I keep telling myself I need to be more narrative on my refreshed blog. I used to document the most meaningless things but they are more fun to read years later than anything monumental that I might otherwise remember. So here we go.

Two weekends ago, we drove my parents up to Oklahoma City for our niece Ann Marie's college graduation. She got her undergrad in 3 years with a 4.0 average. That apple fell nowhere near my tree! She is immediately going back to get her masters. So impressed. We stopped at Winstar on the way home and all pooled our money into a high stakes slot machine. I think it was like $30 per pull. After a few pulls, we hit a mildly good reward, doubled our money, and cashed out. I was happy to stop there but after lunch my mom wanted to gamble just a little bit more, so Daniel and I each put a hundy into a nearby machine and promptly frittered away not only our winnings but as much in losses. C'est la view.

Then last weekend, we hung out with the Allistralian. We had a great time getting to know her daughter who is gregarious to say the least. Her husband is addicted to AI, on a level far beyond what I've described. And he only uses it with the microphone like a conversation. And he always adds a ton of extra info. "I am sitting here with my wife and she is giving me a dirty look because she thinks I use AI too much, anyway, how do I heat up a chicken breast?" So funny.

Now we're sitting here wasting time until we can head to DFW for a flight to Sacramento. Now Michael's daughter Megan is graduating high school. We did have a super early flight but then AA moved it several hours later, so we won't have a huge buffer to get there and get situated, but should still have plenty of time without rushing -- IFFF our flight takes off on time. The last time we did this a couple years ago we just sat and sat and sat in the airport until we missed Kelsey's graduation and arrived at like 10pm. So we'll see.

Oh, in other news, we THINK we saw Muffin with a baby. At least we for sure saw her touching noses and letting a baby squirrel climb all over her. If it wasn't her baby then I don't think she would be doing that. We whistled at her to come get a treat, and the baby noped the fuck out of here, and Muffin sauntered over and enjoyed lunch. I wish she was training her babies to come to us so we could get some generational squirrel insurance.

Happy Easter everybody. Good luck out there searching for eggs (?) made of chocolate (?) that came out the butt (?) of a rabbit (?). I'm not 100% sure about the mechanics of that, but nonetheless, have fun. I'm just hoping this means that the gym will be close to empty.

Speaking of, there is this new scourge at the gym. It only started recently, but it is spreading. Grown men with ear buds in listening to music at full volume -- SINGING ALONG. WTF. Like OUT LOUD. And as annoying as singing would be to people around you, when you can't hear yourself at all, it's a special kind of horrible. I know of at least 5 people off the top of my head that I will not get on the treadmill next to or sit next to on the stretching mat because I know they'll break out into wincing, breathy, high pitched song the second I do. I wish I was more confrontational, so I could just tap them on the shoulder and ask, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" but instead I just shoot dirty looks that are not understood.

Normally for Easter lately we get together with my parents and have a smorgasbord of food from Honey Baked Hams. I even have a rewards number on honeybaked.com. But between you and me, all of their food is garbage. I mean, the ham is okay, but they also have these boxed sides and everything is just horrible. My dad had a little procedure on Friday and wasn't sure if he'd be up for it, so I was more than happy to accept their decline of getting together. Daniel did ask me what he should buy at the store as a special treat and I said he could buy some eggs and I'll make deviled eggs with salmon roe. That will be our homage to Easter.

I've been hearing a lot lately on the news and whatnot about this Prop 8 nonsense out in California and I felt compelled to weigh in on the issue. I think people are missing the point. The point isn't for gay people to get married; it's for gay people to be equal. There's one quick and easy way to accomplish this:

Abolish marriage.

I've spoken out in the past about people who are trying to destroy the institution of marriage -- divorcees, pregnant teens, single mothers -- people hell bent on destroying the moral character of this great nation. People who try to force me to accept their ung*dly lifestyles. But now I've changed my tune and have decided to speak out against all marriage. If every marriage was annulled starting right meow, it would totally level the playing field. Everyone could then pursue their own level of legal intertwining of their lives with another person, as they saw fit.

You don't need to be married to live together. You don't need to be married to cosign a lease. You don't need to be married to become someone's benefactor. You don't need to be married to be written into a living will. You can legally change your name whenever you want to whatever you want with or without getting married. Marriage isn't necessary to share insurance benefits, and you don't have to be married to share finances.

You don't need marriage to buy a big, gaudy cake. You don't need a marriage to get all your friends and family together to get plastered. A marriage isn't required to promise to love someone forever. Basically, you don't need marriage to have a fabulous wedding.

Marriage is something that started back around the time of the bible ... and none of that still applies to anything in today's modern world. So why hang onto that one last vestige of Mesopotamian culture that's been dead to the world for 2000 years?

So who's with me? I'm starting a petition to get Prop 9 on the ballot. And remember: A vote FOR Prop 9 is a vote against not have no marriage never not recognized and none of the marriages not counting.

Since we have three bedrooms in our apartment now, we turned the middle one into a TV lounge, hangout room. It has just about everything you could ever want in a TV room: a TV with all the accoutrement, surround sound, super comfy sofa, mood lighting. Everybody loves hanging out in there. Really, the only thing that sucks about it is when you're drinking and you have to keep getting up and going to the kitchen to throw out an empty beer can and grab a new one. It is seriously far.

Solution! The day we moved in I vowed that I would convert the TV room closet into a swank bar complete with my wine fridge, a beer fridge, trash can, cutting board, glassware. You name it, this shit is going to be nice. The more I plan, the more complicated my dream becomes. Now bear in mind that I have zero experience and absolutely no tools. But I have a dream, damnit, and sometimes that's all you need.

But seriously, if anybody has any experience or tools, I could really use your help.

The past couple of days at work I've spent drawing this conceptual drawing. I first measured the closet and then learned how to use AutoCAD to do a really nice isometric drawing as a first draft for getting my thoughts onto paper. Today I took that finished AutoCAD drawing into Photoshop and googled the different materials to overlay into this finished product. I'm obviously pretty proud of myself. Toot! Toot!

The whole thing is roughly 8' by 2' and will be covered in slate tiles. The back has four holes in the wood trim for accent lighting. There will be glass shelves above it with all my glassware, so this should create a cool lighting effect. The cutting board is actually recessed into the two-ply-wood shelf. After it's tiled, it will be flush with the rest of the surfaces. The copper flashing you see is actually just a hole that leads down to a trashcan that will be concealed by the large cabinet. Drawers flank on either side for spoons and knives and whatnot. Where you see no cabinetry is where the closet walls will actually be hiding those areas. And below each drawer will be a wine fridge or a beer fridge.

I really think I've thought of it all here, but if you have any suggestions on how to improve my little design let me know. I estimated the construction time at 2 years but Daniel thinks we can accomplish it in a few weekends. I guess all we can do is try ... and kiss our deposit goodbye. Let me know what you think!

Shazzam! What a weekend to remember. Gotta love Memorial Day three-day weekends. Friday night I met up with Scott over at Sullivan's, a swanky jazz club down the street from me. I had a Knockout Martini that was delicious. Then some band started playing and I really wasn't feelin' it so I ducked out early. Fridays are not big party days for me anymore since I'm usually ready for bed by about 8:00. Xristopher, my stylist of TLC fame, was there too. When a girl walked by with a belt on that was scrolling words, he made some derisive comment about it to which I replied, "Yay! I'm getting one of them for my birthday!" They are so trashy/rad. Incidentally, Ryan S■■■ said the Neil Diamond concert was sold out within 20 minutes of the tickets going on sale, so Justin, it looks like you're in the lead for best gift ever now.

I woke up on Saturday around 7:30 in the a.m. because I am an old man. Instead of just laying around I decided to clean my apartment finally. Like, really clean it. I started in the far back corner of my closet and worked my way all the way around to the kitchen. It felt so nice to finally have a clean place, and it ended up being a really great idea because I was going to have company later.

After a midday nap, I went down to Ryan S■■■'s apartment where I purchased some citrus vodka and pineapple juice. I was recreating the Sullivan's Knockout Martini, which cost me (actually, Scott. Thanks!) 9 bucks apiece but were now a fraction of that. Naturally, I drank them like they were going out of style and had a good slur goin on by the time we arrived at the party downtown. Pretty-hair KYLE from College Station was there. He was disappointed by the lack of his name in caps and bold on my website. I try to oblige. Much socializing, much drinks, much cigarettes, much good times. Ryan H■■■■■■ showed up with his friend Cameron F■■■, from L.A. I ended up hanging out with them for the remainder of the night. Around 3 (total estimation) we left the party. Cameron F■■■ had never had a Whataburger taquito, and you know me, the unofficial Ambassador of Whataburger, so I got us all something to eat. We went back to my apartment and spent a while eating and sharing amusing movies on the internet. w00t!

The resulting hangover from such a wonderful night was fearsome. I couldn't move until about 4 in the afternoon. Despite sleeping all day I was still exhausted when Ryan S■■■ picked me up (since my car was still at his apartment) and took me to get some sushi and then meet the boys out at The Ginger Man. We had a couple beers there, everyone putting it on my tab unbeknownst to me. So when we eventually went to JRs and then S4, I had free drinks aplenty. For the first time ... well, ever ... I went outside of my apartment without first flat ironing my hair into total submission. I decided to try beach hair. Beach hair is when you look like you've just spent the day at the beach and the way you achieve it is to spray your hair with salt water. I'm not sure I was thrilled with the results, but it was something new, and that's always refreshing. Eddie gave me the best compliment of the night when he said, "Seriously, you look completely different every single time I see you." That is so one of the nicest things you can say to me.

On a side note, here's a tidbit of Sidesho-etiquette: Don't tell me where I bought my clothes. I know where I bought them. I bought them. Of course I know where I was when this transaction took place. When you say, "Hey, you got that shirt at Guess," what I actually hear is, "Hey, your shirt is generic." It's things like this that cause me to fly to foreign countries and spend multiple hundreds of dollars on a shirt only to ensure that no one will know where I got it or g*d forbid be wearing the same thing. Btw, I shop almost exclusively at Guess, so you're not impressing anybody with your retail knowledge. This is a totally hypothetical situation though, nothing about last night spurred this rant.

These weekend blogs are so hard to title since there is rarely a central theme to them. When that happens, I wait until I'm done typing it to see if anything jumps out at me. Since that didn't happen here, I'll use the old adage: When in doubt, just choose something totally random. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.