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

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

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

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

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

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

It's been a while since I've updated. My apologies. I just returned from Las Vegas celebrating my brother Stephen's 30th birthday. It was a pretty big deal. The entire trip was kept a secret from him up until I took him and his wife to the airport. And then on top of that, it was another secret that me and my other brother, Michael, were on our way to the airport separately to meet and surprise him with our presence. It was pretty fun sneaking up behind him in the casino while he played video poker. After so many months of preparation, it was such a relief for the big reveal.

So we spent two days gambling, drinking, laying out by the pool, having some very fine high dollar meals, and seeing the Beatles LOVE show. Highly recommend. Also highly recommend Planet Hollywood. It's recently been redone and it is so nice. Nicer than the Bellagio, in my humble opinion. Crazy times.

His birthday was a little bigger deal than mine. I tried to keep the invite casual (I wanted to type "cas" as in short for "casual" there but I'm not sure how to spell it). I didn't even have a place for people to RSVP because I didn't want to get excited that anyone was coming. Daniel was kind of annoyed with me as we got ready to go out to the bar because he was hurrying me along and I was saying what's the point, no one's coming. He was like you always get this way on your birthday. So we got there, and DJ iMernex had reserved us a table. And then we sat. And sat. And sat. And no one came. Daniel was frantically texting people trying to get them to come to no avail. Finally before I called it quits I texted Keiff cause he had said he would try to make it after moving all day and he was on his way over. So hurray! Saved the day. Then we blew that hot dog stand and invited Lindsey over like we should have all along. Lesson learned. Next year, no party ... he said again.

My Harley riding coworker got in a really bad motorcycle accident this weekend. He has two broken ankles, a broken femur, broken ribs, and road rash. I think I need to go get some safety gear before I ride anymore. I'm paranoid now. Not that I wasn't before, but you get the point.

So good times, not much to report from the real world. Gearing up for Australia, dreading the 14 hour flight. But definitely excited. I'll keep you posted.

I successfully rode the Vespa to work this week. It was a little unnerving at first, but once I got going, it was pretty comfortable. It did highlight the fact that I need to buy some gloves. 50 degrees doesn't sound cold until you're moving through it at 45mph. My hands hurt by the time I got to work. But I did it. On the way home it was so windy that I had a hard time balancing, so I found an alternate route home that took me entirely through residential streets. It took nearly 45 minutes, but it was way preferrable to braving the high winds on a major thoroughfare. I only did it one day because there has been questionable weather and high winds predicted every day this week, but I think it could become my main transportation throughout the summer months.

Daniel has been in Atlanta all week. Sunday was his birthday and he had to fly out for some training for his new job. Unfortunately, by the time his flight landed he was sick. He's had to miss out on most of the activities and just lie in bed. Being in a different city for work is bad enough. Not being able to drink must make it near unbearable. He comes home tomorrow though, which I'm pretty excited about. TV isn't any fun to watch when no one is there to hear your snide remarks.

Speaking of TV, I made another as-seen-on-TV purchase! Stephen's daughter's birthday is coming up in July and he said she would really like the Roll 'n Grow. The commercial shows a green foam pad that you roll out, water, and then an insane amount of flowers bloom from it. I hate to disappoint her this early in life by her finding out that not everything works like they show in the commercials, but I also hate to disappoint myself by not buying it for her. So I had to get it. She'll be excited to open it I'm sure. And as with every stupid purchase I make -- who knows? -- maybe it does work. We got on the topic because 20/20 did a big scientific study of Kinoki Pads. The bastards must have been reading my blog and stealing ideas. They couldn't get the company to produce any lab results to back up their claims. But I think the most telling demonstration was when they put distilled water on the pads and they turned brown. No labs could find any traces of toxins or heavy metals or whatever else they claim. Too bad, I was really hoping this would be a cure all for the human race. I guess the hunt is still on.

So I need another suggestion for TV purchases. The AeroGarden that Thommi suggested it a wonderful idea. It's a little expensive for an impulse buy, but then again, my birthday is just around the corner and I do love getting myself a little something special.

I need to go clean the apartment. As I guessed would happen, my intentions to keep the apartment pristine while Daniel was away failed miserably and now I have to make up for it within the next few hours. Late.

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!

Last night I went to a work party. After eating some dinner and socializing for a few minutes, it was right up stairs to play Wii. I think the Wii will probably affect adult parties more than childrens. Bowling and tennis are just too much damn fun. I'm kind of surprised my Wii arm isn't sore. Good thing because that also happens to be my slots arm. I'm leaving for Vegas in a few hours, and I'm not going to lie to you. I'm feeling awfully slotty.

Real quick, though, I gotta tell you what's even better than the Wii. Rock Band. I think it's only out on the XBox 360, or at least it's not out on the Wii. I went to a Rock Band birthday party and we played all night. It is so much fun. There are vocals, guitar, bass guitar, and drums. And the drums are like a massive controller. And then it's just like Guitar Hero where you follow the little colored bars on the screen. Except the vocals, all you have to do with that is stay on pitch at the right time. I feel like such a loser because I've never liked video games before, save Tony Hawk, but now I find myself getting obsessed. Not obsessed enough to buy my own, that costs money, but totally into it, for sure.

Last bit of news, have you all heard that American Gladiators is coming back?! It's hosted by Hulk Hogan and Muhammad Ali's daughter. I think her name is Tatiana. You can go look at all the new gladiators if you google their website. My brother, Stephen, sent me the link and said his favorite one is Fury and I found myself agreeing. You just can't beat a pony tail coming straight up out of a grown woman's head. I was frankly a bit surprised that Wesley "Two Scoops" Barry didn't come back as a gladiator. Anyway, I decided that when I'm a gladiator my name will be Maui, an hommage to Malibu, the greatest gladiator of all time. Stephen said his name would be Laser Beam because he wouldn't be comfortable leaving it at just Laser. So your homework assignment is to leave a comment with your American Gladiator name and why.

If I don't win millions, I'll be back on Wednesday. Peace.

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

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

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

I have been working feverishly on my bar this week to make up for my weekend warrior frustrations. Tonight I took the drawers (that I fucking built) and attached them to the cabinetry with these badass $15 rails. That may not sound like a lot of money to you, but in the land of drawer slides, that is just about as good as it gets. The only thing nicer is those ones you slam but they automatically slow themselves down and shut quietly. Too bad they didn't sell them at Home Depot.

Speaking of Home Depot: Why is it that every time I'm in that fucking store I am like the only person in the store. I mean the ONLY person in the store. When I bought the plywood, I was looking for someone to tell me what kind of plywood to buy and to help me cut it in half. And I walked through every aisle of lumber. And then proceeded through every aisle in the store. When I'd made it all the way to flooring without seeing an orange apron, I went straight for the customer service desk. No one there! I'm like 97% sure they were open. That has been the consistent pattern with that store. Fuck them. I hate them. If you need something from Home Depot, just go to Lowe's, cause they'll say hi, ask you if you need help, help you find what you need, make suggestions, and load it in your car for you. Way better.

Where was I? Oh yeah... DRAWERS!

Can you believe it? These drawers are major. (If you haven't been watching Victoria Beckham's new reality show, you are truly missing out. I fucking love her. I am going to attempt to call everything in my life "major" from now on.) The drawers are 18"x21"x6". They are so deep and big that we've decided we're going to inlay some foam covered in velvet and shape it to hold the various items we had planned for the drawer space. A knife. A bottle opener. Um... maybe like a backup knife? Too much storage for sure. One could most definitely hold 3 emergency liquor bottles.

I never thought it would be shaping up this well this fast. If you look closely there are many, many construction mistakes to be seen. One reason I greyed out the background was to hide some rough edges. But that will all be invisible with the finishing tile work and trim. I am so excited. I will let you all know when the bar warming party is. Until then, keep cheering me on!

P.S. Today is my brother, Stephen's birthday. Happy Birthday, brother! This picture is your gift.

Fourth of July was good. Had a few people over, drank some beers. Birthday was good. Had a few people over, drank some beers. My brother, Stephen, even dropped in for a little bit, which was a special surprise ... kind of ... I mean, it was really special, but only kind of a surprise. Taking a week off was a really good idea. I wish I could do it again, but alas, I need mo money.

I'm taking this opportunity to update because I wore out 3 of the DeWalt batteries on my handheld drill. I've been a busy little boy this evening. Every time I make progress on the bar, I go into work and discuss it with my coworker/coach. He's the one that lent me all the power tools. He was disappointed that I'd gone through the whole weekend without making any progress. His only rule is that I make progress every week. So I couldn't let him down. I went and spent another 60 bucks at Home Depot and brought home some 1x6s, some 2x4s, and some drawer mounts. I am now the proud owner of 1.95 finished drawers. They are not half bad, if I do say so myself. A little wonky, but that's to be expected when you're doing construction with all hand tools. I got one all the way done but as I was screwing the bottom onto the second drawer my third battery went dead. I just have to chill out for about an hour and two of them will be full speed again. The drawers are damn huge. You know how I am -- larger than life and out of control. So these are 18" wide, 21" long, and 6" deep. We don't intend on using the drawers for anything, I only made them to fill some of the gap between the fridge and the bar. But if we ever do use them, we could store like quilts and stuff in them. Boom!

I guess I'll go eat some dinner while I'm waiting for a recharge. I hope Daniel is impressed with my progress ... and doesn't mind vacuuming up large amounts of sawdust. Later skaters.

You know how sometimes I give there really great suggestions for how to improve your life? And usually they involve something you should be buying if you aren't already? Well, I've got another one for you.

It has recently come to my attention that many of you have never eaten a mango. And I'm here to tell you that a fresh mango is the most delicious thing you can possibly put in your mouth. It is by far my favorite fruit. I'm in Houston right now at my brother Stephen's house and I bought a couple mangos for us to enjoy. g*d diddly damn they are good. Anyway, here's a picture in case you aren't familiar with what a mango even looks like. Go buy one and cut it up and eat it. Just watch out for the massive lima bean that you will find inside. I don't think you can eat those.

So I came to Houston on Wednesday for work and then decided to stay and visit my brother and his family. It's been really fun. I worked from his house Thursday and Friday. If you consider bike rides to the park work. Hanging out with Kaylyn and Will has been pretty fun. Plus, it makes you really thankful for all the things you don't have in your life. Namely children. I kind of feel about children like I do about dogs. I like them, but I like them better when they belong to someone else and you can just come over occasionally and play with them, but then get rid of them when they poop.

I'm going home tomorrow. This was a nice little visit. I needed a change, my job has fallen into a bit of a rut again. I don't see anything exciting coming on the horizon, so I'm just going to have to rededicate myself to my new attitude towards work. I think if I got back into yoga, I would feel better all around, so I'm going to look into that when i get home.

Whelp, everyone else in this house is asleep, so I guess I'm going to do the same until the early morning shit fits begin. Ciao.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I like to think of myself as an aspirer. There's nothing I really excel at, but there are many, many things I am aspiring to be. Just one of those, as you may know, is a MythBuster. Although I do feel the need to recall my Brita water filter vodka experiment and mention that I did that before the MythBusters did.

Anywho, let me tell you about my latest experiment. This one is based on the episode where they test the absolutely retarded idea that burying beer in the sand, dousing it with gasoline, and lighting it on fire will cool the beer down ... as fire tends to do to things. They obviously busted this myth, but then set about finding out the fastest way to cool down a six pack. Keith can tell you that the fastest way to do so is in a cooler full of ice and salt water. You can bring the temperature of the salt water down to around 25 degrees Fahrenheit, envelop the can in the sub-freezing liquid, and a few minutes later, you've got a frosty cold beer. I've used this a few times in a pinch when the only available case of Kers Lat (or Miller when I'm at Lesbie's) is off the shelf. But it requires a sink, all the ice in the ice maker, and the remainder of salt in the house. Could this be improved?

Hypothesis: If I could get a saline solution with enough salt that it wouldn't freeze solid in the freezer, I could have instant beer cooling liquid on hand at all times. Plop a beer in for 30 seconds, rinse and drink. It should be fast enough that I don't mind doing it one beer at a time.

Research: Now, I do all of my research on the internet from uncertified websites, so if you see any flaws here, please let me know. What I read tells me that the average freezer is set at 0 degrees Fahrenheit ... well below water's freezing point. At first I thought it might be too cold at any salinity. But, another website suggested that when water reaches saturation of salt, the freezing point can be lowered to around -6 degrees Fahrenheit. So, it's probable that if I pour a shit ton of salt into a bowl of water and place it in the freezer, it will still be a liquid in the morning. A super chilled beer frosting liquid.

I was surprised how much salt the water could handle. You wouldn't expect me to be surprised since in the sixth grade I took second place in the science fair with, "Which Liquid Can Hold the Most Salt?" I received glowing comments like, "Why?" No reason, bitch, I was just fucking curious. g*d! Oh well, it was much better than my brother's, "Does Fertilizer Help Plants Grow?" Turns out it does. Anyway, it took about half a can of salt, but I wanted to make absolutely sure that it was saturated and had a few crystals left over that it couldn't absorb. And now, we wait.

I'll keep you all posted on my progress.

Just a little note to let you all know that my brother in Houston, Stephen and his wife Rachel just gave birth to their second child today. His name is Will and he is perfectly healthy and happy. I haven't gotten to see a picture of him yet because my brother is up at the hospital but that should be coming shortly. I'll update when I get that.

I would go down to Houston this weekend to see Will and help out with Kaylyn, but I seem to have contracted the streptococcus bacteria. I'm not positive that I have it, but everyone at work is sick right now. Some douchebag, knowing he had strep throat, came to work anyway so he wouldn't have to use his sick days, and now I think we all have it. My throat is killing me. Fucking douche. People, if you get a highly communicable disease, just work from home. Derrrr.

My first nephew. I'm so excited.

Have you ever been cow tipping? Have you? No? Know somebody who has? I'll bet you do. That's because cow tipping is a myth, an urban legend ... or would that be rural legend? Anyway, let me tell you why I'm even bothering to tell you this.

Today at work, I used the phrase, "That's about as productive as snipe hunting." (For those of you never molested in the boy scouts, snipe hunting is a wild goose chase at night in the woods looking for some bird-like creature that doesn't exist.) After I said that, Trey agreed, "Heh, yeah, or cow tipping." *Cue record scratch followed by tires screeching* Whaaaa? What the hell did he mean by that? Cow tipping happens all the time in the country. I know someone who knows someone who's gone. When I didn't immediately believe him, we had to google it. Check this out.

First off, cows have very acute senses of both smell and hearing. They are skittish animals that sleep lightly, and always with their noses into the wind. Cows don't all sleep at the same time. Some cows are always awake keeping an eye on the closely grouped herd. Sneaking up on a cow, even if it were sleeping, is all but impossible. But let's assume you somehow managed to shimmy up next to a dozing cow. Cows weigh up to 2,000 lbs when fully grown. Do you honestly believe you could push one over? Improbable. That is if you even manage to try before it runs away or you're gored by a jealous bull. Lastly, and perhaps the most convincing fact -- cows sleep laying down. Think about it.

I'm not going to call you all fucktards though, because I certainly thought cow tipping was real. In all honesty, I never thought about it much. You always hear about it and see it in Tommy Boy, but the fact is, it doesn't happen, and hasn't ever happened. One guy at work claimed to have pushed a cow over before until I presented him with the evidence and he eventually admitted perhaps he was too drunk to remember all of the details. Schyeah, perhaps. I asked a few of my friends if they knew that cow tipping wasn't real and none of them did, so I wanted to share it with you so you won't sound stupid at the next hoe-down or rodeo. And I made this picture to help you remember:

Apparently these cows know how to use semi-colons ... and puns. I helped you out!

In other news, my brother's wife is in the hospital in labor. I will have a nephew by tomorrow. Yippee!

I am back in Addison! once again. I have managed to finagle a way out of going back to Seattle, at least for the immediate future. I wouldn't be half surprised if I spent at least one more week there. And that's okay. I don't mind occasional travel, it's just this trickery and moving of one's permanent residence that rubs me raw.

So anyway, you know how I'm like full of million-dollar ideas? I've been tossing this one around for a while and I finally figured it out. There hasn't been one plane ride in the recent future that I've not been near a screaming child. Why so many children commute between Seattle and Dallas I will never know. And I must reiterate to you parents, no one thinks your child is cute but you. Don't give me a chuckle and a shake of the head when your deformed looking twins shit their pants on descent and I have to smell it for 30 minutes. That's when I came up with my new airline. Ladies and gentiles, I present to you -- 21+ Airlines!

Just imagine the possibilities. Business travelers wouldn't have to put with with white trash parents that overcrowd the overhead bins with their strollers and rockers. You could actually sleep on the way home after a long week in another city. Boarding and unboarding of the plane would be quick and painless. Yes, 21+ Airlines is a fantastic idea. It might even be a cabin full of first class. And there is a two drink minimum. I'm going to be so fucking rich.

On my flight to L.A. (for my layover, those bastards) I was sitting next to a mother and her 5 year old daughter. The daughter would not stop screaming, kicking the chair in front of her, and crying because her ears were popping. And in between that she was overly excited because she was on her way to Disneyland. She told everyone on the plane she was going. She screeched to her dad a few rows up, "Thanks for taking me to Disneyland, daddy!" All would have been cute in the proper context ... say, a preschool. Or a playground. But on a plane, annoying. So I tried to sleep through the whole flight and when we landed, she siezed the opportunity to tell me she was going to Disneyland. And I said, "Really? Hmm, I don't think it's open this time of year." And the mom laughed, hit me, and said, "Oh, COME ON." But I don't even think the little girl heard me so we had a good laugh over it.

I brought the SkyMall magazine home with me from the plane. I want to order just about everything in there. I think I'm going to finally get some houseplants and then buy an automatic waterer so they might actually stay alive. And I want a hydroponic herb grower. And a gentle wake alarm clock. And a massage chair. And damn, I'm lucky I have no money otherwise it'd be gone.

I think first on my to-do list is to get my windows taken care of. I can't take that sun in my bedroom anymore. It won't be cheap but I think if I just get some heavy fabric, fold it to make it look kind of like vertical blinds, and just nail it to the wall behind the vertical blinds, no one will see it from the inside and no one will notice it from the outside. Unfortunately there's some "rule" against aluminum foil. Jerks.

I felt obliged to update right away because my brother said he was going to remove me from his Favorites list on account that I don't update much lately. I want you all to know that I am not going gentle into that good night, I've just been out of town so fucking much. So bear with me and keep coming back for more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I finally finished painting my bedroom. I have never been so proud of myself for anything in my life. I think it looks so good, almost like an adult, put together bedroom. My bed floats in the middle of the room now. I still need a new end table, new lamps, new bed frame, new table, and new curtains, but the biggest portion of the work is done. It was really hard for me to get one good picture that showed it off, so I took a few. The fourth one is to show you that I did, indeed, repaint my router to match.

I also cut all my hair off and I'm growing a beard. This is a life makeover. Now if I could just stop chain smoking and skipping the gym. I was doing so well for a while there. I'll get back on it soon. I fell off of my diet somewhat due to my trip to Houston for Memorial Day weekend. It was totally worth it though. I went to visit my brother and help out with his impregnito wife and baby daughter. Kaylyn is the cutest thing, and now that she can talk, she is funny too. It was really nice to get to know her, and have her know who I am. About every 5 minutes she would ask, "Where's Uncle David?" if I wasn't in her immediate view. She'll be 2 in July. I can't believe she's getting so big so fast.

I also got to see Kevin. We drank a lot and played darts. I ended up losing after coming from way behind to take the lead. That g*d damn bullseye. I could not hit it. The rest of the nights I hung out with my brother. We saw X3. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it wasn't the best X-Men movie, I didn't think. Still worth seeing though. One night we went to this place called Whiskey River. It was a totally open up barn type building with this wasted, barefoot guy playing guitar on stage. When we walked in he was berrating some paying customers that had asked him to please stop yelling and cussing into the microphone. It sent him into a tirade about being in the service industry. This guy was so bad, I can hardly explain it. His guitar was so out of tune that my brother noticed it. That's pretty bad.

There are a few distinct stereotypical guitar players. There's the "plays Dave at college parties" guitar player. There's the "pseudo lesbian Ani-wanna-be" guitar player. There's the "stuck-in-the-80s all I wanna do is wail ARE YOU READY TO ROOOOCK YOW!" guitar player. There's the "classically trained and snooty as hell because of it" guitar player. I like to consider myself a "only knows 3 songs and plays them repeatedly" guitar player. If you can think of any more, please feel free to share. Anyway, after one second of looking at the entertainment for the night, I remarked to my brother, "This guy LOVES Pearl Jam, I guarantee it." So we started yelling for him to play some Pearl Jam. The only song we could think of was Jeremy. He told us that he would play Jeremy because it was a great song, but never fucking did. He did, however, play some Pearl Jam, and as you would expect, he did it in his best Eddie Vetter impression voice. So fucking lame. When we left, my brother held down the horn from the time we got in the car until we left the parking lot to interrupt his show. Too damn funny.

I think that's all the news to report. Leave me some comments on how I have the best fucking bedroom in the world. Thaaaaaaaanks.

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

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

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

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

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

This weekend I went down to Houston for my niece's 1st birthday party. It was pretty fun. She is entirely too cute. Entirely. She really liked the helium filled balloons. In fact, when she saw one, she was ecstatic. When her uncle brought out a bunch of about 40 balloons we literally thought she might explode. I've never heard such primal elation as I did from the squeal that erupted from her lips. Priceless.

The party raged on long after Kaylyn had gone to bed. There was much liquor and beer, but I really hadn't had but one drink by the time I got a text message from a friend asking if I wanted to sneak away. I really did. It wouldn't have been a problem so he said he would call me as soon as he left a party and then we could get together. Around 12:30am I realized he wasn't going to call and I had, once again, been ditched.

I've been thinking about this for a while. This is hardly the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. This is the straw that kicked the camel while he was already dead because you couldn't teach him a new trick to drink water squeezed from a turnip. If you want to know the truth, I get ditched, dodged, or stood up about 2 or 3 times a week. Anytime I make plans with someone, my faith that they will actually call or come wanes every single time my pessimism is proven correct. First, I thought maybe it was because I was relying too heavily on others to remember. But after a significant number of unanswered phone calls, unheard voicemails, unread text messages and ignored IMs, I decided that wasn't the problem.

But, it is indeed my fault. I've 180ed so drastically from the angry little shit I used to be that I've actually overcompensated into an equally undesirable extreme. Nothing bothers me. Nothing. It doesn't matter what you do to me, I will be over it forgiven and forgotten before you can say "taken advantage of." I thought what I was doing was being a really nice guy, always understanding, never quick to anger. Instead what I've realized I did was effectively lower the standard of friends that I have. You know that if you leave me hanging, the next time you see me, I probably won't even mention it. In this persistent pattern I have become responsible for the unreliability of those around me.

And I apologize. I promise it won't happen anymore.

My mom is in the process of cleaning out the upstairs of her house. This involves giving me boat loads of crap from my past every time she sees me. The other day I became the proud owner of a stack of old papers written by yours truly, the greatest writer ever. Actually, some of it is pretty bad, as you might expect from a 3rd to an 8th grader, but I just came across something that absolutely cracked me up.

I found my stunning epic novel entitled John and the Little People. I wrote it in the third grade and it is bound and fully illustrated -- pretty pimp. The funny thing is that this story perfectly parallels Gulliver's Travels. In fact, I vividly remember plagerizing what I did not know at the time was one of the most well known stories ever told. Why nobody ever called me out on it, I will never know. It's hardly the lesson to teach an 8 year old that blatant copying will go unpunished. My favorite sentence in the whole book:

"He soon found out that he wasn't paralyzed; he was tied down by tiny, strong cords!"

Ha! I used a semi-colon in the 3rd damn grade. Half of you skeezes couldn't do that now.

My report on The Killer Angels from 8th grade was lackluster, to say the least, even though Wenger gave me a 94 ... something I don't recall happening all that often. My poetic skillz back in '91 leave a lot to be desired. I know my pen pal letter to a kid in Columbia was a written assignment, but why I chose to tell him that I watch Hometime every day after school and my favorite episode is the one where they put up tile-backer is beyond me.

The other strange thing is the papers written about my brother, Stephen. There are many. I have one nicely typed biography of him that details his philanthropic misadventures that ends, "The less fortunate and the well-to-do have both benefitted from him, even if I never have." Another paper details how he always has the remote control. One annoying thing he does is taking control of the TV. The first words out of his mouth when we get home are, "I get control!" He then flips though all 99 channels. Of course, we only have less than 60. Then he goes to the B channels. He stops on stuff like church preachers and faith healers. Then we have to watch channel 12B. It is the twenty-four hour fish network. It shows different fish tanks and changes every 15 minutes. We always have to see it change. Then he goes back to A channels to 3. USA has Night Rider on twice in a row after school. That's OK but it takes us 15 minutes to get there. They never should have let me pass 8th grade. I turned this shit in!

I am laughing my ballz off at this stuff. One more description (moreso for my brother than any of you) and then I'm done. The last paper I failed. It was supposed to be a compare/contrast but all I do is slam Stephen throughout it. Because he's 16, he can drive. My parents take advantage of that and make him pick me up from school. He has the loudest, highest pitched, most annoying horn ever. He loves to lay it on when he gets me at the corner. People inside Wilson can hear it. At Christmas, he would play the first seven notes of Jingle Bells. I yell at him every day and then he hits me. I go on to explain that I cannot hit him back since he's driving. Even though most of the time, I remember doing the steering. He thinks he knows everything because he is in the eleventh grade. He always tries to give me advice on things I don't need advice on. I know when next year comes, he is going to want to help me pick classes. Hahaha.

Then I contrast that with how we like the same TV shows, again mentioning Hometime. Then: We like to play baseball in our backyard. We play with a whiffle bat and tennis balls. We have about 120 tennis balls because my mom takes rejects from Plano Tennis Organization or something. We hit them over the neighbors' fence and the husband gets peeved at us. Homerun Derby was always so much fun. My favorite line from the paper is, "I don't like him to think he's all bad because he's taller than me." Who writes like that on an English paper? Well, I mean, I do ... I guess I did all the way through college. Now check out this conclusion: I guess having an older brother with you through life isn't all that bad. I might even miss him when he kicks the bucket. I'll be old by then and probably senile so I won't even know or care, come to think of it.

Shazzam! I hope some of you might have found some amusement in that. I am going to see Stephen on Saturday morning. Sunday is my niece Kaylyn's 1st birthday and she is hosting a kegger. It should be really fun. I got her ultra cute presents. Alright, literature lovers, it is time for me to retire.

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).

This past weekend, I was in beautiful Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the Fisher Family Reunion. We had matching T-shirts and everything. I was there from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. Rather than say anything negative about my own flesh and blood, I'd like to recount some of the highlights of my weekend.

By far the best part of it was my immediate family all getting together. It was the first time that all 11 of us had been together (the 11 being comprised of the 6 in my original family, 3 spouses, and two nieces). The big news of the weekend? Pretty soon it'll be 12. My brother Michael told us all that his wife, Krouton, is pregnant. This'll be their first baby and my third niecephew. So exciting.

My two existing nieces could not be any cuter. Ann Marie finally let me hold her for any period of time without screaming bloody murder. We got to hang out quite a bit. Kaylyn is absolutely hilarious. She's to the age where she's almost walking and almost talking. She really likes kitties and puppies. I think for her birthday in July, I'll get her 3 of each. And a drumset.

The reunion was alright. I didn't remember everybody's names, which was a tad embarassing. But I got to see my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and the newest generation of great-grand children. There were some interesting characters that have managed to marry their way into my lineage. The best part was ... all blonde hair, all blue eyes. It's like the Children of the Corn.

And I'm still single, so if you wanna get in on this, I'm your last chance. HA!

My new niece could not have been cuter. She is so, so tiny. She has a full head of hair that is probably the softest thing I have ever felt. I got her a green outfit for her birthday because I didn't want her to get pinched next Thursday. She's just a baby, for g*d's sake. It's not nice to pinch babies. She's too young for beer, but maybe my sis will be festive and feed her green breast milk.

That was gross, sorry. Not much else of note going on over here. I'm counting the days until Sweden just trying not to get fired before then. Tomorrow is the day Home and Garden will call me and let me know that I've won this years 3.5 million dollar dream home in Tyler, TX, along with the new Chevy Denali (sp?) and the $250,000 in cash. I can't wait to move in. I mean I entered like 10 times, so I'm a total shoo-in.

This'll be like the time I won an enormous stuffed animal from the dentist named Kiki. One time, I said to my brother, "Let's play beat the Kiki! I get the stick!" and took one swing at the enormous koala bear with the dowel rod we used to protect us from someone opening our bedroom window. One swing and the eye broke in half and rolled away. I was so upset. I didn't hit a baseball in 4 seasons, but I can crack an eyeball with a dowel rod in one try.

Why is it that tomorrow is spelled t-o-m-o-r-r-o-w but I abbreviate it as "tomm?"

I think I've decided to get a tattoo. Which I probably shouldn't tell you all because my brother will read and tell my mother and she will go absolutely ape-shit. But as of yet, I don't know what I want or where. So I'll entertain your suggestions, as long as your suggestions entertain me.

Thanks for all the great comments on my new layout, bitches! *makes masturbatorial motion*

I am twice the uncle I was yesterday morning. My second niece, Ann Marie, was born yesterday evening around 5:30pm. Maybe I should call her my "youngest" niece instead of my "second" niece. I really don't want to set up a hierarchy until they are old enough to do gymastics and spelling bees and such.

This is my sister's first baby. From what I hear all are doing well, and she is happy and healthy with 10 fingers, 10 toes, and a full head of black hair.

Black hair?! That's right. This kid is not a Fisher. I am leaving bright and early tomorrow morning to go meet Ann Marie. Living equadistant from your two child-having siblings has its advantages. I need to go down and see my brother and Kaylyn (and Rachel) soon. Maybe I'll do that just as soon as I get back from Sweden.

So that means no craziness for me tonight. It gives me a convenient excuse to stay home and work on my new layout, which I would have done anyway, but now people won't judge me as harshly. I'm hoping to finish it tonight, but there's a chance I won't. Then I'll be in OKC all day tomorrow possibly returning tomorrow night to attend a very 1Miles birthday celebration. We'll see how it pans out. Hope you kids have a good weekend!

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.

This weekend Ryan Hudler came into town with his new girlfriend, Paula, her brother, Michael, and his girlfriend, Amanda. We were planning on playing 3-Man on account of the good memories dredged up by my last post, but it ended up being annoyingly difficult to figure out the rules, so we opted for the old standby, Suits. As an added bonus, our dear friend Princess called me early Saturday afternoon to talk when I managed to convince him to make the drive to Dallas to hang out. My first real company!

I spent all night Friday making sure my place would be presentable when everyone arrived. It was no small feat. Despite the rainstorm, Ryan and the gang showed up a little after 8:00 and we got some Pei Wei for dinner. Princess took a detour through Shreveport to get to Addison so he showed up a little later once the drinking had already commenced. We tore through a couple of cases of beer between us all. During the course of the night, I got a new welcome mat, compliments of one of my guests and one of my neighbors. By the morning they had taken their mat back. Fucking selfish bitches. I hate my neighbors now.

The next morning, Princess and I spent a whole day shopping. We were all over the metroplex seeking out the coolest shops. We didn't buy any clothes but we both added about 100 items to our wanted lists. Princess found a really cool coat that he needs 300 dollars for, and a pair of jeans that he needs 120 for. These are the most important items. I found an entire store that I need 10,000 dollars to clean out, but I have put a freeze on my wardrobe supplements until I get my apartment in working order. That's one thing this non-smoking thing is about. I will save roughly 20 bucks a week being smoke-free, which could add up to a few extras around the apartment.

This week I only have to work until Wednesday, and since no one is in the office, trust me when I say, I won't be working much. Rawk! I left so early today. But in my defense, it was raining, and we all know I don't like the rain. Then it's time for a five day weekend that includes A Very Hoffmann Thanksgiving, the Ryan Cabrera concert con Thommi, an appointment at MAC, and a lot of time spent with Kaylyn, the baby. Hurrah!

Footnote: Owen's webpage just had me in stitches. His posts have gotten increasingly better this semester and this one about McDonald's and Microsoft may just take the cake. Plus, my sexy 'stache pics are on the front: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=noezoom.

Holy crap. I had no idea this was going to take so long to prepare. I sure do hope you all find this as humorous as I did when I was making it. The beard is gone. It was a fun little experiment, but one that I don't expect to repeat any time soon. Of course, when you shave a beard off, you can't just shave it. You've gotta style it. Pictured below is a beautiful array of facial hair stylings. Go ahead, rate them on a scale of 1 to Pure Sex.

I got my hair cut tonight by my friend Chad. It is a lot shorter than it is in all of these pics. I would take a picture of it, but after sizing and photoshopping all of these silly pictures I just wasn't in the mood. Besides, that's more incentive for you all to come see me in person anyway. I also owe you some pictures of the apartment, but you might have to wait until I paint before I'm comfortable letting you all see where the magic happens.

This weekend is Halloween, and I'm not dressing up. I just don't have a costume. I might find something last minute. One of the best things you can do for a Halloween costume is take any ordinary noun and add the word 'slutty' in front of it. For instance, you can be a slutty fireman, a slutty cat, or be like Allison and go as a slutty Jolly Green Giant. Ho, ho, ho. Who would have thought we could use that tag line two years in a row? But if you want to know the truth, I'm just planning on going downtown, doing a little people watching and a whole lot of drinking. I was out last night when I got a late night call from my mother. Concerned that she would call me late at night, I snuck outside to a quiet nook to answer. No worries. She was just calling to let me know that my dad bought a banjo! What the fuck?! My parents must really be missing me.

And finally, because I know you all want it bad ... sexy 'stache pics! Woohoo! (My brother is probably the only one that can possibly confirm this, but don't you think I look like Uncle Al?)

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!

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.

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.

Damn, it's a nice day outside. 75 degrees and sunny. You couldn't ask for a nicer treat to hang over to on a Saturday. Although instead of enjoying the day, I'm sitting inside cleaning my room and watching Super Troopers. I'm about to go downstairs and heat up my extra taquito from Whataburger this morning. If there's anything better than taquitos, it's taquitos from 11am to 11pm, when regular people can't get one.

If any of you missed it on my away message the other night, [click here] to see a picture of me that I "vectored." Kevin's little sis, Laura, IMed me the other day to show me some pictures she'd done it to and then sent me the tutorial on how to do it. I think it's pretty rad and I am working on something along these lines to be the new SVC layout. We'll see.

Also, [click here] to see the baby announcement my brother made for Kaylyn. It is beyond cute. I can't wait to go down there and see her on Saturday. That's another reminder for all of you College Station peeps. I will be there Friday and Saturday night to party like it's 2003, so be prepared.

Here is a picture of my new niece, Kaylyn, with her daddy, Stephen. My parents went down to see them this weekend and snapped a few pictures. I can't wait to meet her in two weeks. Today, I went to see my friend, Jason, at Baby Gap. He works there and told me about some of the great baby stuff they had for sale. I don't want to ruin the surprise for my brother since he reads this site, but lets just say it's all good shit. I don't really belong in a Baby Gap store with all the moms and little children cause when he showed me the baby section I was like, "Oh fuck yeah, this is all good shit!" and then glanced furtively around to make sure I was out of ear shot.

I didn't do a whole lot today. I was a tad hungover ... not from drinking at JRs last night, which I did very little of with my new friend, Ben, but from when I got home and cleaned out my dad's stash. Did a little late night drunken chatting, y'know, the usual. I did get out to the mall, though, which surprised me. Besides baby gifts, i spent 80 bucks on new product for my hair. New shampoo, conditioner, protein treatment, wax, paste, and laminate. I'm way excited about doing my hair now. Too bad I won't have a worthy occasion until the next weekend rolls around.

Sorry, not a lot to post. There are all new pictures up top ... the first time since Thanksgiving last December. So I put up new images there in lieu of the picture page I'd been promising. Enjoy them, fuckers! I'll catch you on the flip side.

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 was so excited to get home and blog so I could tell you all that today was the first day of work that I actually enjoyed. I was gonna tell you funny anecdotes about the people I work with and how funny a couple of them are. I was gonna tell you that I caught them all having a conversation when they thought I was out of the room about how hilarious I am and they love the way I tell jokes and stories with a straight face and then slowly smile to indicate that it was supposed to be humorous. I was gonna tell you all about how we went to lunch as a big group today to a pizza place and how I got mocked for eating nothing but dry, green veggies and water. BUT INSTEAD, I have a much, much better story to tell you. Read the next paragraph in your head with the voice of a large, elderly, black woman:

Yeah, I was getting bored in Baltimore so I rented me a car from Enterprise ... Cadillac Snoop DeVille! By the time I got to Addison, I had to stop in to have my car tuned up. Then it was off to Whole Foods where I bought all the supplies for the best family reunion ever. Best thing is ... it was all free! Well, for me at least. HahaHAHAHABELCHHAHAHA!!!!1!!

Yes, my friends, this reenactment of everyone's favorite new credit card commercials is an accurate portrayal of my recent experiences. I decided I was financially stable enough to order myself a new credit card. It has been like 8 months since I last had a piece of plastic with my account number on it or used my credit card number to buy anything IRL or online. The only charges going to my account were my cell phone, webpage, Time Life subscriptions, and website memberships. Then all of a sudden when I go to order a new card, they say I owe more than $800. What?! So I went online to look into it.

Somebody rented a car in Baltimore and managed to make it down to Addison within two days. Not sure what that's about but my brother said that sometimes people will share stolen card numbers with others, so maybe that's what happened. Then they went to a gas station in Addison twice. I was gonna report the exact dollar amounts but it appears they are on the ball and have already deleted my account information. That totalled about $300. They also made two trips to the Whole Foods Market in Plano totaling like $400. All I can say is that I hope this person was either DOWN and OUT and this fixed their car and allowed them to feed their family. Or that it was some punk kid who bought 300 dollars worth of cigarettes and 400 dollars worth of beer and threw a KICKASS party. Regardless, it was free for me too. They were unusually helpful and quick to believe I didn't make the charges, which is cool. They are sending me a new card with a new number and all I have to do is make sure to alert T-Mobile and Earthlink that I have a new account. Sweet!

I'm really excited to have had the opportunity to be a victim of identity theft. Even though I'm baffled as to how they got my number since I cut up the card so long ago and haven't even known the number myself. C'est la vie! The weekend is here! I've never looked forward to a weekend more in my life. I think tonight I'll go to bed and tomorrow sleep in! Then I'll drink a whole bunch. I miss you and love you if you're back in College Station, otherwise I just love you. Laaaaaaaaaaate.

I'm really only updating to benefit my dear friend, Allison, who is up in Virgina for Spring Break and is feeling out of the loop. Fact of the matter is, there's no loop to be out of. I have not done a damn thing for the past few days but slump over on the couch in a slightly catatonic state staring at home improvement and cooking shows.

I had another amalgamation of two of my favorite things in the world. If you'll recall, the first time this happened was when I found out that John Denver did duets with the Muppets. Then, only recently, Lisa Loeb got her own TV show on the Food Network. And now, Dean Johnson, host of PBS's Hometime, is doing infomercials!!1! I fucking love infomercials. I would rather watch a good infomercial than a 30 minute sit-com any day ... any day. And now one of my heroes is hocking the "Little Giant" fully adjustable ladder. Sure, it's a little more expensive than a discount store ladder, but can you really put a price on your safety?

I think I am going to depart today for Houston. My brother's wife recently had some complications with her pregnancy. She has to be on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy (which is hopefully going to be a full 4 months). Since I'm an old pro at being in bed 24 hours a day, I thought I might be able to help out a little while my brother's at work during the day. Or as his wife put it, "Help feed and water her." I'll probably be there until Friday and then its back to CS and Spring Break is over. It sure has flown by. I might need to take another one before graduation. Speaking of graduation, all of my siblings are going to come. I am really excited now. Alright, you sluts, I will catch you on Friday.

I'm sick as a dog. The idiots at the quack shack said it was some kind of throat infection and gave me the same generic medicine they always do. Oh well, maybe it will help. Might as well take it. I didn't sleep a wink last night. I ended up taking a bath at like 5am cause I was so achy and sweating. Today's not much better. Enough pissing and moaning though. Pity me!

I was laying on the couch before my 12:45 yesterday and I noticed a moth on the wall near me. I thought nothing of it. He's welcome to chill there. But then when I came home after my lab at like 8:00 he was still in the exact same spot. I don't mind moths but I hate lazy moths. So I decided to capture him.

I put a cup on the wall, tapped him into it and then placed a coaster over the opening. Then I had a flash of evil genius. I decided to set up a Bond-esque death trap. I opened the lid just enough to allow a drop of water through it and placed it under the faucet. It was dripping slow enough to allow him time to escape, but he was going to have to time it just right. He waited until the last possible moment, the water was encroaching his wings, and then made a break for it. I attempted to squash him but he got away, so I let him go. Owen, Marshall, and I were enthralled. Okay, I was, but they also watched. Then Marshall took me to the mall and bought me some chinese food and ice cream. Rad!

In other news, my brother found out that his unborn baby is a girl. I tried to help him out and give some good suggestions for names. They were thinking about Kaylynn Elizabeth. I figured since she is going to be my brother's daughter, that she's already gonna be the whitest little girl on the planet. It might be a good idea to spice her up a little with an ethnic moniker. My suggestions were:
1. Reshawnda
2. Wei Le (but we would call her Jenny)
3. Consuala
I like them all but I think Consuala might be my favorite. And as an added bonus, it might help her get scholarships later. You never knows. Tonight Thommi and I are going to see some Russian chick play piano with the Russian symphony orchestra. I'll let you you all know how that goes. Peace.

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!

Is it just me or does everyone I know now have a prescription to something? Allison has her injured back that awarded her muscle relaxers and hydrocodone. Sean just tore something in his knee and was awarded some hydrocodone. Owen has his speed 'prescription' and he stayed home sick from school today so he'll probably win some more pills for that. He's gonna try to claim that I got him sick, when in reality, its some Austinian disease he brought back from his Halloween adventures.

I got strep and was awarded Penicillin. Which I didn't think was very cool until my brother just informed me I could tell people I was "chillin' like a villain on penicillin" and not be lying. Rawk! The only thing that isn't cool about my booty is that it doesn't really make a very good bargaining chip. On the black market of pill pushers and poppers, there's no way anyone is going to vie for an antibiotic. They have no side effects and are so easy to come by. Looks like I'm going to have to sweeten the deal if I'm going to get my paws on any of those hydrocodone circulating around. And to top it all off, I didn't even get molested by the doctor this time. What a rip off!

Tonight we have to go to Navasota to Martha's Bloomers to pitch our project proposal to the owner out there hoping that he'll fund our little operation next semester. That means I have to dress up and act polite, my two favorite things to do. But if all goes well, we could be sittin pretty next semester, and that ... is a good thing. Peace out, skillets.

So I'm lounging around my house feeling delightfully hungover (I say delightfully because its such a nice damn day outside and that always feels good) trying to think of something to blog about. Nothing of note has really happened to me lately, so I'd almost abandoned the notion until I decided to check my logs again. Once again, dear viewers, the numbers were staggering. Last week I averaged around 50 visitors a day, and then on Monday I shot up to 2,500. Fearing a resurgence of the shaven Jeffcoats picture, I checked the referrals for where all of these hits were coming from. And here they are:

texags.com -- 1,562
tiderinsider.com -- 725
tidefans.com -- 120
gatorcountry.com -- 94
elite-sports.com/soonerfans -- 89
big12warzone.com -- 50
drunkenbuffoonery.com -- 28
gatorinsider.com -- 23

And there were several other sports related forums linking to my site but they only generated one or two hits. I think drunkenbuffoonery.com is my favorite. I haven't investigated all of these sites, but I'm assuming its the picture of Jeffcoats thats doing it since nothing on this site is in the least bit sports related. And what opinions I have about Aggie football are severely uneducated. Speaking of, my prediction for the game today against Utah is Aggies - 87, Utah - 3. Mormons can't play football. Mormons can't do anything but pilot space ships to heaven.

So there you have it. I won't be at the game to cheer them on, because I am traveling to Humble, Texas soon to attend my brother's house warming party. So long, you have nots, see you next week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YESTERDAY: Yesterday was a hella good time. I skipped class because I was exhausted from the Austin trip and just bummed around the duplex all day long. For dinner I met up with Allison and her mother, Delilah, at Wings N More. The whole Allison gang was there, her roommates, neighbors, and fratdaddy friends. It was so great to see Delilah, not only is she the coolest mom ever, but she's one of the (if not THE) most loyal Sidesho-Viewers. Gotta love that. After a wonderful dinner of chicken tenders, fries, and toast, all soaked into way too much ranch, I went back home to get ready to go to Karaoke Night at Shadow Canyon. We got there around 10 to take advantage of the $3 pitchers until 11. It was around 11 that Allison, in tote with Christine, Katie and the rest of the Dexter gang showed up to Hole in the Wall. For those of you not from College Station, Hole in the Wall is connected to Shadow Canyon. So Allison called me and I met them down there for a couple more pitchers of some Coors Light. We swear it was Coors Light and not Natty. Shadow was Shadow for the rest of the night, a few pitchers and couple chuggers later and we adjourned over at Doug's house (if you'll recall, Doug is the guy who taught us the vicious drinking game last weekend). At Doug's we played a game of 42. Me and Todd completely wiped the floor with Ryan and Doug, and I don't have a clue how to play really. So that was lucky. We finally came home and went to bed, but there was a good time had by all.

TODAY: Today I was forced to skip class again. Big shocker there. I'm going tomorrow (err, today technically) if I ever get to bed. Today I just bummed around again. I did start on the coolest pair of pants ever though. I am cutting up a pair of jeans and stitching them back together with thick ass twine. It looks so cool thus far. Hopefully it will continue in that trend.

TOMORROW: Tomorrow I'm going to class, and then coming home for lunch and stuff. Ryan's parents should be here around 3, and I've never met them so I'm going to wait around for that. Then I am departing for Houston because it is my brother, Stephen's, 24th birthday. I'm going to stay there over night and then come home on Saturday because I have a polisci test on Monday that I'm not too sure about. I did read 3 chapters today though and the test shouldn't be too terribly difficult if the guy gives like 40% A's on pickaprof. Alas, now it is time to hit the proverbial hay. I'll catch you have nots later (incidentally one of the gov. chapters I read tonight was on the concept of haves and have nots. Pretty cool huh?)

Sooo close to Spring Break. I can't wait. I don't know if I ever blogged about my plans, so I will now. I'm going home on Saturday to good ol' Plano. Then I'm gonna hang out there for a few days and see some people. Then on Tuesday it's off to California to see my brother, Michael. He just recently got engaged, as you well know, and I've never been to Cali, much less seen his place so it should be fun. Plus its completely free. Thats the best part of it.

I finally posted some new pictures in on the Pics section. Its been a while since I promised I would. All of them are from over Christmas when my brother, Stephen got married. I think they're all pretty good. I'll probably add captions some day, but not today. Other than that, not much has happened. Keep up the good work, kiddos.