What a wonderful Febrehabruarv it's been so far. Without any dietary restrictions, the transition has been pretty seamless. I could most definitely go for a beer after the week I've had, but that temptation will be easy to avoid. The only hard part is that I have a bathtub full of beer bottles containing the most delicious brew you've ever tasted.

Saturday night Daniel and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary that just so happens to coincide with the onset of Febrehab. So we always do it up right. We had an outrageous meal of tenderloin, Chilean sea bass, ahi tuna, and lobster, accentuated with many "very, very, very dirty Grey Goose martinis with just a *splash* of vermouth and 3 blue cheese stuffed olives" (write that down). We got home feeling rather toasty and decided to pop open a few of the homebrew beers that I bottled a week prior. They weren't technically aged to fruition just yet but we figured what the hell. AND IT WAS SO GOOD. I'm not just saying that because I brewed it. It might be the best beer I've ever had. I can't wait to try it when its fully aged and chilled and everything. We were drinking it straight from the bathtub. So March 1st everyone come on by and I'll let you have one. I fully intend to brew again.

Then the physical challenge began. I am quite pleased to announce that I have gone running every day so far. This whole 4 miles a day bullshit is nearly impossible. I ran myself sick the second day and had to back off a little the third but now I'm back on pace. I have gone a total of 18.94 miles since Sunday and have no intention of slowing down. I have my progress charted in Excel and I know what I need to average every day for the rest of the month to meet my 100 mile goal and it is daunting. There's no way I'm taking a day off and raising that average.

Every muscle in my body hates me and my knees -- I think -- are about to fall off. But I'm still going strong. Anybody out there participating?

I do hope that 2009 has found you well. I've certainly had a helluva start. My two week long vacation is ending tomorrow and I just don't know how I am going to cope with it. I've had a good couple of weeks though.

First, my entire family came into town. I currently have 5 nieces and 2 nephews, and was just informed that there's another on the way! It was really fun to play with all of them and give them crappy gifts that they loved. Although, I will admit that the Hannah Montana electric guitar I got for my niece Kelsey was pretty rocking, even though it's already broken. So we did the whole xristmas thing and I spent more than a few nights driving between Addison and Allen to my parents new ridiculously large house. I got wine from my brother in the gift exchange and now the wine fridge is respectably stocked. And I got the new Nikon Coolpix camera from my parents. I highly recommend this little gadget. It is so freaking advanced. I guess when you only buy one camera every decade, they're bound to improve slightly.

The other reason everyone came was for my parents surprise 35th wedding anniversary. We'd been planning it for like a year (I helped a little) and had some extended family and a lot of old family friends hiding in the banquet room at Sneaky Pete's in Lewisville. Then when my parents came in with my sister for what they thought was an oddly dressy, far drive to Lake Lewisville just for dinner, everyone yelled HAPPY ANNIVERSARY and the merriment proceeded. DJ iMernex even DJed the party which was pretty fun. There was "free" beer and wine so I think everyone managed to have a good time and I know my parents really appreciated it. And I got the buffet leftovers so Daniel and I ate chicken and roast beef for a week.

Then we did xristmas with Daniel's family over at our apartment. His mom made filet mignon wrapped in puff pastry with some sort of filling. It was really good. We were in charge of vegetables so we served leftover green beens and potato wedges from the anniversary party. Waste not. Then we did a little gift exchange. His dad gave me a really cool shirt and a fedora that I adore. I think his sister helped pick it out, but it's pretty bangin. And I gave his brother guitar picks, guitar strings, and a guitar strap. And he was perfectly gracious even though I thought he might be like, "I don't have a guitar, you dick." But then I surprised him with the guitar I had wrapped up in the other room. It wasn't easy getting all that on the budget that was set but I managed to do it. g*d, I love pawn shops now.

Then there was New Year's Eve. We had a bunch of people over. There was a lot of food, dancing, tons of booze. We really had a good time. Gotta tell you though, it's that time of the year when Febrehabruarv starts sounding really good to me. I was thinking that maybe I wanted to do that master cleanse again, but then I read my blog from last year and decided against it. All the descriptions of sleepless nights, heart palpitations, and incessant heartburn jogged some memories I'd obviously repressed. Maybe in another year. I think I'll hearken back to the febrehabs of yesteryear when it was easy and fun, good clean living.

I think that brings us up to speed. Happy 2009, bitches. See you around..

Since our last underwater adventure, a few things have happened. First of all, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I wouldn't call it Turkey Day because we didn't have turkey. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. Daniel's mother had a wonderful spread for us consisting of all kinds of seafood -- her oyster stuffing is amazing. But part of me longs for the days of College Station Thanksgiving extravaganzas with all the traditional fanfare. Maybe I'll go buy a turkey on sale today and cook it and immediately turn it into sandwiches.

Daniel and I have already exchanged our xristmas presents for each other. I got him a Whirlpool Duet Steam Washer. And he got me a Whilrpool Duet Steam Dryer. They are pretty badass. Tuscan chestnut is the color. And it does everything automatically. You don't have to tell it how big the load is or how long to wash or dry it. It has "sixth sense" technology and just knows. And the washer is an energy star appliance and the estimated yearly operating costs (based on the assumption of 8 loads a week) is $13. So yeah it's gonna pay for itself in just a few decades. I'm not suggesting everyone run out and buy one because it's far greener to just keep using what you've got, but if you're in the market for a washer and dryer and you're a baller, I would highly recommend the Whirlpool.

And our xristmas lights have been up for a few days even though we've resisted the urge to turn them on. Today is the day we'll fire them up. I went to Target one day to buy some dinosaurs for my nephew's birthday and I saw their lights. And they had "soft white spheres" LEDs. I loved em so I bought them just to show Daniel. And the next time I came home, he had taken floral wire, and wired each individual bulb to the window screen spaced out evenly. And it looks so cool. So we bought 5 more strands and did all the windows. Can't wait to turn em on and leave em on for the rest of the year. They should use so little electricity, I don't see why not.

This month has been rather sparse for me blog wise. I'm sorry that robots forced me to turn off all the comments on all the blogs. Hopefully they won't find this one right away, so you'd better leave em fast. Peace!

My brother sent out this picture to my whole family. He said that he and his wife weren't really dressing up as anybody in particular, they just both chose wigs they liked so they could wear them to a party. But when he sent out this picture, he said he was going as me for Halloween. Flattered and a little impressed. It's always nice to know what you're going to look like 5 years from now. I have to say tho, Krista doesn't look a thing like Daniel. I don't think I'm going to dress up this year, so I'll also be going as me. I'm not even sure that I'll be doing anything this year. I already missed the block party downtown.

But I celebrated in my own little way. I bought a pumpkin and roasted the seeds with a sprinkle of clove, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Delicious. Then I also bought two eating pumpkins (they're small and green) and I cut them up and roasted them. So delicious. While I was in Australia, we had pumpkin a few times and I grew to love it as more than a canned pie filling. So that was awesome even though I sliced a couple fingers open. Those fucking pumpkins were like rocks. I finally had to just cleaver them open.

But more important than Halloween, New Year's Eve is coming up and I want to do something fun outside of Dallas. I was really thinking like a cabin on the lake with a few friends and a keg. But I really couldn't find anywhere within driving distance that I would want to go. Does anybody have any ideas of something fun they've done in the area? Lemme know. Kthanks.

I am home again. After another full day of travel I finally landed back in Dallas a whole 3 hours earlier than I was supposed to. As was the theme of the traveling this time, my original flight home was canceled by the time I was ready to get on it. I got to see Daniel and I gave him his new pants (underwear) and lounge pants (pajama pants) from Peter Alexander, a poncy (fancy) little underwear shop in downtown Sydney. He looks awful smart in them. And my brother was in town for his last day of a business conference, so he took me to Kenny's! What a welcome home!

During my last week in Sydney, Al and I had some fun adventures. First we both went to get our hair did. I love the chick that cut my hair. She went to town on it. Allison called it classic Aussie metro. Then she got her hair dyed back to her natural color and got a real sassy short do. She's traveling for the next 13 months through lots of countries that don't appreciate blondes to any degree, so this haircut should last her through it. After we got all dolled up, we went to Al's leaving do (party) at the Fire House Hotel (pub (bar)) in North Sydney. She has lots of wonderful friends. But it was weird how they want back and forth and around the table and every single one of them was like "Well, it's just like when I lived in the UK for 6 months prior to my year of traveling around southeast Asia." And another would chime in, "Oh yeah, when I lived in the Carribean, I spent a year touring before I got my residency in Australia." And I'm just like who are you transient people? All of them have been all over the world, lived all over the world, and I'm just like Addison! rules!

But it was a really fun party. Two of the girls were especially fun and they called Daniel early in the morning while he was at work and tried to convince him they were Kylie and Danni Minogue. Even tho the accents were pretty authentic, he didn't fall for it. Shucks.

My last day there we took a guided tour of the Hunter Valley (the Aussie Napa Valley). We went to like 5 or 6 different cellar doors and drank some very good wine. I ended up buying 4 bottles, I think, but we drank some before I left. I brought home 3 bottles and some aged goat cheese from some Hunter Valley goats. So ridiculously good. And the Shiraz is just ... huge. I can't even explain it. That was major fun. So we did that, picked up Noodle Star take away (to go) and ate it with the shiraz. And then the next day I left.

So here I am. I do not work until next Tuesday, nor do I intend to check my work email or answer my work phone until then. So if anybody wants to hang out and tan or something, let me know. It's summer again for me and I intend to take advantage this week. Laaaaaaaaate.

They say you don't know a city until you walk it. "They" being the one and only travel book I've ever read that was left here for me by Erin and Jezza. So when Allison needed a day to herself to get some stuff accomplished, I decided to set out on foot. Armed with only a basic layout map of the city, I set out heading south. Allison lives in North Sydney and I wanted to go to South Sydney, the separation being the harbour. So I got to walk over the Harbour Bridge. That was one of my goals before leaving. It only took me about 45 minutes to get to Circular Quay where the Operahouse and all the touristy stuff is. My original plan was then to figure out the bus system and see the rest of the city. But I am just not cut out for buses. The first one I wanted flew by because I didn't know you had to flag them down. And the only other one I tried the guy yelled at me because he wasn't going where I wanted to go. So I was like fuck that and hopped in a cab.

He took me down to Oxford Street in Paddington. It's where all the fancy boutique shopping is. I walked up and down the street, stopped to have some lunch, but never really shopped. Everything was really expensive but not necessarily Aussie by nature. And if I ever feel like purchasing some expensive clothes, I can just do that in Dallas when I don't have to carry it through customs. So then at the complete opposite end of Oxford Street are all the gay bars, so I decided to just hoof it over there and check it out. And then Hyde Park was just on the other side, so I walked through there. And then Circular Quay was just up the street from there. And then just over the bridge. So I ended up walking an obscene distance, nearly 5 hours of walking minus the cab ride. But it's true what they say, I totally feel like I know the city now.

That night Allison and I revisited Oxford Street and got shitcanned. But on the way I told her, "Yeah I found a couple nice places we could go to. But it seems like all the places I thought looked good were actually hotel bars." And she laughed. Apparently in Australia a "hotel" is a bar. Some law forever ago said that if you served alcohol you also had to have places to sleep, so they became one in the same long ago and now it doesn't mean hotel anymore, it's just synonymous with bar. Before we went out, we stopped for some dinner and I said, "This place is awesome. It's so nice but the entrees are so cheap." And she laughed again. Apparently in Australia an "entree" is an appetizer and a "main" is an entree. That's what's so fun about being here. It's all in English so I'm not totally lost, but it's just wrong enough to keep me guessing.

After walking around Sydney for an entire day, visiting several museums, landmarks, botanical gardens, hotels and restaurants, I really felt like I knew a lot about the city. And it made me realize how pitifully little I know about my own town. I couldn't begin to name one restaurant in the West End. I've just always assumed I didn't want to. But it's stupid that I know more about every city I've visited in the world than I do about Dallas. So I made a decision. When I get back, I'm going to take a tour of Dallas. I'm going to buy a travel book, get a hotel downtown, walk all over the place, see the grassy knoll. All that shit. I'm not even sure I know what the travel books will say to do! It won't be easy convincing locals to join me in my wide eyed camera toting tour of downtown Dallas, but we're going to do it by g*d. Who's with me?!

Our annual 3rd of July KaboomTown extravaganza, this year called Shish-Ka-Boom, was a huge success. I got off work pretty early and hit the grocery store on the way home. I picked up some beef shish-ka-bobs that were already skewered with vegetables. So much easier than trying to figure out the process on my own. And as an added bonus, the bargain expired meat bin is never without a few shish-ka-bobs, so a couple packages of them were half off -- just because they'd turned grey!

Then for dessert, I bought a huge thing of strawberries and a Sara Lee pound cake. I cut the strawberries in half and cut the cake into little cubes. Then I put them on bamboo skewers. I whipped some fresh cream with sugar and vanilla. And made a chocolate ganache out of Giardelli chocolate chips, two shots of real espresso, a teaspoon and a half of vanilla, and a little bit of fresh cream. I sprinkled the plate of dessert shish-ka-booms with a few random blueberries just so it would be red, white and blue. It was so delicious. I really think Ina might have approved of this spread.

Then we all watched the spectacular fireworks and got drunk. Not a single fight this year! So proud of all of our friends. Now tonight its time to switch modes to birthday celebration. My birthday is tomorrow so I arranged a little get together at a bar here in Addison. I purposely didn't put and RSVP thing on it because I'd rather just go out there with Daniel and drink a few beers and see who shows up. I didn't want to get a bunch of positive RSVPs and then be left at the bar alone crying. Set the bar low and be pleasantly surprised if it rocks. That's my new mantra.

So anyway, if you want to come, give me a ring and I'll disclose the secret location.

I just got back from a week in San Antonio. I was there to take a training class for work. It was from 8-5 every day in the hotel I was staying at next to the airport. Needless to say I was bored out of my gourd. I took this picture as I was checking out of my hotel room because I thought it rather succinctly summed up my entire trip. People in my training course were kind of laughing at me because I was eating each night at places like Papadeaux's and Applebee's. They thought I should get out and experience the local fare. But I was just like, c'mon, I'm from Dallas. It's not like San Antonio is a foreign country. If I managed to find something uniquely San Antonio it would just be a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place with meat, cheese, and tortillas combined in a variety of ways. So I opted to eat at places I liked, albethem chain restaurants, because it was free. And that made it special.

So I made it through the week with little incident. Last night Daniel and I went with JennyCole to see the new Sex and the City movie. It was fantastic. If you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should. We went to the Studio Movie Grill to watch it so we could get loaded at the same time. But ultimately, the same thing happened to me that always happens there. I end up having to pee so bad by the time the movie's over that I have a hard time sitting still. But I made it through. There was one thing about the movie that pissed me off. And it's not a spoiler, but if you don't want to know anything about the movie don't read this next part. So Charlotte adopted that little Chinese girl, right? And what did she name her? Lily. How many times have I said that I'm adopting a little Asian girl and naming her Lily because I want violin music while I eat? But I also always said that if I had another little girl, I would name her Rose. Not so much because of the obvious floral reference, but because I like the really old-timey names. Okay, so Charlottle has a baby and they name it Rose. So now if I ever by some fluke of nature have two daughters, and name them Lily and Rose, people will be like, oh yeah from Sex and the City. And that will piss me off. So I'm having my tubes tied.

In other news, the Allistralian came back to the states for a visit. She is leaving Australia soon and convinced me that it's now or never if I want to go visit her. So Daniel and I are going to Australia. For REAL this time. No joke. It'll probably be somewhere in the August range. It's gonna be a pretty baller ass vacation, but that's okay because those are the kinds of vacations we need to be taking. I'll keep you all posted on details of that. If anyone would like to go with, the more people we have the easier that 12 hour flight will be. Lemme know. Peace out.

Last night I tried my Kinoki Foot Pads for the first time. After a night of significant drinking, I decided their first test would be to draw my hangover out of my body while I slept so I would awake feeling refreshed. Daniel tried a pair too. An hour before bed we washed our feet in the bathtub and even ran a pumice stone on our soles to try and open up a path for toxins.

You open the pad, apply it to this big adhesive sheet and then stick the whole thing on the bottoms of your feet. We decided to put socks on over the pads so they wouldn't come off and that ended up being a good decision because they kind of leak. I immediately felt something. I'll grant you that I was drunk, but there was a tingling sensation. So I was gaining confidence that maybe they didn't do nothing. In the morning, my socks were a little bit brown from the Kinoki juice that leaked out. I wouldn't call it a confirmation, but I didn't feel as bad as I thought I would. I should have had a regular sized hangover, but it was less. So much so that I went to the grocery store and cooked us a really big breakfast of pancetta and fontina cheese omlette croissant sandwiches. You don't make up recipes that unless you've been revitalized in mind and body.

I have to say, though, that the biggest testimony to their effectiveness is that Daniel got up at 10:30 in the morning. A mere 8 hours after we had gone to bed. This is, like, at least 4 hours earlier than usual. I think they might work. The test will be to see if they get lighter and lighter as I use them. You can only use them every other night, so it will take me a while to get through the 5 remaining pairs of pads. But I'm hopeful.

Probably the most disturbing thing about these pads is their smell. They are brown and liquidy and leaking and make your feet tingle. But then you take them off in the morning and there is the overwhelming smell of barbeque sauce.  The fact that they look like barbeque sauce only stands to reinforce this olfactory conclusion. I threw my pads away but I am curious to compare the ingredient list against that of some A-1 and see how much they have in common. In the meantime, though, like I sometimes do, I decided to lend my advertising genius to Kinoki for free and put together this brand new marketing graphic for them.

Stand by for my final verdict, but I'm seriously undecided at the moment. Peace.

I am eating my words right now. And that is all that I am eating. I said I wanted a Febrehab that would truly be a challenge for my iron will, and I've gotten it and then some. This is unlike anything I have ever experienced. Near starvation every waking hours. There's never a moment's respite from the screaming hunger. I was told it would eventually go away but my body is resisting the reprogramming. At this point, I am going to say I will never do the Master Cleanse ever again. I don't know how I'm going to make it for two weeks, because I am beyond miserable right now. Maybe like a regular rehab, day 3 is always the worst. Maybe tomorrow will tip the scales in my favor. I sure hope so. Although, even if I'm in pain and misery for two weeks, I still won't waver or cheat.

I am losing dangerous amounts of weight, even though the scales say I gained a little bit back today. Still, 5 pounds in one day hardly seems like a healthy amount. And I guess the cleanse itself is working. Since I haven't put solid matter into the equation in three days and I keep getting solid matter out, it stands to reason that it has been inside for some time. And I think it makes sense to flush it out every once in a while. So I'm feeling encouraged there.

My sense of smell is starting to become more acute. I'd read that I could expect it to be a heightened sense, but I don't really think I smell any better. I just think I zero in on food odors. Which is to be expected. I can smell and identify everything that is within noseshot of my cubicle all day long and it is just torture. I am craving cheap fast food Mexican at the moment with margaritas and cigarettes. This March party is going to be off the heazy. Even though March 1st I'll be in OK for my niece's birthday party. But when I get home, it's on. So be looking forward to that. I'm going to go lay on the couch, conserve calories, and wait for American Gladiator, brother.

I make some of my best decisions after a few drinks. You wouldn't have to look any further than my set of Ronco knives to know that. But I have another example now. A 37" flatscreen LCD! I had a little money to spend from xristmas and I was debating between a dining room table with all the necessary accoutrements or a TV and a Wii. At a post-new-years finish-the-keg party, RyanShort and Daniel collectively convinced me that a TV was the way to go. So at 3 in the morning, we jetted off to Wal-Mart to get one. The first store didn't have the one we wanted so we went to another and stopped at Whataburger on the way. I haven't done that in forever. Their taquitos are as good as ever, so that made me glad. And we got the TV, bungee corded the trunk closed and brought it home and set it up at 4 in the morning. It's a Vizio and it has a really good picture, we just don't have any HD signals to feed to it. But Planet Earth look pretty spectacular.

Then we set off to find a Wii. Turns out, that's impossible. Well, impossible for someone with a life. I could spend my days calling stores, figuring out delivery schedules, and standing there waiting for a Wii to come in. Unfortunately, I am employed. So I call a few stores each weekend and they laugh at me. Just as well though, I accidentally overdrafted my account the other day. Not entirely because I'm broke but also because of an accounting error on my part. Nonetheless, it opened my eyes to the fact that I've been spending rampantly for months and have to stop. So I decided no Wii until I'm debt frii. Realistically with Febrehabruariv right around the corner, I can't imagine that won't be March. And we likely won't find one then either. But if anyone has a Wii they're willing to see at face value, let me know. I might take it off your hands in a little bit.

And finally, Febrehabruariv, the first leap year, I am looking so forward to it. Giving up food this year for the middle two weeks. The surrounding weeks, I'll be weaning off and then slowly acclimating back to food. Creech said he was shipping me the book on how to properly do the Master Cleanse, so I'm looking forward to reading that. I'm going to follow it to the letter, no matter what. If I'm in the hospital for malnourishment, I'll be pushing the IVs away. I'll definitely keep everyone posted on that, because it could either be torture, or another inadvertent success. Either way I can't wait. Peace.

Las Vegas was a blast, just like I knew it would be. Daniel knew that we were staying at the Bellagio for his graduation gift, but what he didn't know is that we had a deluxe lakeview suite on the corner and that chocolate covered strawberries and champagne were waiting for us when we got there. So that was a fun arrival. We looked out our windows and played with the electric drapes for a while before hitting the town. We mostly played Wheel of Fortune and Monte Carlo slot machines -- the two most popular ones with bonus spins possible. Neither of us lost as much money as we had planned on losing, so in that regard, we won. One night I even drank until I was wasted and the casino paid me $10 dollars to do it. If that isn't winning big, I don't know what is.

So that was our strategy. To try to drink all night and pay less than what we would have paid at the bar. Since a beer was anywhere from $6 to $8 at most bars, that really wasn't hard to do. Here's a couple helpful hints for any of you heading over to the desert. The first time the waitress comes around, tip her something good. $5 should do it, $10 if you're looking to get wasted. Then they'll take care of you by replacing every empty bottle with a full one. You might have to fuel the fire every few rounds with a few ones, just to keep her thinking she might get more money out of you once you get drunk. The other key factor is to make your money last a long time at the slot. The only effective way to do this is to not play. We would put money in, pull it once, light a cigarette, smoke the entire thing, talk to the waitress and the people next to us, finish a round, use the bathroom ... and then pull it again. Of course, naturally, you're going to get faster and faster as drink goes on, but that's where teamwork comes in and your partner should tell you to stop. We usually took turns, so one of us could slow the other down if we were getting low on our beer to gambling ratio.

One night Daniel took me out to a fancy dinner at Le Cirque. That's French for The Cirque. It's in the Bellagio and it's probably the nicest restaurant I've ever been to. Only 16 tables in a small room swaddled in tapestries and rich mohogany, and a view of the fountains. Tres chic. I had the rabbit symphony. A plate with a bunch of different preparations of rabbit. I am the worst vegan ever. The fun part was that when you walked in there was a huge terrarium with all the rabbits in it and I got to pick the one I wanted. (No, not really, but isn't it weird that it's acceptable to do with lobsters but the thought of doing it with bunnies is kind of offensive?) I was completely stuffed after a seafood medley, rabbit symphony, and a mango sorbet with coconut foam extravaganza for desert. It was an incredible meal, I highly recommend. Especially if you can get someone else to pay for you.

We also saw Blue Man Group, which was incredible. The first hour or so was just them staring wide eyed at each other and audience members while people laughed uncomfortably. Could have done without that. But the last 45 minutes were so badass that it totally made up for it. I would also highly recommend Blue Man Group. I'd tell you more, but I don't want to spoil it. If you're really curious, I'll tell you about it in person.

Our flight home was canceled and our new flight was about 6 hours later (during which I won $80, so not all bad) and then that flight was delayed about an hour. So getting home was a bit arduous. Especially since we were both ready to come home. Vegas is magickal and riotously fun, but I wouldn't recommend any more than 3 nights at a time. It gets tiresome of everyone you meet doing whatever they can to get their hands on your money. But we finally arrived home with little incident and promptly laid on the couch. And that concludes story time.

I've spent the past couple of days at my parents' house playing Wii and opening presents. I got a navigation system and an Art of Shaving kit and a mango slicer. Not a bad haul. I gave Daniel the T-qualizer shirt and he gave me Planet Earth, the entire season, AS narrated by Sigourney Weaver, the true version. I have some more to open on xristmas with Daniel's family so more on that after this. Peace.

I always tease Daniel about date night because the entire concept is so ridiculous and reserved only for married couples in strained relationships who really don't like being around each other, but once a week go out together and get sauced up enough to copulate. So any time we go out to dinner or a movie I like to scream, "Date night!" But in all seriousness, tonight we had a date night. Dinner for two at Halfshells in Plano. We got a crab and shrimp and andoiulle sausage platter and a couple beers. Then we went to see August Rush. Srsly, go see it. Read my review to the right for more on that. It was just perfect. We should really try to do this once a week.

One more week and I'll be Vegas bound. I can't wait. Daniel really can't wait. The Vegas trip is to celebrate his graduation, which will also occur in one week. He's already finished with several of his classes and I just couldn't be more proud of him. He's kind of a big deal. It's going to be a hectic week for me and then I have like 10 days in a row away from work, and you'd better believe me, I'm going to forget alllll about it.

One last thing about August Rush and then I'm done. I really want my brother to go see it because on those late nights when we were up recording Brother Band songs, and he would man the guitar, he always played it like August does. Two hands on the neck of the guitar ... bangin' ... making beautiful music. Only his was a fraction of a second long and had to be looped in order to sound cool. But still, same effect. I'm heading off to lay on the couch some more, my home in my home. Czech you skillets on the flip side.

Cider verdict: delicious. It's like a pear flavored apple wine. It's only mildly alcoholic but that works out alright because I like to drink lots and lots of it at a time. Bottling it was such a chore. The first day that it was freezing outside, I found myself sanitizing bottles in big tubs of water and rinsing them with a hose. I was wet and my hands were so cold that it was hard to work. We hooked it up to a big canister of compressed CO2 and attempted to force carbonation. It only worked slightly. Next time I'm going to give it like 4 days of carbonation instead of 20 minutes so it'll truly sparkle. But anyway, for a first try this is fantastic. I got three big crates of big bottles full, so I haven't rationed it at all. It's probably a third gone. Mmm, just talking about it is making me want a big glass of it.

Daniel and I got our first xristmas tree together the day after Thanksgiving. It's as tall as it could be in our apartment and flocked. Flocked, I learned, is what you call the trees that have been sprayed with white shit to make it look like snow. Then we wrapped it in blue LED lights and some color changing globes and a bunch of ornaments. I think it's really pretty. So pretty that I want to take a picture of it and post it on my website, but I'm too lazy. I'll do it later along with the pictures from Halloween.

Thanksgiving was good. We spent it at Daniel's parents' house. Grilled turkey and stuffing made with sausage and oysters. Delish. Then there was some tofu, natch, and a few other sides. I've never had a grilled turkey but it was fantastic. I want to try that some time. Grilling has never been my forte and I'm always intimidated to try it out in the courtyard, but maybe that should be a new years resolution for me.

Speaking of new years resolutions -- do me a favor and don't resolve to work out in the new year. If you haven't been doing it already, starting in January is the worst thing you can possibly do. Because every lard ass in the world starts going in January clogging up all the gym equipment for a good month or two before finally giving up like we all knew they were going to do from the beginning. So save yourself, and me, the trouble. You're welcome. This post sucked.

This week I went to Seattle for the umpteenth time. Only this time was different. It was just a day trip. A 4 hour flight there and back is a little bit long for a day trip so I flew up Sunday afternoon and back Tuesday morning. It was such a beating. I worked 13 hours on Monday punctuated by a delightful variety of alcoholic beverages. If you ever find yourself in Seattle, I suggest the Pike Place Brewery (not exactly a well kept local secret) and Broadway Grill. Mmmm. Have the Broadway put some raspberry puree in your mojito. You won't be sorry.

I was nervous going up there because I've engaged in a lot of bravado lately about how I'm the best programmer in the world and the guy who originally programmed everything is incompetent and everyone who has tried to fix it in the past has been so dispassionate that it's no surprise nothing is working. So I told them I needed to start from a clean slate and reprogram the entire thing from scratch. Not exactly what you want to hear in an already-behind-schedule project. But surprisingly they agreed. So the pressure was on. As late as Wednesday the week before I was freaking out because I had nothing to show for my efforts but a handful of failed attempts. But I showed up with a completed program and at 5am Monday morning we downloaded and started testing it. No big deal, just billions of dollars on the line.

Do I even have to tell you that it worked perfectly? This is not going to be good for my ego. But, it will be good for my resume.

Have you seen my apartment yet? It you haven't you need to swing by. We'd love to have you. I'm taking today off on comp time for traveling Sunday so that spells out a 4 day weekend for yours truly. Party every night. And on that note, I think I'm gonna start drinking... a soy latte. Laaaaaaaate.

I tried to post yesterday, but I guess Earthlink was having a problem with their servers. Everything on the internet worked except for my webpage. I blogged in Notepad so that I wouldn't lose the thought, but I didn't save it because I was just going to cut and paste it later when everything was working. Last night I was pretty sick so I stayed home and went to bed and then Daniel came home around 3. He hates the sound of the fan in my laptop so he turned my computer off before he got in bed. Long story short (which is pointless to say after you've already told the long story), I lost what I was going to say.

I do know that 95% of the reason I was blogging was to show you my St. Patrick's Day cake. I can't wait to win the lottery and go to culinary school and do shit like this all day long. It started off as a practice cake for Daniel's birthday cake next month, but as soon as I finished, realized the icing was green, and remembered it was St. Patty's Day, I dressed it up with the yellow. Thank g*d I have cake decorating materials on hand at all times. The best part is, the reason the icing is green IS BECAUSE IT'S MADE FROM AVOCADOS. Have you ever heard of anything so crazy? If you watch Alton Brown you have. I have to say, it is curiously delicious. It's light and fresh and citrusy with the lemon juice and orange extract I added. I think it will be a big hit. If you want to try it, you'd better hurry over before Daniel devours the whole thing. He's quite the cake-eater.

I hope everybody had a lovely St. Patrick's Day filled with green beer and devoid of green hangovers. Laaaaaaaaate.

Happy to report things are still going well. I just got back from Daniel's parents' house. His mother cooked this vegetable medley that we poured over soy cheese biscuits. It was pretty delish. She's made a few really exquisite meals for me this month. Such a treat.

One more weekend to go and then, while I am not stopping Febrehabruariii, I am going to reward myself by relaxing the rules a bit. Like tonight, Daniel's mom was going to put anchovies on the salad and remembered last minute to leave them separate. If it were March and there were anchovies on the salad, I would just shut up and eat them. Or if there were wine at the meal, I would have a glass. But for the most part, I am not going to have a cigarette and I'm not going to binge drink. And I'm going to continue to eat a diet that is rich in an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables instead of 98% soft chicken taco combos. Then we'll just see what happens from there. I am happy to report that my weight loss has resumed, thank g*d, and I've lost a solid 5 pounds now. I'd really like to see more go away, but even this 5 pounds has made a little bit of improvement.

Last weekend we joined our fellow Febrehaber, Lauren, for her game night. She just wanted to have a few friends over to play board games and enjoy a little sober fun. To get people to come, though, she told them if they would like to bring something to drink they could. It turned into too many people drinking and not really being too interested in the games. But I still had a blast. We played Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture Edition and I did pretty well at it. I wasn't the self proclaimed champion of Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture Edition like some people, but I still did better at it then I do the original version that we play at my parents' house.

There was even a chocolate fondue fountain there. It was making a squeeking noise, though, so someone turned it off halfway through the night causing it to solidify and become a total mess. The girl who brought it set out to trying to clean it up. So she had the outer portion of it removed and all that was left was the internal screw that draws the chocolate to the top. Keith told me that he was going to turn it on without the outer portion on. I tried to stop him. I begged him to consider the consequences for his actions. But, alas, I was unsuccessful. Some people. Sheesh. Chocolate went EVERYwhere. We're talking counter tops, carpet, walls, clothes. All I could do was shake my head emphatically and give Keith disapproving looks.

When the wall wouldn't come clean, Daniel and I set off to Walgreens to pick up a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (the greatest cleaning product known to man). While we were walking around, I got a hair up my ass to get Lauren an "I'm sorry" gift in case she mistakenly thought I had anything to do with turning on the chocolate fountain. What we ended up with was a card that sings, "I'm sorry ... soooo sorry," a decorative bag with tissue paper, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, and a box of Summer's Eve douche. The card read something like, "Lauren, we're sorry chocolate accidentally got all over your apartment. To apologize we got you the best cleaning products we could find." We giggled for about a solid hour over giving Lauren a box o' douche. The ironic part was that after she opened it, the Summer's Eve still wasn't the biggest douchebox at the party.

But still, it was a great time and we will definitely have to do it again some time. Thanks for being such a gracious hostess, Lauren, and congratulations on being one week away from your first successful Febrehabilitation!

Good morning, boys and girls. Today I greet you from the confines of my very spacious and comfortable bed. And although I am breaking one of the covenants of sleep by doing something other than sleeping or fucking in bed, I'm afraid I have very little choice. You see, it wasn't my internet that was broken, it was my wireless router. And since I know precious little about networking, and am employed somewhere where I basically do nothing but troubleshoot all day every day, I have very little interest in trying to fix it. So for now, I'm just going to plug in in my bedroom. Who knows, maybe if I ignore the problem long enough, it'll go away. Seems to work for everything else. At least Ryan Short gave me his extra 6' cable, so I could quit using the 6" cable that ties my router to the wall.

He gave it me to pay for the lunch that I made him. I think maybe you should all start calling me Sidesho With His Shoes Off. I was watching Ina Garten (Contessa With Her Shoes Off) the other day and she was making roasted tomato basil soup. And I thought to myself, "I could do that. I could fuckin do that." So I printed out the recipe and went to the store. The only edits I had to make were soy margarine instead of butter and vegetable stock instead of chicken broth. Cooking is so much easier than baking because you can make substitutions without it ruining everything. But seriously, folks, this soup was from absolute scratch. I chopped up onions and garlic cloves and sauteed them in margarine and olive oil with a sprinkle of red pepper flakes. Meanwhile my tomatoes cut in half were tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper and were roasting in the oven. Then I mixed them with a can of whole tomatoes, vegetable stock, a shit ton of fresh basil, and thyme. After that boiled and simmered for 40 minutes, I busted out my brand new immersion blender and went to town. Awesome. I do have to say my tomato basil soup was a smidge better than La Madelines. And now that I'm confident in the recipe, I can totally tweak it to my liking.

Being a vegan is proving more challenging than good, clean living. But it is distracting me a little bit from the pains of withdrawl. Unfortunately, it's also making me gassy. I've never had gas before. It's bizarre. I have to assume that drastically altering my diet is to blame and hopefully it'll calm down once I get situated. Because I'll tell you one thing, I will either starve or explode before I break Febrehabruariii. I committed to this and I'm going to see it through til the end, but at this point, don't expect me to be a vegan again next year.

Best wishes to my fellow Febrehabruariiites, especially Matt Cweech who has taken this to the extreme and is ingesting nothing but lemonade for a month. You are truly more hardcore than I, sir. Laaaaaaaaaate.

On your mark! Get set! Go! Febrehabruariii begins! So far so good. I was nursing a raging hangover this morning -- one so bad that it required me taking a bath when I rightfully should have been at work -- so that always makes day one a breeze. I'm mostly just hungry. I think I ate enough today, I just never got that hungover satisfaction that a greezy mushroom swiss burger can bring. So far I've had plain ass oatmeal, a veggie sub, cashews, apple sauce and a protein shake. Not exactly busting a gut, but whatever, my body will adjust.

Last night Daniel and I celebrated our one year anniversary. Now, before any of you point out what I know you're going to point out, we decided that no matter how good or how bad things were for a while there, this was still the day that our relationship began. But we decided to party on Febrehabruariii Eve so that we could booze it up at dinner and whatnot. We ate at SoHo over on Beltline. Tres chic, great food, good atmosphere. I can't believe I've never been there. We might go back at some point because they serve hummus and I'm gonna eat me some hummus this month.

I just got back from the grocery store with 100 dollars worth of suitable vegan delights. You can't imagine how hard it was to find bread without milk in it. Or margarine that was totally soy. Reading labels sucks. It takes so much longer to shop. The other downside is that almost everything I got is perishable. So if for some reason I don't eat it all, then it totally goes to waste.

So okay, Daniel just walked in and busted me using his computer. My internet has been down for over a week, hence the lack of updates. I'm gonna go upstairs now and make myself some more blueberry muffins, but this time I'm going to try putting some blueberry juice in the batter like maybe in place of some of the water because I want them to come out blue. Huzzah!

Good luck to everyone who is participating, and by that, I mean Lauren.

Last night I went to Daniel's parents' house for dinner as we do from time to time. When I got there, there was a large, misshapen box wrapped and bowed for me. It was an xmas present from the whole family. I was pretty excited to open it. The first thing that was in there was a large, hollow, fake gourd. His mother had placed it on top of the box to throw me off as to the contents. But below that was a brand new receiver! (As if a rectangular box is obviously receiver shaped.) Now, I know they say it's better to give than to receive, but if you give a receiver, does it all even out?

I have no speakers, but Daniel had a few that he doesn't use anymore and an extra subwoofer just laying around. He also had a VCR he doesn't use any more. So we trucked it all over to my apartment and I ate chips while he hooked it all up. Yes, folks, this relationship is finally starting to pay off.

A little while ago Daniel came home with two festive holiday ovalish kleenex boxes. His mother had given them to him and told him to give one to me. I chose the one I liked better. For some reason they were all in half English, half French, and the top of mine said, "Doux." So I said, "Oh my g*d, Daniel, why does this say 'douche'?!" And he grabbed the box, panic striken, and after reading it ... continued to be panic striken for a good additional 4 seconds. And I laughed. So hard.

I didn't laugh so much at the fact that I was able to convince him, albeit momentarily, that the kleenex was actually a douchebox (that's a new insult, try it). I laughed because I imagined his mother, innocently reaching into what she thought was a douchebox and pulling out a kleenex instead. And then she kind of pauses, confused, face melts to terror, and she yells, "Oh no! Danny!"

We were relaying that story to a girl friend of Daniel's and we were laughing about how douche could very well come in a box, as much as we know about it, which is nothing. And she informed us that douche is nothing but vinegar and water! There you go, ladies. I help you out. Save yourself some money.

Speaking of recipes, yesterday I found these really delicious looking avacados at the grocery store. I've never made guacamole before, but I was inspired. So I called my brother because his wife makes a pretty killer batch of guac. Her recipe uses salsa. Holy crap, that's brilliant. Instead of chopping up all the onions and g*d knows what else people pile in there, you just spoon in salsa. And then a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Mmm Mmm. I hope she doesn't mind me divulging her secrets here. But seriously, it was so easy and delicious. I left it sitting out and it turned black. Shit. But I have half a mind to go get some more 'cados. But I probably won't.

Oh dear, my father is bringing over new end tables for me tonight and my apartment is a total mess. I should probably at least hide the mess if I don't clean the mess. Hangovers are so demotivating. We'll see how far I get. Is it just me or do my hungover posts jump from subject to subject a lot more than normal? Oh well. Later have-nots.

I just spent a good 10 minutes cleaning up about a whole cup of sugar from the counter tops and floor of my kitchen. You might think I'd be annoyed by the necessity, given the Fantastik-sugar slurry that is embedded in my fingernails, or the history of ants I've had in this apartment, but you'd be wrong. I was chuckling heartily the entire time.

I chuckled because the sugary dusting reminded me of yet another good time from the other drunken night with Thommi and Brett Sabulous. It was around 3am ... or maybe 6am, who remembers ... and I decided I was hungry. Since I've been out of town for a week my fridge is understandably barren. Sidenote: Why is refrigerator abbreviated fridge? Where the fuck did the 'D' come from? I guess because frige might be pronounced [frig*gy]? Where was I? Oh yeah -- empty friggy.

So I channeled the spirits of Contessa With Her Shoes Off and set about making a fabulous dinner party. If I learned one thing in my stint as an aspiring cook, it's that anything can be fried in butter ... and everything is better fried in butter. So I took a tortilla and a frying pan and set to work. The first one was pretty good and after sharing my concoction with my guests, there were three chefs in the kitchen. Three chefs with ideas for improvements. We set about to spicing things up.

The first thing we found in the ol' spice cabinet (I call it that because it's the only cabinet that has more than zero spices in it ... and less than three) was garlic salt. A few massive crispy garlic salt chips later and we were back in the ol' spice cabinet looking for round two -- not to mention downing beers to rehydrate our tongues. Sugar! Fuck yeah! Sugar would be fantastic. So Brett made a few sugar tortillas. Not bad ... but lacking. I kicked it up a notch by making a bowl of cimanimanon sugar. As I fried my butter tortilla, I hit it with pinches of cimanimanon sugar. It was alright, but not really flavorful enough.

Brett informed me that the traditional way to sugar pastries is with a sifter ... which I just happened to have. He said three sifts of sugar should be perfect. So I got my sifter out, Brett held it above the tortilla, and I poured the bowl of sugar into it. It turns out that sifters really only work with confectioners sugar, not so much with cane. It all fell immediately thru and piled on top of our dessert. Unphased, we both said, "Ooooonnnnneeee!" Two empty sifts later and we had the best fucking drunken breakfast ever dreamed up.

So anyway, that's why I cleaned up all night. I guess I could have just said, "We fried tortillas in butter and put sugar on them," but I think the long version was much, much better. See you skillets on the flip siiiiiiide.

I finally did it. I've waited for 2 full years and the other day, I just decided to do it. I'm speaking, of course, about curtains for my bedroom. I was really daunted by the task of keeping my vertical blinds up. I could take them down, but then I'd have to store them and I have nowhere to store them. And to cover them means curtain rod extenders and screwing into studs, and I know nothing about any of that. So I came up with an idea. Instead of big beautiful curtains, I got blackout fabric. It's thin, it's light, and it blocks 100% of the light. I measured each window, cut out a piece of fabric that fit it perfectly, folded the top over, put a few grommets in it and hung it on nails. I can take them down, put them up, fold them in half to get some heat in the winter -- you name it. From the outside it looks all white, just like the vertical blinds, and from the inside, all you see is the vertical blinds, just like the vertical blinds. I couldn't be happier with myself. I have had a string of successful projects. I hope it doesn't end. I can't wait to be hungover this weekend and spend allllll fucking day in bed.

Speaking of bed ... my sleeping is much better. I have been on time to work 3 of the 4 days this week. That's unheard of. I even started showering in the morning instead of at night because I have so much extra time. I was pretty ecstatic. That, sadly and predictably, has faded. I could feel myself building up a sleep debt as each day went by and this morning I finally had to pay it back. I was one hour late to work. Today, coincidentally, was also the day I got the results of my take-home sleep test. I no longer stop breathing 70-90 times an hour. Now it's 22. 22 is the magick number. The lady from the doctor's office asked me how I'd been feeling and I said, "Much better, but not great." And she said, "Oh, how funny. I was just about to say your test results look much better, but not great." At least I'm no longer severe and am now considered moderate. It's looking like the tonsil are going to come out. I'm shying away from it, but I know that I'll eventually do it. I'll keep you all posted.

I bought a pumpkin today. It was an impulse buy. All I wanted were the seeds. I tossed them with butter and salt and roasted them in the oven. They're delicious. My culinary skill grows little by little every day. I can add that to the list with roasted chicken and blueberry pancakes. Rawk.

Have you ever heard of the mosquito frequency? It's this thing that businesses are using to cut down on teenagers loitering outside. It emits a sound at around 17kHz. Apparently teenagers can hear it and it annoys the fuck out of them, but adults cannot hear it. Trey told me about it at work today so we googled it. I found an MP3 of the sound and hit play. It was maddening. Trey accused me of not really hitting play. He couldn't fuckin' hear it! It didn't take long for everyone 25 and under in my immediate area to come over and ask what the hell the sound was. Then Trey believed me it was real. Which is funny because I'm the one that didn't believe him it existed. We gathered up all the old people around us and not one of them could hear it. One guy put it as his ring tone on his cell phone. Apparently teenagers are also using it to their advantage to allow their cell phones to ring during class without the teacher hearing it. I thought it was fascinating enough to share it with you all. CLICK HERE to listen to the most annoying sound in the world. And tell me if you can hear it.

Methinks it's time for me to go to bed. Gotta stick with the sleep rules now that they're slightly effective. Night, sluts.

It's time for another of those very, very rare treats... a drunken SideshoViD.com update! I just spent the most lovely evening with Daniel. We started out with dinner at Antonio's. I fucking love Antonio's. Not only do they know how to make my martini (very, very, very, very, very dirty with just a *splash* of vermouth (I've since given up efforts to define wet or dry)) but they have the best food ever. Mmmm carpaccio.

Anyway, tonight was another night of the continuing Oktoberfest here in Äddison! I accidentally bought too many tickets (Oktoberfest currency) so we had to chug beers the entire time to avoid wasting tickets. When we left I wanted more beer so I told Daniel we could go to the beer store and pick some up. He assured me that midnight was the latest you could buy. But I was SURE it was 1am on a Saturday. I called Ryan Short to confirm this and he told me that it was indeed midnight.

On the way to the car we passed by our Addison! Circle friend, Dave, who told us that it was 11pm. We both knew that there was no way that was true. I was so sure it was 1am that I told Daniel drinks were on me at any bar in town if I was wrong.

Well long story short (which is pointless to say after you've already told the long story) I was right. You can buy beer until 1am on a Saturday in Texas. And that, my friends, is my public service announcement to you. So hurry, you still have five minutes! Later, bitches!

I feel the need to share with you all a couple of products that I can't live without. I really wish I was better about letting you know of all of my purchases, but it always slips my mind. So hopefully, this won't be the last installment of free advertising here on SideshoViD.com.

The first one I think everyone should own is Plink. Plink your sink! These are little yellow balls that could easily be mistaken for lemon sours. When I grind up the fatty remains of eight chicken breasts and leave the remnants in the blades of my garbage disposal for a week, I'm just asking for an unmistakable stench. I used to rely on handfuls of ice cubes and lemon halves for salvation, but now I have something even better. One of these little Plinks not only completely removes the odor, but replaces it with the most refreshing lemon scent. I only wish they made them in orange flavor to match my orange Fantastik, orange Febreze Air Deodorizer, and orange Pledge. It's citrus, though, so it works. Buy some.

Next, we have Bear Naked. I was first introduced to the Bear Naked product line by watching their story on the Food Network. It was truly inspiring. I went to Whole Foods (the only place I know of where you can buy the stuff) and tried it. Incredible. The cereal is unbeatable as a breakfast, or any meal of the day for that matter, but it's also good just dry out of the bag for a quick snack. I recently tried their all natural oatmeal and I can no longer eat that Quaker shit. Bear Naked is just so much better. It's not mushy. It's grainy and nutty and so fucking good. I must impel you all to try it.

That's all the product placement I have for today. The only other thing I have to advertise is our July 3rd Kaboomtown Party here in the ol' Addison! Circle. Daniel and I are hosting a little get together, which will probably be much like every other night of our lives, except with fireworks! We have two drinks planned. Grizzy Goose is first on the menu -- a mixture of Izzy Natural Soda (ah, fuck, I just realized I could totally advertise that... try it too) and Grey Goose vodka. I know, I know, I only drink Effen, but it's too hard to come up with a good name on that. Second are our Kaboomcrown'ncokes. It's just like a Crown and Coke except we're gonna put real cherries in them. Kaboom! Oh yeah, also, every time you make one you have to scream, "KABOOM!" when you drop the cherries in. Loves it.

Let me know if you want to come join us and I just might let you. Later, have-nots!

I'm really diggin' this ClustrMaps thing I have going on. I want to thank Joseph for emailing me about it. Looks like the Sidesho is a lot more popular on the east coast than the west. Should I mold my brand of humor to benefit my already strong demographic? You know, make jokes about the Atlantic ocean n stuff. Or maybe I should be focusing on trying to bring up the readership in states I don't already have an uncompromising strong-hold on. Perhaps I'll start with Utah. Haha, fucking Mormons. They're all insane, did you know that? It's like the perfect blend of xristianity and Scientology. They think jebus will fly them a spaceship and drop their asses off on their own planet where they'll be free to engage in secret handshakes and secret tacky underwear without being under the watchful eye of rational people. joey smith bless 'em, they're all fucking mad!

Well that was tangential. My hungover posts tend to be a bit more random than the sober ones. My brother's wife's brother was supposed to come get my old couch, oh, 6 weeks ago. I was going to donate it but as a personal favor to him, I held onto it. It's totally cluttering my apartment. He couldn't find a truck so I gave him 3 weeks to do so, after which my brother's wife had to go to the hospital for a bit and her brother went to Houston to help out. So then I felt bad and had to give him an extension on picking it up. But that was like 3 weeks ago, so I've had this shit for a WHILE. On Thursday, the Salvation Army is coming by to get it. I can't wait to get my entryway back.

Went out on the yacht again on Thursday. I left work early and met the troops. They pulled into port to pick me up and were just gonna swing by the dock, I'd make a running leap onto the boat and we'd speed out of there. No need to park or any of that nonsense. So they pulled up, I jumped on and we sped off ... right into a sandbar. Luckily the lake was deserted, because we were fucking stuck. It was pretty funny but we couldn't laugh because Alexander was getting pissed. After about 20 minutes of revving the engines in reverse and kicking up a ton of dirt in the water, we finally got out on the lake. They had blown up a little 3-seater raft and were dragging it behind the boat. I rode it for a while. It was hella fun but I'm not much of a thrill seeker so I got back on the boat and let Kelly take my place. Next time we do that, I'm gonna go ahead and suggest we all have life vests on. As much as I'd hate a life vest tan, Jordan almost died. We hit this huge wave, Daniel threw up, and Jordan went limp, airborn, and under. It was scary and funny. He said he didn't remember falling out and woke up in the lake. Luckily he was okay. Not too much else happened -- oh, except that I can officially say I've been skinny dipping in Lake Lewisville. No details!

So I haven't worked out in like a month. Don't know why, I'm just lazy and can't get back into it. I was really concerned when I went the other day (isolated incident) that I would have gained back all that weight I worked so hard to lose. But I weighed myself ... and I lost three more pounds!!!1! Do you believe that shit? This "eating right" malarky must really work. g*d, I eat so much more than I used to. I usually have at least 6 meals a day and they're all packed with nutritional goodness. That makes a grand total of 21 pounds lost from the time I started eating right. I don't think you could have looked at me a few months ago and said "hey fatty mcfatfatfat fuckfat, lose some weight." Like I don't think I looked that fat, but fuck me, I look good now. I don't even think I weighed this little when I graduated college. Rawk.

Let's see, let's see, what else can I brag about. Oh! I think I might be an amazing cook. The other day I was in the grocery store and randomly decided to cook dinner for Daniel. I think all he ever eats is fast food junk food, and he's been having problems with his stomach so I thought a home cooked meal would be good for him. I roasted a g*ddamned chicken! Do you believe that shit? I like stuffed it with onions and celery and put a dry rub on it of salt, pepper, all spice, and cinnamon. And I baked it for 2 hours, and basted it every 20 minutes. It was so insane. I'm a masterbaster. It came out like perfect. Its the best chicken I've ever had. And on top of that, the whole bird was 6 dollars, and I got two very large dinner portions and a whole heaping plate of leftovers. I'm going to roast a bird once a week from now on. If we'd stop going out for oysters and wood fired lobster maybe I'd actually get a chance to eat some of my chicken delight.

I think that should be enough for now. I'm heading to my parents' house to watch World Cup Soccer with my brother Michael. He is in from California. His daughter Kelsey is THE cutest thing on Earth (perfectly tied with Kaylyn and Ann Marie). Then I get to have dinner with Miss Allison "Google" Hoffmann. What a great day. Oh and my sister called. She is having a boy! Two nephews coming soon! Later skillets.

My blog affects my life immensely. It can manifest in two ways. Either I alter my usual patterns hoping to generate a blog-worthy story, or the things that I've said on my website are read by people who then affect my life. That's why I do shit like ear candling and enrolling in the art institute. The other night, I ran into Ryan Short and he started hitting me because I said he always disagrees with me. Those are just a few examples of a constant whirlwind. SideshoViD.com is never far from my mind.

I tell you this, because I don't want you to think I've left you hanging. 90% of the day, I am writing blogs in my head. And I've written this one again, and again, and again, and again. If I write something happy-go-lucky, it will appear to others that I am flighty and disengaged. If I write something too honest, I'll betray my own self, and won't stand to entertain any of you, which is always one of my goals. I don't know what I'm really trying to say, just basically informing you that I'm going to just try to pick and choose humorous anecdotes from my day and highlight those, but I am, in no way, belittling anything that has happened recently.

I got a new noise machine for my bedroom -- The Sound Soother 50. It was really expensive, but it came with a remote control, I can plug my iPod into it and use it as a speaker, and the sounds are incredibly real. I've been sleeping with "downpour" a lot and I like to nap with "bamboo chimes." Another favorite of mine is "clothes dyer." There are a few questionable ones like "pasture" and "buggy ride," like who the fuck wants to fall asleep to cows mooing. You'd have to be a country-ass bumpkin. "Heartbeat" is also kinda creepy, but I think that's supposed to be good for babies. I just had to get some sort of background noise to block out anything ambient. My brain has started taking sounds it hears while I'm sleeping, creating a terrifying story to explain the sound, and overlaying it on top of my actual sights and sounds as I sleepwalk. Technically, they're not nightmares, since nightmares are types of dreams, dreams only occur during REM, and my brain does not go into REM. Their official name is night terrors. Hahaha. Fucking great.

I've stopped taking Provigil. While the doctor said that it had nothing to do with my heart rate, I found myself with a resting heart rate of 145bpm. Just to put that in perspective, it should be less than 80bpm ... the only reason your heart should beat 145 times per minute is if you have just sprinted a 5k. That was a concern for me so I stopped the Provigil. It's been hard, but I'm feuling my body now with complex carbohydrates and natural fructose to offset the ill effects of ideopathic hypersomnia (aka excessive sleepiness, but ideopathic hypersomnia sounds more medical). A high resting heart rate is known as tachycardia. Fuck me sideways, I knew I was broken-hearted, but I didn't know I had a broken heart.

I'm looking forward to several appointments with doctors in the following weeks. I'm probably going to be having lots of surgeries and procedures to aid me in my breathing, and then we can shift focus to addressing these K-alpha complex waves my brain produces for no reason. Yippee.

I hung out last night with my most sabulous friend, Brett. We had a lot of fun. He said his father still reads my website. He was concerned about me and had wanted to put a comment on my comment-less post a couple back. He also said he had left me a comment once but wouldn't ever tell Brett which one. It took me all of half a second to say, "I bet he was the one who left me that 'Stone Age to the Space Age and still no follow up on what bar was first' comment after Febrehabruarii." He just spoke with him and sure enough, I was right. I know my website way too well. Like I said, I am both it's unforgiving master, and it's unwitting slave.

Next week I am meeting three days with my new personal trainer. We've set up a program for me that should have me around 15% body fat before summer. I'm refocusing my negative, self-destructive energy as of late into a rather obsessive dedication to self-improvement. I've already lost 12 pounds, but that was mostly from an unintentional anorexia, but I was pleased that I didn't rebound at all. I'm viewing eating now, not as an enjoyable social experience, but as a necessity to feul my body. I have been eating SO well for the past few days and I already feel infinitely better. Just wait, people, I'll come out the other end of this better for it. I fucking guarantee.

Have a good week at work, and I'll be trying to find things to talk about throughout the week. Laaaaaaaaaaaate.

It's great to be back. I gotta tell you. Boy, I missed beer. And liquor. Liquor? I hardly even know her. My glorious return to drinking was shared with a couple of birthdays. First, to the Allistralian. She flew halfway around the world and I had to fuckin miss her bbq. I was stuck in Funkytown until like 7:30pm for work, and then by the time I arrived back at the office, I already had some friends from out of town waiting for me. So my apologies, but I do hope you had the best birthday ever.

Next, was Miss Lesbie Ann. She drove up from Austin to celebrate turning into 27. Oh wait, I mean, turning 27, my mistake. She had been to Dallas plenty of times, but she had never been to Addison! I assumed I would have to show her all that Addison! had to offer, but instead, she showed me ....

Friday night we sat around drinkin beers like I do most weekends. I wanted her to meet everyone and see how we do. Saturday morning we woke up and went to Cafe Gecko for Bloody Marys and breakfast (since when are those different things). From there, we went and bought tickets for Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Really, we just wanted to drink more and figured a movie without a solid plot might allow for breaks to the bathroom. A few margaritas and martinis later we retired for a respite in my apartment until it was time for our appointments at the spa. Unfortunately, they couldn't find anyone to massage me on such short notice, but Lester did have a diamond scrub facial with allllll the trimmings. I met her at Zen Bar to celebrate and we threw back a few brewskis, brah. Then we met up with Daniel to go to Shuck and Jive where we ate more oysters than you would normally assume three people would eat and drank a lot more brews, dude. Our plans to get fancied up and go south of 635 were interrupted by our inability to drive. So we wrapped up the evening drinking at Daniel's until we both passed out. What a fabulous weekend. Thank you so much to my host, Leslie!

Last bit of business. Who watched Project Runway? Who else is incensed at the finale? Chloe?!?! Give me a fucking break. Her collection was a bunch of shiny GEM monstrocities. I thought they were going to tear her a new one. I was a Dan Fan through the whole season but had just recently switched to voting for Santino. I wasn't blown away by any one collection, but I thought that Santino would win. Daniel's was too plain Jane store shelf looking. I don't wanna look at anything too conceptual but I also don't want to look at something I probably could have thought of. Blech, what a disappointment. I can't wait until Jay McCarroll's line comes out. I'm gonna wear the shit out of it.

This weekend. Out of town. Niece's 1st birthday in OKC. Can't wait. See you all when I get back.

Join me, won't you, on the home stretch of the second annual self-imposed sabatical from all things sinful. Any by sinful, I mean enjoyable. There are so many stages of Febrehab that you go through during the 28 days of detoxification. First there's the optimism, then the irritability, the pain, the eye gouging, the night sweats ... and eventually, the hump, followed by the denouement. I am now on the last stage -- and RIGHT on time. Remorse. After all I've gone through, why, oh why, would I subject myself to it again. I could just continue this forever and be nonetheworse because of it.

But, FUCK THAT. I think on Wednesday, after work, I will wait until that guy pulls on the tail of that bird perched on the rock outside and makes it whistle. I'll slide down the tail of the Brontosaurus and into my car. At that point, I will flick a Bic and enjoy a Prince flown fresh from Sweden. (BTW, did you catch my Jetsons reference?)

Wednesday and Thursday will be punctuated with the grand, world-wide tradition Berliners refer to as "Feierabend." Ja, meine Freunde, I am talkin about the Happy Hour! Oh, I can't wait. I need to get the chops up, though, to prepare for our victory celebration that I've dubbed "Febrehabruarii -- 28 Days, Not To Be Confused With Its Sequel, 28 Days Later." F28DNTBCWIS28DL? Doubtful. Probable? Keg. Come. BYO, though, the kegs for me. Daniel can have some. And Brett Sabulous could have had some if were going to be in town. Party starts at 8 in Addison Circle. Bring a friend.

I didn't really save any money this year. Instead, I spent every dime that I normally spend on alcohol and cigarettes dining on only the most expensive of cuisines. You haven't lived until you've had 3 foot long crab legs, or 6 lobsters wood grilled on the table in front of you, or rows of raw oysters on a halfshell abed a mound of Sonic ice. I gave up red meat in addition to the other carnal pleasures, so rare steak was off the menu. I didn't really lose any weight either, but damned if it wasn't worth it.

This was the best fucking Febrehabruarii of my life. I'll miss it when it's gone and look forward to next year (preview: Febrehabruariii). Thanks to all of you for your continued attempts to entice me to fail at my goal, and thanks to me for ensuring none of you succeed. Onward, and upward. To the bars!

I know you were all expecting an immediate reaction to my Thanksgiving, since it is my favorite holy day of the year, so I apologize for keeping you in suspense. In all honesty, it wasn't wild and or crazy, just nice. I drove up to OKC to see my sister. Her daughter is about 8 months old now. It's totally an age you don't want to miss out on, but, c'mon ... babies don't do much. She can't talk yet, she can't walk yet, so while I wouldn't trade seeing her for anything, it was pretty low key.

Our turkey was pretty good. I don't know that it was 140 dollars good, but it was scrumptious. The best part of the Heritage Turkey is that it comes with a barcode. When you enter that barcode at their website, it brings up your turkey's personal history. Our hen was born in March of 2005 and raised on a farm in Kansas. She liked roosting in tall trees. It was kind of morbid, so we gave her a eugoogaly before we tore into her roasted butter basted carcass. Thanks be given. We shared the meal with my niece's other grandparents, the baptits preacher. The baptits preacher doesn't drink or dance or believe anyone but him is getting into the pearly gates. Well since there was a baptits at the table (you guys have noticed I'm spelling it 'baptits' on purpose by now right? good) that meant that I couldn't drink either. So annoying.

As soon as he left we busted out the beer and scotch and played poker and me and my dad robbed my brother-in-law blind. It was too funny. Unfortunately though, the next day my sister was feeling sick. Her daughter was already under the weather and kind of cranky (which is not her usual demeanor). So my parents and I opted to leave a bit earlier than planned and drop off at Winstar for some gambalaya. I didn't win anything but I did lose the 20 bucks I'd won from poker, so I came out even. That's pretty good for me since I have a gambling problem ... my problem is that I suck at it.

Thanksgiving plans? I'm going to host one in December when Owen is in town. It will be held at the Hamptons by my gracious host Miles. Not only will there be booze there, but I imagine it will be at least 8 of the 9 side dishes. Bourbon soup, here we come. Look forward to your invitation to that, even though most of you won't receive one.

Lastly, I am done with sleep medicine. No more CPAPs, no more machines, no more masks, no more pills, no more studies, no more labs, no more brain waves, no more oxygen monitors, no more REM, NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE. I went to the doctor today, returned everything they'd given me, shook their hands and left. Best of all? No more payments. I just need to work on getting back to where I was 7 months ago before I started all of this nonsense. I was tired, but I was functioning. That's the combo I'm trying to get back to. If it turns out that I can't do it on my own, I will accept the advice of the doctor and return for an unlimitedly refilled subscription to Provigil, but I'm hoping it won't come to that.

Miles bought me a prescription to Details! UH! Thanks Miles!

I've had a couple of stories up my sleeve for about a week now. Usually if I'm too lazy (hungover) to blog right away, the story never gets told. Who knows what awesome parties went unblogged and have since been forgotten. Well, not this one. Not Miss Lesbie Ann's Housewarming Party!

It was so grood to have the old gang all back together. It was Leslie, Rick, Josh, Bob, Raul, Tyresa, Aaron. So not the entire gang, but certainly some key players. We had planned on two days of merriment, getting drunk and retelling old stories. It made me miss the days of Halo when you just knew each weekend was going to be more interesting than the last. But back to my story, Leslie's house is just beautiful. I'm a tad jealous, but we Addison folk don't long for equity. Josh got her a delicious candle. Aaron got her a golden blanket. But Bob ... oh, Bob ... Bob got her cocknballs.

As soon as Leslie unwrapped the rather sizeable frame, Josh said, "That's BOB!" And indeed it was. This bit of expressionism is titled "Señor Humps." If you'll look closely, you'll see that Bob has painted his anterior and posterior with different colors of paint and then sacrificed his body for his art. There's really a lot of emotion in it. Emotion and pubic hair.

Thanks for the killer party, Lester!

Story #2. The other day, my most sabulous friend Brett texted me and invited me out to dinner. We decided to take up Smith and Wollensky (one of my all time fav steakhouses) on their "eat your age" offer. Every day after 8:30pm, you can go in and get an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert and pay a dollar for every year you've managed to survive (minimum $25, maximum $65). I'm not sure why they do this, possibly because we were just about the only people in there that late, but surely they're taking a loss on it. But who cares, everything that I ordered totalled $60-70 easily, and I paid $25. It's an amazing deal, everyone go check it out.

There are very few exceptions to the offer. There's some seafood boquet appetizer for 100 bucks that's off limits. And the live Maine lobster and like a 30lb. lobster tail. Pretty much anything over 100 bucks you can't get but anything else you want. So when I was asked if I'd like the 8oz. filet mignon or the 14oz. I replied, "Derrrrrrrrr." Not to be outdone, Mr. Sabulous ordered himself the 28oz. prime rib. And of course, we're connoisseurs, so we got it all rare. So there are 42 fucking ounces of raw meat on our table, as well as some potatoes (as shown), creamed spinach, and a wonderful bottle of wine. It was a fight to fit it all in, but we certainly ate until we could eat no more. g*d, I love gluttony. We had to save room for dessert, too. So we had all that plus crab meat and fried calamari appetizers, six shooter sorbets and the trio of creme brulees, and we got out of there spending next to nothing. What a wonderful way to spend an evening, thanks Brett!

I'm fresh out of stories now, until next time, same Sidesho-channel. Peace.

This was another fabulous weekend spent on the stoop. We all just kind of hung out, watched movies, and drank a whole bunch. Last night, around 4am, we had the bright idea to go to J's Hamburgers and Breakfast for a post-evening meal. Usually when I say something was a "bright idea" I mean it sarcastically, but in this sense, it truly was a delight. I had some sausage patties and a few too many cups of coffee. Daniel, Miles and I rode back (the 3 blocks) to our little stretch of Addison circle and were prepared to drink a little more and then turn in when we heard the most pathetic little, "Excuse me. Excuse me."

We turned to find this woman -- drunk and crying -- wandering the streets of Addison with no shoes on. She explained to us in between sobs how her friend and her had gotten into a fight over a man, and she was now locked out with no phone, no keys, and no shoes. We offered to let her in the building and walk her up to her friend's apartment (for moral support). When we got to the fourth floor, she wandered around aimlessly, sobbing some more, claiming she couldn't remember which apartment belonged to her friend. She sat there helplessly, and then in a fit of rage the likes of which I haven't seen since I shared a bedroom with my brother, she randomly decided that the door nearest to her was the one she was looking for and began beating it down screaming, "OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR YOU BITCH!" I didn't have the time to take a picture of her, so I illustrated it all for you:

Since we're such rock steady moral support for all vagrants and vagabonds north of 635, the second she hit that random stranger's door with all her might, we exited stage right. We took the elevator down to my floor and then sprinted back to my apartment. We slammed the door, laughed for a minute, and then watched the Magic Bullet infomercial. I hope that chick is okay and didn't have to sleep in the hallway. Actually, wait, no, I don't care.

What I did have my camera for was the sign that Miles, Lindy and I were looking at outside of Daniel's building while we waited for everyone to join us. Here's a quick snapshot of it. We were trying to decipher it's meaning. Lindy decided that it was a message to all handicapped people to "just get up." Just get up. I thought that was so funny ... after many, many longnecks. I just had to share it with you all.

I had too much fun once again within the confines of Addison Circle. I find less and less reason to go downtown these days. I hope my friends south of 635 know that they are always welcome to the stoop. Just FYI. Okay, that's all I have for today. Now let's all get out there, hustle and have a grood week. *slap on the butt*

I've had this stupid nagging cough for almost two weeks now. It is really starting to get old. I lay awake at night hacking up a lung and I can't sleep and it's affecting the quality of my life. Before I went to Kaylyn's birthday party, I went to a doctor to make sure I wouldn't get her sick. He said my cough actually wasn't caused by disease but was just a bronchial irritation. I relayed this information to the guys at work and we decided that the sleep rules are actually to blame.

You see, I sleep at 65 degrees every night now. It feels great. But the other thing that cold air does is give up moisture easily. So effectively what I'm really doing is breathing in cold ass, dry ass air all night long and it eventually started to adversely affect me. So I did the only logical thing. I bought a humidifier. It's a really nice humidifier that can control to a set point. So now I'll be livin' at 50% humidity no matter what the temperature is in my apartment. I think it's really important to be totally in control anyway.

But that doesn't arrive until tomorrow. In the meantime I filled a couple of prescriptions that the doctor gave me. One's a pill to like get rid of the inflamation in my chest and the other is ... drum roll please ... cough syrup with codeine! YAY! Sippin' on some sizzurp! This is good news because my last bottle just expired. That should save me some money on alcohol this weekend.

Andy, the old roommate from back in Feb-Apr has been staying with me this week. I took him to my gym a couple of times since he is a personal trainer, fully willing to pay the ridiculous 20 dollar guest fee, but it turns out I get two free guest passes each month. So if anybody ever wants to go with me let me know. I work out 7 days a week now. Did you know that? It's true.

Well, I've just made some delicious chicken breast tacos so I might have to go indulge. Peace out, sluts.

Since I've been back to working in the office every day, I've also started tanning again. The salon I go to is kind of far from my apartment, but it's right on the way home from work. I know nobody will ever notice except for me, but it's really starting to work. It's a subtle change from sickly pale to really pale, but it does wonders for my self esteem. I like knowing that I'm getting tanner. Not like Danny Tanner, but maybe like DJ Tanner.

Long ago when I lived with Keith he told me what I still consider to be one of the funniest things ever said. He was going to get a turn table, learn how to spin, and then call himself DJ Tanner. And I would join him up on stage under my psuedonym, DJ Connor. Wouldn't everyone in the world come to see us? And the flyer design would be obvious.

I didn't end up having that party this weekend. Hudler's parents went out of town and he couldn't leave his dog alone overnight. I'm not sure what that's all about but we had to reschedule. Instead, I hung out with Thommi who came to visit me. We did the normal weekend of window shopping and drinking. I got crabs.

Thommi got popcorn shrimp.

Last night was such a hoot. I tell ya. It was the official opening of the spring party season hosted by Brian and Jarrod. As double duty, Jarrod was also celebrating a birthday, so happy birthday to him! I began the evening by attending a party in Addison Circle that I had been "invited" to via a myspace.com bulletin board message from some guy named Dan Paul. It's so unlike me, but it was an art showing/party and it was right here. So I went and checked it out. Lindsay accompanied me. There was some cool shit there. One guy had a painting of Ziggy Stardust that was unreal. If it hadn't have been 650 dollars I would have bought it. I still might.

From there I went to the birthday party downtown. We drank, we laughed, we went to the bars. We drank more. I was just a shade light of shitcanned by the end of the night. I had a little bit of trouble walking but not too much. Ryan and I bought hotdogs from a street vendor who took credit cards. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Cheese and rice. Except he didn't have any rice.

This morning we eventually woke up. I felt/looked terrible. But we went to brunch with Adam. They have free mimosas with brunch. Shut up, I drank like 12. A good buzz sure took the edge off my hangover. I most definitely came home and went to bed.

Are you sitting down? It's been a while since I've said this, but ... some very exciting things are happening at SideshoViD.com and it's about fucking time. Expect an all new design sometime within the next week.

And lastly, have any of you ever been to The Perry Bible Fellowship's website? Click there to read some of the most hilarious comics you couldn't possibly imagine. This guy is my own personal cheese and rice. There is one cartoon (that was too wide for me to post here without messing up my columns) where the kid is wearing a shirt that says "UNICORN POWER." I was jealous of it, so I got on eBay to find myself my own unicorn shirt. That's what this picture is. It should be shipping tomorrow and I am way, way too excited.

Hope you all had a fab weekend. Take 'er easy, and if she's easy, take 'er twice. Laaaaaaate.

About three weeks ago they put a Krystal Burger near my apartment. Since then, the lines to eat inside have wrapped around the interior of the restaurant repeatedly until it was solid people. The drive-thru line went so far beyond wrapping around the building that the entrance to join the line was about 2 blocks away from the restaurant. Talk about your word of mouth! You couldn't get this shit for any less than a 2 hour wait. I decided to wait until the lines died down to go try it. It is on the way to my gym, so I was able to monitor the popularity every single night when I work out ... every single night.

Tonight on the way home, I noticed there was no line inside, so a few evasive maneuvers through traffic later, I was ordering my Krystal Burger Combo #1. Four hamburgers, fries, and a drink. In case any of you aren't from up north (or Addison) and don't know what Krystal burgers are, they are tiny little hamburgers that you're supposed to eat a bunch of at once. Okay, now the verdict.

*cue that People's Court theme song*

These burgers made me want to technicolor yawn ... I'm talkin liquid laugh all over the table. They were GROSS! Fuck! Don't waste your time on this shit. These hamburger patties make McDonalds patties look like t-bone fucking steaks. I did not take the time to measure them, but I would estimate their thickness at around half of a centimeter. And to top it all off, they weren't even good. There was more onion and pickle than meat. Of course, that's no surprise when you make your burgers out of beef stationary. In short: KRYSTAL BURGERS SUCK!

Next order of business... HAPPY 21ST FUCKING BIRTHDAY, THOMMI!!1!!1 Yay! Thommi is a real boy! Now when we hang out we can both indulge equally in that sweet, sweet elixer of life called alcohol. I'm going to go to College Station this weekend with Sean Wardle to take Thommi out to celebrate. Friday I'm taking Sean to Halo but Saturday, we're gonna pick up Thommi and go out to Northgate. Nothing too ornate or elaborate, but should be fun nonetheless.

Last item of business... AllieD just told me a little story about her education major friend, Jennifer. The AllieD Times describes her as "smart and beautiful and witty." The first time Jennifer read my webpage, she decided she was in love with me, despite us having never met. The only things she really knows about me are what I post online and what AllieD has told her, which has been extensive, granted. She sent this picture to AllieD to show how she pictures me.

AllieD, we need to talk about what you've been telling this girl.

Oh, joy! It's my favorite holy day once again! The day our lord and saviour, the turkey, willingly gave his life so we might enjoy eternal dressings. "Take this drumstick and eat it, for this is my body, gobble, gobble." The day Christopher Columbus killed all the Native Americans. He killed them all, great and small, so he could put their heads up on his wall. It was the day Chris Columbus killed all the Indians.

Now that we're finished with the history of Thanksgiving, I want to take a moment to discuss with all of you, the meaning of Thanksgiving. It's like I always say, "Tis better to thanksgive than to thanksreceive." Let's all try to keep that in mind this year. And I know, I know, the food is a big part of it. Who doesn't like to sit down at a table with a 24 pound roasted bird carcass, mashed potatoes made with heavy cream and butter and garlic, green bean casserole made with soup from the can (because any attempt to gourmet that up and no one will eat it), mac n cheese made from scratch, cranberry sauce nobody will touch but it has to be on the table anyway, french bread to sop up the leftover gravy made from stock, candied yams and pumpkin pies and AHHHHH I'm overstimulated. But with all of this, I still must contest that Thanksgiving is not just about the food.

It's about the booze.

The red wines, the white wines, the boxed wines in between. The smooth burn of a single malt scotch as it gives your stomach a welcome hug. The brandy soaked peaches. The cases upon cases of beer in the fridge "just in case" even though you know no one's leaving til they're gone. And this year, I made red roosters, a thing I saw Emeril do. Cranberry juice and orange juice concentrate and a whole lot of vodka, into a large pan and into the freezer. I kicked it up a notch by using raspberry vodka. I hope everybody likes it. BAM!

I am going to have a very Hoffmann Thanksgiving this year by spending it with my dear friend Allison and her parents (Krazy K and Big D) and the rest of her family. Should be a riot. I'm so excited I can barely sit still. I hope all of you have the most wonderful holiday with friends and family (because they're a part of the day too). Take a moment to think about this: for what are you most grateful this year? I know mine -- Johnny Walker Black.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good buzz!

Do you ever just have too much to say? So much so that you don't feel like writing it down. That's what happened to me this past weekend. I decided to just sit on my stories for a while, so details that once seemed monumental are now rather trivial. It will make my blog shorter, and the stories more compact.

First things first. My brothers Stephen and Michael, from Houston and Sacramento, respectively, both visited. Their wives came as well. Stephen brought Kaylyn around so Michael could meet her, to avoid having to introduce himself to her on her 13th birthday. I just loved this picture. I assure you, she was well nutured and attended to all weekend, but this picture is so something my fam would do. 'Ahh, just prop her up, she'll be alright.' It was cute though. It was really good to see everyone that came to dinner on Friday night. I supplied the dessert -- peach cobbler from Marshall's BBQ. Oh man, is it ever good. I made everyone try it, even if they didn't want to. I also passed around my shock lighter. That was some good entertainment there. By the end of the night, we had 11 people around the table holding hands, while Stephen and I grabbed the lighter simultaneously. Everyone around the circle felt the shock. It was hilarious.

That night I went out to the bars, but wasn't really having much fun. Ryan Short and I decided to just go back to his place and go to sleep. When we got there, however, I coerced him into having one drink before bed. Which turned into two ... then three ... then we lost count. Much squeezy vodka was ingested despite Ryan's attempt to fall asleep. We watched Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, our favorite movie. Since the last time I saw it, I learned all the state capitals. So when they're at the reunion and Toby Dumbfuck asks them to name all the capitals and the Frinkazoid starts off with 'Albuquerque' I KNEW that was NOT the capital of New Mexico, because everyone knows that's Santa Fe. So we called everyone we knew to tell them that and even convinced Jason and Levi to come have a drink with us. We were beyond wasted, but obviously so much fun.

Saturday night I went out with Lil Jarrod. We had a blast. He is one of my new favs ... too funny. It was so damn crowded because this weekend was Pride. You could barely move and getting a drink was an impossibility. Ryan Short got fed up with the crowds and left unannounced, so our plan to stay at his place overnight was soon liquidated. Bob and his brother and friends were in the bars too. Too good to see him! We had fun all night long and then set about trying to decide where to go. Even though I had like three Long Islands and about six beers, I was feeling adventurous so we turned toward Plano. But I can't go home because my parents set a big wake-up-the-neighborhood alarm when they go to bed. So we eventually ended up in Lewisville at Lil Jarrod's apartment. I slept on his couch and hope I didn't scare his sister in the morning. I don't think I did though because she was quite lovely and it was nice to meet her.

From there we went back downtown to the Pride Parade. I'm sorry, but I love Pride. I don't care how many people are too cool for school. It is my favorite holy day, second only to Thanksgiving. I fought for beads as best I could, and even caught some, a feat not to be overlooked. I got some sun -- so hot, saw tons of people I knew, hung out with Lil Jarrod and Marc, got to go to Hamburger Mary's for the first time and meet some new people. All in all it was a wonderful day. I was sunburned and exhausted when I got home, and since then I have been in the most inane training class at work. It is downright painful. But, persevere I will.

This weekend I am going to College Station with Ryan Hudler. We are going to watch some ring dunkings. I'm not positive who it was but I wanna say Daniel. So I won't have my car but I will have my phone so call me and meet up with. Alright, sluts, I'm out of here. I gotta go work out because I'm morbidly obese. Peace!

I can't believe how much there is to say, seeing as how I haven't blogged all week. You would have thought that with my birthday and everything I would have been chomping at the bit to tell you all about it, but in classic Sidesho-style I blindsided you all once again with my cunning and prowess. And by "cunning" I mean laziness, and by "prowess" I mean "general malaise."

My birthday was fucking awesome. I mean, I had to work and all, but that wasn't too bad. My coworkers all wished me a happy birthday. After work I went to dinner with my parents at a place called Smith and Wollensky. It was fucking awesome. To sum it all up, they used a crumb duster at the table. I ate and drank until I could barely move. I would venture to say it was the best meal I've ever had. I went to bed just a little early that night.

The next day my coworkers, remiss for having been denied the pleasure of a birthday happy hour, dragged me out to Duke's in Addison. Even though I had vowed publicly long ago to never go there again. I figured happy hour didn't count. Plus they were having their weekly dodgeball tournament and I wanted to see it. The co-s kept me with a beer in my hand the whole time. At one point, someone went to get me a drink while someone went to close out a tab while someone was leaving, and they all decided to get me a beer at once. So I had three full beers in front of me. It was AWESOME. I didn't end up staying to watch dodgeball so I can't tell you if it was cool or not, but I may check it out at some other point. I came home that night to my grandmother, 10 year old girl-cousin, and her 10 year old friend. I barely had time to say hi before I went to bed even earlier than the night before.

Speaking of, the girl-cousin is in my shower right now singing her fucking head off and it's about to use up my last nerve. It was nice to get to see her and get to know her a little bit, but there is a reason I don't hang out with 10 year old girls on a regular basis. Many, many reasons. And my mom has been fighting with my grandma pretty much since she got here ... which I find to be hilarious, because it reminds me a lot of when she and I fight. But it's not very fun for either of them, so that sucks. My dad remains stoic with the glass of Jack on the rocks.

Last night was Katie and Jeff's wedding. Congratufuckinglations you two. They are too cute together, so I braved the cathlick church to watch the blessed event. I went with Ryan Short and we were the ONLY two wearing any color. My outfit was kickass. I got some new chinos from Banana and paired it with this kickass purple shirt and blue/red paisley looking tie. It was a killer combo I'll just say that much. As soon as I get some pictures back from Allison I'll add them to the imaginary picture page I keep promising. Ryan was wearing a pink shirt and a pink tie and we looked stellar. Of course, we were the only ones there who didn't look like we were going to a hoe down. It was so typical. My hair was in a wedding-hawk, a hairstyle I invented just for the wedding.

The reception was ridiculously fun. Much Coronas con lime ingested. Many high school friends and many, many Aggies. A little dancing, a little mingling. Ryan caught the garder ... too funny. After the reception ended almost everyone went to TABC, a bar in Uptown. Chilled, drank a little more. Ryan and I headed to Round-Up to meet up with everyone around closing time. A couple more drinks, to TMC to dance, and then Whataburger! Taquitos at 4am, nothing beats it.

Now here I am upstairs in my room with the door closed trying to avoid everyone for the remainder of the night. I cooked a turkey for dinner ... not exactly of Thanksgiving proportions, but another winner. So I feel I've deserved some quiet time. Sorry for the hiatus, you know I was thinking of you all every moment I was AFK. I'll try to keep you more informed in the future. Crack is whack.

Welcome to June, everybody. The date of my departure is nigh. I'm thinking I'm gonna go to Austin on Friday to stay with Leslie and hang out with Brandon and then head back to Dallas to await my start date. I have to be at work at 8am. This is going to be quite a challenge. The only way its going to possibly happen is if I'm in bed by 10pm. I'm not sure I'm ready for that lifestyle, though if you asked my body it would probably disagree. Who knows, though. Maybe work will just be a blast. I'm getting to do design instead of installation so that is good news.

Two nights ago, Allison and I got krunk on Coors and sat out back of Northgate drinking our free beer. On the way home, I was absolutely starving, as I've been saving money by only eating once a day whilst in College Station. We decided to stop through Whataburger (duh!). I just wanted to let you all know that this is a possibility, in case it had not occured to you previously. We got four bacon, egg and cheese AND sausage AND potato taquitos. Omega, get excited. They were incredible. And when I saw my friend who now recognizes me at Whataburger, I told her, "Oh yeah and also throw in a handful of fries for free." And she did! How fucking rad is that. I love her. I had to tell this story since there was a request for it on the last post.

You know what I was thinking about the other day? When you just kind of meet someone one day but don't really know them ... but every time you run into them you're obliged to say hello. And we call these people "Hi" buddies. Well when I'm online, I have "Hey. Sup? NM. Coo." buddies. Chew on that.

The rest of our time in Miami was much like the first half: fucking incredible. Tuesday night we went to the bar that the clothing store girl suggested. It was like straight up velvet roped Sex and the City style club. The bouncer let us in free, which was cool, but once we got in we were like "oops." Then we had to suffer the indignity of turning around and walking back out. It was pretty obvious we were out of element, so we ran away. Everyone was in suits and it was very upscale. We're used to dead animals hanging on the walls.

So we went to a bar called Score. That was more our speed, for several reasons. I ended up getting shit canned and leaving all kinds of hilarious drunken voicemails on my friends' phones. On Josh's message I said something to the effect of, "OH shit I'm about to run into a phone poll." Good stuff. Wednesday night, we took it pretty easy, just had a nice dinner on Ocean Drive (lobster linguini - YUM) and then some wine with strange Columbian men. Thursday was a long day of traveling back to Dallas.

Friday we drove back to College Station. Traffic was HORRENDOUS. I have never seen it so bad on 45. It took us an hour and a half just to get through Corsicana where it goes down to one lane. So we made an executive decision to take Highway 14 through Mexia to try and avoid the congestion. Allison had to pee and wanted a drink so we took a tour of Mexia looking for the McDonalds or Sonic. I don't know how many of you are addicted to VH1 like I am, but surely a good lot of you have seen the biography of Anna Nichole Smith (aka Vicky Lynn). She grew up in Mexia with the most white trash family I've ever seen and worked at a fried chicken store. Well, as we were driving to Sonic we fucking found the chicken stand. I immediately pulled over, ordered a couple drumsticks and bicuits and Allison took a picture. Now that is the kind of sight seeing that I am interested in ... true American landmarks. We were laughing so hard the entire time.

That pretty much saved our 5 hour trip from Dallas to College Station and gave us something to giggle about the rest of the way. Last night was a glam Halo night with one of my new shirts that I bought. I looked awesome ... as usual. I got shit canned ... as usual. I crashed at Marshall's ... as usual. Good times had by all. I found out that Josh has internet so I'll probably be mooching off of him while I'm around. I will be sure to update you all if anything of interest happens. I will probably be back in Dallas around Tuesday or Wednesday. Or later. Who knows? Later kiddos.

I just got back from my free hour and a half long full body massage, and I have to tell you, it was the best. I was so hungover this morning so I spent the day laying around waiting for my massage, and it just took care of every lingering symptom of hungoveredness. I got to do it because my friend Rob's mother works for the Austin School of Massage Therapy and they needed volunteers for students to practice on. Shit, sign me up. It was awesome, and totally free.

I've also been snacking on tons of free barbeque that Allison and I stole from a picnic she was invited to. The professor she TA's for does the study abroad program and was having a meeting since it's Parents' Weekend. After spending about 20 minutes driving around looking for the park that it was at, we realized that it was being held at the park that my apartment faces, a stone's throw away. That was kind of embarassing but we soon lost inhibitions as the beer was free. And we'd already spent our afternoon at Bourbon Street Bar and Grill drinking martinis for a dollar a pop. What an awesome day. So there we were with a cooler full of beer and three plates full of meat walking back to my apartment giggling.

Then it was off to the drag show, which was awesome. Brian did such a good job as Britney dancing to Slave. Good stuff. I was already drunk so I didn't spend any money on booze ... I maintained by buzz by sipping off of other people's drinks when they weren't looking. And yes, they were all people I know. I'm not that big of an alchy. Anyway, Lesbie Ann is still in town so I'm gonna follow her tonight, more than likely ending up at Halo. Good times. Czech you all later.

Went to IHOP late last night to break my diet. Stuffed french toast was worth every carb. Went to bed watching Waking Life. Good flick. Hard to watch when dozing off at 3:00am. It's a thinking movie, not a drinking movie. Woke up with no cough, good news. Woke up (early, as you can see) with pain in neck and shoulders so intense that sleep is not an option. A hot bath did not alleviate any discomfort. Perhaps some yoga will help. Otherwise agony continues. Hope you have fun in church today, suckers.

As it turns out, I really don't know how to tan. In fact, I was going to attempt to photograph my ineptitude, but the problem seems to have faded, so I'll illustrate for you again. I got a membership at Total Tan for 25 bucks for a month. So far I've only been twice, but I've fucked it up twice now. Every time I get out of the bed, my body is a splotchy, nasty red, white and tan neopolitan mess. That's not sexy. Maybe one of these days I'll figure it out.

This morning I had a missed call at 8:10am from a private number. Only two people I know use private numbers. One of them is my old boss, but he knows better than anyone that this guy wouldn't be awake at 8:10am since thats when I was supposed to be at work every day and I'd roll in around noon usually. The other is our dear Yalie friend, Chris, whom I normally wouldn't suspect, but he is supposed to be coming home today for a few days. Again though, why would he call so early and not leave a message? More than likely what we have on our hands here is some sort of telemarketer riling up my imagination.

Got a lot to do this week. Have a couple projects due on friday. Spent 10 and a half hours in one chair yesterday working on a program. Normally I wouldn't have spent so long working on it but it was just one of those days where everything was just going right. I was really making great progress and didn't want to stop and come back on a day when everything would just be going wrong, because those certainly are easier to come by. I went and had a beer with Bo over at Fitzwilly's around 11:00. That was so delicious esp. since I hadn't eaten all day. I'm fasting this week. Anyway, I suppose I should go wash off this brown sugar and get headed to campus.

One last foot note. David27 found a zippo lighter in my couch cushions that says "TAMU OUTLAW '03 CORPS OF CADETS" on its sides. It's not that I desperately want to return this to its rightful owner, I'm just dying to know who the closet corps boy is, because if I'm gonna have a corps boy in my house I need to at least know who he is ahead of time. So if it's yours, fess up, soldier. Laaaaaaaaaate.

When last we left our intrepid hero, we found him in the throws of Keystone admidst strangers. Let us now discuss everything that has occurred ... from blackout to blackout. Ryan Short left Dallas with three friends in tow -- Aaron, Aric and Brett. None of the three had ever been to College Station or anywhere nearly as cosmopolitan. They were expecting a cow town, and while we certainly are one, we did our best to restrict their visit to my apartment, HEB, Halo, and Johnny Carino's. In other words, no Dixie Chicken, Duddleys, Shadow Canyon, Chicken Oil Co. (or any Don Gainer owned, shotty wooden construction establishments).

I was over at 27's apartment when they arrived, but had left Owen with a phone number where I could be reached, since I had cleverly forgotten my phone at home. Once we arrived, we had a lot of fun ordering pizza, drinking beers (and Smirnoffs *shakes head disappointedly*), and inviting everyone we knew over. Even our dear friend Christina Lee from my major dropped by and ended up going to the club with us. My shirt from the Gap was still too big so I just wore the graphic T I had originally purchased as an undershirt. Many hours later, a large group of us were ready to get our drink on ... and we did just that. Aaron, the bartender, was very nice to us ... even giving us a free round of shots that I vaguely, vaguely remember. I had gone in with the vocalized goal of getting too drunk, a goal I never fail to meet. Several vodka tonics later, things get a little hazy. I know that we spent the night dancing erraticly.

On the way home, we stopped off at Whataburger to get some taquitos. This is just a given for me, I always stop at Whataburger, but it has become a sort of College Station activity for Ryan Short, and he wanted to share it with his crew. And I guess us talking about it got everyone in the mood, as is evidenced by the many, many fast food bags strewn about my living room. I'm not entirely clear on the rest of the night's activities. I know I drank a few more beers and woke up with no bruises ... so it couldn't have been too crazy. Let's just say "the sun came up on us" because it did. Which I hate. Off to sleep in a massive heap on the floor because some party poopers had crashed early in my bed.

The next afternoon, the grogginess starts to fade as we're motivated to stand up and drive to Johnny Carinos (which is literally across the street, a stone's throw from my apartment). I wasn't quite ready to eat, so I got a box for mine -- so trashy, I love it. Dallas boys bid adieu, 27 and I immediately went back to bed. My sleeping schedule is so wiggity whack ya'll. And my apartment looks like a train wreck ... provided that train had been carrying an assortment of empty beer cans, bottles, and fast food wrappers. Maybe I'll remedy that today ... or maybe it'll still be here the next time the Dallas boys come party.

There is a tentative plan to make our own pilgrimage to Dallas to live it up with them. I've been out in Dallas with Ryan Short many times, so I know that these country bumpkins from south Texas would absolutely love it. I will surely let you all know when that date is afoot. Until then, thanks to everyone who partied with me this weekend, you all uniquely enhanced my fun that had already runneth over. Later, have nots, have a good week.

I got that outfit I wanted, but when I got home the shirt was fucking huge so I couldn't wear it. We got ready anyway and went to see Starsky and Hutch. I didn't bust out crazy laugh at all but I did laugh constantly through the whole movie. I would suggest it to all of you. The movie ran a little late so we had to call Christopher's to push our reservation back about 20 minutes. We went home and freshened up and then it was off to the restaurant.

Ohhhh emmmm geeee. We started off at the bar enjoying a couple glasses of wine while we waited for our table to be ready. There was a live jazz trio that was pretty cool. Our table was ready after only a short wait so we took a seat. We were so prim and proper all sitting up with correct posture and everything. It was so fun. Allison ordered the mediterranean salmon and I had a duck breast in a blueberry sauce. Holy fuck. You can't imagine how wonderful the food was. It came with all kinds of vegitable sides -- mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, some kind of greens, rice, and these little sweet potato crispy things. That's all I can remember. Needless to say it was fucking decadent. We also treated ourselves to a bottle of 2000 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. It was definitely not the cheapest bottle available, but not nearly the most expensive either. Delicious! Just when we thought we couldn't eat another byte, they had to bring around the dessert cart. A raspberry chocolate truffle?! Give me a break. I will do anything for raspberries. It was incredible. Allison's said "Happy Birthday from Christopher's" in chocolate around the edge of the plate. Very classy. Thank you for taking me, Allison!

We could barely move after the meal was over. Allison was out for the count, going home to go to bed, but I had social obligations. I was supposed to go that concert with Marshall. Unfortunately, I was too full to do anything. David27 came over and I slowly but surely got ready to go out. Sometime after midnight we finally ended up at Halo, had a few drinks, met up with Marshall, Sonia and Chevy, and then went home.

When we got home Owen was complaining that someone in the parking lot was playing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" entirely too loud, so me and 27 went to tell them to shut up. It was two girls jammin out in a car after coming from Northgate. As it turned out, it was Erin, the girl that I got into an accident with in my parking lot. She was with her friend Courtney and they invited us to go back to Erin's apartment to party with them. She lives in the apartment like next to mine but upstairs. It was so close. We took some beer with us and sat on her porch drinking and smoking cigarettes and bullshitting. They were so cute and fun. They said they want to go out with us tonight to Halo and I'm totally going to invite them. I will have to let you all know how that turns out. Ryan Short is currently en route to College Station with 3 Dallas boys in tow. Tonight is sure to be crazy. More on that, after this....

Hey, Allison. It's your birthday. Hey, Allison. It's your birthday ... today! Happy 23rd Allison, I love you!

In other news, I was crusin around today with the birthday girl. We went to eat lunch at Souper Salad. Took us a good hour, which you know was trouble with the all-you-can-eat buffet. Then we decided to go to Wal-Mart to see if they had little shelves we could put in our bathrooms since Bed Bath & Beyond only had like 40 dollar chrome ones. Well, first we stopped off at Total Tan so I could get a membership but the girl was a bitch so I left without filling out the paper work. The big news though is that George Bush East is OPEN! Omega this is going to make it so much easier to get EVERYWHERE from my apartment. I am so completely stoked.

I have this vague feeling that I was the first car to drive on the newly opened road. They had just moved the baracades and there were still DoT cars on either side of it. And as we drove down, people who live on that street were out in front of their houses jumping up and down and cheering. We cheered, honked, and waved. It was too much fun.

Tonight I have a lab to attend. Blech. I'm kind of giving myself this week off as much as I can on account of having to do shit last week. But then Allison and gang are going out to Ninfa's. Even though I loathe Ninfa's and enjoy it even less on Tuesday nights when all the second rate frat boys and girls overtake the place, I am totally going. I'll just have to down a few drinks right when I get there to soothe myself. Then who knows what will happen. Do you ask where a shooting star will fall? Peace out, you have nots.

I'm not sure where to begin this blog. There is much to say about the past 24 hours. The first thing I did was take an ultra long time getting ready. The SideshoGang was all out at Margarita Rocks and wanted me to join them but I opted for a cucumber melon bubble bath instead. After a really long soak and getting my hair delightfully hawked, I stopped off at Allison's for her dessert & wine soiree. I stayed long enough for some strawberry cheesecake and a glass of merlot.

From there, I headed over to David's to get dressed, Tommy's to pick up some clothes I left there, Mosher Circle to pick up Sonia, and back home to get some shoes and wait for the arrival of my dear friend Ryan Short. He drove in from Dallas and arrived around 11 o'clock raring to go out on the town. Of course, we dropped by Allison's one more time so she could see Ryan and then headed out to Halo. Ryan came just short of his goal of dropping 100 bucks at the bar, which meant many beers and shots for the two of us, as well as anyone in the immediate vicinity.

After sufficient intoxication and dancing resulting in bruises, we headed back to James's for more of the same. I had a blast last night, and I know Ryan Short did too. We went to Fazoli's today to eat and go to witness a car jump the median, run over a tree, and speed through the parking lot. It was very random.

Oh, and the big news of the hour: The Olive Garden burned down. Information PLEASE.

Update: Now the fucking train derailed over by Tommy's apartment. WTF is going on in College Station today?

I'd like to introduce myself. I am Sidesho, the best typer in the world. Okay, well maybe I'm the second. Allow me to explain. There is a little typing game on the internet called LEtters 0.9. I want you all to go play it now [click here]. It's a no-bullshit typing game where individual letters scroll across the screen and you have to type them before they reach the other side. Every letter is worth one point, every mistake is a minus one. I got pretty good at the game to where I was fairly confident that I could play this game indefinitely. I was almost right.

Owen and I got back from Jin's World Cafe (excellent ... try the combo lo mein) around 2:00. It is now 4:30 and I just lost the game. You'll see my name at the top of today's top scores, but it hasn't transferred over to the all-time scores yet. When it does I'll be there pretty permanently, as it is the second highest score ever, below 109,372. So if you've found my site through LEtters, welcome! I achieved a score of 56,306 ... not bad considering my last high score was 698.

I found that the typing was not a problem. I had those letters completely in control. However, after two and a half hours of staring at the screen typing little letters, I started getting really, really dizzy. Towards the end there I thought I might fall out of my chair, but I was completely willing to do so. Also, its freezing in here, so my hands are completely frozen right now. I kept hoping someone would walk in and be willing to blast me a little bit with the shrink-wrap gun, alas no help arrived. These factors combined kept me from seeing that little 'L' in the upper left hand corner and stopped me short of the highest score ever. Although, in reality, I was already cracking and I was only halfway there. Kudos to whoever achieved that score, I know it couldn't have been fun.

Owen told me he wouldn't believe me that I was a good typer unless I got the high score, and while I fell a little bit short, I still feel vindicated. It's almost time for me to attend a lab, so I must go, but before I do, I'll insert a screen capture for all of you (since my picture blogs have been ever so popular as of late).

I have been putting off this blog for some time now. I have to talk about Thanksgiving. Part of the reason I was stalling was because I had to find out all that happened that night. I couldn't remember the last part of the celebration. Whoops. Anyway, it was quite riotous and out of control, just the way the holidays should be.

I cleaned my house all day long in between preparing the turkey, and had it spotless by the time AllieD, the first guest arrived. Shortly thereafter, Ryan and Todd came. By the end of the night, the meal consisted of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, bread, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole ... and taco salad. Ha! Gotta love pot luck. Let me see if I can run down the guest list without forgetting anyone and irrepairably damaging our relationship: AllieD, Jamey, Allison, Ryan, Todd, Leslie, Josh, Ryan, Josh, Kyle, Aaron, Ty, Rick, Bob, Antwat, Trey and Thomas. That's the best my faded memory can do. It was a lot of people. Then there were the 14 other guests ... each one a different empty bottle of wine. Yeah, we drank 14 bottles of wine ... as well as a box of Franzia ... and a 30 pack of Stones ... and a couple cases of Bud ... and a bottle of expensive scotch.

Needless to say it was a whole helluva a lot of fun. The next morning I woke up feeling wonderful, but soon discovered I was just still drunk. Later on the hangover hit me and I spent the day throwing up. But it did wonders for my abs. You should have seen the kitchen. It totally should have been deemed a bio hazard and demolished. We're talkin food everywhere, like turkey grease and shit. Wine stains on everything. Dishes piled high all filled with leftovers. Broken glass galore.

We broke 2 glasses and one bottle of wine. I only saw one glass get broken ... the other two must have happened outside since there are shards of proof. Aaron and Trey got towed. Aaron got hit in the face with a wine bottle? Antwat got taken advantage of in the back room. Somebody stuck novelty fingernails on my right hand ... and there's a pair of handcuffs on my bathroom sink. My toe is all but broken. I woke up next to Allison wearing more clothes than I had remembered. Somebody stole some DVDs from me.

I will never drink wine again. Thanksgiving was absolutely insane but totally fun. Can't wait to do it again whenever that holiday happens to roll around. Then I had to get serious cause I had two finals on Friday. I bombed the first one and did alright on the second one. The second one was Control Systems, and it was only two questions, but took me the full 2.5 hours and I didn't finish. Cra-zy. Then I went home for a spell, got dinner with Kyle at Rumors since he's goin home in a couple days, and then started working on documentation. We have huge documents due on Monday. Sucks. I should be working on them right now, but I didn't want to leave you all in suspense any longer. I'll be so much happier when all of this is done.

I made macaroni and cheese to contribute to the Thanksgiving feast yesterday with Ryan, AllieD, and her family. I made it the night before and then stored it in the fridge in the crock pot thinking I would be able to just heat it up before I left. This is the mac 'n cheese from scratch, mind you. Unfortunately, I forgot about that little fact of Velveeta that after any time left to set, it will turn to concrete. I eventually got it remelted, though I had to add like another cup of milk to do so. I got compliments on it. Everything we ate was very good. Ryan made some stellar mashed potatoes, and then AllieD had turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed yams, green bean casserole, stuffing, rolls, and pumpkin, cherry, and pecan pies. I think thats everything. Needless to say it was absolutely delicious.

Martha Moment. The gravy was so watery. It looked like it was nothing but turkey grease. AllieD was pretty upset about it. Luckily, I had seen several shows the prior two weeks on the Food Network that allowed me to solve the problem. I took some of the turkey grease and a few table spoons of flour, and cooked them over high heat to make a quick roux. Then I mixed it back into the rest of the gravy and it came out spectacular, if I do say so myself. And I do .... say so myself. I can't wait for the next Thanksgiving (coming December 10th).

We had some white merlot with the Thanksgiving lunch, and I had my fair share to drink. So, when I got home, I fell asleep for the remainder of the day. Then, I went with Marshall to Wal-Mart because it was the only store in the city that was open. We got new CD's ... I bought Britney and he got Nelly Furtado. Then, I went and drank a bunch of beer over at Raul's. I never want to hear Christina's "Dirrty" ever, ever again.

I'm watching the A&M vs. tu game right now. Since it's already in the 3rd quarter, my prediction for the game is going to be a little bit influenced by the current score. So, I'll say Aggies are going to pull this one off 46 to 28. Gig me Aggies!

The other day Owen mentioned that he'd never seen a pomegranate before, so being the gentle educator that I am, I bought him one whilst at the grocery store the other day. When I gave it to him last night, he refused to eat it. So being the gentle indian-giver that I am, I ate it. It was so delicious too. But as people IMed with the usual mindless "sups" I informed them all of my fruity delight and was met with an overwhelming "wtf is a pomegranate" response. So, since I enjoyed myself so much, I thought I would enlighten anyone who wasn't already aware.

This is a pomegranate. Each of those little seeds is a wealth of delicious juices. You might have heard of the pomegranate in Greek mythology. Here's a quickie version of the story (you all know how I'm big on quickies):

Zeus and Demeter had a beautiful daughter called Persephone. Hades fell in love with her and wanted to marry her. One day as she was sitting alone by a lake Hades; god of the Underworld stole her and took her away to his home to become his wife. Demeter was so upset she would not let the plants grow. Zeus sent for her and said that as long as Persephone had not eaten in the Underworld she could be freed. Persephone was back in her mother's arms when Hades gardener arrived and said that she had sucked on seven pomegranate seeds. That meant that she had to go back to the Underworld. Persephone cried and Demeter cried. It was decided that Persephone could live on earth for nine months, but must spend the other three months each year in the Underworld. Every year whilst Persephone was away Demeter refused to allow any plants to grow. The trees would lose their leaves and all plants would die away to come again when Persephone was free. For evermore there was to be a winter each year.

God, the Greeks are way more clever than christians. jesus never rode in a golden chariot across the sky or battled 3 headed monsters. All he ever did was just hang around.

Anyway, so now you all know! Head on out to the grocery store and buy yourself one of these miracles of fruity goodness. Or, if you want, I have a ton left on mine and even though everyone I was talking to last night, namely Thomas, refused my generous offer to come partake in my bounty, you're all still invited to snack on my seeds. Peace out, sluts.

I managed to make it through the entire weekend only spending $3 on ground chuck and frozen broccoli. I can make a mean meal with that and a handful of salt. I still need to go to the grocery store, but I'm allowed to now since I made it the entire week without spending any money. This was made possible in no small way by all of the generous friends I have. I have to thank Danny, Mark, and LESLIE (who specifically requested that her name appear in all caps). I also told Rick that I would mention him, and he claimed I would forget. But since I remembered, I think that should mean he owes me a drink.

That was on Thursday night. The same night that I decided to tote along my jug of tequila just in case I didn't get drunk enough. God, I love tequila, and tequila loves me. Which worked out for the best because I was still a little hungover on Friday night, and didn't feel the need to drink anything but club soda. Besides, I had that damn Santa beard on again, and its pretty hard to drink with. There were so many people out at Halo tho that it got unseasonably warm in there and I eventually ditched the wig and beard. Craig and I were hangin out together that night and we ended up going to a party at Arash's with Mark, but we didn't get over there until about 3am at which point everyone was pretty much passing out.

Last night Ryan had promised me that he would buy the beer, and then Trey called me and told me he'd bought Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit DVD Edition, so we transplanted our party over to Treys. It was a lot of fun to play. Its not something I'm used to to play a game of Trivial Pursuit and actually know the answer to some of the questions. That makes it a lot more fun and it makes the game go a lot faster.

I feel like maybe I forgot to do something this weekend since it was so much fun. I mean I skipped class and work and all that good stuff, but that doesn't usually nag me. Maybe I'm just feeling withdrawls of spending. Well anyway, I hope everyone else had a wonderful Halloween as well. If you've got a funny story to share, please do. Peace out, you have-nots.

Happy birthday, Adrian! I feel like I know you already.

Yesterday was really fun, but weird at the same time. I have never been so clueless about what time it is in all my life. It may not sound that mind boggling to any of you; however, I will still attempt to explain. So I woke up on Saturday at 10am because I had told my boss that I would come into work and mill out a circuit board. I was so hungover it wasn't even funny, which sucked cause I didn't even get drunk the night before. I guess these things happen. Or maybe I was genuinely ill, but just didn't notice because I drink too much. Either way, I was not rested and my head was pounding. So I called my boss to see if he had finished the design for the board and thankfully he had not, so I went back to bed.

Allison came into town to move into her new shithole, I mean, apartment. It's modest, we'll just say it that way. Anywho, I had to go move heavy things in the hot sun which really helped my temperment. Then I had lunch with AllieD, Jaime and AllieD's mom whom I'd never met before. That was delicious although Los Cucos has about the worst service I've ever seen (and I've eaten at Kerrie's Stacked Enchiladas). So anyway, after I was done with all that, I went home and fell asleep. I woke up around 5pm cause Todd called me to go meet him out at the Campus Lodge pool. Enter beer.

There were some random people in the pool that were pretty cool. They had this little game called Alcohol Poisoning. It was really quite clever. There was a basketball hoop, and the rules were a lot like Horse. The only twist is that anytime you miss a shot, you have to drink an entire beer. And you play until somebody spells out Alcohol Poisoning. I'm not a big sports guy, so I neglected the invitation to play but I did drink a bunch of beer and get some sun. Great day. I went home and absolutely crashed.

I wake up at like midnight with no concept of where I am or whats happened. And I see 7 missed calls on my cell phone between two people. So I called Chris and we went out for like an hour until the bars quit serving and I managed to get a little drunk all over again. I went home and thanks to the fact that Todd never called me back (jackass) I fell asleep in my recliner ... again. Now all of a sudden its 6am and I'm not tired anymore. So I made myself some food since I hadn't eaten the night before, took a shower, and went to bed.

I wake up again at 11, pay some bills, clean up a little, and I'm thinking, "wow its almost dinner time," when I look at the clock and realize that its only 12:30 and time is absolutely dragging by. So here I am at work, taking advantage of the internet connection. I was hoping my boss would have sent me the design to mill and I could do that today cause I'm so fucking bored, but alas, in true style he did not. Oh well, I guess I'll just sit here for a couple more hours and then go chill in my empty apartment some more. I'll catch you sluts on the flip side. Laaaaaaaate.

I have finally conquered my eating disorder. After hours and hours of torment, deceit and guilt, I have fnally overcome the demons of anorexia. I was so hungry that I ate 4, count em, 4 pieces of pizza for dinner. It was decadent. Then I just had FreeBirds for lunch. Yum. I want to thank everyone who was so supportive of me during my battle with conflicting self images. You have no idea how many minutes of those hours I wished I could just be normal again. I hope that in some small way my own courage can help change the world. If just one ... million little girls and boys read my story of triumph and find the courage to binge, then I'll be happy.

In other news, my coworker Sara has been feeding me with political enthusiasm today by telling me about her favorite presidential candidate, Howard Dean. She sent me a link to his website and I liked what he had to say. I was already planning on registering to vote and becoming a participating member of 'democracy' since Bush was elected, but now I've actually gotten off my tookus and filled out a registration application. If you want to read about this dude, check out http://www.deanforamerica.com. Later you have nots.

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY KEIFF!

And I'm 22. Wow, feels good to be a palindromic age again. I suppose there are a lot of stories to tell from this past weekend so lets jumponit.

Friday, Allison and I woke up around 7:00 and got ready to leave. We hit the road around 8:30. There was some severe ass weather on the way to New Braunfels to the point that I almost, almost pulled off to the side of the road. But there was no traffic so I braved it through the storm and it didn't slow us down too much. It was a little disappointing though since we were on our way to hopefully float down the Guadalupe River ... and a raging thunderstorm wasn't what we were looking for. We eventually made it to Jenny's parents lake house and met up with the girls were were chillin with. They were iffy on floating because of the weather, but they were also going to be there all weekend, so it didn't matter if they didn't go on Friday. We eventually coerced Lindsay and Jenny into going with us that day. So we loaded up the cooler with sandwiches and tonz of beer and headed out to a rafting place.

If you've never done this before, you need to go this summer while you still have the chance. It was so much freaking fun. Even though the water was freezing cold and my ass was completely numb by the time we were done, and even though the sky blackened halfway through and threatened to storm. We drank so much damn beer, all floating on inner tubes with our feet propped up on the middle tube holding the cooler. At one point, a police officer in the river pulled us over to check our IDs. They were all in the cooler in a ziplock bag with our money, so I had to stand up to get them out. Bad idea. Drinking in an inner tube for hours and then standing up in a river is a bad combo. Yeah I fell down. We all thought it was hifuckinglarious, but I'm not so sure the sheriff saw the humor. We eventually made it down the river about 4 hours later and then were treated to the most fantastic dinner of brisket, beans, potato salad, cake, and watermelon.

At one point, my good buddy Kevin drove up to the lake house to see me. As you know, he has the same birthday as me and we weren't able to celebrate it together this year. But he was in New Braunfels so he dropped in to say hello. That was a good time. It's always good to see Kevin. Btw, Happy Birthday Kevin ... I don't want to deprive him of his SideshoViD.com shoutout just because he shares the momentous occasion.

The next morning we had an awesome breakfast of homemade egg McMuffins and then hit the road for Austin. We stopped off at the San Marcos outlet mall but didn't find anything to buy. We got to our hotel around 3 but our room wasn't ready yet so we went to go eat at the Hula Hut. Its some Austinian restuarant that Allison ate at years ago and wanted to find again. Brandon joined us there because he was in the neighborhood. I have to admit the food was damned good. After that we went to our hotel room and showered and then took a nap until about 8:00. We watched some TV while drinking beer and then got ready to go out on the town.

Man, did we ever have a time out in downtown Austin. It sure is a far cry from College Station. Much, much different in all the best ways. It was so much crazy fun. We tried to hit every bar on 6th street. I'm pretty sure we never did but we came damn close, my friends. I drank so much that by 2:00 I was pretty ready to go back to the hotel room. I'm not sure what time that finally happened, but I woke up the next day with a lovely hangover.

We drove back to College Station and now here I am just chillin on my birthday. I partied myself out last night so I'm in no mood to get crazy tonight. Allison is baking me a birthday cake right now and then I think this kid is going to bed. Thank you to everyone who called or IMed, you all made me feel very special today, and for that, you deserve the best of luck making it to the flip side. Where I shall see you there. Peace out, have nots!

Oh man, was Thanksgiving ever delicious. It turned out to be an awesome meal and even better company. Lets recap. I came home early from work to prepare the turkey and get it in the oven. Allisons stayed at my house to keep an eye (and a nose) on it while I went back to work to finish up for the day. When I got home, I smelled the turkey and got prepared for the other dishes. I was also responsible for the scratch macaroni and cheese. Its an old favorite of mine that my mom makes, so you know it contains mostly Velveeta. I also made the salad. And by "made" I mean I cut the bag open.

Allison was the champion of the evening being responsible for the most dishes. She made green bean casserole, candied yams, boxed mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin pie. They were all delicious. Will showed up with a fancy schmancy loaf of bread that was enjoyed by all. Owen contributed a bottle of cabernet saviougne (or however the hell you spell that, I just tried to make it look French). The wine was a big success and his job of seasoning the mashed potatoes was not overlooked, even though the potatoes would have been better suited as an industrial strength adhesive than a side dish. Joseph also contributed a bottle of wine -- he was rawkin' the Hof. Once he decided to share we all enjoyed it very much. AllieD beefed up the dessert with some homemade brownies that I am still enjoying on a regular basis. She made way too many, but as long as I've got milk, I'm not complaining. Finally, there was Cappy who brought the cranberry sauce at the last minute to save the day after Joseph really dropped the ball.

After we all stuffed ourselves to excess, discussed our favorite pies, and finished off the wine, I headed up to Kroger with Owen to get another 30 Stones. When we got back, Allison popped in Old School and we drank and watched the movie. Next thing you know, the fuckin fridge is empty and I'm drunk. Who woulda thought. The crowd dispersed and I passed out ready to face another day hungover. I would have to say that last night was a blast and I can't wait to do it again the next time Thanksgiving rolls around (and who knows when that will be). Thank you to everyone who brought something and I will see the rest of you have nots ... on the flip side.

Hello, friends. Today, for a little twist, I thought I would address you all from my home away from home away from home, Thompson Hall Development Lab. For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, that's where I work. Its tres fab. I'm sitting here with Owen. We're going on the 14th consecutive hour of working on final documentation for a couple different classes. I finished documenting my calculator earlier this afternoon and got started on the mobile platform documentation almost immediately. Well, first I went and had some delicious sushi with Owen from Kyoto. If you haven't tried it yet, you need to go today.

I decided a while ago that it was not going to be possible to finish this document before my final exam tomorrow, so I am pulling an all-nighter. I might take a quick nap on the couch if it needs be, but I think I should be alright. My goal is finish the document around 7am, which leaves me a few hours for formatting and perfecting everything. Then I'm going to drive to Copy Corner to have them print it out and bind it. Its going to be fucking expensive because every page is in color. And I'll be a monkey's uncle if I'm gonna let fucking Kinko's get their hands on this baby. If you haven't heard my Kinko's rant yet, just do yourself a big favor and never ever go there unless it is your last fucking option on earth.

Anyway, I'm gonna get back to my documentation. I'm on page 24 right now and we're shooting for about 50 pages. Which does not, by any means, equate to being half done. I hope no one else is experiencing this much of an end-of-semester crunch. I wouldn't wish this on anyone ... well, maybe a select few. Anyway, I miss you all, dearly. And I will see you on May 7th. Laaaaaate.

Ahh, another productive night ... at NORTHGATE! My god, I have got to stop going there. But fuck it, I don't have shit else to do. Anywho, last night me and Ryan (you happy now, bitch) went to Northgate to celebrate another dead day. His next exam is Tuesday and mine is Wednesday, so we're both free. Todd stayed home and studied. We started out at the Dry Bean and each had a Royal Fuck. They were delicious. From there we decided to hit the hotspot, Mad Hatters.

Um yeah, neither one of us got the memo, but apparently it was Down Syndrome night at Mad Hatters. Everyone there was incredibly ugly and acting like a retard. One girl was even pretending to be pregnant and wearing a fat suit. And she kept on bumpin and grindin and yelling 'I'm PREGNANT whooo!' It was very strange. Needless to say, we finished our drinks as quickly as possible and skeedaddled over to the Library. I hadn't been there in forever. We met up with some girl named Kat that Ryan had met the night before. She was with her friend Heather Fuson, who I was in band with at Plano Senior High. So that was fun. I don't think I've ever actually talked to her but last night we caught up like we were OLD friends.

After that we decided to run by Taco Cabana because Ryan said he didn't have any food at home. We ran into Keith and Burns there and shared some queso and good times. I stayed the night at Ryan's cause I felt like drinking more. They really didn't have any beer so me and Todd split a big bottle of wine and watched music videos on like 5 different channels until 6 in the morning. Good times, good times. Right now I have to run up to lab for a while. You know me, go go go work work work. I'm gonna have a heart attack one of these days if I don't change my workaholic ways. Anywho, you kids be good and study hard. School is cool.

Oh man, did we ever beat the ever livin', ever lovin' HELL outta OU yesterday?! WHOOP! That was one of the greatest Aggie football games that has even been played within the hallowed walls of Kyle Field. In my book it was the #2 greatest game ever, second only to t.u. in '99. Reggie McNeal is a god. He ran through the OU defense like it was tissue paper ... and when he couldn't, he would just make 40 yard touchdown passes. It was so damn exciting. And we won 30-26 for those of you who don't follow Aggie football very close.

Another exciting aspect of the game was when me and Allison went down on the field at halftime for Boot Line. We got right up front on the gate. It was really fun, I was about 2 feet away from Cardo, the yell leader. Then after that me and Allison were TOTALLY on the jumbotron for like a good 30 seconds. So far Lindsay is the only one who saw us. If you happened to see me or Allison on the jumbotron at halftime, please leave a comment. I know for a fact we were on there. That has been one of my goals at this university for a long time. Now, if only I could get on the cover of the Battalion ...

So everyone in this whole damn town was in the best mood ever last night after our stunning upset on the #1 ranked team in the conference. So naturally it was time to party. Me, Todd, Ryan, David, and two of David's friends from Southwest went to Concepts ... the place that used to be Tonix ... the place that used to be Charlie's ... the place that used to be Epi-Center. It was pretty cool except that there was a $5 cover for over 21 and a $10 cover for under 21. It wasn't $5 cover great. But since we were already there we paid and went in. I got completely faded and danced my ass off. It was a good time had by all. Then we woke up today and ate at Chicken Express. It was yummy.

So in summary, this has been like the best Aggie week of my life. Now next week's REALLY gonna suck. I'll see you all there (on the flip side I mean). Peace out.

In the end, last night turned out to be thoroughly entertaining. Ryan and Todd decided to throw the bash of the century and declared last night to be a Pajama Party. Everyone was supposed to wear their pajamas and get all messed up. Great idea. I went with Brandon over there around 11 ... at which point the guest list was already up to ... wellllll ... zero. So no one had showed up yet it was sure to get rocking soon. Or so we thought. It ended up being the 4 of us sitting around playing drinking games ... in pajamas. Tres different from every other weekend.

Even though the party was a total bust, we still had a blast. My neighbor, Breezy, showed up later and partied with us. Frank dropped by for a spell and Daniel came over during a study break. None of them were wearing pajamas though. We got drunk, ate some queso, and played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City all night. Then we passed out.

I just got back from lunch at Fitzwilly's with AllieD and Breezy. It was so delicious. I think I'm gonna lay on the couch now and watch TV and then maybe head up to lab, ugh. I hate lab. Anywho, I'll catch you kids later.

Hey kids. Boy have I ever not been in the mood to blog lately. That just happens sometimes, y'know. Like you get into the groove of blogging nearly every day for a long time and then suddenly its the last thing you wanna do with your time. Anyway, I'm back now. You've sure missed out on a lot of good stuff, but thats half the fun of me not blogging is you not knowing whats going on, so instead of trying to catch up, I'm just gonna talk about yesterday.

I woke up a little hungover so I spent the morning eating a nice breakfast I cooked for myself, drinking water and juice, and taking a shower. I felt much better after that, and it was such a beautiful day that I couldn't help but be in a really good mood. Keith and Matt left for Dallas to go to the Who concert so I had the place to myself. I decided to turn off the AC, open up all the windows and turn on all the fans. Not only did I air the place out but it felt so good. I had the digital cable music station blaring as I vacuumed and dusted and disinfected. The place is currently spotless. We'll see how long that lasts. So when I was done, I decided to get ready to go to the football game against Vergina Tech. I like to wrap my knees to facilitate standing thru the entire game, so I did the tight ace bandage, metal supported brace combination. No one knows I'm wearin it though cause my overalls go right over it. Man was it hot at the game, especially in these overalls. But it was so fun. Well, besides the fact that we had 3 über-bitches standing next to us all in a huff cause they thought we were in their seats. Whatever. It was just me and Allison so instead of trying to squeeze into our seats, we just took some empty room a few rows back. It wasn't a big deal though, cause they were only there for one quarter and we left before halftime to go down for senior yell so they were only bothering us for like 8 minutes.

Senior Yell was awesome. We went down and lined up and I saw so many people I knew down there. It was like a little '03 reunion. We got to go down on Kyle Field while the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band was doing their show. Then we did two yells and welcomed the Aggies back onto the field. I could have SWORN I was on the jumbo-tron, but so far no one had seen me. The guy with the camera was panning our faces and I had the camera RIGHT in my face for a few seconds, so if it was on the jumbotron then I was too. If you saw me, please let me know. After that they herded us off the field and we went and found a new place to stand in some room of people that left after the band played. The game kinda sucked, mostly cause we lost, but I still had a blast. I got really sunburned in the face, like I knew was gonna happen. But despite all that, it was too fun. Certainly better than sitting up in one of those boxes. Thats just a random opinion of mine, not directed toward anyone.

After that, my brother Stephen was in town, so he came over to see my place. Then we went to go eat at Rockfish. Once again, I ate seafood and enjoyed it. We both got seafood enchiladas. I also ate a shitload of peanuts. Blech. Anyway, I also had a couple beers with dinner, and then stuffed myself with enchiladas, so when we got back we laid around and watched TV, and then Stephen went back to Houston. Almost needless to say, immediately I fell the fuck asleep for a good couple of hours. Allison finally woke me up by coming over to see what I was doing since I wasn't online, and I wasn't answering my phone. Then I went over to her place and watched Super Troopers. It was a pretty funny movie, I would recommend it to all of you without hesitation. After that I got online for a while, did some real nice chatting, drank a couple beers. Keith got home and we went to Taco Cabana at like 4am. Good times, I haven't done that in a while. Now its Sunday and here I am. I don't have shit to do today, so I ain't gonna worry about nothing. Maybe I'll go lay out or something. You know how I do. Anyway, now you're all up to speed, no more complaining. Czech you skillets later.

Oh, and download the new song of the day. Its the JAM, seriously.

So much to say, so much to say. Let me start with our first football game. As many of you know, there are very few things that I love so much as Aggie football, so naturally I was pretty excited about the game. My sports pass wasn't renewed like I thought, so I had to wait in this long line in order to get it renewed. The point of telling you that, is that I couldn't pull with my friends so I just had a single ticket. So did Lindsay, so we decided to sneak in somewhere and sit together. I called Todd's cell phone and made him come down from his seats with two tickets so that we could sneak into his section, and then we ended up standing on his row since there was room. We had to move a couple times and Lindsay stood in the aisle for a while (I'm such a gentleman) but in the end we had plenty of room.

The girls behind me were pissing me off though. They were 3 ugly wenches and they kept talkin shit about every single play. They'd be like "Oh boy here comes our offense, this outta be good ... of course our defense is nothing great either" or "Oh great catch, I can't believe how bad we're going to be this year" and it was just constant. I mean they didn't shut up for the whole first quarter. So finally I turned around and I said, "Hi there. Excuse me. I was just wondering if you came to watch my Aggies play or if you just came to criticize every damn play. Can we please get a little team spirit back there?" And they kind of ignored me, but they shut up for a while. It was really sappin my fun though, so I had to say something. The game was great, I rank it #3 all time behind t.u. my freshman year and Notre Dame last year. We may not have played all that great, but thats not really how I rank football games. I really like turnovers, and there were more than enough to keep me jumping up and down the whole game. I'm not sure what the final count was, but there were seriously like 8 interceptions. And we won 31-7, which always makes for a good game. Anyway, I thought it was great. And thats the name of that tune.

When we got home, my neighbors Vinny and Cheyney (sp?) had gotten a couple of kegs, so the whole neighborhood came out again. Ryan and Todd showed up too and ended up spending the night here because we all got a little bit toasty. There were some people in the next building that were having a party too and theirs was much bigger than ours. They had to have had a good 60 people just in back by the keg. And every guy there was massive. I went inside their party for a while and I was absolutely dwarfed by everyone there. It was kinda weird. I don't know if they were football players or what. I met my other next door neighbor last night too and she was pretty cool. Her name is Brianne. She made us some fucking good mashed potatoes from scratch at like 4 in the morning. We know so many people in our neighborhood now, I'm gonna need to start jotting down names on a map to remember everyone. Its so great ... so incredibly different from the Enclave last year where we didn't see, let alone meet, a single neighbor in an entire year. Except for Candy, who we met once and then totally fabricated a personality for her until she was this fictional Kramer-esque 2-dimensional comedy schtick character. Whoo-ahhh!

So anyway, the parties were a little off the heezy so like 6 cops showed up and started IDing everybody. They never IDed me though, oh well. Apparently its illegal to drink in public after 1am, and the area between our duplexes is considered public. I was not aware of that. I didn't get any tickets but both of the people hosting the parties got slammed. Like $500 or something big like that. I'm not sure of the exact figure, I haven't ventured out of the house yet today to see the damage. Anyway, I'm gonna get back to the Food Network now. I just finished up a Good Eats with Alton Brown marathon (thanks for letting me know it was on Allison). I'll catch you skids on the flip slide.

Well, I was planning on waiting to make another post until I got my internet up and running, but it turned out that I just couldn't wait that long. I am using Keith's computer right now. His works just fine, yet mine two rooms over will not even find a connection. Its very frustrating. I've been on hold with Cox Cable for about 30 minutes now. I just moved in yesterday with my roommates for the next year Keith (who we all remember from last year) and Matt. We got ourselves a nice little duplex. If you wanna know where it is, send me and IM and I'll probably tell you. I just don't want to broadcast that information. Anyway, moving in has gone semi-well. I made myself a curtain today out of heavy canvas material because the sunlight was coming directly into my window this morning and I couldn't sleep past 8am, which is insanely early for me, as you know.

But enough about me. Lets talk about my weekend. I left around 9:30am on Friday with Allison to head back to Plano because my brother, Michael, got married. Friday night was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal was nothing. It took like 10 minutes to tell us all where to stand (I was a groomsman) and then it was off to the Radison hotel in Richardson for the dinner. It was a pretty good dinner, some chicken with this sauce on it and rice and a torte for dessert. There was also an open bar. That was pretty cool. I didn't much care for the country and western DJ until he put on some Eminem. It really flooded the dance floor, and I think it was the only rap song he had, so he just played it over again to keep everyone out there. As a gift for all of his groomsmen and ushers, my brother got us headlights. They're these 3 really bright LEDs that are attached to a headband and they can either produce a steady stream of intense light or you can make them blink or dim it or anything. They're really cool. So everyone out on the dance floor had these blinking lights attached to their foreheads. It was pretty cool. I was driving so I had to stay semi-in-control. I did a good job though. Even though after the dinner party me and Allison joined some of Michael's friends across the street at the Fox and the Hound for another drink.

The next day I just chilled around with the fam. Almost everyone went off the take a nap, but I wasn't tired cause I stayed in bed until well into the afternoon. So as everyone retired, I called my friend Jay in Plano and went over to his house. I haven't seen him in like a year. We ended up going to Bennigan's for a beer and he bought me a shot. Let me tell you, it was exactly what I wanted right before the wedding, but it didn't end up being an issue. The ceremony was at 7:30 at night. It was a nice wedding. Krista, my new sister in law, looked great. And, more importantly, so did I. Everything there went off without a hitch. They flew back to Sacremento, CA yesterday and left for Maui today. They're going to be there for 8 days. Fun stuff. The party after the wedding was another fun one with another bad DJ. It was the same DJ that did my brother, Stephen's wedding. He said his name was DJ Brian. I told him he was really clever. He played all the greatest hits of 20-30 years ago. Kind of sucked, but there was free beer, so we managed to have a good time. It was good to see all the family and old family friends and stuff. Even though I really only got to talk to each person for about 5 minutes. The next day I was moving into my new place so I got up, had brunch with Allison's family and then we hit the road for College Station. I ended up giving Kari (Krista's little sister) a ride back too, so it was the fullest car I've ever driven to school.

Now here I am in my new duplex, just chillin waiting for somebody, anybody, from Cox to pick up and tell me how to get my computer connected to the internet so I can get my AIM running 24/7 and my webcam too. Hopefully that'll happen in the next couple of days. If not, I'll be contacting you all from Keith's computer at a later date. Excelsior!

Ugh, thank you very much to my retarded brother for getting my hit count up to 1000 'single handedly' as he put it. So now it totally skews everything. He's a real doll. I'm glad they're keeping him busy up at work.

In other news: Monday morning I had my second exam in PoliSci. I didn't study a terribly long time for it, but I think I did okay. We have two text books and the majority of the questions were from the good text, that reads like a human is writing it. I knew all of those. The other text is nothing but facts and figures and inane statistics at the end of which he goes, "So we can conclude nothing." Long story short (which is pretty worthless once I've already told the long story, sigh), I think I did well.

The best part of having a test one day is not going to class the next. So Monday night I rallied up the roommates for a par-tay or Milton Bradley proportions. Earlier in the day me and Todd went to Wal-Mart and purchased Yahtzee and Pictionary. We then invited Doug and Nicole, as well as our friend Fucking Frank to play some drunken Pictionary. Frank doesn't drink anymore and Nicole wasn't drinking that night, so it wasn't completely drunken, but it was completely fun. We played for hours. Whenever somebody won, we'd just start over. Me and Frank ended up winning, technically, since we won 2/4 games, but I'd have to say there were no losers that night. We all had a very good time.

After everyone left, me and Todd sat up playing some Drinking Yahtzee. Then I decided I was hungry so I called Clay and made him come pick me up and take me Taco Cabana. I think it was around 1am and he was working on a paper or something, but that wasn't important. What was important was my two chicken soft tacos. Damn skippy. Anyway, I didn't go to class on Tuesday (or today, shhh) because its completely worthless to go, and I just sat around all day. Did nothing spectacular.

Today I went to Texadelphia for Christine's 21st birthday ... HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINE!!! If you haven't got anything better to do, click there and send her a friendly birthday IM. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to hear from a loyal Sidesho-Viewer.

Anyway, that's all to report. Sorry for the massive amounts of paragraphs. I'm gonna go meet Justin for some coffee. Peace out, you have nots.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig. Hola mi amigos, tu es muy tente! I have returned unscathed from the weekend. My drives there and back were both uneventful, which is always a good thing when you're driving on the highway. When I got first got to my house in Plano on Friday night, I ate dinner with the parents. We had these fatass ribs that were so good. I brought some home with me and just ate them for dinner tonight. After dinner I played my dad at ping-pong, but I totally forgot my paddle at home so I was trying to use one that was WAY cushier than I was accustomed to and I lost. I didn't get romped or anything, I even won a couple games. But overall he still beat me, even though I'm still convinced it was because of the paddle and not anything due to my physical short-comings. Although it didn't take him long to figure out that my forehand is unstoppable and my backhand is non-existent. (Shh, don't tell anyone.) After that we went swimming to cool down, and then Paw was ready for bed, and I was ready to go out. So I met up with Colleen at the mall because they had extended hours for Tax-Free weekend. We were only there a little while before I declared that it was time to go to Friday's to get a drink. We did that and it was very tame, we got there just before last call and then went home.

The next day I woke up around noon and went shopping myself. I ran into Colleen at Willowbend, I was halfway meeting her there, and halfway just looking around. I didn't shop with her though. I tried to win a 1000 dollar shopping spree but that didn't happen, unfortunately. I coulda spent the shit out of it on some Diesel apparel. Then I went to Stonebriar cause I was still in the shopping mood, but couldn't find anything there either. It was fun to people watch though. I'm starting to feel old cause I was definitely not up to date on the current fashion trends half these kids at the mall were partaking in. And I'm sorry, but I still hate the front-tuck on shirts. I will never do that. Anyway, I wasn't there long and I went home. My parents went to go see Stomp so it was up to me to find dinner. But I had a project.

I've decided that my job is going to be playing guitar at daycares. There's good money to be had in that profession and I'm damn good at it. I can play, sing, interact with kids, and I have a shitload of experience. So I printed up a flier for myself. Maybe I'll post it up here once I get it all done. I did make a rough draft though and I took it over to MaryAnn's house to peruse it. She would know about that shit. She gave me some good advice on it and how to go about getting into the business. As an added bonus, she also fed me this badass meal of fried chicken, noodles, and brownies. It was "the bomb," as the children say. After that I met up with Steve at the ol' Starbucks and had a citrus smoothie type drink. It was really good. It tasted like a liquefied Dreamsicle. And we all know how much I love Dreamsicles. To cap off the evening I went down to Carabbas to hang out with Ryan Short. He's the head waiter there, and I had to wait around for forever for him to close out the registers or some shit like that. But I got to sit back in the office, so that was cool. Then we went to some guys house that he knows down in Dallas. It sucked though cause everyone there had gone to the lake earlier in the day and were already asleep by the time we showed up. So it was basically just me and Ryan playin pool and hangin out, which we really could have done at my house. Ryan's going to LA soon though to be a movie writer or something, so this may have been one of my last times to get to see him conveniently. I may go home one more time or he may come to College Station, its still very much up in the air. I'll fill you all in on that. Anyway, this should clue you into what happened this weekend. Anything else, or anyone else I talked to is insignificant. So ha! Adios, ninos.

I spent almost all of yesterday with Allison. She called and woke me up to come eat lunch with her at the Cotton Snatch, where she works. So I got up, threw on a clean shirt and headed out there. I had Brocorri Cheese soup and a salad. Allison had a glass of water and a crouton. Then we went to Kroger and did some brief grocery shopping and went back to Allison's pad. We hung out there for just a little bit and then headed over to the mmmovie theater to see Austin Power's in Goldmember. I really enjoyed the movie. At times it was slow and at times it was the opposite of funny. But it was overall generally entertaining at all times. The real key was that when it was funny, ohmigod, it was hilarious. So I was either looking at my watch wondering when it would end or having a groin grabbingly good laugh. I would definitely recommend seeing this movie.

After AP, Allison wanted to stop by Academy sports and outdoors, the right stuff the right price. So we did just that. Turns out, all their summer stuff was on sale. And I've been wanting a new beach towel cause my Darth Maul towel from like 2 or 3 years ago just isn't doing it for me anymore out poolside. So I got a new towel for like 6 bucks. I've also wanted a new suit cause I had swimming laps in board shorts. So I got a more sensible lap swimming suit for like 5 bucks. Its ugly as hell, but the only one left in my size. Then I bought a sleeveless workout shirt for about 6 bucks and a pair of A&M workout shorts. I have a new workoutfit, which I unveiled last night to RAVE reviews, I'm sure. I also bought a pack of undershirts, because all of mine seem to say FUCK on them in one fashion or another. What a dirty little habit of mine. Anyway, after that we decided to slurge once again and go to On the Border for dinner. I got some chicken enchiladas and Allison had a light salad with dressing on the side. After that I came home and slept until I woke up around 10:30 and went to go work out. I just woke up today and nothing has happened yet so I'll have to tell you about it tomorrow. Excelsior!

I am back from Houston and my brother's 24th birthday. Boy did I have a good time. First we went to a restaurant called Floridito's. As many of you well know, I hate seafood and refuse to eat it. But Stephen wanted seafood for his birthday so I agreed to try it. I had something like a grilled banana leaf mahi-mahi. It was so good. It wasn't like any fish I've had before. It had a different taste and texture than I was used to and had all kinds of carribean stuff like mango on it. That was delish. His wife, Rachel, bought us each a drink called a Rum Runner. It was also very good, though very alcoholic.

From there we went to Dave n Busters. Rachel was funding the little operation and bought us each a Water Moccasin shot. I had one at Shadow Canyon the other night and it was a light, easy shot and a very tasty treat. Rachel wanted a shot that wouldn't be hard to take so we each had a birthday shot for Stephen. Then we told the bartender that it was his birthday so he bought Stephen a shot too. It was called a Tiger's Tail. I'm not sure what all was in it, I know there was some Jäger in there. He said it was good. A beer later a group of Stephen's friends showed up. It was a semi-surprise semi-party for him. When there were 6 people, Rachel once again stepped up to the plate and this time ordered 6 shots. These were called a 'Buzz.' They were huge shots, filled to the top. Everyone was joking we needed a straw for them. I took mine like I thought everyone else would but I ended up being the only one to shoot it, the rest took half and half or just drank it. I guess I'm still in that 21st birthday mode, but I thought it was a really good shot.

After that we spent the night in the arcade playing skee-ball, driving games, etc and always giving our tickets to this little black kid who never once said thanks. He just stared at us like we were crazy. He musta been about 4. It was funny. We did end up spending some of our own tickets. They weigh them and print you off a little voucher, so we tried to put our finger on the scale to up the count. Apparently the thing is pretty sensitive, cause when I really had 24 tickets, it printed out a voucher for 829. I got busted, but naturally argued with the guy acting offended that he would accuse me of such a thing. Stephen bought a couple big bouncy balls with the tickets. It was a fun night, I think we left around midnight. It was kind of weird though to be walking around with a beer fairly drunk while little kids are running around you playing video games and cashin in tickets. But it was a hella good time. Then we went home and went to bed. That was the extent. Tonight I think I'm gonna study for my government exam on Monday. I'm so studious. My roommates are both gone right now but their cars are here so I don't know whats up with that. I guess I'll give them a call in a minute. Peace out, sluts, have a good Saturday night.

Happy 4th of July everybody! Ah, Independence Day. So far we've celebrated this wonderful holiday by nursing hangovers from last nights raucous game of Go Drink. I was just informed by my friend Will that the rec center is indeed open, when we thought it was closed. So I think me and Todd are gonna go pong and work out for a while. Then we're gonna grill some steaks for dinner and drink a few more beers, because thats the American way. Thanks to everyone who visited my July 4th themed webpage on July 4th. You're all beautiful.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day away from school and away from work. Light some fireworks for me, but make sure you do it outside. Have a good one.

What a crazy and fun Friday night. That's how they should all be. The evening began at Fazoli's with Keith to get some dinner. I had the lasagna with broccoli. It looked gross but tasted great. The breadstick girl gave me attitude because I made fun of her for flirting with Keith. I was chewing on a lemon and she came by to tell me that she used to eat lemons when she was little. So I said, "Yeah, well I used to be fat when I was little." No I'm kidding, but that's what the old immature me would have said. I didn't really retaliate except by making her throw my trash away.

After I was fetted and full, I went to Ryan and Todd's to commence the binge drinking session. We played 6-Cup, our favorite drinking game. Its a lot like Power Hour in that you don't ever have to really drink all that much at once, but after you've been playing a while, it hits you pretty hard. I was playing with Ryan, Todd, David, and Joseph. Sometime around 3am everyone started passing out, but me and Joseph were still wide awake. I got a call from Allison telling me she was at a killer party and that I should stop by. So I called Keith and had him drive me and Joseph over to Allisons.

When we got there, there was no alcohol except for some Skyy drinks that belonged to some girl. So we drank those, but we weren't supposed to so we had to disguise the fact that we were drinking these bright blue bottles. I put mine in a Keebler's Crackers box, and Joseph hid his in a neon yellow fanny pack. Soon after we got there, everyone started going home or passing out, which sucked. We could have passed out on the floor of Allison's duplex, but I really wanted my bed and Joseph was gonna sleep on my couch. There was only one way to make it home though ... and that was to walk.

For those of you who are familiar with College Station, we walked from Welsh & Southwest Pkwy to Texas & Holleman. Its pretty damn far and it was a little chilly. We ran into one guy who was sitting on his porch smoking a cigarette so we stopped and had a smoke with him. I don't remember if he was cool, but we'll just say he was. By then it was probably around 4am. We happened to be walking right by Leslie's apartment, and despite the fact I hardly ever talk to her anymore, I decided I would like to see her so I called her cell phone. She didn't answer but I left a message that said "Hey it's David. I'm just about to walk by your apartment and thought I'd stop by but you must be sleeping," And we continued on.

A couple minutes later, we're a ways down the sidewalk and I hear this faint "DAAAAAVIIIIID!" Turns out Leslie had just listened to my message, so I yelled back and ran back to her apartment. We stopped in there and chilled for a while though all we had to drink was water, since we were a bit parched from the walk. I saw this guy I went to school with from like K-8 grade and he didn't remember me which offended me. I mean, I probably haven't seen him in like 8 years, but still. I remember everyone from my elementary school. Well, around 4:30, I think, we left Leslies to finish off the walk home.

When we got back to my apartment, we made some Easy Mac and drank a bunch of water. Keith came home and was enjoying our drunken antics as Joseph tried to make some tuna concoction to eat. It was pretty funny. I think we went to bed around 5 or 5:30am.

To sum up the evening, it was exactly "how I do." Every Friday night should be as adventurous. I woke up around 2:30 today and went to Wal-Mart with Allison and Keith. I didn't buy anything, but we did stop by GNC and get some of those candles that you burn in your ears. Its odd, look 'em up, I'll let you know if they work. Oh, also, in Wal-Mart I kicked a ball into this toddler's face. It was hilarious. Tonight I'm gonna go to Allison's to eat lasagna and watch Life as a House, which is an EXCELLENT movie. So, I'll catch you kids later. Excelsior!

Thanks to everyone who has come to my new site in the past day and either left me a comment, voted 5 stars (you bastards), or IMed me to tell me about the site. Although most of you said the red was too much, the binary numbers were obnoxious and my hair looked stupid. My viewers are so damn critical, but I guess that's cause they've come to expect so much from me.

There is something new, that I'm sure I told most of you about 3 times already. The webcam section now has dualing webcams. You can stare at my sweet ass from two different angles. Let's hope Keith doesn't mind that I stole the camera from him that he's had in the box for like a month now. I'm actually sitting around waiting for him to get back in town so we can go eat. I called him at like 11 and told him to start driving home cause I wanted to go to Taco Cabana. I guess he did too cause he started on his way here. He should be here in like a half hour. He needs to hurry cause i'm about to raid that bag of Lay's. Anyway, peace out you have nots ... and keep your hands to yourselves.

Man, I just got out of my 8:00 lab today for Circuit Analysis. Our prof dropped by to show us our averages. I have a 99 test average and a 73 average in the class. Now that takes skill. I am doing so well in all my classes, but it isn't worth jack because they all give us immense amounts of daily work, quizzes, homework, and labs until exams aren't worth shit. It pisses me off. If I'm acin tests I should get an automatic A.

But I did have one lab on there that was a 0 and should have been a 100, that will help some, but not a lot since I have two other zeroes on labs and 2 zeroes on quizzes. Ugh, I despise these little daily grades. It's so high school.

I also want to make a shout out to Pho John. If you guys in College Station haven't tried Pho John's Vietnamese Noodle Soup out on Texas Ave by the new Petsmart, you need to get out there stat. I am addicted to the stuff. Its so damn good. Aight, peace.