went back to Nate's for more beer (nach), more Bomberman, and more beer. Nate bowed out around 4, Chris and I stayed up chatting about Doritos X-13Ds and drinking till 6ish.

Saturday: This section of the trip is subtitled "Bad Ideas". Woke up around noon or so, hit Waffle House for a huge pile of shredded potatos covered in whatever they could scrounge up, and a waffle. Delicious. Pooped for days. Bought copious amounts of beef byproducts and canned pickled cabbage. And beer. Went out to James Roberts (aka Diesel) house for drunken Slip n' Slide. Knowing my track record with TN-based physical activities, I made sure my insurance was up-to-date, and noted the location of the nearest hospital.

Oh, and Nate made us stop and buy baby oil on the way.

The 'course' consisited of a large inflatable kiddy pool at the bottom of a steeply-sloped lot that would be covered in visqueen plastic, and properly lubricated with water, beer, dish soap, baby oil, and God knows what else.

Setup:
The final product:

Wayner/April and Tay-um/Jenniffer showed up shortly after. Wayne was half-nude and lubed within about 10 minutes of arrival. Quite the trooper. I stood by (drinking) and monitored the situation before annointing myself with ancient oils and diving in headlong myself.

Wound up slipping and/or sliding from about 4 until 9, with varying degrees of success and homo-eroticism. Such is expected when 4-5 grown half-nude men are dousing each other with dish soap/baby oil and riding them down a greased/wet sheet of plastic, much like a sled. While singing Journey. What? No, I'm serious. It's exactly as gay as it sounds.

Had some tasty grilled meats and assorted desserts, did a beer bong, more sliding, then we cleaned up, drank more beer, and then we attempted to drunken ATV in sandals, which was a complete failure, which was magnified by the fact that the trail Diesel was intending us to take was somehow missing.

Anyway, we left there around 11 after hanging out for a bit (and drinking more). Went back to Nate's, where there was, you guessed it, more drinking and Bomberman. Chris tapped out around 1, myself around 2. Woken up at 4 by drunk Ellen. Back to bed until about 7:30.

Sunday: Woke up, slapped on deodorant, packed up and hit the road. 6.5 hours later, I arrived unscathed but tired, in Collinsville. Ate BW3, took massive nap, caught up on Tivo, watched some Miami Ink, and hit the bed hard at 9ish.

My body currently feels like...well, like I'm some sort of idiot who slip and slides drunk on a very hard surface. Current damage count is as follows:
2 bruised ribs (bottom left, top right)
1 severely bruised knee (left)
5 bruised toes (seriously, the tops of my toes on my left foot are fucked)
abs of pain (I'm assuming this is mostly from straining myself to keep Deisel's quad from flipping over on the pseudo-trail)
General muscular pain.

All in all,
AWESOME TRIP.

Yup, another lame weekend update...

Friday - Got home from work, starving, hit Steak n' Shake for the burger lovin. Haven't had that shit in a while. Grabbed me some shoes and new sandals cuz I was shoeless Joe. Hit Schnucks for boozery. Went home, played some xbox with the wife and boozed up a bit. Met the Lowns and Lori/Lance over at LJ Ducks, where drunkery ensued. Lori was plowed and left at some point, Lowns were tired and left at some other point. Ellen and I hung out with bar-friend Dane, who is a rock n' roll badass. Just a really cool guy. We'd hooked him up with our other random bar-friend, Andrea a few weeks ago, and they had a month of fun before her freaking out due to textbook screwed up girl issues, kinda sad. Shame. Anyway, 3 of us hung out and bullshitted till about 3. Oh, randomly ran into the waitress from steak n' shake at Ducks too, which went down about like this:

Me: "Hi. You're Nancy, right?"
N: "Uhm...yah..."
M: "Oh, you totally gave me a cheeseburger tonight. It rocked. I know you didn't make it, but I still appreciated you bringing it to me. It was good."
N: "Oh, um..thanks?"
M: "Yah.. this is kinda awkward now, isn't it? I'm just gonna leave. Well, good meeting you, and thanks again."

Stupid Redbull/vodka. Smoked over a half-pack. It sucked Saturday. Anyway, we were kinda let down in that there wasn't a 2:30a fight, like normal. The standard instigator drunk asshole did walk in around 2:15, which got my hopes up (he'd been in a couple of the 2:30s), but he was in a jovial mood and too plowed to fight, though still tatoo'd and appropriately scary. He wore my hat. It was funny. Anyway, gave Dane a ride home, went home ourselves, had toast/water/advil, passed out.

Saturday: Woke up at like noon. Sat around the house watching HGTV and shit pretty much all day. Went to Burger King and blockbuster at some point. Watched Hard Times, which was horrible. So bad. Hung out more. I went to bed at like 9:30 or 10:30 or something. Ellen fell asleep on the couch at midnight.

Sunday: Woke up at 8. Did shit all day. Cleaned garage up a bit, yard work, got hit hardcore in the leg with a weedeater, that hurt like shit. Played with dog, helped Ellen finish the bedroom, bought sheets and shit at Kmart, grabbed Forza 2. Went to a new meat market in Troy (Which also has a Pizza Man, with the oldschool logo, which I will be investigating VERY shortly). Grilled up some sweet-ass kabobs and drank beer. Watched Talladega Nights finally. Funny. Played Forza2 until like midnight or 1. Such an awesome game, my life is screwed.

fail!

Irony: I don't have time to put tasks in outlook. I actually need a reminder to let me know I need to enter tasks in outlook so I can make time to do it.

Kill me.

Post?

Weekend, semi-condensed: (just add like a half cup of water or something)

Friday: Left work at 10:30a, still managed over 40 hours for the week cuz I rock. Went home, took dog to kennel, met up with Lowns eventually, drove to Carbondale in stupid-ass rain. Met Camp-Davie at Quattro's pizza, so fuggin good. Drove to Herrin, IL for Herrinfest. Got rained on. Watched crappy-singer 80s cover band.

Drove back. Drank at The Cellar. So cheap. Got plowed despite being very tired. Fell asleep.

Saturday: Wine trails after Panera. Lots of wine. I don't really care for wine that much, but whatever. I drove. Couple neat places, but after about the 6th stop, I was tired and sick of wine. Oh... this one new winery was completely awesome, but very non-winery (supa commercial and over the top, not personal at all)...but it was cool:


Those taps in the back have Sangria in them, kinda neat.

Made it back to Cdale/hotel. Swam in what was probably a 50* pool at the Days. Refreshing! Got dressed, headed to this really, really nice (esp. for Cdale) cafe joint. Jazz quartet rockin some Coltrane in the basement. $5.50 awesome martinis. (yay cdale) Scallops, awesome steaks and other awesomeness abounded. Met hit Callahan's, which has the coolest fuggin library-style bar in the history of the world:

The ladder is on rollers just like a stacks ladder. Sweet. Awesome selection. Macallan 12 was $10, but for an enormous amount. Drinking in Cdale remains cheap. While there, we met up with some of Helen's peeps. Made our way over to Pinch Penny for crappy college cover band action, more cheap beer, and massive amounts of people watching. Very good times. Closed the joint down with enough time to walk through the liquor store and buy stuff we had no biz buying. Went across Grand, rocked the bagel from Winston, grabbed a ($3.50) cab for 4 back to the hotel. So cheap. Drank one tiny Coors Light (8 oz beer, why?), before passing out on Ellen's ass (literally) at 2:30 or 3.

Sunday: Woke up amazingly non-hungover. Breakfast at Harbaugh's, then a 1.5 hour trip home cuz I rule at driving when it's dry out. Watched movies or something. Took a nap at 4. Woke up at 8. Went back to bed at 11. Oops, day gone.

Monday: Woke up early. Watched a couple episodes of the Real Deal, then got wild hair up collective asses to actually finish a project. I finally finished hanging the doors to the closet in our bedroom, and Ellen randomly decided to paint. No mo mustard yellow, which was completley awesome for a spare bedroom/office, notsomuch for a master. While she was doing that I made 890 trips to Home Depot for very expensive pine 1x4s to re-do the door mouldings that were that shitty plyboard shoe style on 2 doors to match the rest of the "craftsman-style" moldings on everything else. Bought sweet-ass Rigid miter saw (finally) to help with my santiy during the project. Came out completely awesome. All my measurements were dead-on, and the laser-thingy helped make the cuts perfecto. Put the room back togehter, watched tivo'd price-is-right million-dollar spectacular, passed the fuck out. Still need to do a few more coats of white on the above-closet doors, then need to paint the new mouldings and the inside of the bedroom/attic doors, and it's fuggin done. Whew.

Beer is good... and stuff.

Friday: Hung out at the house for a bit after work, ate pizza, made our way to Soulard to check out Steve Ewing from the Urge rock an acoustic set. Pretty sweet, nothing like acoustic urge and random Police covers. Should have stuck around for the whole set, but left at the first break. After that, Ellen and I headed back to Cville to drink at LJ Ducks, as we are wont to do. Met up with Lori there, hung out until the 2:30am LJ Ducks fight broke out, which was awesome. Headed home, passed out around 3:30/4.

Saturday: Woke up around 11. Sat on ass most of the day. Washed cars. Played Xbox. Met up with the Lowns, hopped a train to Forest Park, got there around 6:30. Stood in line for wayyyy too long for a beer festival. Walked into Nirvana. 2 tents, Lager and Ale, 25+ beers each. Long lines, but we developed a rythm very quickly to finish our first sample while getting our next poured. Ran into Jake. Ran in Bryan. Ran into Mary/Barb. Neat. Awesome food, some awesome brews. Left around 9:45 to beat the 10pm closing rush. Hopped the train back east. Went back to LJ Ducks, as we are wont to do. Lori and Steve showed up. Closed the joint down. Went home, jacuzzi'd until about 4:45. Went to bed at 5.

Sunday: Amazingly not hungover, woke up at 10, met the Lowns at Spring Garden. Had a crappy breakfast burrito. Was sad. Hit blockbuster. Went home, veg'd out most of the day. Put crap on eBay/Craigslist. Watched Alpha Dog. Pretty good. Took dog out for a ride in the 'vert. Hit Horeshoe Lake just to check it out, pretty nice drive. Headed to Troy, bought steaks. Went home, grilled steaks. Damn fine. Caught up on the DVR, went to bed around 9. So tired.

Weird dream

I had a dream last night that the Sirius/XM merger actually went through. That was the whole dream. It was weird.

Wow

So, I got a MOTO Q for work crap, due to needing a PDA desperately. I'm apparently very much behind on technology, because I'm constantly amazed at the shit I can do with this thing. I just found an app that'll let me stream my Sirius subscription through the damn thing....while I'm doing other shit. Holy crap technology is friggin sweet.

weekend!

Friday: Took the Helen/Eric out to Wasabi for sushi lovin, as E had never had it. Sure enough, he loved it (they guy eats like a fuggin horse), and we wound up getting extra rolls due to his superior eating abilities, and the fact that i starved myself anticipating the meal all day. Hit Hurricanes for a bit until they got tired (had to be at work at 6a Sat). Dropped them off, headed up to LJ Ducks where we once again ran into random bar friends, Andrea M and Dane (aka Rock n' Roll Rob). Curiously enough, we may have hooked them up, which is funny only because we've met each of them twice. Cool peepz though. Like clockwork, there was another fight at around 2:30a or so, which prompted our leaving, but not before realizing that Taco Bell is open until 4. Tacos on the backend.

More about Ducks. Fucking love this place. Hoosier-ass towny/biker bar from hell. It's completely unbearable when you're sober, but the funnest place on earth whilest drunk. $1.50 domestic bottles. $3.25 huge-ass redbull/vodkas don't hurt. Friday ruled especially because there was a stray cat that kinda wandered around the bar, then left and came back a few times. Eventually, it just plopped down on the floor and hung out for the majority of the night.

Awesome cat.

Anyway, retardedness and fights ensued, it was just crazy. I did my best to diffuse, I'm not sure why, I'm lucky I didn't get decked for trying to talk down a drunk asshole I didn't even know. It was fun though.

Saturday: Woke up at some point. Oh, when Andrea L woke me up, right. Lammles came over, Rob and I kinda fixed Andrea's car, the women went somewhere, and came back, then we ate at Friday's South and went to this insane person's junk store. It was insane. Parted ways shortly after. Took nap. Met Helen/Eric at Ramon's for 5/5 goodness. Decided it was lame, so we tried to go to the horse track. Forgot about the kentucky derby. Drove through the C-ville ghettos instead. Wow. Tried to go to the drive-in in Belleville to see Spidey 3. Sat in traffic a block from the place for literally 45 minutes before getting entirely too pissed at the world and blowing that popcicle stand.

Drove to Ofallon IL to try the conventional theater, but didn't get there in time. Went to Chevy's got trapped in parking lot. Went to Jerzee's because we could. Drank beer fastly. It was nice to drink beer. Went back to Cville tired and defeated. Jacuzzi'd. Ellen passed out at 11. I was in bed by 12.

Sunday: Slept till 11. Had Sonic. Worked on the yard. Washed car. Started on the Indy Horror Film double features we downloaded in HD off teh xbox. Dark Ride/The Hamiltons. Dark Ride was meh, but it had the fat kid from The Sandlot in it, who finally grew into his head. Good cheesy 80's style horror. Hamiltons was much more interesting and well-done. Ate BW3. Went to bed at some point. Tired.

Beerfest this weekend. Denying my own age is getting tiring. :)

I'm on the muthafugga

In accordance with geek statute 2389.4, I've condensed all of my various appt calendars (gcal, outlook, phone) into one work/personal outlook calendar that's synced between my phone and work laptop. Bring the organizational pain.

Dude, I blogged myself.

Hi. I don't blog anymore. No time. Work is fucking nuts right now. There ya go. I'll bless you with some trite ramblings on this rainy-ass Friday morning though. First, a dream.

To set things up, I apparently have created this alter Champaign-Urbana in my head. It's got a campus and off-campus area, and it's been the set for quite a few dreams spread over a couple years. I actually just had a flashback to the campus area while typing this, which was weird.

Anyway, in alternate CU, I was hanging out with Jammin and Nate and Monte. We were wandering around the bars, and someone wanted to watch a Cardinals game. I didn't, so they all stayed, and I kinda wandered off to another bar. There, I ran into The Edge and some other dude from U2 that wasn't Bono. So I was hanging out with them, and they asked if I wanted to go cruise around, so I said sure, and we did. The Edge drives a Taurus, apparently. Anyway, I'm sitting in the back, and we're driving around, and I ask where we're going. Edge tells me we're going to go pick up Bono cuz they have a concert tonight.

Oh, cool.

So we pull up to this row house area kinda like you'd see in old St. Louis, and Bono comes out to the car on crutches, and hops in the backseat with me. We ride over to this Canopy-club type place, but it's over by "real Champaign" Savoy area. Weird.

Anyway, they couldn't get me in for free, so I had to pay the $17.50 to get into the show. There was maybe 40 people in the club. Just weird. Anyway, they start their set, and I'm sitting at my table having a drink. Get up, go pee, come back, and Bono is sitting at the table with these three "chicks" during a break in their set. One of the chicks asks me how many of them I think are actually men. I cringe for a second because I'm afraid to offend, and say "You're actually all dudes, I think. But a couple of you had really good work done, cuz I can barely tell". Of course they're all like "yes, yes we are", then Bono finished out his set and I went to another table because it was kinda weird. I tried calling Grice, but didn't get an answer.

There ya go. Dream.

Last night I drove an hour after work to meet FGI people for happy hour and to try and talk one of the Denver people out of moving here. After a couple beers I headed to one of the 4 Sprint stores in the greater St. Louis area that has the MOTO Q phone, and grabbed that after dealing with retardedness for quite a while. Went back to Muggs, had a final beer with the stragglers, then headed home and watched Lost. Awesome. Also, my phone is way too cool for school. So neat. I'm going to lose another day of productivity today trying to get things tweaked. After hand-inputting half my contacts on it last night, Ellen suggested I try 'beaming' them over. My 640 had bluetooth, der. So the 2nd half of the transfer was obviously way faster. Bastards.

Killing me softly

with booze.

Friday: Ellen had an emergency 'meeting' to counsel one of her old work friends about marital shit. I drank scotch, smoked cigars with the dog (he was just keeping me company, not smoking), and played xbox until 1a. Awesome time. The night started with take-out from Los Caporale's, the home of the best awesome authentic kickass burritos ever made. So stuffed. So good. So fuggin good.

Saturday: Had the intentions of ripping up the back yard and putting in bushes and shrubs and shit, and getting teh dog groomed. Wound up sitting at the muffler shop until noon (was supposed to be done at like 11:45). We were starving, so we went to Eville for the BW3 action. Headed to Home Depot, and decided that we don't know jack shit about bushes, and didn't buy anything. Came home, putzed around the house for a bit until about 330, when Ellen realized she was supposed to make brownies for the BBQ at Helen's. She cooked, I went to HD again to get lumber for Sunday's flowerbed project. Apparent you can fit 8' landscaping timbers in a Jetta with the seat down. Good to know.

Unloaded wood, cleaned up, and headed over to Helens to hang out with the Lammles and Helen's friend Lisa, and her boyfriend. Watched people throw things at stuff, drank beer, enjoyed the most awesome weather ever, and just hung out. Had sweet-sweet burgers and brats and etc. Lisa & Lance left kinda early, Lammles left at like...11? I dunno. We followed shortly after since Helen was near asleep. Wound up at LJ Ducks becuase we're alkies like that. Place was dead due to Karaokee. Ellen forced me to sing. It was a trainwreck. Horrible KJ. Imadork. Left, and wound up back at Friday's South where DJ Slur was spinning some awesome shit. Hung out, chatted up the locals, and bailed around 2:30. Came home, jacuzzi'd for a bit, went to bed around 4:30.

Sunday: Woke up at like...10? Ellen went and got Sonic for breakfast. Super Sonic Burrito all up in this mug. Dragged her outside and cleaned up the side of the garage that had been collecting sticks for the past two years, and put in a flower bed, sans flowers for now. Ate Long John Silvers, which was fucking incredible for some reason. Watched the Good Shephard, which was way too long, but not a horrible movie.

fin.