I am back in Dallas now after my three day excursion to College Station. It was so good to go back. I knew this was going to happen, but in my defense that was probably the longest I had been away from that shitty little city since the summer that I had knee surgery. I spent the majority of the time with Marshall, but it was so good to see everyone else as well. I spent the second most time with Ryan and Josh, but also got to see Leslie, Josh, Raul, Justin, Justin, Tommy, Robby, and some others that I'm forgetting. If I've left you off of the list, just hit me up with a comment and then I'll cleverly add you and post a comment right after yours that says something to the effect of, "Try reading it again, I clearly see your name there." It is hilarious when I do that.

There's not a whole lot of news from my weekend. I got drunk all three nights, two of which were at Halo. I miss belonging like that. Knowing all the bartenders and owners and every patron of an establishment, and having them notice when you've been out of the loop for a while. I am coming to love going out in Dallas, but there's just nothing like the CS crew. Marshall and I got shitcanned on Friday night even though I told him that there was no way I was going to last past midnight cause I was so tired. I was practically falling asleep on the drive down there despite the fact that I slipped out the side door of work two hours early. Shhhh. My supervisor was out of town so I didn't see any reason for me to hang around.

So Friday night was a FUCKING BLAST ... just what I needed. Saturday was a big drag show that I didn't even look at once the whole night. I drank a lot of Jaeger before we went out to the bar so the entire night's activities are a tad blurry. But I know I had fun and only ran up a six dollar bar tab despite telling everyone I knew to put everything on my tab. Rock out with your cock out!

Sunday night Marshall and I went over to Chris's apartment to sit by the hot tub and play volleyball. Well, I read magazines while the other boys and girls played volleyball. Sports aren't exactly my style. Then we got some beer and I drank a bunch. I am so fun. Then today I said my goodbyes to Marshall at Hoblob, swung by Josh's to pick up some of my stuff he was still holding onto and drove home. Yippee skippy. Oh but I got my diploma from Marshall who was having it framed at Hoblob. The four hundred dollar framing job that I inexplicably paid nothing for. It looks so cool. I'll have to snap a picture for all of you and include it on the picture post that I've been promising frequently as of late.

One final note: Tomorrow is my 23rd birthday. Make my day.

I am now done with orientation at work. Friday was another good Friday. For the entire three weeks, they'd been telling us about our final exam at the end and how we should be studying a little bit here and there because it was really hard and comprehensive. And of course, none of us studied. In fact, we joked, "I'm not gonna study. I bet when we walk in the door, there's nothing but cake and punch." But in reality, we were all fully expecting a test.

Well, wouldn't ya know, as soon as we opened the door to take our tests, the Recruitment and Development Department yelled out "SURPRISE!" and clapped as they stood behind ... yup, cake and punch. So rad. And then we each had a little card congratulating us, a TAC pen, and a TAC like leather zipper folder thing. It was pretty cool. We had a good time. And then we all went to happy hour at Blue Mesa Grill. I had several beers and one guy bought a round of 16 shots of tequila. These people are all pretty fun. But they were going out and wanted me to join. Something to do on a Friday night? Rad!

The other night I got really sad about the fact that I was in Dallas. Poor Josh and Nelly Ryan had to talk to me while I was upset. I've really been kind of lonely since I've been back. I have my few friends here and I see them occasionally, but I miss all my friends in College Station. A lot. So to go hang out on a Friday night instead of sitting home and going to bed early was just what I needed. That, and more cowbell. I rawked the hawk for all my coworkers who had never seen it before. I met them all at this guy Keith's apartment and we went to Arriba's for margaritas and daqueries to start with.

There was a group of about eight of us, all heavy drinkers. I'm gonna toss some names around so don't get confused. Keith's stomach was upsetting him from his drink so he asked the waitress if she had any Tums. She didn't. And she was like 18 with a full set of braces. So when Willem's check came he wrote "No Tums, No Tip" and then blackened in a big '0' on the tip line. So as we're leaving this bitch is screaming out the back door, "Real fucking cool." And she obvious thinks it was Keith who wrote it ... who is now peeing behind the truck we rode in and thinks she's pissed that he's pissing. So we got out of there pretty quick and went to Suede. So weird. People just CRAMMED into a tiny bar, no dancing, just drinking. I don't see how people find that fun. But I managed to have an alright time talking to random people. I wish I'd taken my own car though, because when these guys get drunk, they look for a fight. They tried to pick a fight with some dude selling roses. I was like COME ON LET'S GO. It took forever to get back to my car.

When I finally did I was thinking, "Holy shit I don't want to drive back to Plano right now." So I start driving and recognized this street, Thomas, right away. And I'm like, "Oh, score, I am in Ryan Short's neighborhood." So I called his roommate, David, and found his apartment and then fell asleep in his bed. Good thing he didn't come home. So to you, Ryan Short, I say thank you. HA!

I have a bunch of pictures that I need to put up on here from the Miami trip and from orientation when we went to the top of a 49 story building downtown, but that will have to wait for another blog. Laaaaaaaaaaaaate.

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 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.

Last night was pretty tame. I sat around most of the night not really doing anything. You'd never guess by my behavior that finals are right around the corner. There was a party going on over at Julius's apartment last night that a lot of my friends were at. So my phone was ringing off the hook with people telling me to get over there. Which is flattering, but you all know how I feel about my phone ringing. Eventually Dustin and Trey came to get me, because I kept stalling.

I didn't go out earlier because I was over at Allison's looking at her new baby dog, Colby, whom I call Winky. This dog is cute and nice, but has a gimp eye, and a crazy streak. He kept spinning full speed and barking at the ceiling and then ramming his nose into the ground. And he sleeps with his head propped up on his nose. Too funny. I'm sure she'll be thrilled that I'm making fun of her new dawg.

So anyway, I eventually ended up at Julius's around the time the alcohol ran out. I had one cup of punch ... just enough to turn my tongue blue so I would fit in with everyone else. Naturally, I ran into Leslie, Rick, Ryan, Thomas, KYLE, Josh and Josh, among others, and have to mention them. However, I decided to put a little twist on their sudden SVC fame. Since I talk about them so much and there are so many names to remember, they will henceforth be referred to as The SideshoGang.

So I was standin outside talking with the SideshoGang when Leslie decided to tell me that my story about my first time on the internet wasn't funny. I don't know where she got the idea that this was an open forum, but nonetheless, she offered up her negative feedback. She redeemed herself only by laughing at my interpretation of Britney Spears "Me Against the Music" where I wonder why she's always singing about getting a p'zone. Speaking of, that does sound kind of delicious. But back to my story. Josh and Ryan scored points for the SideshoGang by saying the story was, indeed, funny, so they're back to a collective par. Way to go, gang!

I got woken up this morning at 4:00pm by Josh and Ryan telling me to open my front door. So I did and they shared gossip and stories from last night. One of the stories was that Ryan had spilled a big coke on his lap on the drive home, and had drenched his phone in soda. So it was not functioning today. He had a Nokia phone from T-Mobile, so I went into my room and got my old Nokia phone and said he could have it if he wanted. Because all you have to do is insert your memory card into a phone and it works as yours. His away message right now said that he was so excited about his new phone that he's going to name it SideshoViD. I wonder if that has anything to do with the front screen already displaying SideshoViD. Either way, I'm still flattered. Its like I gave birth to my own baby boy, only he's a gigantic baby boy who smokes and says 'shit' a lot. Y'know?

I was trying to update my webpage today, but I was at a complete loss for something to say. My notepad file full of future blog ideas has been destroyed (more on that later) so I was just kind of sitting around waiting for something blogworthy to happen to me. I was at a little get together last night over at Aaron's apartment drinkin some beers. Leslie, Ryan B., Josh, Rick, Josh, Thomas, Bob and Kyle were all there. These are the bitches who call me "Sidesho" in real life, so if I hang out with them and don't mention them, I know I'm gonna hear about it.

Anyway, it was good times, but left me feeling less than motivated today. Not hungover, just blah. So I didn't go to work. Instead I decided to go get my laptop fixed by the good people at Best Buy. Unfortunately, they told me what I already knew. I had to reformat. I am not really losing any precious data since everything I've done is backed up, I am losing some pictures and things I wanted, but no big deal, being a digital packrat is one of my least desirable qualities. What I am losing is hours worth of installation on a myriad of software, all of which I used very regularly both in school and work. That is going to be the worst part.

So my sick little laptop is lying in bed right now getting some AC power and reformatting himself. Poor thing, I hope he feels better once we get him up and running again. Dear god, I hope I can find my Windows XP CD. Anyway, now the serendipitous part of the story. I'm driving home on the backroads because I despise left turns ... so I'm taking Lincoln over to Munson. I knew they were residential streets so I was going like 30. Well, it turns out Munson's speed limit is actually 25, and there is a cop sitting there obviously waiting for people like me to drive by. I really wasn't surprised when I saw him turn around and come after me. I like never intentionally speed, but I seem to get pulled over a lot more than a person should. But I never get in trouble so whatever.

So I pulled over, and he was very nice. He asked for my license and registration. My registration was like a year expired, so I was like, "Oh god no, I have a current one, I'm sorry." And I hand him another without looking and he goes, "This one is two years expired." So we kind of laughed and I said, "Well I know for a fact there is a current one in here, just lemme find it." I eventually did. He issued me a formal warning for going 34 in a 25 ... which granted was over the ridiculously slow speed limit, but the cop was like, "I need you to slow it down out there, Mr. Fisher." But if I slowed it down any more, I'd be idling.

My life is a perpetual hangover. I would go into more detail on that statement and get philosophical, but you all know that is not what this webpage is about. What is it about?

Well, last night Dustin and Trey came over for an ice cream party. I had a craving the other night for raspberries. I may or may not have revealed this little fact before, but I will do anything for raspberries. If you're ever at the bargaining table with me, money's not very effective ... bring raspberries. I knew they were out of season, so they were a tad expensive, but they were sooo worth it. I brought them home and threw a handfull of sugar on top of them, and they just melt into this raspberry sludge that made me giddy. So, I bought some ice cream and put the berries on top.

Dustin, being Dustin, brought a bottle of wine with him and we sipped on that til it was gone, and then decided to go out. I got drunk and ended up leaving with Raul and Terysa and partying back at Terysa's crib. It was a lot of fun, but I woke up hungover again and my throat is on fire. I hadn't smoked all last week and it is amazing how quickly your throat gets acclimated to not being singed every hour. I met a bunch of people last night. Raul mentioned SideshoViD.com. Anytime people find out that I have a webpage, they immediately want to be on it. Even if they've never seen it and don't know the url. This was the case with Brandon, but I promised him, nonetheless, that I would mention him. Ryan Byrd showed up at the shindig as well. It's never a party without him. And Josh Sievers seems to think I don't talk about him enough, which is probably true. And naturally, if I mention Josh I don't want Leslie to get jealous. They were both out at the club last night, and its always a pleasure to run into them (don't worry, they're okay).

On another note, the money is still up for grabs. The picture that Sean got was of a guy with a really long braided rat tail. The guy deserves our derision, but he is not Padawan Boy. So keep snapping pictures! I didn't want Sean to feel bad, so I thought I would include his picture anyway. Nice shot, btw, especially considering it was taken with a phone.

Last little note: Thanksgiving is set for December 10th. That is the Wednesday in two weeks, aka the first day of the Dead Days this semester. You are all invited, however, I would appreciate it if you would let me know if you want to come. And in order to get in the door you have to contribute something to the feast. If you don't cook, a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, a case of beer ... all these are appropriate. I might also need another fold-out table or some chairs. That would depend on who is coming. I just can't make as many sides this year because I have a small crappy kitchen, whereas this summer we had a big kitchen and 3 of them right next to each other to use. It will still rule though because my turkeys are the best. Hope to see most of you there!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I am going to Dallas ... again. This time it is for Allison's brother's wedding. I'm not real big on weddings, but I sure do like free booze. I should actually be on the road already, but I'll be there soon enough. I might have to speed cause the weddings at 4. Shit happens.

I went out again last night with Dustin and Trey and their friend Josh. It was a lot of fun. The reason I mention this is because ended up back at their place and our friend Ryan Byrd came over. (This is a new Ryan, I gotta quit making new Ryans.) Anyway, he got a phone call and says "I'm over here with Dustin, and Trey, and David ... I mean SideshoViD." So naturally my ears perk up and I ask who's on the other end that would recognize me as SideshoViD. It was his friend Leslie whom I've met a couple of times. She said she goes to my website "every five minutes." So to thank her, a loyal Sidesho-Viewer, I thought I'd give her a shoutout. Big ups, Les.

Beat the hell outta Baylor. My prediction: Aggies 38 Baptists -7.