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.

Last night we were watching Planet Earth with RyanShort. He's only seen the BBC version narrated by John Hammond, and we've always told him how much better Sigourney Weaver is. I think it was Ice Worlds that we were watching and they were showing a hawk swooping in to kill some ptarmagin. I decided to relate to another episode where Sigourney refers to hawks as the fighter jets of the bird world. Only, I was going to jazz it up by saying, "Hawks are the F-16s of the bird world." Only, I actually said, "Hawks are the F150s of the bird world." I'm such a tard. So we had a good laugh and made lots of comments in our best Sigourney voices like, "With their four wheel drive and extended cabs, hawks truly are the F150s of the bird world."

Maybe my head was a little bit out of it due to the pumpkin pie martinis I attempted to make last night. We had one at the Bacarat Bar in Bellagio and it was so delicious that I asked the waitress what was in it and she said vanilla vodka, goldschlager, and pumpkin pie puree. So I combined all 3 and it was just terrible. So I added more vodka. When that didn't work, I added more pumpkin. When that didn't work, I added milk. By now things were way out of hand. I checked the recipe on the back of the can of pumpkin puree and you're supposed to add evaporated milk and sugar. Derrrr. We totally forgot to sweeten it. Turns out, pumpkin out of a can is pretty disgusting. I always thought you just spooned that into a pie crust and ate it. Someone should invent that. But of course, I was out of sugar, so I made some simple syrup out of brown sugar, ladeled in a few heaping scoops of the resulting liquid and then, the now full pitcher, held a delcious holiday concoction. Unfortunately it was way to thick and filling so we each sipped half a glass and washed the rest down the drain. But now that I know what I did wrong, i think I could make it again much better just by adding sugar from the get go.

In other news, I'm officially writing a cookbook. Not for the inevitable fame and fortune that comes with it, but because I want to be a guest judge on Iron Chef America. And as far as I know, writing a cookbook is the best and fastest way to get there. How hard could it be? If you've known me for a while, you should be able to guess the title. I can't post it here though because I don't want it to get stolen from me.

And finally, today, I think we'll close with a one-liner. My parents got their free slip-resistant covers for their Wii remotes, affectionately known as Wii condoms. But they only got two, so we have two with condoms, two without. Stephen asked me if I needed one with a condom, but I didn't, so I put the strap around my wrist and said, "You know what I always say. If you've got a strap on, you don't need a condom."

Good night everybody!

Daniel's Teeny Tini 23rd Birthday Party was a whole lot of fun. We spent the whole day preparing for it. Luckily, I took that Friday off from work. First we had to buy all of the liquor that was on my shopping list. Then we got Airon to come over and mix up four pitchers of what were essentially shots. He was clever enough to make them pink, orange, green, and blue. And we had rows and rows of teeny tini glasses that Airon also acquired for us and I filled them up in rows. I wish I had Daniel's camera to show you all. It was vury pretty. And they were all extremely tastey. T to the A to the STEY girl you tastey. Everybody slurped them down. I had enough in each pitcher to fill up all the glasses twice, so I don't think anybody was left wanting.

There was a great mix of people coming and going all night long. I was exhausted when it was over and I know it was really special for Daniel for everyone to come. He got some really great gifts. Like the autographed pictures of Kylie Minogue that Adam! ordered him. Or the portrait of Kylie Minogue that JennyCole hand crafted out of colored pencils, beads, and flowers. Truly amazing. And Kelly got him a book about cars and a year long prescription to Car and Driver. Ryan Short got him this really great set of bath spa stuff. I can't remember what else he got, but it was all good stuff.

And Katie wore my dress! And looked fantastic. I will definitely grab a picture of that and show it to you all. Biggest accomplishment of my life thus far. Every time I saw her I would yell, "WHO ARE YOU WEARING? WHO ARE YOU WEARING?" over and over again. Good times.

But I guess the most exciting news is that I'M MOOOVING! Daniel and I signed a lease on Friday for a first floor, corner, 3-bedroom apartment in Addison! Circle. Okay, so I'm just moving down the street, but it's still fucking exciting. We are going to have so much room. Guest bedroom, guest bath, family room, living room, dining room, big kitchen, huge master bedroom with a door that opens to the outside. We are moving on May 15th so anybody that would like to help us cart shit over there, it would be most appreciated. Or if anybody has any boxes I can borrow before then, I would also appreciate that.

I think sometime around my birthday (July 6) we are going to have a birthday/house warming/Kaboom Town party. I'll be sure to let you all know when that is. And I hope you all have a great week and keep out of the rain. Laaaaaaaate.

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.

Whew. Thank g*d that is over! No, I'm not talking about the holidaze; I'm talking about the plague I came through this week. On Xmas night, I went with Ryan Short to have a few beers, came home, went to bed nearly sober. I woke up about an hour later and the onslaught of vomit, et. al., began. It lasted well into the morning where I found myself so dehydrated and so weak I was unable to hold myself up to throw up anymore, so I just kind of rested my head on the toilet seat and then slumped to the ground.

Something similar happened to me once in college and I ended up getting carted out of the dorm on a stretcher and into an ambulance. So I figured that might be a good idea again. But my insurance company has a 24 hour nurse hotline that I'm in the habit of calling before going to the ER, because that shit's expensive. The nurse wasn't too concerned with my symptoms and taught me how to rehydrate myself without enducing more vomit. I wanted to share it with you all. If you throw up, you should wait an hour before you attempt to eat or drink anything. Then after one hour you can begin to drink one ounce of water every 20 minutes. I did that, threw up one more time, tried it again, and it finally worked.

So there I was at 8 in the morning, freezing cold, sweating, shaking, my lips are dry and my stomach is tumbling, holding onto a shot glass filled with tap water watching the clock waiting for the next time that I can start sipping my meager nourishment again. It sucked so bad.

But, 16 hours later, I had progressed to crackers, and 24 hours later, I was basically fine. Still, it was awful. But at least the next time it happens I'll know what to do.

Other than that Xmas was good. Lots of little kids. Five total nieces and nephews this year. It's a far cry from the adult-only Xmases of yesteryear where everything was accompanied by a glass of scotch. But it was fun to convince a toddler that a fat man with a sack of toys climbed down the chimney while she was taking a nap. I've never really gotten to do that.

I got a wine fridge for Xmas. My brother Michael from California got it for me. It holds 28 bottles! I'm trying to figure out the best way to stock it. I might just buy a case of my favorite wine and then fill in the rest a few bottles at a time. But shit, 28 bottles is a lot. So if you want to bring me some wine, feel free, I have plenty of real estate.

In other news, Daniel has been in California for a long time now. He met up with his old baby sitter while he was there (he grew up there). She is now married to the brother of the mom from Mr. Belvedere! I'm not sure how that fact came to light, but it's true. Beeeoooowwwwww Streaks on the china! He said they're going to try to get me an autographed picture from her. I would truly cherish it. He also said they're going to give her my webpage address so she can see my Mr. Belvedere montage. That would rule. So if you're her, then welcome! I'm a huge fan. And we just might live the good life yet!

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!

Any of you that have been to my residence in the past seven or so years have probably had the good fortune of witnessing the most beautiful coffee table ever created. It started out as a normal coffee table donated to my dorm room by a friend of my mother. One freshman year later and the facade was horribly damaged and the finish nearly entirely removed by spilt Everclear. I knew something had to be done, so I enlisted the help of my very artistic and talented friend, JennyCole, and soon ended up with this...

It's beautiful. It's creative. I love it. HOWever, it does not exactly fit in with the color palatte of my apartment. I had considered the whole space/ocean/mountain/sky theme for my living room, but instead went with tan and red. Considering Ryan Short and I are someday going to open up Tan & Red Designs together, it was a no-brainer. Anyway, the table holds a lot of sentimental value to me because Jenny and I did it together so long ago, so I knew I couldn't get rid of it. I thought maybe I could cut the legs off and use it as a wall hanging, but again, not really in keeping with my concept of "vintage Parisian." What to do? What to do indeed.

I've been using the table in my bedroom ever since the redesign. It sits directly behind the head of my bed and serves to hold my many extra pillows. You never know when you need to switch in the middle of the night to a softer or firmer or more Tempur-pedic pillow. It's a pillow table. A pillow-table? Solution! I present to each of you, the new and improved pillow-top coffee table. I used three blocks of foam to create each section and then covered the whole thing in faux leather vinyl stuff. After I stapled it down, I put a row of brass tacks between each cushion and then a border of brass tacks around the edge. I didn't think it would turn out showcase quality, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well I did. It isn't perfect, but it's perfect for me. I think it looks so cool. So fashion forward. (Sorry, I just got done watching Project Runway.) It was a fun little project, and one that I have a bruised thumb and several bleeding cuts to show for. You know me, my art hurts me so. I had to offer it up for your approval. As always, I'll entertain your comments as long as your comments entertain me.

My trip to Washington, D.C. and New York City is fast approaching. If you'd like to hang out be sure to let me know. I've already gotten word from JonSteed and Mr. Kenderdine. Hopefully, I'll be able to hook up with Topher in NYC. As an added bonus, the Monday after I get home from vacation, I will be jetting off to Seattle! You believe that? So if anybody is in the northwest, also let me know. Mr. Ryan Cloutier has already expressed an interest, but I should have puh-lenty of time up there, so I'd love some company. g*d, I'm such a jetsetter. I think it's bed time. Czech you sluts later!

Kelly went away for a while. When she returned, she brought with her a man named Alexander. Alexander has more money than you or I will ever see in 10 lifetimes. Aside from that little tid-bit, he's a really cool, laid back, generous guy. Him and Kelly get along really well. That said, I've had a few firsts as of late.

First, I broke the Sidesho-Land Speed Record. I'm not sure what it was before, probably about 100mph that one time Allison and I made it from College Station to Dallas in just over 2 hours. The new record is 150mph. Did I mention Alexander used to be a race car driver? He has some really awesome car, but I obviously don't remember what kind it is. The other night Daniel, Matt Cweech, his friend Sean, and I met up with Kelly and Alexander here in the circle. Afterwards, he took us for a spin down the Tollway. Treating lanes as if they were a mere suggestion, we weaved our way in and around traffic until we hit a top speed of just around 150mph. I was pretty scared, but it was such a rush.

Shortly thereafter, we were invited out to the boat. Yup, I broke the Sidesho-Water Speed Record. Can you believe that I've never been to Lake Lewisville? Or I hadn't, rather. Well, I have now and I must say the next time you get out that way, you simply must do it on a certified yacht. This thing had a little picnic table in the back, and a couch, and a bedroom, and a kitchen, and a bathroom, and it hauled ass too. It was so nice. He let me drive it a little bit even though I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. And when we were sitting out front on top of the boat, he would veer wildly trying to knock us off. I spent the whole day out there sipping on beers, chatting it up with Daniel, Hunter, Lauren, Matt Cweech, and of course, Kelly and Alexander. It was just a gorgeous day and way too much fun. I'm hoping we do that like every weekend.

I had to get those stories out there because I'm gonna have a different story to tell when I get home in a few hours. Daniel is about to take me down to see the doctor that does the Pillar Procedure. I'm getting that done as well as a turbinate cobilation (?). They're gonna stick foam pillars in my throat and shove a laser up my nose, essentially. Here's a link to that article Ryan Short wrote about me for the Dallas Voice. I don't think I ever shared it with you all. So wish me luck. It probably won't help me sleep, but it couldn't hurt. Ciao bellas.

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.

I've had this argument many times in my life. Mr. Kenderdine and I almost came to blows over it. It has become increasingly prevalent in my life because of the frequency with which my boss errors in his grammar. I am speaking, of course, about the answer to the age old question, "How are you?"

"Well" is an adverb. It modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb. "Good" is an adjective. It modifies a noun. I think we can all agree on that (although Ryan Short has already begun his rebuttal before even finishing my blog or determining my stance on the subject).

There are two ways to tell someone how you are. You can say, "I am           ," or "I am doing           ." In the first sentence, the blank is modifying the subject "I," which is a pronoun, a type of noun. You would then use an adjective to modify that noun, so the complete correct sentence would be, "I am good." In the second sentence the blank is modifying the word "doing," which is a verb. You would then use an adverb to modify that verb, so the complete correct sentence would be, "I am doing well," or "I am doing drugs."

The reason people become confused on the issue is because it is grammatically correct to say, "I am well." It is a caveat to the rule, specifically created for when you are describing your physical well-being (coincidence?). Without this exception to the rules, your third grade teacher never would have corrected you when you told her, "I don't feel good," as an excuse to get a drink of water and wander the halls. To say, "I don't feel well," would (normally) infer that your sense of feeling is inadequate -- that you either can't sense when your hand is on the stove, or you're a cold hearted bitch when it comes to relationships. However, with this exception, you are clearly describing your state of physical well-being. You don't feel well. There is something medically wrong with you.

If you don't speak in full sentences, and no one does because we don't have time for that shit, then the unnecessary assumed words are, "I am." If you're still with me at this point, you'll then agree that if your boss, friend or bartender asks, "How are you?" you should reply, "Good." Only if a doctor or nurse asks you, "How are you?" should you reply, "Well."

So if you're continuously using, "Well," or, "I'm well," with your friends, family and coworkers in an attempt to sound smart, instead use correct English and actually be smart. Please?

Good.

This month is shaping up to be a bit sparse on the entries. My apologies. But I did want to take a moment to let you all know that I have a third niece! Kelsey Lee Fisher was born yesterday. Michael, let me know if I messed that up, I've had a few beers since we last spoke. This is my third sibling to have a daughter once again putting me back in the lead for the most nieces of anyone in my family. I'm really excited. I haven't seen pictures yet, but I'm sure she's just beautiful.

Tonight I went to Ryan Short's holidaze party graciously hosted by Ben et. al. We drank a little, at some delicious food, and exchanged "secret" Santa gifts. I got Ryan a bottle of Grey Goose because honestly, I did some last minute shopping, and you can't go wrong there. Kayne got me a hair crimper harkening back to a conversation months ago where someone posed the question, "If I bought you a crimper, would you crimp your hair?" The answer? Yes.

My hair is now crimped and streaked with blue, orange, and red colored hair spray so I have to take another shower before I go to bed and it's ever so late and work has been ever so hellish even without staying up late, so tomorrow should be interesting. Wish me luck!

This has turned into the weekend from hell. They pulled what they glibly described as "the ol' bait and switch." My "3 day all expenses paid weekend in New York City" has turned into "working 18 hours a day in Queens while commuting from South Jersey all over Labor Day weekend." I'd have to say I rarely if ever get this pissed. It has just been a disaster. My boss and boss's boss and boss's boss's boss aren't happy about how things went down either, so without divulging anything that would get me dooced, they've promised to make it up to me. And I know they will. And while I'm here I'm working hard. I've just never been so slighted before.

It's all thankless too, that's the best part. So just in case any of you were jealous, which I know some of you were, because quite honestly, I'm awesome, this is one of those times when you can lean your lawn chair way back as you bask in the simplicity of your own living room. I'm having no fun at all.

So I won't even get to see New York City, besides what I see from the highways as I traverse my way from Jersey to NYC through toll roads, turn pikes, and bridges. The bridges here have tolls as high as 9 dollars. Insanity. I am making my way pretty well though. Today I was chatting with my sister on the drive home and took a wrong split in the highway and ended up in Williamsburg. With my limited knowledge of the city I was able to make it back to Queens and then start my trip over again. I kinda love the city itself. It's rather sexy. I just wish I could enjoy it.

Enough complaining though. I was supposed to come home the 16th and I just changed my flight to the 9th. They can eat me if they don't like it. I informed my boss that I was coming home early and he encouraged me to do so. It's so nice to have management that really and truly backs you up and is understanding and respectful. That's what's lacking here.

No NYC for me, but yay I'm coming home. I can't wait to be home. In two weeks I go back to the sleep clinic to get my Constant Positive Air Pressure (CPAP) machine calibrated. Another night in the sleep lab, ugh! The last one wasn't as bad as I thought. You know how I said I didn't sleep at all? Well I did. I slept for six and a half hours. I just didn't realize it because I rarely made it out of the first stage of sleep. I only hit REM for 20 minutes, so I basically have been getting about 20 minutes of sleep a night for the past decade. It's nice to know I'm not crazy.

The apnea though. Lordy, lordy! A normal 24 year old probably wakes up during the course of the night about 5 times for any range of reasons. I, on the other hand, again, because I'm awesome, wake up 70 fucking times an HOUR!1!! They classify that as "severe." No shit. And every time I wake up it is because I've stopped breathing. So I stop breathing 70 times per hour. I'll spare you the hassle of pulling up your desktop calculator -- That's roughly every 51 seconds. Not exactly conducive to sleep. But this CPAP stops that from happening, meaning I could hit REM for 8 hours in one night. Holy shit, can you imagine what a difference that would make in my life?!

A few people have separately expressed the same concern. What if my personality changes on account of this? Think about it. How much more easy going are you after you've just pulled an all-nighter? Just kinda lazily making through the day. Miles even commented that when he's really tired he gets loopy and funny. I'm like that all the time. What if when I'm well rested I'm a really serious asshole? Hard to imagine, I know, I know.

Anyway, I gotta go piss and moan a little more to my parents, I just wanted you all to know that I'm miserable, so you could at least feel a little better about your own Labor Day weekend. An ULDE:IYDKYDG this is not. THIS time when I get back I'm not going nowhere, no how. So all those parties I've promised you all, we're gonna have. Unfortunately medical costs have bankrupted me, but I still have enough $$$ to get bombed. So this weekend, Ryan Short specifically, it's on!

There is a new name for my 'new' hair-do. It's called the breeze. Ryan Short and I came up with it because it appears as though an invisible breeze is constantly blowing from the right. I'm a big fan of the breeze and plan to take it to extremes that rival my fox hawk experimentation. Tonight I went to a barbeque at Eddie's house with a bunch of peeps. It was decided that I have to crimp my hair. This guy said he would buy me a crimper if I would go out with my hair crimped. I'm going to see if I can get that started. How fucking funny would that be? Very.

I do need to make an appt to have my hair cut before AllieD's wedding. I'm thinking of going platinum, but I'm not entirely sure. I may let Xristofer have the final say since I'm always so damn happy with the results, but I am kind of tired of the dark. I can hide the fact that my blonde hair has grown out blonde highlights, but it's a little bit more obvious with the dark. All I know is that I want it to be so much longer than it is and I am convinced that it has stopped growing. Patience has never been my #1 virtue.

Had a pretty good weekend. Met lots of new neighbors that could be pretty fun. Drank lots and lots of beer. Watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith with no sound (review to follow). All in all, not too shabby. Tomorrow I go to the doctor to get my apnea fixed. I cannot wait. Plus, I'll leave work early. Hurrah!

Well hello there, everybody. This is Sidesho reporting to you live from Ryan Short's fabulously newly painted apartment ... oh, and also drunk as hail. He was supposed to wake up and drink more with me when I got home but that has proven unpossible. Me fail English?

So tonight I had planned on going out on account that I do not have to work tomorrow. RAWK! But then, lo and behold, I get a call from the callbox of my apartment and it is JennyCole and her mother. They had been at the Kaboom Town hoopla hosted by my gracious landlord and wanted to cool off. Okay, no problem. But then they managed to convince me to join them for the fireworks. More and more, as the years pass, I have found myself less and less interested in the traditional festivities dictacted by every holiday. I couldn't have cared less whether or not I saw fireworks. (Although fireworks do hold a special place in my heart since when I was little my parents used to tell me that the fireworks were in honor of my birthday.) So, I find myself on the top floor of a parking garage watching fireworks. In their defense, it was the best finale I have ever seen in my life. Probably 5 fireworks a second for about 5 minutes. RAD!

After that, we eat at a piss-poor restaurant inside Addison Circle and then I go home. Turns out, every fucking road in Addison is a parking lot. At this point, I've resolved myself to not go out, on account that I cannot leave the parking garage. A few IMs with Ryan Short later, I am on the road bound for downtown Dallas. It was rigoddamndiculous getting to the Tollway, but when I finally did, we were en route to JRs. Keith and Lauren and some girl named Katie that I met for the first time tonight (?) joined us. I managed to get drunk as hail between 12:30 and 2:00am. But that couldn't possibly be enough for me, right? Right?!

So I took Ryan Short home to his beatiful and newly painted apartment and proceeded to drink some more when disaster struck. We are out of cigarettes! Unacceptable when plastered. So he goes to bed and I walk my happy ass to the 24-7 Wally Mart nearby to get some. I talked to my lover Marshall the whole way there. That was fun since I haven't talked to him in 4-eva, and he claims to have blonde hair now. So anyway, I bought some squares, as Joseph would call them, and then walked home to find Ryan - surprise - passed the fuck out and me drinking alone.

So there we are. By my records, I have made zero grammatical mistakes. You're more than welcome to double check that assertion. You'll notice that when I'm drunk I just ramble; I don't skimp on the important stuff. Please don't forget that my birthday is on Wednesday. No one that I know of has made any plans for me, so I think I'm going to take Thursday off of work and go out Wednesday with Andrew. I'll definitely keep you all posted on that. Later sk8ers!

Is it weird that after I get done tanning, the smell eminating from my skin makes me hungry? Somebody back me up on this one.

I got carded on the way home buying cigarettes at the discount tobacco store, and then the old Indian man went on like a 5 minute explanation of how I have a baby face and that means that I am a good person inside because a good person's features never change. I was like, "Thanks, Vishnu, can I have my smokes now?"

So I've decided to push back my Australia trip to July 7th through the 15th. That means that I will be here on July 4th and my birthday July 6th. Tomorrow is Justin's birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN. Hurry up and come to Dallas and bring me my belt. I saw a chick in a bar wearing one, and I simply must be the first to have one in my social circle or else the novelty will wear off.

This Saturday Ryan and Todd are coming over from Arlington to play drinking games with me. Thommi might come up. Lesbie Ann might come. I'm going to invite Will and Lindsay too to make it a royal college reunion. Ryan Short is bringing Robert and I'm going to see if Lil Jarrod wants to come. Party at the 735 square feet of fun! Damnit, now I have to clean. Anyway, if you want to come, let me know.

I almost forgot, today at work I switched my keyboard to Dvorak. I'll let you all know how that works out for me.

Nothing else to report. My days blend into each other as I drudge through the monotony of a job well done. Czech you skillets later.

My brother went to some flea market in Humble and found a vendor with a bunch of belt buckles. When he saw this one, he thought of me and bought it for me. Luckily I still have my old cowboy belt to slap it onto and I wore it out on Friday. I called Stephen to tell him I was pimpin' the van buckle but that I couldn't tuck my shirt in or else I'd look stupid. He said, "Then just tell your friends about it when you see them and show them." The first thing I did when I got to Ryan Short's apartment was lift up my shirt and say, "Did you see my belt buckle?" and when he started laughing, I followed it up with, "Idn't that wild? You ever seen anything like dat?" Wouldn't you know, I ended up saying that to everyone I saw on Friday ... and Saturday. Idn't that funny how alcohol can bring out the obnoxious catch phrases that are living inside you, dying to get out? Idn't that wild? I just wanted Steve to know that I do like the belt buckle and I definitely did make sure everyone saw it.

The other thing I wanted to show you was my new Beethoven bust. When we were in Wisconsin we went to my grandmother's old house and were invited to loot anything we wanted. This had been on her piano for many, many, many years. I just knew it would look awesome on my shelves in my living room. I think I was right. It adds just a touch of class. This morning I got a productivity bug (also known as a hangover) and decided to touch up the red paint in my living room that I originally put on the wall months ago. Now all the edges are cleeeeaaaan. I still have to do my entire bedroom, but I just never got around to it. I will probably do that in the coming days. Well, that's enough for the picture pages. Hope you enjoyed your visit to my apartment (and my crotch).

I can only assume I did not win the HGTV Dream Home. Alas. To console myself, I decided to beautify my own little space just a little bit. As you all know, I've been collecting wine bottles for some time now with this grand idea in my little head about how I would arrange them fabulously atop my kitchen cabinets. Today, I got the last two bottles I needed, and the gumption to git'erdone.

What do you think? Say nice things about it. And by "nice things" I don't mean "bitchy things followed by less-than-threes." I spent my entire afternoon and evening putting together my new decorations. I must say thank you, thank you, thank you to Ryan Short for helping me buy those little pewter-inlayed shelves with my Pier 1 gift certificate he got me for x-mas. It just wouldn't have pulled together with out it.

Since I had my camera out, I took a quick pic of Tuna's new tank that I told you all about. It's just a little bit more sophistocated, a little bit more Tuna's taste. He was always a little bit patronized by the rainbow castle, so I could see his sigh of relief when I inserted this shroom-tastic rock. Literally. Little sigh bubbles. Then we high-fived.

I watched a really long special tonight on Prader-Willi Syndrome. It's this biological disorder where your brain will never tell you that you are full. In fact, you are in a state of constant starvation, not only mentally, but your body acts accordingly. It would be like if you were stuck on an island for 2 weeks starving and then someone walked by with a steak. You'd do anything to get that steak. That's how these people are every minute of every day. Can you imagine? This dude was like 400 lbs and he JUST got done eating and said that he was doing everything he could to not immediately eat again.

I don't know why I felt inclined to share that. I just thought it was fascinating. I rounded out the evening watching MRIs of people doing the dirrty on Discovery, and everything you never cared to know about booze on the History Channel. Best St. Patricia's Day EVER!1!!!

Dear all you bitches who said I would get fired,
I got a raise today.
Har dee har fucking har.
Love,
Sidesho

In fact, my year-end review said that I was doing "outstanding," had "exceeded all expectations," and had "received praise from co-workers both in and out of [my] department." It's kind of hard to argue with that. And that's in print, bold-faced, and in my permanent record. So to everyone who scoffed at me going in late 6 months in a row, everyone who turned their nose up at my mid-day naps, anyone who thought noon was too early to call it a day, and the nay-sayers who thought skipping a day was grounds for immediate termination, I say sit on it. I'm doing an outstanding job. Besides, you can't hold it against me that I'm as much as three times more productive than the average human.

The only thing my boss said he was worried about, concerning yours truly, is that I would be quitting relatively soon. He said I have too much education and potential for this job to hold me longer than 4 years. He doesn't know I was planning on quitting Tuesday. But, he does make a good point. I am terribly bored with work. But you just can't deny how sweet it is to land yet another job where I do what I want, and the allure of making that into a career.

Oh goodness, look at me going on and on about myself. How dreadful. You all KNOW how I hate to toot my own horn.

My workouts are going well even though Mr. Kenderdine has fallen "ill" and I've been flying solo every day this week. Except this time I'm being literal; I have gone every day this week. Even though I am still morbidly obese, at least my arms are muscular enough to lift my fat ass off the ground. Hopefully Febrehabruary will take care of that. (I changed the name from Frehabruary to Febrehabruary. While they both look fine in print, the latter is definitely easier to speak aloud.)

Did you notice my grammatically correct usage of the semi-colon in the paragraph above? My grammar book (Eats, Shoots & Leaves) is positively fascinating. I am learning so much from it. And its fuuunnnnny.

Allison left for Australia yesterday. I hope she likes lederhosen and wienerschnitzel, ja. JKJK. I'm not much for sloven goodbyes, but I did get her a picture frame that said "Best Friends" along the top and then "Sydney July 2005" along the bottom. When I saw it on the shelf, I thought it was so appropriate and definitely freaky that they were mass producing them. JKJK again! I had it engraved. That's my new thing. You're nobody unless you get an engraved gift from me. Except for Ryan Short who got a kickass DVD stand. That was from the heart. Anyway, back to Allison. She'll be gone for a year but I'll see her this summer, so that's not too bad. I wish her the best ... shrimp on the barbie.

I bought a big bottle of pomegranite juice. It's called Pom. Much like every other juice ever produced, it claims to be really good for you. I'll tell you one thing: it's fucking delicious. If you are just joining us and aren't familiar with the fruit, search my site for it. I have a great explanation somewhere in the past. The only downside of the juice is that it was 10 bucks for something the size of a cranberry cocktail. That's too expensive to have it on my permanent online shopping list, but a definite treat now and again.

I think I'll end on that note because I'm rambling a tad. I miss you all and apologize for my continued unpluggedness. We'll all get through this soon enough. Peace out, my little have nots. I love you all.

First things, first. Happy Birthday Ryan Short! So yay. We spent last night celebrating said birthday, which may be why I didn't wake up until 2pm today. Just a hunch. Ryan said that all he wanted was beer, pizza, and a few friends. So Sean, being the clever little devil that he is, organized a dinner down at the State and Allen Lounge consisting of discounted pizzas, domestics, and a whole slew of friends. It was a really nice time. After that we went to JRs for a smidge and then to S4.

When we went into S4, half of the No-Fun Room (aka the Non-Smoking Room) was all corded off with bouncers guarding the entrances. I thought maybe some big movie star like Richard Gere or Tom Cruise might be there. Turns out it was the cast of Bravo's new spin-off makeover show, Queer Girl for the Straight Lesbian. Mmmk, not only does this show not live up to its predecessor, but it takes dumpy nasty girls and has a lesbian give them fashion tips. It's just not good, sorry Bravo. And the cherry on top? It's been on the air for all of two weeks. I hardly think they needed to rope off an area for the 'stars.' If somebody hadn't pointed them out and had they not been sectioned off, I would have NEVER recognized them, and I've seen every episode.

That being said, we were standing in a group as they paraded into their "VIP" section, and I stood and watched each one walk by. That is, until the one I like walked by, so I stuck my hand out and introduced myself to him. I don't remember his name. Don't care. But he did say it was nice to meet me. You can see here in the artist's depiction of the scene what happened. I'm such a celebrity magnet its, like, not even funny.

The reason I am online is because I brought my work computer home for the weekend. I'm probably going to get in trouble for chatting and checking email and stuff on it. Then again, who am I kidding, I could burn down a building and get a slap on the wrist. This week I have to go out to DFW Airport for a few days to install some controllers I programmed. I despise wearing a hard hat, but at least on this job site I get a bright orange vest as well. Ugh. The things I do for money. Speaking of money, I wonder if I have any left... Later skanks.

I hope everyone had a vurry murry Xmas. I know I did ... and I don't even believe in jebus! My preggers sister and her hubby and my brother, his wife and baby daughter all came to town. My other brother in California couldn't make it this year. It was a blast opening presents, especially watching Kaylyn open hers. I got some pretty good booty, and since everyone else is doing booty posts right now, I wanted my own booty post. (I think it's stupid to call it booty.)

I wanted to make it easy for you all to skim and see what I got so I made this kickass picture of my stuff. What you see here is:

1. trashcan for my bathroom
2. proper wine opener
3. silly bottles of peppers for my kitchen
4. wine from the Sierra Foothills
5. three sizes of cookie sheets and a pizza sheet
6. space heater WITH remote control ha!
7. little wooden rubber band powered airplane?

All that and a bag of chips. And by "bag of chips" I mean a "fat check from my parents that will pay for half of a plane ticket to Australia and cements the fact that I am really going." So exciting. The greatest gift was my family going to church without hassling me, guilt tripping me, or even inviting me. I was overwhelmed by that gesture.

I'm not sure what's on the slate for New Years but I'm pretty sure I am going to run around Dallas with Ryan Short. If anybody would like to join hit me up before then. Ugh, I have to work this week. That's going to suck. Czech you sluts later.

Could Ryan Short's Holidaze Party been any better? Absolutely not. His apartment decorations were so cute, they even had me in a festive X-mas mood. Either that or my new red scarf from the Gap. And by the way your mom says hi.

We did a Secret Santa exchange. I drew Lil' Jarrod for my recipient. I got him a double chambered flask with his name engraved on the front. I think he liked it. Ha. Sean Wardle got me several pairs of argyle socks. He learned during our trip to College Station that argyle socks are one of my favorite things about life. And these are nice socks. I'm not being facetious or anything. The first time I put a pair on I thought o myself, "Damn, these are nice socks." He also got me a T-shirt espousing the virtues of the Cavalier - The Champagne of Cars! I rounded out the evening drinking a whole bunch of wine and just a few sips of the candy cane martinis. Thanks for another fabulous party Ryan!

You've all seen the List-Eater, right? The chick who cut in line to pull tickets for the Cotton Bowl and when she was challenged with the list of people who had been camping out for 4 days, she ate the list. When I heard about it, I chuckled. But then Brianne up in Chicago sent me the video. It was then that I realized I know the List-Eater! She's Michael Wise's fiance. He is in my major and we used to work together back when I was doing that NASA thing a few summers ago. That made it absolutely hilarious. [Click here] for the official List-Eater video. I sent it to everyone in my office today and they all thoroughly enjoyed it.

And our final piece of news. I signed up for Netflix! It was spur of the moment. I saw a commercial for it and logged on and signed up. I now have 86 movies in my queue and I rated over 400 movies. I didn't really think I could have possibly seen that many movies since every movie I've seen I've seen about 4,000 times. Go figure. I should be adding a lot to that list soon as I'm going to make a habit of watching a movie every night instead of whatever crap happens to be on TV. As soon as I start getting my movies shipped to me, I may start reviewing them on my website. We shall see.

Alright sluts, I'm gonna go veg out for a while longer. Hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

What a week. What a weekend. What a time to be alive! This weekend I made the trek to College Station once again to celebrate Thanksgiving as well as Allison's graduation and bon voyage as she prepares to move to Australia. On the way down, I called Brandon to see how he was doing and he convinced me to swing through Austin and pick him up. That was a fuck load of driving in one weekend (with the traffic jams, I was in the car for 12.5 total hours this weekend). But, it was worth it to get to hang out with Brandon.

We arrived in CS on Friday around 10 and got ready to go out to Halo. Good times, good times. I had a completely empty stomach so I was trying to take it easy, which eventually didn't happen, but I did behave for an uncharacteristically long time. The next day we joined Allison as soon as the hangovers subsided and went to buy last minute supplies and a keg. I dropped even more money this weekend. Shit. Finances are in a dire situation. Dire meaning that I can't buy new jeans tomorrow if I want everyone to have a X-mas present, not dire I can't pay the rent. Even so, my lifestyle is compromised.

The party was a raging success, if I don't mind saying. We did a Trash Can Grab. This was new to me. We had a trash can full of ice and water and everyone brought a little something to throw into the trash can. Then you had to reach into the black abyss and drink whatever random alcohol you pulled out. At first, I thought our alcohol supply, which involved a plethora of wine from dinner, a keg, and the trashcan, was overkill, but we ended up drinking all of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Allison for being a most wonderful host, and thanks again to Dustin and Trey for putting me up for the weekend.

In other news HAPPY 20th BIRTHDAY, #27!!!!1! Our little David27 is growing up, chronologically at least. This past Saturday, Dec. 11 was his 20th birthday. He's not a teenager any more. Congrats on surviving two decades. Mwah!

This week I have a Secret Santa party at Ryan Short's and a Nieman Marcus office party with Ryan Short. Then I'm not doing anything. Nor am I ever going out of town again. If you ever want to see me again you'll have to come to Addison.

I hope I don't piss any one off with this next comment, but I can't help but think about everyone taking finals right now... and how stressed out they must be, and how tired, and overworked, and sick of it, and just wanting to be done. And then I kick back, stretch out, open another beer, and sigh audibly. It is so nice to not be in school. I can't believe it's been six months since graduation. Time sure flies when you're skipping work. Peace out, sluts!

As many of you, undoubtedly already knew, when I described the plans for Thommi's 21st Birthday as, "nothing too ornate or elaborate," I was being completely perfidious, hoping Thommi would read it and be further thrown off of the fact that I was planning a surprise party. The true story goes a little something like this:

When Thommi and Dan were here last weekend, Thommi said something along the lines of, "I've always wanted a surprise party." And I replied, "Yeah well it isn't gonna fucking happen, so you can forget that. Besides, who would we invite? You don't have any friends." Okay, at the time, I was just being mean, not calculating, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I might able to pull it off. I only had 5 days, though, so I made some quick decisions about when and where it would be and started making phone calls. You all know how torturous it is for me to talk on my phone, so I was really proud of myself for maintaining my cool as I called old friend after old friend and told them to get ready to par-tay. An e-vite naturally sealed the deal. The party was on Saturday night and I told everyone to get there at 8:00 knowing that everyone would be fashionably late. I had hoped to trick them all into being there before 10:00 when I was bringing Thommi over.

Sean Wardle accompanied me on my vacation. What a fun road trip partner! He's going back next week for Thanksgiving as well. Hurrah! So it was Sean, Dan, Thommi and me getting ready for a fake night out on the town while my gracious and ever so wonderful hosts, Dustin and Trey, held down the fort. Trey, Sean and I had spent the afternoon running around town buying a keg, some liquor, and about 20 bucks worth of streamers, flags and balloons from the Dollar Store. The apartment was decked out ... and all in pink. I'm sure the guy that rang us up at the store thought we were throwing a party for an 8 year old girl. Well ... kinda.

So Sean and I took Thommi and Dan out for a nice birthday dinner, all the while doing everything we could to stall our little engagement. We didn't want to raise suspicions by making dinner too late, but we knew that 4 hours to kill was going to be a lot. By the time dinner was over and we made it back to Thommi's apartment we had two full hours to kill. I'm so glad Sean was there to help. First we laid around and pretended to be nonchalant about the whole affair. As Thommi was getting impatient, we started out on our plan to eat up as much time as possible doing hair. I did mine first and then Thommi's. Then Sean went. He must have spent about 45 minutes in the bathroom fixing his hair. Hilarious. Then I did Dan's hair as well ... anything to kill more time. At one point, I literally walked in slow motion.

My phone is blowing up all evening -- very uncharacteristic. But I'm answering every inquiry with terse responses to not raise suspicion. Still the whole thing is fishy. Around 10:00 Trey texts me to tell me that only 10 guests have arrived so far of the 27 who RSPV'ed. g*d damnit! We dragged our feet some more until Thommi was getting visibly annoyed and I received another text saying that 17 people had arrived. That was enough. On our way we went.

The whole thing was planned down to a T. When we got close, I called Trey and asked him what the gate code was, which was actually just code for, "Hey, we're close." He got everyone organized, and when we arrived at the door, I knocked Hullabaloo and took a step back. As soon as the door opened, Thommi looked inside to see a mass of gaudy decorations and a throng of people and took three steps backward. In my favorite quote of the evening, I grabbed his shoulders, gave him a hearty push, and yelled,

"GET IN THERE, YOU ASSHOLE!"

Haha! Surprise! He had no clue. It was so great. A few more people came and went as the night dragged on, but I was very grateful to everyone that showed and helped us empty the keg, the vodka, the wine, and the bottle of Johnny Walker Black that AllieD and Jamey brought me as a gift (having read my Thanksgiving post where I said that's what I was most thankful for. It pays to blog!). Needless to say I got shitcanned, everyone had a blast, we went to Halo for all of 10 minutes after they'd stopped serving, and got a couple waters from Aaron. WINK!

All in all I'd say it was a rousing success. I was more than pleased with the results considering Ryan Short didn't help me plan it one bit. This next weekend is Thanksgiving, ya'll, we're gonna do it up Gill 'n Al style. So get ready for your e-vite to that shit. And one last thing:

PICTURES!

Dan, Sean, Thommi and I as we enter the party. This was after I pushed him through the door. Some people likened his reaction to that of the plastic keg cups, but you can see here, the photographic evidence of a fleeting smile. Good ol' Glarin' Thomas.

Sean, Dan, Thommi, me, Luke and Rob pose for a group shot. Check out those kickass decorations in the back. Those represent a lot of standing on stools. I'm sporting the Surprise Hawk, a hair-do I invented just for the occasion.

Whew let's see if I can name everyone here. From left to right as best I can: Dan, Sean, Jason, Dustin, Bob, Phillip, Luke, Me, Noah, Rob, Allison, Thommi, AllieD, Jamey and Owen. This isn't everyone who eventually came, and doesn't include Trey behind the camera, but I think it's a really cute shot. Oh yeah, we also bought some princess crowns, in case you're wondering whats on some of the heads.

Sean and I pose for a quick Team Dallas picture. Sean entertained himself by making snide remarks about the lack of concierge and valet services throughout town. He'd do JUST fine in College Station.

Bob, me and Dustin pose for a quick one. We had such cute keg cups even. I'm not entirely sure what Bob is doing here, nor do I seem to mind.

And finally, the princesses of the ball, Thommi and Dan. I think they both had a really good time and were genuinely surprised, which is what it was all about. The other thing its all about is my hair there in the background. RAWK!

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!

Last night was another party on the roof of the Block in Uptown. All of my go-to guys had other engagements for the evening so I thought I might be forced to show up to the party alone. I would have called someone there and had them meet me downstairs to maintain the appearance that I have friends, but still, I didn't want to put up with that. Lil Jarrod to the rescue! He IMed me asking if I was going to the party and I invited him to go with me. He had his friend Lil Josh with him, so they drove over to my house and then we carpooled to the party.

This is a picture of Lil Jarrod and me at Brian's party a couple weeks ago. He was drinking champagne from the bottle and I was trying to teach him not to by demonstrating how trashy it looked. But then he started fighting back just as Ryan Short, unofficial photographer of every social event in the city, popped up. I love this picture and wanted to share with you. The party last night was pretty off the heezy. There were probably about 300 people there and the guy hired bartenders and everything. Although, I would have to say that it took twice as many people as ULDE:IYDKYDG to have half the fun. I'm not biased or anything, though. The cops came to the party or something because Brian insisted we all go downstairs to another apartment to hide. I'm not really sure what that was all about, but we had a grand time down in Brandon's apartment. Laughed a lot there. I passed around Lil Jarrod's phone number and had everyone on the porch texting him with lewd messages while he sat on the couch 5 feet away. It was really funny ... for me. I had such a good time with Lil Jarrod ... it was the first time we'd hung out together mutually sober for any period of time. Will have to do it again post haste.

I got to see Kyle from College Station last night. He was at the party. That was fun. He might be moving to Dallas. That would be awesome. He's also avidly following my pi progress, which is always fun. I also got to meet Myke with a 'y'. I think I'll change the spelling of my name from David to Deighvyd. Myke was cool. He doesn't button his shirt and he doesn't care. Also got a chance to talk to Miles who has his own website. You can click his name there if you want to see it. It's no SideshoViD.com but I respect anybody with their own domain. Also talked to Kevin last night, but that's a story of it's own uhhHUH-HUH-HU-HUHUHUUH.

Lil Jarrod confirmed my suspicions last night that my blogs are becoming obnoxiously long. Maybe I should update more often so I don't have so damn much to say. I'm sure all of you just skim, which would explain why I never get any comments. Oh well.

BIG NEWS!!!1!!! I got an apartment! I move in October 9th. Pictures, floor plans, details, etc coming soon.

The party on Friday night was a rousing success. We estimated around 150 guests all told, which exceeded even my optimistic predictions. There were a few bumps in the planning process, but nothing that couldn't be overcome. I left work early (duh) and headed over to Ryan Short's apartment. We decided to go to one of those always christmas stores to buy lights to string around the roof of Ryan's building since there is like no light up there. We made it to the store and bought 4 strands of light, though in retrospect we probably could have used even more. Oh well, we can always get more before the next party. Brandon was on his way to Dallas with his parents for a wedding and I was supposed to go to Northpark Mall to pick him up since he was going to be dropped off there. But as soon as we got back into my car, I turned the key and heard nothing. No click, no groan, no squeak ... nothing. My car was dead.

Being the easily exciteable person I am (yeah, right) we called AAA and ordered a tow truck and then called Sean Wardle to come pick us up. Thank you, Sean! We also made arrangements for Brandon's parents to just drop him off in the parking lot we were stranded in. After a quick jaunt to the corner convenient store for Powerade and cigarettes we sat and waited. Brandon's parents came. His dad, being a super nice guy, popped the trunk and diagnosed the problem as a dead battery. His mom, being a horrendous bitch, called me stupid. They thankfully left and we waited for Sean and the tow truck. Sean arrived and took Ryan home. Brandon and I waited for the tow truck. This fat black guy with all gold teeth comes roaring through the parking lot not even slowing down for speed bumps. But he ended up being one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He concurred with the battery diagnosis, towed me to an Auto Zone, went into the store with me while I bought a battery, and then put it in there for me. We were back in business.

Once we got back to Ryan's we lugged the two kegs up four flights of stairs, got those tapped and iced down, strung lights around and sat and waited for the guests. There were only about 8 or so people there around 9:00 when the party was scheduled to begin and I casually remarked to Ryan, "Did we put the cups out yet?" To which he replied, "What cups?" Ahhh! Two kegs and no cups ... that's like having a carton of cigarettes and no lighter. David Spielman saved the day by stopping and getting cups on his way. Then the party started picking up.

Certainly by midnight things were in full swing. I dedicated myself that night to introducing myself to everyone I could and making sure that everyone I was in a circle with knew each other. There were so many friends there I could hardly mention them all, but Allison did show up with her crew. I was excited to see Kerin. I also got to meet Christine's co-googleworker, Lindsey, who has been a loyal Sidesho-Viewer since she first overheard Christine's laughter. It's always nice to meet a viewer, though sometimes it can be creepy, she was very classy about the whole thing.

The only thing that marred the night whatsoever was one group of guests. They mistook our evite to a swank uptown soiree as an invitation to drink two bottles of vodka, show up to the party trashed beyond good taste, be exceedingly rude to my friends and guests, vomit in Ryan's kitchen sink, disrupt the party in a desperate attempt for attention, unplug our decorative christmas lights, become irrational and violent towards their host, ignore several polite requests to remove themselves, and try to ruin the party for everyone by dialing 911 to report underage drinking. I guess next time we should be more specific about the nature of the party. As this person was pressing "send" on his cell phone to alert the authorities that we were having a good time without him, Ryan did the only logical thing he could. He grabbed his cell phone and threw it from the roof of the building to the streets below. I can't say I condone his actions, but it sure did seem appropriate at the time.

The second keg floated around 1:30am and while I drank a little while longer off of a hidden stash of emergency liquor, the party pretty much dissapated when the beer was gone. I spent the night on the best palette ever made by man on Ryan's floor with Brandon and the next day the three of us cleaned up a pretty good mess. I would say that this party was one of the best I've been to, even though you all know how much I despise tooting my own horn. Really, I wasn't to blame for the success. Ryan set up all the party plans and made sure everything was on schedule. And the rooftop of the Heights was the perfect sized party venue and the weather could not have been more agreeable. Will have to have another rooftop party post haste.

In other news, if any of you are still with me, my brother and sister are in town for Labour Day. Stephen brought the baby with him, but I've barely gotten to see her. They're at his wife's family's house right now. I went to go work out today while the family went to church (sue me) and when I was done I decided to get lunch at the gym. They have a really nice little deli counter there. I stood there trying to decide what I wanted and just as I was about to order this big black guy butts in front of me and yells, "GIMME ONE OF THOSE TURKEY PANINIS I LIKE THOSE TURKEY PANINIS." And I'm about to make some snotty comment about how I was about to order, but he's so big that I decided to let it slide ... lucky for him. Well then some random dude walks in and goes, "Michael, how's the competition on the basketball court today?" and it was then that I realized I had just been cut in front of by Michael Irvin. So now that I know he works out at my gym, if anybody needs crack, I totally have the hookup.

Thanks to all of you who showed up to ULDE, my pity to those who couldn't make it. Until next time, take it easy ... and if it's easy, take it twice. Peace out, sluts.

This weekend I made yet another trip to beautiful College Station, Texas. There were good and bad things about my little vacation. Instead of dividing them into two categories I thought I would alternate between one good thing and then one bad thing to keep things all evened out. Starting with the good, naturally.

I got to leave work at 2:30 on Thursday because I had finished everything for the week, which means I got to take a Friday off for free! When I got to College Station, Marshall didn't want to go out and refused to even attempt to have fun. But AllieD was rarin' to go so we got all sloshed and had a rip roaring good time. The next morning I was completely hungover. So Allison and I went to see Napoleon Dynamite and it was really funny. That night I was ready to go crazy at the bar but got completely stood up by Marshall. Allison came to the rescue after I stopped by a party of hers and took her out to Halo. It was completely dead there. 27 showed up. I rounded out the evening back at the party fairly bored and not drunk enough. The next day I got see meet up and go out to lunch with Tommy. I was supposed to go see his new loft downtown when he got off work at 5, but despite knowing that he was home he refused to answer the phone and let me up and I haven't talked to him since. But he lives next door to a bar, so I spent that time drinking beer and talking to the hippies at Revolutions. I wanted to make a shirt like the one that Napoleon wore in the movie, but I ultimately couldn't find the right supplies. So I went back to Marshall's and took a nap. He never called me after he got off work, despite the fact that I put gas in his car that had been sitting empty on the side of the road for a couple of days. I had plans of my own, though, since Brian (Allison's fab friend) and his roommate James were having a party. I was still pretty hungover from my previous days' binging so I really couldn't drink a lot. And the highlight of the weekend, Chris came to the party.

End the pattern. Did everyone notice it alternated good and bad? (I color coded it after the fact.) I didn't even have to try, because the good and bad was chronological it turns out. But yeah, seeing Chris was really good. I miss that kid so much. It's a lot easier to forget that when I haven't seen him in 6 months, but seeing him again brings that all back. It was a good time though. Maybe I'll see him again in 7 years when he graduates from grad school. Raul and Rob accompanied us to the party. That's always a good time. Brian and James have the coolest friends. It was an excellent party. Other highlights included seeing Justin McK and Charlie at Halo, 27s friend being delightfully nice, and Texas Toothpicks. Other lowlights included not seeing Stino, 27s other friend being dreadfully rude, and Marshall leaving for "lunch" while I was still in bed on Sunday and then never ever coming home. I don't think I'll be going back to College Station for a while ... not without reason.

Tonight I went swimming. It felt so good. I realized I haven't been out of breath or felt my muscles burn in months! I felt just like Michael Phelps. Oh great, now everyone googling for pics of the speedo-clad Phelps are going to end up here. It probably won't help that I'm about to say gold medal Athens 2004 Olympics. (After typing this, I've decided to make tricking googlers into coming to my site a permanent feature on my site.)

Last business to discuss. September 3rd: ULDE:IYDKYDG. Ryan Short, Brent Wager, and I are throwing a party to celebrate a day of Labor Pains. That stands for Uptown Labor Day Extravaganza: If You Don't Know, You Don't Go. If you would like to come, leave a comment, and IM or an email giving me your email address and I'll make sure you get on the e-vite list. And with all the e-vite list theft going on around town, you'll probably be invited to several subsequent Dallas parties as well. I'm expecting some College Station folk to attend. Also, October 2nd: Stephen Lynch and Mitch Hedberg, the two funniest men alive, performing together at the Paramount in Austin. I'm buying tickets this Saturday so if you would like to go, let me know. Tickets are $35.

I hope you all have an alternatingly good and bad time this week. And remember ... if you don't know .. you don't go!

There is nothing like Neil Diamond to make rush hour traffic an absolute joy. I am in the best mood now. I was jammin out on the way home from work to my new two disc set. I bought it because I was wearing my Neil Diamond concert T this weekend and got many comments on it, which made me start thinking about how I wanted to hear his music. One guy, as we were walking into Jason's apartment complex, accused me of not even knowing who Neil Diamond was, so I launched into a few drunken verses of Forever In Blue Jeans, Kentucky Woman, and Love on the Rocks, to name a few. Sure showed him. HA!

I bought the CD at the Borders in the West Village. Silly me, I never even knew the West Village existed, and Ryan Short lives so close to there, and I used to work like right there. They have some of the best stores I've seen since I left Miami. I wanted to buy a whole bunch of stuff, but decided to save a little bit of money instead of blowing it all on clubbing clothes. I did buy one shirt for 40 bucks, though, because it's totally hot and it was half off. Half off, but I got a whole shirt. It's awesome. I can't wait to sport it this weekend when I'm in College Station, make all you bitches jealous.

Yes, that's right, this is probably your final reminder. I'll be pullin' into CS on Thursday night, depending on what time I can feasibly slip out of work on Thursday. Since I'm skipping Friday, it might not be such a hot idea to leave at noon again like I did last time. I can't wait to see everyone, but there are some things on my agenda. I have to hang out with Christopher before he trucks back off to Yale. I'll be spending as much time with him as I can. I have to go out with AllieD before she trucks off to Austin for the weekend. We have much to discuss ... and by 'discuss' I mean 'drink.' I have a party to go to with Brian and James, Allison's new crew. That's on Saturday night. Anyone and everyone can go with me if you'd like, I put myself down for 20 guests. I also need to see Tommy's new apartment ... now that I know he hasn't been ignoring me for the past few weeks. He hasn't even had internet, so someone else is on all of his accounts. If it's a Sidesho-Viewer, what you're doing isn't very nice and I think you should stop. It made me think Tommy hated me, as preposterous as that sounds.

I went apartment shopping this weekend with Ryan Short. I really want to live in Addison Circle, but they were at like a 98% lease rate when I went. That means that there are no good apartments left, and the ones that are left, they have absolutely no incentive to cut me any specials on. I was pretty gung ho about moving out but now my spirit has been crushed. I gave the lady my email address and told her to give me a heads up on any upcoming vacancies. I know I could go live somewhere else, but you know me. Once I decide I want something, I just can't settle for something else. Instant gratification, people, it's what makes the world go 'round. Rest assured, though, loyal viewers, I am fully intending to move out of my parents' house, perhaps in the near future, as my rent budget may swell.

Work goes on. Life goes on. Beers go down. Not much else to say. I love you all, and look forward to seeing everyone in CS this weekend. MWAH!

Last night was delightful. I got to go to Clay's house in this magical neighborhood surrounded by castlegates, drawbridges, magik and mystery. He had read my blog on having too many items in my pockets (07/24/2004: My daily inventory) and brought me a stylish euro man bag from Spain! How cool is that. Thank you, Clay, I copyright my new man bag. He also brought with him a bottle of the forbidden, therefore more desirable, Absinthe. The way we drank it was so cool. First you put some in a glass with ice. Then you take a spoonful of sugar, dip it into the alcohol, and then light the spoon on fire. As the sugar melts you let it drip back down into the glass. When it has sufficiently melted, you stir it all up until it's milky and add water. I really enjoyed my first experience. In a nutshell, it tasted exactly like liquid black licorice. Nothinkg to write home about ... but certain something to blog about.

Work today was so pointless. I know that my work ethic is a well known and often lamented fact of engineering lore, but I honestly believe I'm a hard worker. When I have something to do and it needs to get done, boy howdy, I'll get it done for you, and quick. I'll even work late or through the night or on the weekends if it needs be. What I don't do is show up early in the morning to the ghetto to sit on my hands for 5 hours pissing and moaning about the way things are run. I didn't do a fucking thing all day. Oh well, I guess things could have been worse. One thing I noticed today is that the number one goal of everyone on a jobsite is to pass the buck. It doesn't matter what hasn't been done or who was supposed to do it, "It ain't my job."

And a lot of times, people will use the phrase, "... and I told [insert name here] this ..." I heard that about 100 times today. Example: "What we were contracted to do ... and I told Andy this ... is not to run wires." As if having previously told some third party who is not present or involved suddenly adds credibility to your statement. I just think its stupid, and I told Trey this, that I had to wake my ass up at 6am every day this week, yeah I'm doin' the controls down in Oak Cliff.

Tomorrow is my father's birthday. I got him the Die Hard trilogy DVDs and a Winnie the Pooh DVD for when Kaylyn visits. They've been collecting Disney movies for years now in the event of a grandchild, but I don't think she's quite ready for an entire plot, and everybody loves Winnie the Pooh. I just wanted to get him something grandpa-ish (assuming he is going by grandpa and hasn't been renamed Paw-Paw or Pee-Pee or Poo-Poo or something). I also decorated his cake tonight after dinner. I watch Martha do it so much that I thought I would be good at it. I spun that cake around as I smoothed out the icing. Then I did a cool pattern with pecans on top and crushed up some pecans and stuck them to the side of the cake. I worked so hard on it and I was so proud of myself. When I stepped back to admire my work, it looked as though it had been done by a retarded third grader. I should just avoid entirely doing anything with my hands. Well...

Tonight should be fun. I'm ready for anything, and I told Ryan this, so we're going to go to a party. Catch you skillets on the flip side.

Today was a productive day. I probably haven't mentioned my co-worker, Trey, in my blog as much as I have in real life. Trey is awesome. He's an old rednek with no formal education who is a jack of all trades. He's helping to train me at work. He talks ... really ... ... ... slow. It's awesome. He also happens to have pi memorized to 1250 digits. Today I made an Excel spreadsheet that would check him 10 digits at a time, and I sat and watched him successfully enter 500 digits in a row before I finally decided that I really wanted to go home. I told him I would memorize it out farther than him ... I'm up to 32 digits now. Don't believe me? 3.14159265358979323846264338327950, bitches. If you would like to race me on memorizing it, download my pi Excel sheet here.

This weekend was too much fun. Friday, I went on my lunch break at work ... and then decided that I really didn't want to go back. So at 1:00, I hit the road for College Station. Technically when my boss said, "Leave whenever you need to," I think he meant anywhere from 4:00 to 4:30. But you just can't say something like that to me and not expect me to take full advantage of it. I got into College Station around 4:00 and went straight to Hobby Lobby to visit Marshall while he worked. After a little bit of that I met up with Allison, her friend Brian (who is fab squared), and JonSteed for some evening cocktails. I picked up the tab because I have money and I spend it recklessly.

Halo on a Friday night, man I miss that. They were having some wicked drink specials, so after the nine of us drinking on my tab finished up, the total was only $50. Allison brought her friend Brian from earlier in the evening, and he in turn brought his friend James, who tried to open a tab behind my back, but I got it transfered to me. JonSteed came against his wishes because I promised him free drinks. Marshall and I got buck wild. Raul made a grand appearance, and Justin made his presence known. We definitely got our 50 bucks worth, drinking and dancing the night away. But you know me, my faithful Sidesho-Viewers. That's just not reckless enough for me. So I drunkenly vowed that on Saturday night, I would have a $200 bar tab. Everyone thought I was kidding ....

The next night when we went out, Marshall jokingly referred to my 200 dollar proclamation, to which I replied, "Let's do it." More drinking, more fun. Despite our best efforts, the total came to $85. In my defense, James was bartending, and being the good friend he is, he told me that he had "hooked me up BIG TIME." So jebus knows how much we actually managed to spend. It was way too much fun though. After the bar, Dick was having some people over to go swimming at his apartment. Raul and I swung by Marshalls for the half bottle of raspberry vodka I had purchased the day before and managed to drink that while wading in our underwear until 4am. It was crazy, crazy drunken fun. The kind of fun business professional people do not have. I can't wait to do it again soon.

Speaking of segues, I think I will do it again soon. I got a call from Chris, the boy who goes to Yale, for those of you who are bad with names. He was in Plano last night and he got to come by my house and then I gave him the full Plano experience by going to chit chat outside Starbucks with overpriced coffee and chain smoking. He is in CS through August and I will most certainly come back sooner than planned to visit him again before he whisks away back to the east coast. It was really good to get to see him and have a chance to sit down and talk about everything that's gone on in about the last seven months. Another reason I need to get back to CS in the near future is that I really need a haircut. I'm not backing out on my decision to never cut my hair again, but my last hair cut by the fat bitch at Toni & Guy was so bad that it's just not growing out right. So I'm going to get Hannah to fix it for the long haul.

The final piece of news is that I got to swing by Humble on Saturday from about 1:00 to 7:00. I went to see my 2 week old niece, Kaylyn. That was too much fun. She was sooo small and so cute. I got her some socks, a blanket and some shoes. I told you all how much I love shoes on babies, right? G*d, that cracks me up. They are too big for her at the moment, but I can't wait until she grows into them. She was so funny. She doesn't really have control of her arms or legs yet. She kind of flails around without rhyme or reason any time she gets upset. So when she yawns and her pacifier (otherwise known by its brand name, Soothie) falls out of her mouth, it is a challenge to get it back in her mouth before the screaming starts. Every time you get close, she knocks you out of the way. So my brother does this thing where he grabs her tiny hands and kind of holds them to her chest and says, "Let's get organized!" It was way too funny. Visiting Kaylyn will definitely have to be a priority in the months and years to come. I was thinking about going out of town for my 3 day weekend over Labor Day, but Stephen, Rachel and Kaylyn are coming to Dallas to visit, so I'm modoubly staying for that. Plus, I think Ryan Short is having a party, so all you College Station boys should come up for that. Start making plans.

This blog is ridiculously long, but I had a lot to say, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. My call to action is for each of you to post your thoughts and experiences with pi, big bar tabs, and tiny babies. Until then, peace, my friends. And good night.

Yay! My brother's wife had her baby today! I'm so excited. I don't know any of the time or weight or anything, but he said that she is just fine. Her name is Kaylyn Mary Fisher. I might need to double check the spelling on that. My parents just left to go see her, but I didn't really want to go and I've already made my plans to go. So the weekend of July 30th I am going to drive down to College Station after work, party balls, get up and go to Humble, see the baby, drive back to CS, party balls, and then go home. It's the perfect plan.

I suppose I should get the baby a birthday present, but I usually just get my friends a fifth of vodka or a carton of cigarettes ... not sure what the infant equivalent of that is. Maybe I'll get her shoes. Babies with shoes on crack me up.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do last night since my go-to guy, Ryan Short, claimed he was going to stay home with mud butt. Then out of nowhere, Dustin and Trey IM me and say they wanna come to Dallas and party with me. So fun! We stayed in this Motel 6 down off Highway 30 and they had like mad security, so we asked about it. The parking attendant was like, "Ohhh yeah, they've had a lot of problems with prostitution around here lately." Haha, so we stayed in a whore house! Rad!

I gave them the grand tour of Dallas, and showed them all the pertinent sights: JR's, Round-Up, The Village, TMC. We had a blast. They drove to Ft. Worth today to help some girl move, not sure what thats all about. And tonight one of my co-s is celebrating his last weekend in Dallas cause he's being transferred to Kansas City. So I'll probably have to go to a straight bar to wish him well. I'm not sure what I am going to do the rest of the day. Maybe I'll swim, maybe I'll rent a movie, maybe I'll be on the computer and suddenly realize that its midnight. I'll be sure to let you know which one I choose. Peace out, have nots.

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.

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.

I hate working. I mean, while I'm there, it's not so bad. Sometimes the hours absolutely drag by and sometimes I'm done before I realized it was getting close to quittin' time. I have another piece of flair the Nazi's make me wear. This one's a cell phone. My whole life I have hated cell phones clipped to belts more than I hate Jessica Simpson (and her little sister now too). But, in keeping with the theme of turning myself into all the things I've always despised, I wear it obligingly. It's way too big to keep in my pocket because its one of those Nextel walkie-talkie things -- which I also hate.

Some other things that suck, and then we'll move on to more fun topics. We're getting this etiquette class three times this week and basically all they needed to do was hand out a piece of paper saying, "David you don't belong here." They presented themselves as this ultra-hip, young cultured company, but now they're impressing on us the need to look like mission control engineers from the 1960's. Fuck that. I'm not taking out my earrings. That's ridiculous. All I do all day is sit in a cubicle. And they keep saying things like, "If you're not married yet, when you do get married you'll want to eat with proper etiquette. And guys especially when you take a girl out." I know that's petty, but they make comments like these all day long constantly ... everyone does. It would be nice to not feel alienated for like five minutes.

So the fun topics I promised: This weekend, my first weekend in Dallas, could not have been better. Ryan Short was having a party Saturday night, and I was on the ol' invite list. I went over to his house early so I could get ready to go out without the criticism of the matriarch. I helped him put lids on the obscene amount of jello shots and then people started showing up. JonSteed from College Station just happened to be in town and called me to see if I was doing anything, so I invited him to join me. I was grateful for him being there since I only knew a few cats and it was a little intimidating. There were like 70 queers sardined into Ryan Short's apartment. It was great. But it did get a little stuffy and hot (I should take a look at his HVAC system) so we moved the party to the bars. Starting off at JR's, JonSteed and I proceed to drink Pink Cape Cods like they were goin out of style. Then we stumbled over to the Village with a couple strangers and danced and drank some more. Neither of us remember the rest of the night clearly but I think it ended with us buying a shot and not having enough money, so we left.

Not much else of note happened, but hazy stumblings and drunken ramblings with people we did not know. We made it back to Ryan's where he and his brother were waiting for us to take them to ... where else? ... Whataburger! Fantastic. I spent the night at Ryan's cause I'm a lush and my mother didn't want me to drive home if I'd been drinking. I was happy to oblige. The next day we woke up and went to visit Ryan Short's friend, Greg, who lives in Addison Circle, where Ryan thought I might like to live. He was RIGHT! I fell in love. That's totally where I'm moving when I can afford it, which should be shortly. My first paycheck comes tomorrow -- can't fuckin wait. After we ate lunch and toured Greg's apartment we went and met up with Brent to go to a movie. So Ryan, Greg, Brent and I all rode to Stonebriar and met up with Chris Jones to see Stepford Wives, which I did not want to see, but I did want to meet new friends so I went. IT SUCKED. Real bad. Don't see it. Anyway, I just wanted to graciously thank Ryan, Greg, Brent and Chris for such a great time.

So that is what has been going on. Once I move out of my parent's house and get my own dedicated internet connection, I'll probably be more prone to get back into the updating swing of things, but as it is, I have precious little time to plug in and I don't always want to spend it narrating the past. But do keep checking back and emailing me and stuff, all the contact with my former life is a good thing. Peace out, have nots.

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....

I am so lucky. I'll give you twenty-seven guesses as to why but you'll only need one. These past couple weeks have been some of the best in recent memory. It's nice to have a constant partner in crime who likes to sit and watch home improvement shows and smoke too many cigarettes. I'll rip your face off and chop it in a million pieces.

In other news, Allison made reservations for us to eat at Christopher's on Friday. For those of you from out of town, Christopher's is the only nice restaurant in like a 100 mile radius. I'm really excited cause I've never eaten there before. Her parents said we could go eat there as a birthday present. Get excited! Then she bought tickets for us to see Starsky and Hutch but I already promised Marshall I would go see this band play at the Groove. We're gonna have to remedy that situation. I talked to Marshall and he was cool with it even though he said he wouldn't be if I tried to back out. But whateryagonnado? For my graduation Allisons parents are gonna pay for us to eat at Messina Hof. How fun is that? Maybe I should remind my parents that they didn't get Allison a graduation present and see if we can go to P.F. Changs in Houston or something.

I really want to go shopping before all the boys from Dallas get here on Saturday but I doubt I'm gonna have a chance. Ryan Short had so much fun during his night here out at Halo that he convinced like 10 of his friends from Dallas to come down and stay in a motel and get shitcanned College Station style. We're gonna be sure to show them how we do. Chevy is coming into town on unrelated business so I'm sure she (and hopefully Ms. Sonia as well) will join us in our revelry. If anybody else wants to join in just let me know. I'm planning on drinking on Saturday from about 7pm until about 5am. Which means this one will be on beer all night as to monitor my alcohol intake, since Aaron always tries to kill me and almost always nearly succeeds.

It's like 5am and Im just now starting to get to bed. Shouldn't have taken that nap tonight after waking up at 2pm. Oh well, I had fun doing it ... SO fun. Catch you sluts lata.

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?

Have any of you ever seen anything like this before? I ripped the top off of this beer can with my teeth. I had to dig it out of the trash this morning and bring it home from Tommy's to take a picture and show you all. We were all sitting around drinking when Marshall bit the top off of his damn beer can as though it were nothing. And we were all naturally impressed, so he taught everyone how to do it. If you're interested I can totally show you how to bite the top off a beer can in 3 easy steps.

Chevy was in town with her friend Sonia who goes to A&M. Even though she's a freshman, she has managed to become the front page editor of the Battalion, our school newspaper. It has been a 5 year goal of mine to be on the front page of the newspaper. That and to be on the jumbo-tron at a football game, but I totally achieved that one.

I was totally supposed to go to Dallas last night for Ryan Short's birthday party (HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN) but several factors kept that from happening. It was storming and everyone who was supposed to go with me backed out. And I fear leaving town, especially alone in the rain. So yeah, there was drinking and dancing and all those antics last night, but mostly I just wanted to tell you all how cool Marshall is for being a ninja. I think I'm gonna go work out with Tommy tonight. Neither of us could move our arms yesterday, but I think we're good to go now. Until then...

Well I'm back in College Station for a couple of days taking a sabatical from the holiday cheer of Plano. I was there for 3 days and that was enough for me. The first thing I did was put in my fake lip ring for when I first arrived. My mother went absolutely ballistic over it so I immediately had to reveal the joke whereas I had planned on wearing it all day. That kinda let some of the air out of my balloons, but it was still funny.

The next big fight was when I dared to walk down the stairs with my fauxhawk rawkin. My mother blew another gasket. She sure doesn't know how to pick her battles. Its not like we had company or anything, I was just going to sit around the house. So that was fun. I went upstairs and played guitar until my brother came home and took me with him to B&N. Oh speaking, the big news, I am going to be an uncle. Rachel, Stephen's wife, produced a couple sonogram pictures of the baby in her tummy. Thats exciting for us, even though she won't be able to participate in the booze cruise.

On Christmas we didn't exchange gifts, which, I gotta tell you, was the best Christmas I ever had. No shopping, no worrying, no wrapping, no fighting crowds ... just a family gettin together to play cards and drink liquor. I had my first taste of Courvoisier, and second, third, fourth, and fifth. I'd have to say I was a big fan. We played some Oh, Hell with everybody, ate some desserts with family friends and then went to bed.

The next day I went to see JennyCole and her family. Thats always fun. Then I went downtown to hang out with Ryan Short. We rode the rails to the Angelika Theater ... a new experience for me, v. classy. Then we ate at the cafe and saw 21 Grams. Worst movie ever ... don't go see it. Even though the movie was awful, I had a wonderful time. The next morning I woke up and drove home. And here I am. I spent last night drinking Coronas and Keystones with Josh 'n Tommy cause there was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. It was fun.

Just thought I would fill you all in since I've been rather sparse in the updates in comparison to usual. I will be leaving tomorrow for the cruise and you won't hear from me until after the new year, so I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful new year full of drunken spirits and sloven kisses. Cheers!

I've been putting off this blog because its going to be pretty long and I haven't really had the time to sit down and type it since I've been home. As you may know, I went home to Dallas this weekend. There's no need for pretense so we'll just jump right into the story. I got home on Friday evening and saw my mother briefly. My parents were going to Oktoberfest in Addison Friday evening and then leaving for my cousin's wedding in Denver, CO the next morning, so I really didn't get to see them. No bother though, it actually worked out better that way.

So Friday night I met up with Clay and we went to a housewarming party in Highland Park. It was the coolest house I've ever been in. It was three stories tall with four bathrooms, a huge backyard deck, beautifully decorated, a media room upstairs, and a room with some really expensive X-Men comics in it, which I appreciated. I got a little bit drunk, but we left early because we knew we were going to be getting up early on Saturday to go to Six Flags. And thats just what we did.

I woke up around 10 on Saturday and showered and got ready and Clay came and picked me up. We met up with 4 of his friends downtown and headed out to Six Flags. Has anybody been there recently? We got this thing called a Q-Bot which essentially allows you to wait in line electronically. It cost us like 60 bucks between the 6 of us, and you take this little thing around with you and you lock into rides. And it saves your spot and beeps you when its your turn to ride the ride. And then you just walk right up to the front and get on, while all the have-nots look on in disgust. It was SO fun! We got to ride every ride in the park without once waiting in line. Its actually genius on so many levels though, because if you're standing in a line for 2 hours, thats 2 hours that you're not spending money. The Q-Bot freed us up to walk around and buy shit all day long. I really only spent money on water the entire time, so I didn't lose too much. I did get my knife confiscated at the door though, that was pretty funny.

Anyway, then everyone was planning on going out, but I, naturally, had to go home and shower. I was exhausted by the time I was ready to head back to Dallas, but being the trooper I am, I managed somehow. I called up Ryan Short to see if he was going out and he was, so instead of going back out with the group of new friends I'd just made, I called and left them a message saying maybe I'd see them out and went to Ryan's. Good thing I didn't rely on them, too, cause apparently they went home and fell asleep for the entire night. Anyway, Ryan and I got ready and picked up his friend David Spielman and went out downtown. We started out at JR's and the beers were not really making me feel well, so by the time we went into the Village, I was ready to just sit down. I was really falling asleep. So I did just that. I have no qualms, people probably just thought I was rolling to hard anyway. But I wasn't a total drag the whole night, I got up and danced a little bit although I didn't drink anymore. By the time we ended up at a late night restaurant watching these two scarf down chinese food, I was about to fall asleep on the table. We finally got back to Ryan's around 4 and I just crashed there because I was too tired to do anything else.

The next morning Ryan made some delicious pancakes, I borrowed a shirt (it says Texas is for Lovers and I liked it so much that Ryan gave it to me -- THANKS!), and we went back downtown for the parade. It was so much fun. We were catching beads and stuff. Ryan took an assload of pictures, but he took them with film (who does that). So as soon as he gets some scanned in, I can put them up here for you to enjoy. The parade was nuts, we ate some lunch. After the parade there was like a political rally and the people for Howard Dean were there. I got a button for my bag. It looks quite striking next to my peace propaganda. After that we took a nap and then I hit the road bound for College Station.

All in all it was one of the most fun weekends of my life. I really needed that. Thanks to everyone who was influential in making it happen. In other news, I pulled some handi-capable tickets to the game on Saturday against Pittsburg. Allison and I are going to be on the front row of the second deck for a game that is going to be televised on ABC. We want to wear T-shirts that spell something out, but so far all I can think of it either "GO" or "TX" or "AM". Any ideas? I'll tell you one thing though, it'll be nice to be sitting through all of those damn TV timeouts. I predict we will win 67 to 12.

And in international news, I've decided to leave the country. I'm not sure when, but lets just say ASAP. My new dream in life is to move to Germany and get a job writing technical documentation for German companies auf Englisch. I guess in reality it would be better if I could be a straight up translator, but I'm probably at least a year away from that. I used to be almost fluent, but not so much these days. Anyway, I think that's about enough blog for now, thank you for your patience, you have-nots. Laaaaaaaaaate.

I'm headed back to Plano right now. My brother, Michael, is in town from California, and since I never get to see him I thought I would mosey on over. His wife's little sister is marrying one of his best friends. I don't care for weddings, especially of people who aren't immediate family, so I've forgone the invitation, but I am sure I'll see everyone involved over at mi casa.

A couple of shoutouts before I go. This blogging thing must be contagious. I see friends' blog popping up everywhere ... and not like Keiff's adventures in blogging that lasted two days, I mean real ones. So, if you ever get bored of mine, you should check out [Owen] and [Ryan Short].

That's all for now, folks. Have a wonderful weekend and I shall return on Sunday.

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.

Big news everybody. Say it with me now all together, "SCREW YOU AOL!" HA, we don't need 'em anymore. And you know why? Cause we've got

SideshoViD@sideshovid.com

Oh yes, you read it right. We're becoming more self sufficient every day, my friends. Along with this comes the news that Hit-O-Meter, my long time counter service will be going offline in August. So now I'm gonna use my own cgi counter that will be self contained inside my webpage. I know I say it often, but this time its really true. Some very exciting things are happening at SideshoViD.com!

Whats new IRL tho. Not a whole lot. Class has become a secondary thing since I took a test on Monday. I think I may be coming down with something because I sleep far too much to be a normal person. But I haven't diagnosed myself with mono just yet. I'm still gonna give it some time to just pass on its own.

I'd like to take this opp to thank Steve for helping me test my email and sending the first ever email to SideshoViD.com. And likewise, I'd like to thank Ryan Short for being the first ever to receive an email from SideshoViD.com. (I got the incoming working way before the outgoing.) These men were a part of history today. Hopefully a long and celebratory history. I'm just a little too excited, so I think I'm gonna go update the cast page like it badly needs. Excelsior, you have nots!

Well today was fun. About a week ago we were assigned a speech for my SCOM203 class. If you'll recall, it was supposed to be over a significant historical event. I pissed away my time trying to think of a really stellar topic until it became the day before it was due. I finally had to just pick a topic, any topic, and start writing the speech. I chose the murder of John Lennon. Not that I'm a huge Lennon fan, nor did I particularly care for the Beatles, but I wanted to do something with music, I respect the man and his work, and there weren't any good sources over John Denver's death.

I feel it necessary to give thanks to a couple of people. First Ryan Short for helping me get started, figure out a killer intro, teaching me about ethos, pathos, and logos, and telling me to just shut up and write the speech. Also to Allison who let me come over at like 11:30 to help/encourage me to finish my speech and then listen to me read it a few times. I ended up finishing writing the speech and the outline I used to speak from around 2am. And I got up this morning at about 8 to get to school, print it out, and practice it. In fact, that reminds me that I used my ftp to transport the files, so if you would like to read my speech you can do so here.

I managed to memorize the thing in a little over an hour this morning and was feelin good when I got to class. There were 8 people speaking today and I was fifth. Some of them were clever, a couple were well written and a couple were even pretty good speakers, but all of them before did nothing but bolster my confidence that I was going to do fine. And I did. I didn't studder or mess up or anything. I'm pretty confident that it went well, I'm just hoping my outlines and stuff are in the proper format so I can get full credit there.

My friends in my class were very supportive of my speech, which was flattering. And we all know I do like to be flattered. My friend Adam leaned forward after I sat down and said, "And you hadn't even picked a topic until last night? You bastard." And I made a new friend today, Nadia. She volunteered to work the camera so she was sitting right next to me. I think I like summer school, everyone's so much friendlier, I think. Or maybe just I am. Oh well. Catch you skids later. Give peace a chance.

Sadly, I don't have a lot to update you on. I think Plano exists directly under an anomaly in the space-time continuum which allows time to move at like a third the rate it does everywhere else.

But that will all change soon because I am leaving for San Francisco at around 6:30am tomorrow. Well, thats when we're leaving for the airport. We're taking off at like 10:30 and landing around 11. Time zones are so weird. It should be fun, and you, the loyal Sidesho-Viewer, will be the first to hear about it.

In the meantime, I've been hanging out at the mall. I got the new Kylie Minogue CD. It's pretty good, I haven't listened to the whole thing yet. That's what road trips are for. I have also seen some of my P-town friends. I went to Martinez Cafe with Ryan tonight, just like we used to EVERY day in high school. It was fun. I won't be posting for a couple days, but you can still visit my page if you like. Laaaaate.