In Seattle, it is difficult to tell the homeless from the homeful. Stereotypes about early 90s grunge still dominating here are understatements. I've done my best to adapt by not shaving for 3 weeks, but I'm afraid that without a vintage hobo jacket, tattered Converse, and a pair of cords, no one will ever believe me.

This morning there was about 3 inches of snow accumulated on the ground. You could hardly tell where the curbs and the roads were. I was nervous about driving until I walked on it and there was a surprising amount of traction. My original plan to do a controlled 360 into a parking spot ala Undercover Brother was shot to hell. The weird thing was that by 9am, all the snow had melted. Some freak warm rain storm came through and melted ALL of it. And tonight it's supposed to be back in the 20s. I love talking about the weather.

While I was here I got to go have beers with Stuart. It was really fun. That guy hasn't changed at all except his hair isn't purple and he has no lip ring. I will hopefully see him again before I leave. His sister was visiting him or something and bogarting his time, but I think she left today.

Boy oh boy am I ever ready to get home. I've got a 6 cup tournament with Ryan and Todd scheduled for Saturday night. Daniel's going with me. Anybody else want to chance a trip to Arlington? Scary shit there.

Um, I just felt obliged to update. I really didn't have much to say.

Worst. Post. Ever.

Our Kaboomtown party was such a hit! You'll see why I say that shortly.

First off, Kaboomcrown'ncokes are so delicious. I was able to convince most of the guests to scream "KABOOM!" when they ladled an ice cream scoop full of cherries into their drinks. That bottle of Crown lasted all of like 30 minutes. We switched to Grizzy Gooses (I wondered if the plural was Grizzy Geese, but it's not) soon after. When the Grey Goose was gone, we switched to Grabsoluts. That makes no sense since the "Gr" came from "Grey" but oh well. Absolizzy sounds stupid. The champagne flowed and the beer went way faster than expected. Smart move on my part getting plastic bottles. You'll see why I say that shortly.

When it got dark we all went to the roof of the garage. It was solid people. Solid drunk people. It was pouring rain. All the drunk people were dancing and hootin' 'n hollerin' in the rain. Yours truly included. Someone had a watermelon full of liquor that they were dispensing shots from. When that ran out, they filled it up with whatever beer was available. Too much fun. Brett Sabulous and I screamed, "KABOOM!" at the fireworks repeatedly. Repeatedly. Since it was pouring rain, they only shot off about a third of the planned fireworks, I'm estimating. There was no grand finale like I'm sure they had planned. I felt bad for the people that had probably planned the whole thing, it was basically ruined, but still totally rad. I love fireworks because when I was little my parents used to tell me that they were for my birthday.

After much merry making on the roof, we went back downstairs. I was pretty drunk and happy so some of the details escape me, but things got ugly. You'll see why I say that now. Without using any names or daring to understand the provocation, several fights broke out. Not like fun friendly fights. Like mean trying-to-hurt-each-other fights. I think back to like when Todd and DAvid would fight and I'd sit back and laaaauuuugh. Because even though they were throwing real punches and causing real bruises, you just knew that deep down inside they weren't going to hurt each other. It's like watching brothers fight. Not so that night. They were out for blood. And your local good Samaritan, Sidesho, was trying to stop it. Several mislanded punches later, several concrete tackles later, several wrestling matches and alpha male chest thrusts later, it was finally disolved, but not before our party was basically ruined. I was left with a few minor scraps and scabs, bruises all over both arms from someone fighting to escape my grip, a severely fucked up shoulder, two knees that don't take much to fuck up -- but falling on them on concrete did the trick -- a new trick ankle, and a sore nose. Good times, good times.

I was pretty upset at the time. By "upset" I mean "really drunk and upset" which always makes things worse. I took quite a bit of consoling, not because I was hurt, but because I had to watch people I cared about trying to draw blood from each other. I'm a delicate boy, I can't handle that shit. But now that's it been a couple of days, looking back it was rather exhilarating. I've never even been near a fight, and frankly have always been terrified of the proposition, but now I don't think it would be that bad. I mean, no one was fighting me, I was just in the way, but still, it doesn't hurt THAT bad to get hit. So watch the fuck out, everyone, this is your warning. I'm looking for a reason now. I WISH some mother fucker be sittin in my seat.

So that was my Kaboomtown. The 4th was much more serene consisting of dinner at Daniel's parents' house and a drive home where we could see at least 3 fireworks shows going on at all times. This is so my favorite holiday. It's really cool too because it celebrates our country's independence; it's not just some Hallmark-invented holiday like Valentine's Day or easter. So hope everyone else had a wonderful (and tad safer) holiday. Czech you skillets on the flip side.

I decided to stay home tonight for a couple different reasons. First, I just had such a riotous time on Wednesday that I wasn't exactly itching to go out on Friday. Secondly, I'm broke as a joke. I had to take money out of the untouchable savings this pay period to last me until the next. Don't worry though, I've already scheduled to have it automatically repay the amount that I borrowed. So I sat home and watched TV and nestled down with a big bottle of wine... the worst wine I have ever tasted. I am now on my third glass and it is still nearly unbearable.

The show of the night was Will & Grace. It was the episode where they've lost their ho-mojo and can no longer dominate game night with their friends. It reminded me so much of when Ryan and Todd and I would host Pictionary nights at the Green Monster and how much I fucking rule at Pictionary and I felt obliged to share this with you all.

I have one prime example for you all that I will never forget. It was when Fucking Frank was my partner and we were a good half of the board ahead of everyone else. We were unstoppable ... why, I may never understand. We had a sixth, or maybe even a seventh, sense about the clues. This particular round was an All-Play. That means that every team was drawing the same clue trying to win control of the board. I wasn't too concerned since we were the champions of All-Play, but this was really stumping everybody else. They were drawing things like I've demonstrated thus far. People were guessing frantically -- everything from "jailbird" to "Nike." Frank took his time, and I sat silently waiting for him to finish his drawing. (If this story seems drawn out its mostly because I have to put enough words in between the pictures to space them out.) Anyway, it wasn't long before he drew this:

And I immediately guessed, "The Fugitive!" after which we high fived and rolled the dice. It's ridiculous how good I am at Pictionary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I certainly couldn't go a week without blogging. I haven't done that in ages. Time's a little tight right now because it's midnight and I'm gonna be a wreck at work tomorrow. Big news! I worked 8 hours today. Like actually produced real programming that will be used in a real project for 8 hours. And I'm gonna do it again tomorrow. Things are looking up. So the job, while I still go on the public records as hating it, is looking up. My hair gets longer every day, it's quite shaggy. And I've decided to stop shaving yet again. If I ever hit puberty and the facial hair fills in, I'll let you all see it. My workout routine is going well. I am starting to regain my flexibility, and it feels so good to work out after work. I just need to find some goggles so I can start swimming again.

Went to College Station this weekend. It was pretty fun. Ryan Hudler drove and we went and watched Daniel dunk his ring (120 seconds). We "stayed" at Todd's even though I neglected to sleep there either night. We went to Margarita Rocks with Allison, Lindsay, her underage sisters, AllieD, Jennifer, and another pretty girl whose name escapes me. Then we went to a little keg get-together out in the country and Tommy showed up. I shocked Fucking Frank with my lighter. Everyone finally realized why I think it's so funny. From there we hit Northgate. Ran into Roper Joe, that was a blast from the past. Saw Brian and Justin. Owen walked over from campus and Keith was a horrible influence on me. Owen and I got split from the group and decided to take CARPOOL home but it was taking too fucking long so I woke up Marshall and made him take Owen home and then slept in his bed. I'm trying to drop every name possible. If I forgot you, leave a sassy comment and I'll insert you into the list and pretend like you were always there. It will be hilarious.

The next day I was hungover like the entire day. It sucked, but was pretty expected. Lunch with AllieD, back to sleep on Todd's couch the rest of the day. I woke up at 1:30am and had Dustin come pick me up and drank over at his place with Raul. Spent the night on the ground accidentally. Came home the next day. I breezed over a lot of details, obviously, but I had a really great time. Thanks for driving, Ryan!

Whenever I meet someone new, or get someone's screen name for the first time, I always ammend it with a buddy comment. I'm not sure if anyone else uses these but they're a g*dsend to me. I put people's names, jobs, home towns, physical descriptions ... anything I might want to know, or pretend I've remembered later. You should all be using them. Anyway, sometimes the descriptions of someone I've met for the first time, and later become close friends with, are a tad outdated. They tend to be on the insulting side from time to time, so I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by posting names, but one of them that I just edited the other day said, "that impudent little imp." If you want to know if you have a buddy comment, hit me up with an IM.

And in final news, HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY TO TOPHER (known affectionately by some as Yale Boy). I meant to call him at midnight, but then I realized that I don't understand time zones, so I'd better just call him when he gets out of class tomorrow. But this is my proof that I've been thinking about him and did not forget. (And no, I didn't use a buddy comment to remember.) I love you, kid, have a wonderful birthday, a kick@ss summer, and stay cool.

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

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

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

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

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

So last night Thomas and I decided it would be a good idea to get drunk. I love when your plans for the evening involve nothing beyond "get drunk." It just opens up a world of opporitunity. Of course, we didn't really explore any of those options, and opted for an old favorite: sitting at Ryan and Todd's playing drinking games. Can't go wrong there.

We played several rounds of Suits to which Thomas skoffed and informed us he was "no cheap date." So Ryan fixed him up with a shot and we continued playing. Ol' Tommy had to excuse himself from the party a little early, but I suppose that was a good thing in the end since he had to be at work at 8am.

I know that I've been a little under the weather lately, but I stayed home on a Thursday so I was starting to get the shakes. Sometimes drinking while you're sick makes you sicker (see the last two weekends) but then once you pass that threshold, you can actually wash away the remaining sick cells with a good ol' toxic poisoning of beer. Mission accomplished. I feel great today. I'm about to go to Wal-Mart with Karen just for a reason to leave the house. It's been another couch-a-rific day. And in future news, Chris is coming home on Monday for Thanksgiving. We had a drunken conversation last night, that I really don't remember. But I do remember that one point. Alright, you have-nots... peace out.

So my weekend was pretty good. I went out one night with Owen, Allison, AllieD and Jamey. That was rather uneventful. Last night Ryan, Todd, and I decided to just drink a whole bunch of beer. I actually bought 30 Stones to contribute to the party. But then Rob called me and reminded me that it was his birthday and that his party was going on. There was a keg, so naturally, we decided to go there. It was a quaint little party at a house that I've partied at before, even though I don't know the guy who lives there. There were a few people there that I knew, most of whom I hadn't seen since this summer. I drank a whole lot of Shiner, and Allison gave me a ride home. Fun times had by all.

I have an exam tomorrow at 8am. I should be getting to bed soon. I just got done studying at Sweet Eugene's with a group of friends. I think I understand everything well enough now to pass the test. The trick is going to be getting up and going. Hence the early bed time. But it all works out okay since I only got like 4 hours of sleep last night and I'm still a little hungover, so I've been looking forward to sleeping for quite some time.

In fact, I think I'll go do that.

Let me add one more rule to my list of Aggie Ettiquite. After the game, go home and shower, people. It's cool to go directly to Northgate from the game, but it is not cool at midnight to be still standing around in your sweat drenched Maroon Out shirt trying to spit game. Honestly.

So Allison and I came home and showered and then went up to Northgate. That was pretty fun. I got to see some people from high school and my old roommate Cade, who apparently has cleaned up his act. Always a good time when Cade's around. So we had a couple beers on Northgate and then decided to go check out this big party that was going on. We said our goodbyes, made our way to the front of Duddley's and then made a break for it across University to the dorms where we had parked. Next thing I notice is a cop has altered his predetermined course to turn into the dorm parking lot as though he were coming after us. I jokingly recalled the story when Todd got pulled over for jaywalking and told Allison the same was going to happen to us. Telling that story might have been a bad idea.

Because we decided to avoid him. When he was on the right side of the cars, we walked on the left. As he circled around we meandered through the cars. It was becoming more and more apparent to us that this dude was trying to talk to us, so we darted through the cars and went to Moore for a while. I needed to pee and I was seeing if anyone I knew was there. My old summer roomie John was outside. So then it was time to make a break for the car. We figured that there was no way this guy was going to expend anymore energy than he already had on a stupid jaywalking ticket. Wrong. He was still there waiting for us. We went behind the dumpsters and around and got to my car without him being able to talk to us. Success.

Wrong. We pull out of the parking lot onto University and the fucking cop pulls out right behind us. At this point I'm considerably alarmed, but I don't want to say anything to Allison and get her paranoid. Turns out, she was thinking the same thing. Just to check that he was actually following me, I thought I'd get in the left lane and let him pass me. Wrong. I got in the left lane and he switched lanes as well. So now I'm officially being tailed by a cop, and I cannot show up to a party with 5-0 on my tail, so I change my destination from the party to not-the-party. And I guess the fact that I was switching back into the right lane to try and get away let him know that this was the end of the road and he hit the lights and pulled me over.

Now I'm thinking to myself that jaywalking is not that big of a deal and everyone does it, he sure did go to great lengths to catch me. So I hand him my license and he says "The reason I pulled you over was because you're wearing a black shirt." [Insert dramatic pause] WTF? Well, as the story goes, someone in a black shirt was shooting paintballs at people on Northside that night, so I guess its common practice for the police department to pull over anyone coming from Northgate wearing black, since it is, by all means, a rare and hard-to-find shirt color. Although it was fun explaining why we were totally avoiding him in the parking lot. I just told him that we were deciding whether or not to go visit people at Moore and he bought it. Whew.

So then we got to the party and proceeded to tell that story many, many times. This party was total sensory overload. I've never seen so many beautiful people under one roof. We totally took this guy up on his offer to drink as much as we wanted and I soon realized that I was not going to be driving home. But CARPOOL stops running at 3 and we were not going to leave this party at 3, far too early. Next thing you know you're waking up on some strangers couch without a care in the world. I called Allison to find out where the fuck she'd gone. Turns out she was on a couch not 10 feet away from me. It was a killer party dudes, 5 bucks to get in, but I seriously didn't mind. Rock n roll.

And the final piece of news, today is Chris's 19th birthday. I would put up a link to IM him for his birthday, but he is never online these days. So in lieu of contacting him, let me just say Happy Birthday Chris!!!

A simple equation for all of you who find yourselves with nothing to do some weekend. Here's the story behind that. Allison comes over to my house around 2pm and tells me to get ready because we're laying out on the most gorgeous day in a long time. So I decide that I would like to go to the Campus Lodge pool cause I had so much fun the last time I went there with Todd and DAvid. So we're laying out and then realize that we really wish we had some alcohol. Surprising considering I was nursing a considerable hangover from the night before with Dustin, Trey, and Ryan. Anywho, we went to double quick and got the nastiest Mai Tai wine drink and some Michelob Ultra Light.

Next thing we know, these three boys bring a keg out to the pool and invite us to drink from it. Not ones to decline free booze, we started sucking off their keg which turned into a day of sun and suds and swimming. They ended up being pretty cool. One dude asked me what kind of music I listened to because I had said that I'd never heard the Tool song that was on the stereo and I replied, "Folk." And he goes, "You mean like John Denver? What about James Taylor or Neil Diamond?" It was as though he had done research on me on the internet and was divulging just a little bit too much information about me. But I think he just so happened to hit the nail on the head.

So we drank all day with them, and then told them all to meet us up at Margarita Rocks to watch the De La Hoya fight. They went, but we didn't. Whoops. I crashed for a couple of hours and then me and Allison got ready to go out for the night. On our way to Northgate, she says to me, she says she says she says, "Hey I bet they still have that keg, we should just go back over there." And we fucking did. We knocked on a strangers apartment to see if he still had a keg and/or was having a party. We were the first ones to the party. Nonplussed as ever, we resumed where we had left off earlier that evening. I had a total blast hanging out with all the people I'd never met before.

I put up some new songs today. Hurt may not be the most iconic Johnny Cash song, but its my favorite. I never thought I had any kind of connection to the guy really, but I watched a VH1 special on him and bawled my eyes out. He was a great musician and will be missed. I guess its time to get up, get cleaned up, and make some ld phone calls. Check you skillets on the flip side. Laaaaaate.

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

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

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

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

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

So yesterday some of Ryan and Todd's friends from out of town came to visit. People that have been in this blog before, like DAvid and Joel. And I met Wally and Daniel as well, two more grads from Arlington High. And of course, they were in the mood to party, so after a bit of pre-gaming, we headed to the Northgate. Oh, before I go any further, I did bring my camera with me last night, and though I didn't take many pictures, I did promise DAvid that I would put a picture of him on my website.

As you can see, DAvid is going bald. So back to my story. Todd, DAvid, Wally and I decided that instead of buying our own drinks, we would just take turns buying rounds, so DAvid started off with the Royal Fuck. Mmm, delicious. Wally countered with a shot of straight Goldschlager. Always a treat. Todd spent his money on Red Headed Sluts. Can't go wrong. And believe it or not, I actually bought my round, only I did it at the Dry Bean. And everyone came with. So Mr. Big Shot (no pun intended) decides to buy a Screaming Nazi for everyone there. Ended up being $32, but it was delicious so I didn't care.

So now we've got some beers and shots in our system and we go to Shadow Canyon to dance the night away. Oh, and drink more. I actually danced so you know I was quite faded. Ran into Dustin and Trey on the dance floor. It was almost closing time so they were double fisting, which, to me, was an invitation to steal a drink. It was a vodka sour. Then I felt like an asshole so I went to get us each a drink before 1. I am carrying 3 double cherry vodka sours, spilling them all over people, and they were gone. I could not freaking find them. I bumped into some girl and as my apology I gave her a drink. Then I gave the other drink to some random girl. Who does that? They should have been more wary of me, but I didn't slip anything in them so it was okay.

No problem, it was closing time. I thought I'd just meet up with my friends and go home. Whoops, where were they? I don't know. I ended up sitting on the curb of the EZMart dialing people in my phone to come get me because Todd wouldn't answer his damn phone. I got fucking left. That sucks. Anyway, Dustin and Trey swung by and picked me up and took me to Ryan and Todd's where the party was still rocking. Needless to say, this is where I ended up:

Just be glad I photoshopped out the contents of the toilet. Let this be a PSA for you. How tacky am I. Can't wait to do it all again tonight. Czech you skillets lata.

So karaoke night at Shadow Canyon was fun. So much for no more drinking on weekdays, but this was a special occasion ... we call it Wednesday. I met up with Ryan and Todd and headed to watch some of the worst and some of the best karaoke I have ever seen. My friend Chris dropped by for a while as well, but now he's gone to Austin for the next 3 weeks.

Anyway, I'm just blabbing to try and make this blog an acceptable length. The real reason I'm blogging is to encourage you all to download the new song of the day, White Stripes - Seven Nation Army. It fucking rawks. I've had it on repeat here in the office for a while and nobody is complaining yet. We'll see how they feel after a week of this. Peace out.

Hello esteemed colleagues, lesser-thans, and have nots. I would have loved to have updated you all sooner, but unfortunately, Cox Sux. These guys can't keep an internet connection going for more than a day. Every time I come home from work my AIM says I've lost my connection. And now, its been off for like 3 days. We had a pretty significant storm here the other night and since then the internet hasn't worked. To my understanding, some of my neighbors are having similar problems, so maybe this is something that affects more than just me, but I've never really given a shit about stuff like that. I need to have the internet or I will wither away. In fact, thats why I'm staying late at work tonight, just so I can abuse the ethernet connection.

Not much out of the ordinary has been happening to me. I'm going to pay off my credit card debt this month, which is exciting. I didn't think I'd be able to do that so fast this summer. In other words, money is good and I am back to the life of excess that I used to know and love. A lot of that money has gone towards alcohol, I am ashamed to admit, but it has been an absolute blast on Medina these days, nights, and wee hours of the morning.

The other night I invited a bunch of people over because we had a random hankering for some Pictionary. There is nothing more fun than drinking beers and playing Pictionary. Todd, Allison, Joseph, Will, and Cappy all came over to partake. Scooter and his friend Tony stopped in for a spell later on in the evening as well. I kicked ass as usual, though I don't think we ever ended up finishing an entire game. Despite this fact, we managed to play until about 6am, as well as polishing off around 60 beers. Good times, good times. And there's plenty more of that to come.

Future bashes may include a study session for Brandon who is training to become a bartender. He said he could benefit from some practice, I said I could benefit from a live-in bartender. Wallah. You know I'll be inviting the whole neighborhood for that one. I'll keep you all posted on any other bashes that may sporatically spring up.

I haven't gotten a comment in 23 days...

It seems that this has become a bit of a weekly occurence these days. I'm sorry to all of my loyal Sidesho-Viewers ... I just don't ever feel like blogging anymore. I've been really busy and enjoying that fact. I do my best to have a list of things to do every day and get them done. So far my system has been flawless, but I just know that one little monkey wrench will cause the whole thing to self destruct.

Last night I went to Ptar's with my neighbor, Breezy. We met up with Ryan and Todd and their friend Sam. Sam was insistent on buying everyone shots. Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't complaining, and I certainly wasn't declining ... but I got real drunk on Thursday so i was trying to take it easy last night. Well then I get a call from my lab partner, Owen, and he's at Northgate. It had totally slipped my mind that it was his 21st birthday. So congrats to Owen, Happy Birthday.

Now, some people at the Ptarmigan were a tad perplexed that I would leave them to go to Northgate to hang out with my lab partner. But if you know me at all you know that me and my lab partners spend more time together than me and my roommates do. Plus Owen never drinks so it was a special occasion. Me and Breezy met up with Owen at Northgate and headed right for Dry Bean. I knew that I had to buy him a Royal Fuck, the best shot on the menu. That was fun, then I decide we need another. So we took a Sex with an Alligator. Good stuff. Then Kerin came in and he was having a round of Jäger Bombs. So I threw in for Owen to join us. Immediately following that Owen claims that he's always wanted to try a Saki Bomb from Kyoto Sushi. What a champ. So we went and took a Saki Bomb. Needless to say, it was Carpool for the ride home. I ended up seeing Allison and Christine out at Northgate so we rode together. I know that I drank a few more beers, ate some frozen Mexican food and then passed out on Allison's couch.

It was a great night. Man, these weekend posts are consisting of nothing but a drink menu from my night before. Oh well, its more exciting to talk about than digital outputs needed to control an SM-E040 stepper motor. I called Owen today and he said he threw up in Chevron and then at home, for any of those that were wondering. The story wouldn't be complete without that. So I hope everyone else had as good a weekend as I did. Leave a comment some time this week if ANY of you have the time. Peace out, have nots.

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

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

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

Where to begin, where to begin. So much has happened since I last posted, this may end up being a long blog. So go get something warm to drink, perhaps a blanket to wrap up in whilst you read, and lets begin. First off, why haven't I posted? Well, the end of the semester was a really busy time for me. I had exams, presentations, and projects to work on. I still have one exam to take and two projects to work on, but the deadlines are further away for those.

The first project was our closed loop controlled dc motor supply. Me and my group, the Users, had been working on it all semester. We had to finish it up and debug it and do all kinds of crap. I was in charge of the documentation for the project. Basically you have to document every little thing you do all semester long. The final product was 100 pages, front and back. My obsessive compulsive anal retentive nature came out while working on this document. Everything about it had to be absolutely perfect. In the end, it was. Its the most gorgeous comprehensive thing I've ever made. My professor was very impressed and even said he couldn't wait to read it. And I don't doubt that he meant it with all sincerity. We also had to put together a powerpoint presentation to show to the prof. We did our presentation pretty quick the night before it was due. We had plenty of time though since the last day, we started working on it at 10:00am and didn't finish until 9:00am the next day. I was bound and determined to have the thing finished before I went to sleep. And I did. Our presentation went well even though we got absolutely grilled on the Q&A. Our prof wanted to give us questions that were a cut above the normal question, and they were hard. I think I answered one completely right, and the other one I had to say "I don't know." I wasn't too happy about admitting defeat, but I had no choice.

After the presentation we all went over to the Chicken to relax, drink beer, and play pool. Our professor even joined us, and helped us close the bar down. I paid the pool guy 10 bucks to take the door off of the pool table, so we got unlimited pool the whole night. Because I did that, I didn't have to buy any beer the whole night cause everyone felt indebted to me. That was pretty cool. I got pretty stupid that night but I had a great time just hanging out with everyone from my major. We spend so much time together up in lab, it was nice to kick back with them and just talk about things not related to a 68332 microcontroller. Turns out, my classmates are fun people. Ryan and Todd showed up to Northgate and I was supposed to go home with them, but they ended up ditching my ass when I went inside MadHatters to find Allison. That was cool ... NOT. But whatever, me and Allison ended up getting a ride home from two guys she had met 2 seconds before I showed up. I was under the impression that she knew them, but it turned out that she didn't. Their names were Buck and Kix ... wtf? Why she was talking to a couple of guys named Buck and Kix, I'll never know, but we got home safe and thats all that matters.

Another thing I had to be doing this past weekend, in between my 14 hour stints at the keyboard working on documentation was attend concerts for symphony extra credit. I was concerned that I wouldn't be passing the class. Turns out I was right. Its a good thing I did that extra credit cause it bumped my grade up to a D. A D will really fuck my GPA this semester (which would have been a 4.0 otherwise) but at least I get credit for the class and my fine arts are out of the way. An interesting turn of events though. Our prof in symphony informed us that being a 300 level course, there were prerequisites to get into the course, which only a handful of people knew about. They messed up in the catalogue and allowed us all to sign up for an upperlevel music major course. So depending on the grades, he may curve the whole class, which could potentially bump me up to a C. That would be nice. I'm not counting on it though.

Another project I'm working on is a digital thermometer. We designed the circuit, built it, and tested it and it worked. But for any extra credit points, we have to have it etched onto a pc board. So we frantically designed a pc board, something none of us had ever done before. It was hard, but we got it done and verified by the prof before sending it off to be fab'ed. Turns out it's gonna take way more than the estimated 3 days leaving us with 24 hours to test and debug our system. Sucks. So I don't know what were going to do. Soldering the parts on alone would take that long. We'll see what happens, it may not be possible. I have an A locked down, so I couldn't care less, but my teammates could use the points. We bargained on so many added features (7-segment displays, dual celsius and fahrenheit capabilities, mounting it in a remote control car, and wireless capabilities) that we could earn as many as 10 points to our final final grade. That's so out of control.

Finally having time to relax is weird. At first I was having trouble sleeping. I would wake up every couple of hours and jump out of bed constantly thinking I was either late for something, or wasting time not working on anything. I'm better now though. I slip back into my slothfully prefered mode quite easily. All in all this was a pretty good semester, though I'm not sorry to see it go. Making the highest grade on every test in every class was pretty funny.

I've run out of things to talk about even though I'm sure I've forgotten some things. If I remember I'll post again. Anyways, I'm back now, so fear not. Updates will commence. Peace out, you HAVE NOTS!

It's time for Monday again ... my favorite day of the week. It signals an entire school week ahead during which I'll be able to further my knowledge (and love) of digital and analog circuitry. This week is an especially exciting one since I'll be able to take a test on Thursday over a bunch of stuff that I really don't understand. Anyway, I don't really like talking about school. You know what I really like talking about.

Last night Colette and Brianne (the girls next door) both dunked their rings. It was really fun to watch. Brianne came in around 150 seconds and Colette followed shortly thereafter. And then, of course, there was a whole keg of beer left that had to be drank. I did my best to drink as much of it as I possibly could. It was a really good time. Todd, Ryan, and Sam showed up later, but I don't really remember even talking to them much. Allison swung by for a while. Matt and Keith both came as well as John and Courtney. Basically it was a good night of just sitting around doing what we do best.

I do have one misgiving about the whole weekend though. This morning (Sunday) I woke up with an enlarged uvula. For those of you who are not aware, thats the thing that hangs in the back of your throat. The only time this has ever happened to me was when I had my second knee surgery and my uvula got stretched out by the tube being shoved down my throat. Allison found something on the internet that said it could be caused by stress or an infection or something so we'll have to see what that's all about. It is SO annoying because its just resting right on my gag reflex. Yes its that long right now. I'm hoping beyond hope that I'll wake up and it'll be back to normal. Anyway, thats totally gross. I'm going to try to take a picture of it. Check you sluts later.

UPDATE: I just woke up this morning, and while my uvula isn't back to its original size, I think it is definitely smaller than it was last night.

Same thing, different week. I am a slave to routine. Last night me and Ryan and AllieD headed out to Northgate. There were minor differences this week. Like the fact that AllieD's boyfriend Jamie went with us. Todd, Joel and Daniel went with us too but they had to take a separate car. We started out at the Library. That's always fun, even though it was like totally empty. So when that got boring we headed over to MadHatters. I had a lot of fun there. Me and Ryan and some guy I didn't know took a jaunt over to Kyoto Sushi for a Sake Bomb. Those are so nasty but so fun to take. Then we finally ended up at Duddleys.

The weather kind of sucked. It rained on me at least one time and really hard. Good thing that new jacket I bought at Structure is like water proof. I was not aware of that but the water just beaded up on it and rolled off. So at the end of the night AllieD and Jamie got into some drunken argument and Jamie left but forgot he had her keys. So AllieD drove my car home and then used my phone to call him and get him to come get her. I hope they kissed and made up.

I'm trying to think of something non-alcoholic to tell you guys. Everyone must think I'm such a lush. But really everything else in my life is boooring. I was gonna make that PRSSA webpage but in the end I really didn't feel like it so I asked my friend, Shan, if he would make it for me and then I'd give him the money. So he did. The girl hasn't contacted me about when she wants to buy the disk of files from me. I think I'm going to cut some pages out of a book and put the disk in there and then when she pays me put the money in there. Like Neo, for those of you who didn't catch that reference. Yeah, I think I'm rambling now so I bid you all adieu. Have a good Friday and if you're doing anything fun, invite me.

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

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

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

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

Well folks, the day finally arrived. As you can see on the webcam pic there, I now have an Aggie Ring around my finger. It was very exciting and gratifying to put it on for the first time. Now I'll finally get the respect I feel I so deserve. So I went out celebrating last night. To Northgate, of course. I went with Ryan, Brandon and AllieD. I drank way too much, but it was a complete blast as always. We went all around drinking and talkin and seein friends and then took CARPOOL home, which is always a blast.

I'm going to the mall now with Todd to spend my Structure fastcash, and then I'm going to see 8 Mile at 3:45. Its gonna be so good. Tonight I'm just gonna take it easy. No drinking tonight. Whoohaaaa. Peace out you have nots.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello again, dear friends. I have returned unscathed from Sin City. My wallet, however, did not escape the inevitable. All said I lost exactly $300. The same amount that I went there with in my wallet intending to lose, so you could say I did alright. I didn't lose anymore than I wanted to, like I thought I might be tempted to do. In actuality, I won a lot of money over the course of the trip, I was even ahead at one point, but whats the fun in being in Vegas if you aren't going to gamble? Hence, I lost it back to the casinos. Dirty Vegas. So my apologies to everyone who commented on the last blog. None of you get the $100 I promised.

Recap -- The long story.

Sunday: 1:40am, Me, Ryan, Todd and David all pile into Ryan's car to drive to Austin where our flight departs from. We all did our best to nap a little before that, but it didn't ever really happen. We arrive at Ryan's sister's house in Austin about 2 hours later and she drives us to the airport. We got there plenty early since our flight didn't leave until 6am. We first flew to luxurious DFW airport ... which was kind of a bummer since we've all been there countless times, but we weren't there for long. We actually had like this 4 mile trek to get to our next gate, but luckily were able to flag down one of those motorized carts.
We arrived in Vegas around 8 in the morning due to the time difference and took a cab to our hotel. We stayed at the Aladdin. Our rooms weren't ready yet cause it wasn't 11, so we checked our bags and went to gamble. The first thing I did was put some money into a dollar slot and win 40 bucks. That was pretty exciting. I then proceeded to hop from slot machine to slot machine to find my favorite. And boy did I. Turns out I'm not only good at Wheel of Fortune in real life, but also dominate the slot machine version. That was probably my best game. We hit up a few casinos that day, one of which being the Golden Nugget. There we had the coolest dealer named Graham at the $5 blackjack. He taught us how to play better ... when to hit when to stay and he was fun to talk to. I ended up being at that table for a good 3 hours off of the same 40 bucks. At one point I was up another 40 on top of that, but ended up leaving the table dead even. At that point, I was even on the trip.
We then went back to the hotel, got all cleaned up, ate at PF Changs (our first meal in about 24 hours) and got ready for our limo ride. I was wearing a shirt I had purchased earlier in the evening, so in actuality I didn't leave Vegas completely empty handed. Our limo took us up and down the strip ... and then a tour of all the seedy strip establishments in Vegas, but we didn't actually go inside any of them. Our final destination was the Hard Rock. That place was pretty damn sweet. However, the smallest tables they had were $10. So I start off all confident and play $50 worth of blackjack and lose it very quickly. I was kind of upset about that since I didn't even get to play more than 10 minutes, so I went and found Wheel of Fortune. It wasn't as nice to me at Hard Rock, so I lost 40 bucks. I did however get to see Chris Kattan walk right by me. That made my damn night.
Since you only get free alcohol when you're gambling in a casino, I essentially spent 90 bucks for 2 beers, which was ridiculous. Todd was also way down on the day, so we decided that instead of paying 45 bucks for a beer, we might as well sit at the bar and pay 4 bucks per beer, which we did for a while. It was a much better time than throwing away your money for nothing. So that was the first day.

Monday: Discouraged by our loses the day before, me and Todd decided to hit up the pool the next day when we woke up, so as to delay our inevitable next loss. David joined us and we sun bathed for a while. The air in Vegas is so dry though that it'll sap your eyes of any moisture they have ever had. My eyes were almost completely colored in blood red. Scared me pretty good, so I bought some Clear Eyes and they returned to normal. I had to rewet them several times a day though. Then we went to a couple of casinos. I don't really need to name them all, if you're really that curious, just let me know. One I will talk about is Excalibur, cause we robbed that place blind. All of us came out of there ahead ... something that only happened at Excalibur.
We first hit up the horse races. It was this game that had 5 little horses in this little race track and you'd bet on which 2 horses would come in first, and each combination had different odds for each race. And you have like 30 seconds to place your bets (a quarter each) and then it takes another 30 seconds at least for the horses to get around the track. And you can yell at them like 'GO 3 GO!' and its funny cause they're mechanical. I liked that game cause it took a long time to lose your money if you were only better a quarter at a time. Everyone else got bored with it after a while, but I didn't. Plus it was getting me a plethora of free drinks ... all of which were Pina Coladas. I decided to see how many I could drink in one day, which may sound unhealthy, but they give you very, very, very weak ass drinks if you're playing cheap games, so I didn't even get drunk despite the 8 pinas I had. The moral of this story though, is that I put a quarter on horses 3 and 4 to win with 162 to 1 odds, and it fucking hit. I was so excited. Me and the guy next to me were high fiving and yelling. He bet 10 on it so he won nearly 400 dollars. I only bet 1 so I got around 40 dollars. But it was still exhilerating. I left after that and robbed the Excalibur.
Man, my fingers are getting tired. Almost done though, bear with me. After that we went to Casino Royale and I pissed away all of my winnings at the craps table. Turns out that I don't really like craps. I lost at it almost every time I played. Casino Royale was lame. We went back to our hotel and got ready to go out that night then. Me and Todd sat down at Wheel of Fortune before we left, and on my first pull I got a spin and won 200 quarters. Cha-ching. On Todd's third pull he got a spin and won 100 quarters. I then decided to play some more dollar slots and won 10 more dollars. Then we both played Monopoly on the nickle slots and I won 6 and Todd won 5 bucks. I was on a roll and so was Todd. We were feeling good as we left to go out that night.
First we stopped by Bellagio to see the water show. It was set to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." It was pretty impressive. After that we went downtown. That was a bad night for almost all of us. We went into Fitzgerald's to play some $5 blackjack. I threw down $60 to have it changed into $5 chips. Over the course, then, of 12 hands, I won once, and promptly lost that 5 bucks. So in effect, I really lost like 13 hands in a row, and I was so pissed. The dealer sucked too, she wasn't fun to talk to or lose to. It was probably the only time on the trip that I actually got upset about losing. I got up and took a walk around the casino. Everyone else got robbed by this bitch too. I swear she had so many blackjacks and stuff. It was absolutely ridiculous. Needless to say my winning streak was over. We went back to Aladdin and drank some more beers that I went ahead and just paid for.

Tuesday: The next day we had to wake up a little bit early to check out of our hotel rooms. By a little bit early I mean 11:00. We checked our bags and went to get some last minute gambling in at the Aladdin. I had 70 dollars left over and not much time so I decided to go balls to the wall on dollar slots. First thing I did was play some San Francisco game and win 50 bucks right off the bat. Then I hit Wheel of Fortune. I decided to put all of my dollar coins (80 dollars worth) into the machine and not cash out my credits. So if I lost, I lose, if I won, I won. I wasn't going to play anymore credits. Well, I put in 80 and I took out 80. Big deal, so I found a different Wheel of Fortune game that I was feeling good about. I hit the spin a few times and won 50 bucks, 30 bucks, 30 bucks, 20 bucks. In the end I was left with a bucket totaling around 150 dollars.
I didn't have much time left, but enough to still be gambling. And I could have left with 150 in my pocket, but I still would have been down and I hadn't hit it big yet. And it really takes some startup capital to hit it big, so I decided to go for it. I sat down at a few more dollar slots and slowly pissed away all of my winnings until I was left with nothing. And thats how you find me here today. Completely broke. Shit. Dirty Vegas. Oh well, it was a completely friggin blast.
We caught our plane then to LA, which didn't make much sense, but oh well. We got into LAX late and our flight to Austin was about to leave. So we had to literally sprint the entire length of LAX to get there on time. Needless to say it was a little bit painful for your arthritic, crippled author. We made it though and got to Austin around 10:something. Time zones really mess with me. We ended up in College Station around 2am and went to bed.

And that, my friends is the end of my Vegas Vacation story. Though you might not believe me, I didn't document every event on this blog, so if you still want to know more, just let me know, I'll talk your ear off. If you read this whole thing, consider yourself among the most loyal of Sidesho-Viewers. Thanks ... and gig this.

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.

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?)

Greetings from the land of 21. First let me thank everyone who attempted to call me on my birthday. If you forgot, good news: I'll never know. My cell phone, apparently, was telling everyone that, "This VoiceStream customer is no longer in service." My feelings got progressively more hurt as the day went on because NO ONE had called me. So around 10:00 I decide to call my parents to find out what the dillyo, and they were like "DAVID! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! WE'VE BEEN CALLING ALL DAY!" And then I called Ms. Allison and got about the same reaction, so that made me feel better. Like I said, if you didn't call, just say you did and make me feel special.

So what did I do this weekend. Well first, me and Todd drove to Kevin's apartment. We had to take two detours on our way there because of the severe flooding all around San Antonio. You should have seen the Guadalupe River. My god, the thing was beyond swollen, it was crazy. We eventually made it to Kevin's, and he worked until about 10 that night. And as soon as he got home and we all got ready we went out to a pool hall called Bradley's. There were a bunch of Kevin's friends there as well as Todd and my friend Will from College Station. We got there around 11:00 and the door girl said she couldn't count me and Kevin as over cause it wasn't midnight yet. So we got big black X's marked on our hands. At midnight, we went back to the door and some guy in charge told us it would be okay if we went to the bathroom and washed the X's off our hands and then served us a free beer. The drinks then ensued. I had a load of beers, and one shot, which naturally, was a Four Horsemen. Thats a damn stout shot. I can get sufficiently drunk off just that. We tried to play a little pool, but that proved difficult. Kevin could hardly hit the cue ball. And this is all by 2:00 cause that was closing time.

Then we went back to Kevin's pad and had a little party with everyone. I don't know exactly what happened, but I know I was drinking all night, and I somehow out lasted everyone at the apartment. I was so drunk but I was up and watching a movie and everyone else was asleep or had gone home. So I went to bed and got around 4 hours of sleep before I got up on Saturday. I was so damn hungover it wasn't even funny. And it was one of those wonderful 24 hour kind of hangovers. So I felt like shit all day long. Saturday night we went to Fox and Hound and had a couple beers, nothing too fancy. Everyone had already kicked off the party that night back at Kevins. When we got there, I had no choice but to take a nap. My head was pounding and all the lights and noise was too much. So I fell asleep for a couple hours and then rejoined the party. It was kinda fun cause they were t-rashed and I wasn't drunk. And as an added bonus, I wasn't hungover this morning when I had to drive home.

This morning we woke up and got ready to come back to College Station. We said our goodbyes and left San Antonio around 3 after we had a little lunch. We decided to take some new and improved way home, I'm not sure what possessed us. But we ended up in Austin, and I called Will and asked him how the hell to get back to CS from there. Thank god we finally got here, and just a shade over 4 hours later. Oy! But I am back, and thanks again to everyone who left a comment or tried to call. You're all beautiful. It was especially good to hear from Joseph, who has been AWOL all summer. He'd best be keeping in touch if he knows whats good for him. And that's the name of that tune. Peace out, you have nots, stay in school.

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

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

God, what a hangover that was. I'm not sorry to see it go. I decided to sleep it off this time instead of dealing with it. I just woke up and its like 3:00pm. Gotta love the weekends. Last night we hosted a little get together at the Green Monster. Allison Delerie and her boyfriend Jamie came over as well as Todd and Ryan's friend David from Arlington. Later in the night my friend Allison came over after she got off work. And the final two guests were Erica and Zach. Erica is from Ryan's logic class and Zach was visiting her from Austin. It was a grand ol' time. All I know now is that I spent the morning in bed drinking water to alleviate a splitting headache and there must be about 100 bottles strewn about the apartment tonight. I ain't sorry though, like I said, it was a blast. I'm not sure whats on the menu for tonight, but I'll let you all know about it later. Peace out.

Well I am officially moved into my summer place. I am living with Ryan and Todd, you might remember them from my old friends pages. Incidentally, I'm thinking about bringing something similar to a Friends Page back. But instead, it would be a cast page. That way, when I blog about somebody, you could click on their name to view their vital stats so no one is ever left in the dark. Its such a good idea, and it eliminates all the politics of a friends page, since you would have to interact with me in a meaningful way in order to join the cast page, as opposed to just feeling like you deserve to be called my friend.

Anyway, I'm way off topic. Our new pad is totally sweet. Everyone thats in College Station for the summer should totally come check it out. Its down in Bryan right around Welborn and Villa Maria. I still need to get my computer and a bunch of other crap from over at Allison's but she's working right now so I'm not able. Once I get my computer hooked up here and we get our DSL rollin, I'll be back to updating the page once a day and getting a new Song of the Day.

On one other little note, my cell phone gets absolutely no signal anywhere near my house. I'm not sure why, I think the house is made of lead. But it doesn't work outside either. So if you need to get a hold of me, call my cell and leave a message. I will call you back as soon as I venture out. Or if you want you can email me and I'll send you our apt number. Aight, back to watching our new DirecTV. Boo yah.

Four days left for me to be in my apartment. I think today I'll start making trips over to the storage unit with everything I can carry myself. Keith & Family are in his room right now getting the last of his things and taking him home. Allison's away message says she's packing to go home today too. So sad, everyone's leaving. Oh well, I'll be gone soon too.

I should be getting to Plano like Thursday I think. I'm just gonna chill while I'm there. I'm gonna watch TV and let my mom cook for me. It'll be great. There are some people I need to see, but I'm just gonna let that happen of its own accord. Then summer school starts June 3 so I'll be back in College Station on May 30 to help Ryan and Todd move into their new duplex, where I'll be staying for the duration of summer school. Then, of course, its back to Plano for KISS Party on June 8 where I'll be seeing The Calling. Whoo hoo. So that's the layout for this summer. Whenever my schedule coincides with yours, you best be callin on me. Holla!

Fuckin' A did I have a good time last night. Ryan and Todd convinced me to go clubbing with them, which, if you know me, you know I hate to do. I'm more of a stay at home and chill kind of person, so you'd be hard pressed to get my ass in a club. But Todd laid one of his guilt trips so I said I'd go, but promised that I would embarass him. So me and Keith set out to coming up with a character for me to be.

I started by shaving my week's worth of stubble into a respectable mustache. I liked the look it gave me, but it was decidedly white-trash. So next I worked on the hair. I ended up with it all greased back with way too much gel in it. I left a curl down in front though for that special 'fuckin a' touch. We experimented with a bunch of different outfits but were having a hard time getting something to perfectly match the hair. Keith, being the kind soul he is, donated his Harley Davidson tshirt to the cause. I promptly cut the sleeves off. We finished out with black sketchers and a pair of jeans with my big shiny belt buckle. Oh yeah, and a white wristband on my right arm.

Now this alone was pretty funny, but it wasn't until Keith went out to his car and brought me back a pair of aviator sunglasses that I really slipped into character. It was a priceless look, dead on white trash. And I went to Tonix like that, and it was awesome. A few shots later I was on the dance floor and didn't go to bed until the wee hours of the morn. I leave you today with these short words of wisdom, "Talk shit, get hit. Whoooweee"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday again, FINALLY. I need this Friday like the crops need rain. This has been a stressful but productive week. I was really stressed about that microcontroller, so I dedicated this week to getting as much done on it as we could as a team. I was really proud of everyone, we made some great progress on some stuff. Hopefully we'll get on track if we apply ourselves like this for the next 4 weeks. But if that happens, you KNOW i'm gonna be waaaasted on Friday night. Its just one of those things I need to do.

Next week doesn't look too bad. I've got a couple tests, and one of them is in the class that consumes my life, but it hopefully shouldn't be too bad. We'll find out more about whats on it on Tuesday. I have a circuit analysis test coming up soon, but that's gonna be an easy hundred. I've been paying attention in class just to ensure that fact. Other than that I haven't had a chance to do much. I'm pretty sure I'm going to Ryan and Todd's tomorrow to drink, like always. Lord knows I don't have anything or anyone better to do on a Friday night. Not a soul worth the least bit of my attention. Certainly, though, if you would like to join me, let me know. I doubt they'll mind.

3 Day Weekend. Ah, the old American pasttime. Ain't nothing like it. Big shout outs to Jebus for bringin' us the Good Friday holiday. Tonight I'm just going to relax. And naturally, by "relax" I mean "get drunk." Tonight's festivities will commence around 7 witeh watching some Friends. Allison's getting some wine for us, since we're all wino's now. From there, I'm gonna go to Ryan and Todd's and play some 6-cup.

Tomorrow I'm planning on being productive since no one will be in town. Everyone I know is going to home to celebrate the resurrection and eternal life of their lord and savior Jebus Christ by finding chocolate eggs left in the night by an enormous bunny rabbit (circa Bill Hicks). That should give me some time to get caught up on school and just chill in the apartment by myself ... something I don't get to do nearly enough.

Anyway, if you are staying in town, be sure to give me a call cause I'll have lots of free time and no one to spend it with. On a footnote, thanks to everyone who has already written me in for senior yell leader. If you haven't already, be sure to go to http://vote.tamu.edu and write me in. Thanks and gig this.