Hair is mentioned in 45 posts, which ranks #17 overall for things. It is most often associated with these...

People:

Places:

Things:

I am home again. After another full day of travel I finally landed back in Dallas a whole 3 hours earlier than I was supposed to. As was the theme of the traveling this time, my original flight home was canceled by the time I was ready to get on it. I got to see Daniel and I gave him his new pants (underwear) and lounge pants (pajama pants) from Peter Alexander, a poncy (fancy) little underwear shop in downtown Sydney. He looks awful smart in them. And my brother was in town for his last day of a business conference, so he took me to Kenny's! What a welcome home!

During my last week in Sydney, Al and I had some fun adventures. First we both went to get our hair did. I love the chick that cut my hair. She went to town on it. Allison called it classic Aussie metro. Then she got her hair dyed back to her natural color and got a real sassy short do. She's traveling for the next 13 months through lots of countries that don't appreciate blondes to any degree, so this haircut should last her through it. After we got all dolled up, we went to Al's leaving do (party) at the Fire House Hotel (pub (bar)) in North Sydney. She has lots of wonderful friends. But it was weird how they want back and forth and around the table and every single one of them was like "Well, it's just like when I lived in the UK for 6 months prior to my year of traveling around southeast Asia." And another would chime in, "Oh yeah, when I lived in the Carribean, I spent a year touring before I got my residency in Australia." And I'm just like who are you transient people? All of them have been all over the world, lived all over the world, and I'm just like Addison! rules!

But it was a really fun party. Two of the girls were especially fun and they called Daniel early in the morning while he was at work and tried to convince him they were Kylie and Danni Minogue. Even tho the accents were pretty authentic, he didn't fall for it. Shucks.

My last day there we took a guided tour of the Hunter Valley (the Aussie Napa Valley). We went to like 5 or 6 different cellar doors and drank some very good wine. I ended up buying 4 bottles, I think, but we drank some before I left. I brought home 3 bottles and some aged goat cheese from some Hunter Valley goats. So ridiculously good. And the Shiraz is just ... huge. I can't even explain it. That was major fun. So we did that, picked up Noodle Star take away (to go) and ate it with the shiraz. And then the next day I left.

So here I am. I do not work until next Tuesday, nor do I intend to check my work email or answer my work phone until then. So if anybody wants to hang out and tan or something, let me know. It's summer again for me and I intend to take advantage this week. Laaaaaaaaate.

Today is the day I finally cut my rat tail off. I've been growing it for quite some time and it is understandably out of control. I took a picture of it last night just for documentation purposes and maybe I'll post it here sometime when I'm not so lazy. I am also going platinum today. I haven't dyed my hair in so long and I just can't wait. The hairstyle I'm going for is WWII chic. I want to look like I'm about to be shipped off to Normandy.

In other news, finishing touches on the bar began last night. All of the oak is stained and shoelocked and ready to go. Turns out oak is incredibly hard to get nails or screws through. Total pain in the ass. But we managed to get the trim and the first panel up. It looks fantastic. When it's all together I have every confidence that it'll be breathtaking. Toot! Toot!

Not much time to work on it today with my haircut and two parties to go to. The first one is whirlyball. If I remember from 6th grade correctly, its a game where there are two teams on a basketball court. Everyone has a little scoop that you can use to scoop up and fling a whiffle ball. And the objective is to hit a hoopless basketball backboard inside the square to earn points. Oh wait, did I mention the whole time you're in a hard to control bumper car? Cause that's kind of important. Then it's off to celebrate Katie turning 21. All these kids are growing up so fast.

And in final news, I've been thinking already about Febrehabruariv. I'm going to give up drinking and smoking and go vegan again. But I've been brainstorming ways to make it more difficult. It defeats the purpose somewhat if it's easy. I toyed with the idea of giving up driving. The bus stop is relatively close to my apartment but SO FAR from my office. It would certainly be a massive challenge. Maybe a tad too much. I will probably give up caffeine in any form now that I don't really need it to survive. But also for the middle two weeks, I'm going to do a master cleanse. Some of you may have heard me talk about it after C■■■■ introduced me to the concept. It's not so much that I think it's a great idea, although I am 100% intrigued by testimonials on the internet, but more that I think it would be HARD to do. Essentially the only thing you ingest for two weeks is this mixture of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. You should google "master cleanse" to read more about it. It's insane. But people on the internet and C■■■■ swear by it. So I think I'll do it.

Let me know if you want to play along. Ha!

In about 3 hours I will have successfully completed Febrehabruariii. This was, by far, the easiest of the trilogy thus far. I think having people doing it with me helped a lot. Plus, I'm getting pretty good at it. And the vegan thing just made it such a joy. I don't intend to binge tomorrow on anything, but I'd be surprised if I went too far into March without a relapse. I have this birthday party to go to on Saturday and that will probably be the end of sobriety for me. If I don't have something to drink on Friday.

My total weight loss was right around 7 pounds this year. That's about half of what I wanted to lose. And I know I said I wouldn't stop until I lose the weight I wanted, but ... I take it back. I am going to do whatever I want, but it just so happens that I want to stay a vegan and I want to stay on my workout routine. So everything should just work itself out.

I got a badass new haircut last week. It's kind of a mohawk, kind of a rat tail, and has a wicked triangle in the back. It's the haircut I intended to get last time, but this time I went all out. Oh man it is so cool. Daniel got his cut by Xristofer for the first time, too. His is a little more subtle than mine but also pretty wicked. His sides were clipper cut real short and kind of extend to the back of his head. You just have to see it.

I had all kinds of things planned to blog about but I'm having a really hard time remembering them now, so this will have to suffice. Leave me congratulations, bitches.

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, I've got a couple for all of you Google-Earthers out there ... or is it Googler-Earths? Check out [43.8789746068,-103.459672608] and [34.1341770342,-118.321979438]. They are both really cool if you turn on "terrain" and then tilt it to the max. If you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, you need to get your ass to earth.google.com, stat! (Did you know the term "stat" is an abbreviation for the Latin word statim, meaning "immediately?" I didn't. I just googled it.)

I encourage all of you to find something cool, obscure, recognizable and post it on a comment here.

Lately I have been really into trying these local dives around town. It started with the Rainbow Cafe -- I know, I know, big shocker that I went there. But it's actually just a great little soda fountain eatery in beautiful downtown Carrollton. I don't think they've remodeled (or cleaned) since 19dickity4. They have a big rainbow awning over their soda fountains and make shakes and stuff. They also have the most kickass hamburgers and they come with a figurative BUCKET of tater tots. There are so many of them that I have to put some in my zipper pocket to eat later.

Then after Brett S■■■ and I woke up on Sunday (at 9:00am, for some ung*dly reason) we tried to go to IHOP but the line was too long. So we drove a bit further and came upon Pete's Cafe -- "Come on in, for Pete's sake." Too clever and they served breakfast all day long. Our waitress's name was Doris, she was a delightful 60-something woman who called me "honey." Her birthday was last week. It just could not have been more quaint, and the food kicks ass too. Brett wasn't feeling 100% so when asked what he'd like to drink, he said, "A big ol' whoppin' glass of water." Why he said that, we both may never know. Drugs is cool. But Doris brought me my coffee and water, and the brought Brett the biggest glass they had. Too funny. Doris is a sweetheart and I can't wait to see her again.

Then today when I left work to go get something done at the public library (on account that the noise levels in my office are raising my blood pressure rapidly), I happened by this place only called "Donuts" that I've driven past 100 times. I decided to stop in. The requisite little Asian woman behind the counter greeted me. I had 3 different kinds of kolaches, all of which were fantastic. She even warmed them up for me in the microwave and snuck 4 different kinds of donut holes onto my plate when I wasn't looking. I sat at this oooold-skool bar while I ate. A donut shop with a bar? So rad.

Look, buddy, all I'm tryin' to say is that there's more to life than Smith and Wollensky's, Pappas Bros, and Three Forks. All of which sound just delicious right now. Maybe I'll go there tonight. I'm getting my hair did tonight, though, so it might have to wait until tomorrow. I expect that when I return from Cincinnati, myself and the Addison Circle will be hitting up these delightful restaurants?

Now get GOOGLING EARTH!

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

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

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

Every now and then on SideshoViD.com, I bring you pressing social issues and damning political commentary. This is one of those times. I bring you another monumental your-opinion-doesn't-really-matter-all-that-much-but-I'll-ask-it-anyway call to action. There is one thing that is driving me crazy about growing my hair out. It's not the tangles, the frizz, or the constant ironing -- it's the monotony. I am accustomed to radically changing my hair on a nearly daily basis. There was a time not to long ago when I would wake up with red hair, go to class with blue, and fall asleep with green. I can no longer make these drastic changes. And changing which side of my head I part on just isn't getting me off like it used to.

So I bring you the question: to flip or not to flip. It's my new innovation for my hair. Instead of curling everything under in a tidy package, I've started allowing the natural flow of my hair to come through by flipping the left side out. Sometimes drastically. So I want to know what the general public opinion is. 27 used to flip his hair just for me, since he generally hated to do so, into a style I dubbed the "Carol Brady." But I'm not doing both sides, just one. I think it creates a nice movement that has been lacking as of late. If you like the flip, let me know. If not, burn in hell. As always, I'll entertain your opinions, as long as your opinions entertain me.

In other news, my super secret social project that I've cleverly named "The Addison Circle" is slowly but surely coming along. This is where I am going to create my own social circle comprised entirely of people who live north of 635. Tonight I had drinks with Mr. K■■■■■■ and Matt L■■■■■, both of whom live just a stone's throw away from me in Addison Circle. Soon, soon, it will turn from a triangle, to a square, to a pentagon, to a hexagon, to a heptagon, to an octagon, to a nonagon, to a decagon ... and I'm tired of this game, continue on for me in comments if you like ... and eventually approach a circle.

I hope everyone has big plans today for getting sunburnt, eating watermelon, and watching fireworks. Me? I'm sitting in my very air conditioned apartment watching a show about redneks in Oklahoma noodling for fish. This is where they catch gigantic catfish using their hands as bait. It has really made me think about Europe a lot and how I wish I was there. I went to my Swedish chat site thing and started saving off pictures of guys with wicked awesome hair just in case my membership has an expiration date and I can't do this at a later date.

Lately it seems like everything that I'm about is for something in the future. I'm working on this future hair. I can't wait to get my future furniture in my future apartment. In reality, none of it will ever, ever happen given my current spending habits. I am down to like no money whatsoever and since I just paid my rent late (on account of this being a Sunday and tomorrow being a holiday ... FUCK!) I'm going to owe like an additional 100 bucks that I don't have. Frustration.

I spent all day yesterday painting Ryan S■■■'s apartment. We didn't get done but we did do a LOT. It looks totally awesome ... or rather it will, soon. I'll snap a pic of it sometime for all of you to see. Speaking of pictures, I got my Europe pictures back forever ago I just haven't had the patience to post them yet. I'll do that within the next year. Later skaters.

P.S. You all know my birthday is on Wednesday, the 6th, right? K

So I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high and I scream from the top of my lungs, "What's goin' on?" g*d, remember what a kickass song that was? Well, I'm not blonde anymore ... not entirely anyway. The whole perimeter of my hairline is dark brown and then the top is a more muted blonde with some of the dark weaved in. I absolutely love it. I went to see Xristopher on a whim and told him to surprise me. It's nice to have someone that you can say that to and know that the surprise will be good. I always walk out of Pompeo looking like a rawkstar. And I went out that night, naturally, and got a million compliments from friends and strangers, so that always makes it worth while.

I worked from home all last week. I know you all think that means that I didn't work, but you're wrong. I got a lot done. But I did massage my schedule just a bit. You see, Cameron F■■■ ended up extending his stay through Thursday. We went bowling one night ... I've got to start bowling more. I sucked it up at the bowling alley. Kevin, you would be ashamed of me. I could NOT get a strike, I kept getting 9. So after the game was over and there were like 3 minutes left on our lane, I would attempt a strike, fail, and then Cameron F■■■ would go for the spare. All this as fast as we possibly could, allowing me another 4 or 5 attempts at a strike, none of which were successful. How depressing.

To clarify this next portion, you would have to know that Cameron F■■■ is a photographer out in L.A. He does really nice work, too. You can check out some of his folio at www.cameronf■■■.com. Pretty cool, huh? So when I got an email from him asking if I would like to do a photoshoot I was understandably excited and flattered. But my hair! It was an overgrown tangled mess. So I called Xristopher and made an appointment to have it fixed. We went out to the strip that night and had a b-last. The next day I went and picked up Cameron F■■■ and we came back to my apartment. We sat and chatted for a while while he enjoyed his last Sonic burger (a delicacy that is apparently unavailable in L.A.). Then we picked out an outfit and got to shooting. I never in a million years thought I would be a model-of-sorts in an hours-long photoshoot. Definitely a selfesteem boost. I haven't seen any of the pictures yet, but I already feel beautiful.

The rest of the day we hung out with Hag and Junior and then said our fare-thee-wells to Cameron F■■■. I was sad to see him go. It's so rare that you hit it off so well with someone so instantly. It reminded me of hanging out with Chris Apollo in Berlin. Maybe there's not anything wrong with me like I was beginning to assume. Maybe I'm just in the wrong city. Cameron F■■■ is moving to Copenhagen for a few months and I am so jealous. He'll be a 15 minute train ride from where I was staying in Malmo. I still wish I was there. But my life is here, for the time being, and the next few years.

So there you have it, that's what I've been up to. My question to you is: When is the last time you did something you've never done before? If you can't think of one, then it's time to get crazy with the Cheeze Wiz. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.

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.

I was just talking to Allistralian and I remembered a story I totally forgot to tell you all. I was sitting in a hotel room in Oshkosh, WI watching TV with my mom, my brother-in-law Bryan, and sister-in-law Krouton. There was nothing particularly good on (except the old school Saturday Night Live hosted by Pee Wee Hermann with musical guest some-crappy-zydeco-band) so we were flipping. As my mom breezed by TLC, I saw the logo for Sheer Dallas and made her stop.

As I explained the premise of the show, they announced that the stylists were going to pair up for a big hair contest. It was a radio announcement I knew all too well, since I was in Pompeo, the salon, when it happened. I mentioned that this was where I got my hair done, although I refused to tell my mother just how much my haircut had actually cost. About halfway through the show, I said, "Hey, there's Xristopher, my stylist!" And a few seconds later ... you guessed it! ... BAM, a full head shot of yours truly. I was on TLC for 3 glorious seconds, sitting in a chair with a head full of foil. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. If anybody else happened to witness the blessed event, do be sure to let me know.

Next order of business, I went and saw Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith tonight. I was gonna put it on my movie reviews, but I thought it was deserving of blog status. This movie was so badass. If you're a Star Wars fan at all, you're going to love it. If not, you'll still probably love it. There were so many badass elements to it, but my favorite was at the end. Before you whine and bitch, we all know what happens at the end, so I'm not ruining the movie. That'd be like me telling you the Titanic sinks. But when Darth Vader walks into the ship with the Emperor, they made it look exactly like Episode IV. They didn't revamp it at all. All the computers had ridiculously large, square LEDs that serve no purpose and all the dudes in there were wearing the old skool military uniforms. Love it. Go see it and let me know what you think.

To tie it all together, I think on my next haircut, scheduled for sometime in late June, I might go towards the dark side.

BUM BUM BUM BUMBA DUM BUMBA DUM

I got my hair did today. It looks incredible. I am so excited. I will take a picture of it soon for all of you loyal Sidesho-viewers. It was by far the most expensive haircut I have ever gotten, and it was by far worth every penny. Money just can't buy the sheer extasy that I get from a killer haircut. I got it done by Xristopher at Pompeo ... he's the new Hannah.

While I was there, they were filming a reality TV show that is based around the salon, the stylists, and exacerbates emphasizes how shallow and pretentious Dallas is. A show about how shallow and pretentious Dallas is ... on the day I'm there having my hair highlighted. Fantastic. They interviewed Xristopher WHILE he was doing my hair, and asked him to please turn me more toward the camera. So I think I'm totally going to be on this new reality TV show on TLC. I forget what they were calling it, it's something like Chic Dallas or something stupid. How funnoying.

I just invented a new word. Did you notice?

Tonight is Brent and Levi's housewarming party. Last night Ryan S■■■ and I drank SO much straight vodka while dancing in our pj's to Neil Diamond that it would make you sick. I know it made me sick. So my body is really crying to stay home, but my liver says to go out ... and you should always listen to your liver. So much iron. I'm off! Czech you skillets on the flip side.

I decided to take another day off work. My sleep sched was all wonky from sleeping all day Monday and I wasn't feeling quite 100% although I am much, much better. Plus, when you douche out the work stall, people don't really want you to return too soon. I left the alarm off in anticipation of sleeping in as late as I wanted on a week day -- a rare treat.

OR IS IT, SEAN? At the ripe old hour of 10:00am, I get a rude awakening from Sean W■■■■ who is stranded on the side of the street with a flat tire. Wouldn't have been an issue if his spare wasn't already on his car. Sigh. Ever the helpful friend, I got out of bed, slapped on some clothes and picked him up. First, we had to go pick up his paycheck. I got to see Ryan S■■■ and see where he works. It is the most fabulous warehouse I have ever seen. Then we went and cashed said paycheck in order to pay for the tow truck. Okay, all of this is leading somewhere; bear with me. While we waited for the tow truck, we sat and discussed hair. Duh.

Sean said something to the effect of, "Blah blah blah bah bah got my hair relaxed blah bah blab blah." Hark?! I thought only women of African descent got their hair relaxed. This was an option for me? I got on the horn with my friend Chad who works at Toni & Guy and booked myself an appointment for the afternoon. A hair procedure I have never done before? You know, just when you think the world is going to end because you woke up at 10, jesus swoops in and shows you that everything happens for a reason.

This is the greatest invention of all time. I haven't been this excited about my hair since I discovered the flat iron. It smelled pretty bad, but it didn't burn at all. Apparently this is a new product more tailored toward fair-haired members of society so it isn't as harsh. I don't like to think of it as relaxing my hair, thats too harsh, I like to think I chillaxed it. When I step out of the shower now, it already looks like I've spent 30 minutes flat ironing. It's incredible. I've been using your product for a day now, and I'm still excited.

Is it ironic that something called "straightening" has made me even gayer?

I hung out with my mother all night because I had to file my taxes with my dad. Let's just say my tax refund is about 3X what I was expecting. Whoo hoo PAR-TAY! Instead of my cardio workout, I sat around eating cheesecake and ice cream with my mother. She doesn't like the idea of me trying to lose weight, but I think that's because her loving-mother-vision penetrates my multiple layers of viscous whale fat. Alas, it was a good time. I guess I'll go to work tomorrow in hopes that I can keep from upchucking during the day. g*d, that's so unbecoming. Later, skids.

HAPPY SOLSTICE!!!!!1! Today it was 70 degrees and the forecast for tomorrow is snow.

Here are some things I've probably told all you at one time or another, but I need to get them out there, because it will make future blogs easier to write.

First, I am giving up drinking for an entire month. I have selected February as my dry month, for the obvious reason that it is the shortest month and I'm concerned that this will be next to impossible for me. There are several reasons that I am doing this. The first of which is that I'm concerned that this wil be next to impossible for me. It's that whole, "I can quit anytime," mentality that gets people into trouble. So I want to make sure I can still quit anytime. I have also been disturbingly unproductive since I moved here. I need to finish decorating and painting and everything. But the biggest reason is that I need money. I am going to see Allison is Australia in July and one alcohol free month will pay for the entire thing. Yeah, its that out of hand.

The fun thing is, February is 28 days long. So I am going recreate Sandra Bullocks commanding performance in 28 Days (not to be confused with its sequel, 28 Days Later).

In foreign news, I might get to go to Sweden for two weeks for work. I don't care if they make me do fucking manual labor in Sweden, it will fucking rawk. It's not certain in the least that I will get to go but I really, really, really hope I do. I've been pretty pushy about it at work, vying for the opportunity.

Lastly, I am never cutting my hair again. Never. Every day that I don't cut my hair, I am happier than the day before. This counteracts the fact that every day that I go to work is worse than the day before. So I am flatlined right now.

I think that's all that I had to report. I've had about 15 conversations during the time that I was typing this so I got a little sidetracked. Time to go to the gym for a cardio day. Whoo hoo. Later, sluts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"GET IN THERE, YOU ASSHOLE!"

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

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

PICTURES!

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

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

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

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

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

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

My four day weekend is over. I am so not looking forward to work tomorrow. But I guess I should just accept it as an inevitability and carry on with my life. Thommi and Dan spent Friday and Saturday with me. We had way too much fun. There was much drinking, much socializing, much of the creme de la creme of Dallas explored. Shopping in the West Village was crazy. I sat and watched as these two boys dropped a collective grand on new digs ... money, I can assure you, they did not have to spare. How fun are they? I think my Shopping Hawk inspired them (a hair-do I invented just for the outting).

Have you ever noticed in movies when the phone lines are cut, they always pick up the phone and then repeatedly tap the little hanger-upper button? I haven't had a land line in many years, so maybe I'm a fool for asking, but does that ever help? Just once I'd like to see them be in a really scary sitch, pick up the phone with no dial tone, freak out, push the button and then have everything be fine. "Oh, that was scary, I thought for a second the phones were down, but they're not. Beeeeeeep. Booooooop."

I also fucking love those commercials where people speak to each other in phone tones. Hey, for those of you who find my webpage sacrelicious, good news:

It has become glaringly apparent that if I am going to successfully quit smoking, I am also going to have to quit drinking. I have a little experiment planned for a substance free month of my life. It won't be until February though ... because February is the shortest month, and this is going to be torturous. I'll get you some more details on that when the time arrives. Until then, hold your collective breaths, you have-nots.

Heard this little tid bit on NPR on the drive home tonight: "I never went to high school, but I did go to school high." NPR fucking rawks my hawk.

Speaking of hawks, I sported the Dinner-Party Hawk tonight -- a hairstyle I invented just for tonight. Ryan S■■■ had everyone over for Brisquette Française avec les Pommes de Terres et Épi de Maïs. For those of you too lazy to go translate at dictionary.com (guilty), that means hamburgers and freedom fries. Let me tell you ... they were delicious. Originally, Ryan's George Foreman was kaput, so the burgers were raw, but once Jason Hillman went and got his George Foreman ... well, with Ryan at the grill ... the burgers were raw. But they were fucking good and that is all that matters. g*d, don't let me get e.coli. The freedom fries were the hit of the party, despite them being overdone. And by 'overdone', I mean 'done.'

Such a fun night. It reaffirmed why it is that I'm here at a time when I so desperately needed a reminder. However, after drinking a few bottles of wine and some decadent beer, I have decided that I'm not going to drink anymore. I'm not going to drink any less, but I'm also not going to drink any more.

I am resolving myself to have more weeknights like this. This is what life is about. Life isn't about air conditioning digital controls. Give me a break. In fact, no, I'm not going to work until 10 tomorrow. Fuck that shit. Good night, kids, take inspiration from my defiance. Mwah!

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

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

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

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

Big news, kids. I am officially an independently functioning member of society. This little bird has flexed his wings and gone out on his own. Granted, everything in my apartment was donated by my parents, but we'll ignore that fact from here on out. I will show you pictures of my apartment as soon as it is in a presentable condition. I moved in on Sunday instead of Saturday because it was raining too hard. Not to say it didn't rain all day Sunday, but we got it done. There's still a few things back in Plano that I need to go get, but there's no rush there.

In other news, I haven't had a haircut in many, many months, nor have I shaved in many, many weeks. Yes, I have a beard ... and this time, her name isn't Allison. Pa-zzzing! I'm not really sure how I feel about the look, but I'm going with it. I had originally dedicated myself to no haircuts before 2005, but that may have changed. Marc and I went over to his friend Chad's apartment last night. Chad and his friendgirl work at Toni and Guy and were watching videos about how to give fucking badass haircuts. I can maybe get a really badass free haircut. That's what I'm planning on doing. I mean like woah, badass haircut.

On the horizon is lots of tidying up around the apartment. I might have a housewarming get together sometime in late November. Nobody from College Station will attend, so none of you are invited. Unless you want to come, then you are. Something more anecdotal to follow. Peace out.

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 H■■■■ 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 haven't shaved in over two weeks. I was going to try to grow a beard in time for ULDE:IYDKYDG but I think I've decided that it won't be fully grown in in time, so I am going to acquiesce and shave. I might try it again after the party, but I want to be sure I look good. I got a whole new outfit. It's a good thing I'm a total thousandaire or I wouldn't have been able to do that. I am way too excited, Friday can't get here fast enough.

In other news, I have contracted a horrible virus. Or my computer has, rather, before any rumors start. I have decided that I don't want to fuck with it so I'm reformatting my computer. I haven't done this in quite some time and I always get a little sad when I do. But these away messages it makes for me and INCESSANT pop ups are drivin' me nuts! So I thought I'd better update before I do this just in case it goes horribly wrong and I have to throw away my laptop.

I've decided I like my hair. I was a little iffy at first since the bangs are kind of short and it was a dark brown, but now I've found a good way to wear it to work and the brown has faded just a little so it looks more natural. I also don't flat iron it every day anymore so maybe that will allow it to actually grow now. Before I had self servicing hair that would just break off when it reached a certain length, effectively giving me a constant hair cut, one dead, crispy end at a time. I don't really have a route to get there, but I definitely have a destination of where I'd like to be in the future. Trying not to burn my hair off, building up a more impressive wardrobe, and working out are all definitely in the plan though, and all going well.

I will leave you today with a funny story from work. I was in charge of creating these sheets where you could check off that all of these controllers had been programmed and tested and installed correctly and shit. With a place to initial as each step had been accomplished. But then when I was done this guy told me to take them to the jobs' respective engineers so they could "pencil whip" them. I was like, "What the hell does pencil whip mean? Is that kinky?" and he laughed and said, "No, it's nothing dirty." So I'm thinking that to pencil whip a document means to put your signiture on it, or maybe to fill it out. So when I'm done, I email all the people involved (like a whole department) and send out electronic copies of the files and say that this guy would appreciate it if you could pencil whip these and return them to him.

The next day, Trey read the email and started laughing. Apparently, "pencil whip" means to fill out a sheet of paper with falsified information, highly unethical, definitely frowned upon and I had just outted this guy as a pencil whipper. Whoopsie! I thought it was hysterical though. On that note, I'm off to reformat! Wish me luck, fuckers!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can't believe how much there is to say, seeing as how I haven't blogged all week. You would have thought that with my birthday and everything I would have been chomping at the bit to tell you all about it, but in classic Sidesho-style I blindsided you all once again with my cunning and prowess. And by "cunning" I mean laziness, and by "prowess" I mean "general malaise."

My birthday was fucking awesome. I mean, I had to work and all, but that wasn't too bad. My coworkers all wished me a happy birthday. After work I went to dinner with my parents at a place called Smith and Wollensky. It was fucking awesome. To sum it all up, they used a crumb duster at the table. I ate and drank until I could barely move. I would venture to say it was the best meal I've ever had. I went to bed just a little early that night.

The next day my coworkers, remiss for having been denied the pleasure of a birthday happy hour, dragged me out to Duke's in Addison. Even though I had vowed publicly long ago to never go there again. I figured happy hour didn't count. Plus they were having their weekly dodgeball tournament and I wanted to see it. The co-s kept me with a beer in my hand the whole time. At one point, someone went to get me a drink while someone went to close out a tab while someone was leaving, and they all decided to get me a beer at once. So I had three full beers in front of me. It was AWESOME. I didn't end up staying to watch dodgeball so I can't tell you if it was cool or not, but I may check it out at some other point. I came home that night to my grandmother, 10 year old girl-cousin, and her 10 year old friend. I barely had time to say hi before I went to bed even earlier than the night before.

Speaking of, the girl-cousin is in my shower right now singing her fucking head off and it's about to use up my last nerve. It was nice to get to see her and get to know her a little bit, but there is a reason I don't hang out with 10 year old girls on a regular basis. Many, many reasons. And my mom has been fighting with my grandma pretty much since she got here ... which I find to be hilarious, because it reminds me a lot of when she and I fight. But it's not very fun for either of them, so that sucks. My dad remains stoic with the glass of Jack on the rocks.

Last night was Katie and Jeff's wedding. Congratufuckinglations you two. They are too cute together, so I braved the cathlick church to watch the blessed event. I went with Ryan S■■■ and we were the ONLY two wearing any color. My outfit was kickass. I got some new chinos from Banana and paired it with this kickass purple shirt and blue/red paisley looking tie. It was a killer combo I'll just say that much. As soon as I get some pictures back from Allison I'll add them to the imaginary picture page I keep promising. Ryan was wearing a pink shirt and a pink tie and we looked stellar. Of course, we were the only ones there who didn't look like we were going to a hoe down. It was so typical. My hair was in a wedding-hawk, a hairstyle I invented just for the wedding.

The reception was ridiculously fun. Much Coronas con lime ingested. Many high school friends and many, many Aggies. A little dancing, a little mingling. Ryan caught the garder ... too funny. After the reception ended almost everyone went to TABC, a bar in Uptown. Chilled, drank a little more. Ryan and I headed to Round-Up to meet up with everyone around closing time. A couple more drinks, to TMC to dance, and then Whataburger! Taquitos at 4am, nothing beats it.

Now here I am upstairs in my room with the door closed trying to avoid everyone for the remainder of the night. I cooked a turkey for dinner ... not exactly of Thanksgiving proportions, but another winner. So I feel I've deserved some quiet time. Sorry for the hiatus, you know I was thinking of you all every moment I was AFK. I'll try to keep you more informed in the future. Crack is whack.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So as of yesterday I have become officially homeless. Allison was kind enough to allow me to deposit the remainder of my earthly possessions in the middle of her living room and I've been driving around town with a car full of pots, pans, and a life-sized cut out of the late, great Albert Einstein. G*d, he was a great American.

But the past couple of nights I have spent the night at Marshall's pad. I know he doesn't mind, I just hope I'm not a burden on his roommates... though I doubt Owen would agree with me that I owe it to my friends to be mindful of their roommates. At any rate, when I woke up this afternoon Marshall and Co. were all at work at the Hobby Lobby so I washed their dirty dishes. That's my rent.

The only problem with being homeless is that my two host families, Allison and Marshall, are the only two people in this century who live in homes not equipped with internet. I figured I could just plug in my laptop while they were out for the day and go about my merry way, but as it were, I have been offline for like 2 days. I couldn't take it anymore. After I woke up, I went to see about having my hair highlighted (but you know Hannah is in such high demand that I can't get in until June 1st. What?) and then came right to the SCC, the computer lab on campus. My parking pass and my lab account are both still active until June 1st so I figured I should use them. I'm not even talking to anybody right now. Well, nobody but you, dear Sidesho-Viewers, but I am still instantly calmed just having the potential for somebody to contact me. And that's what this whole thing is really about ... potential.

So I had a dream last night that they had to take my diploma away from me for some minor technicality. And I got really pissed, as you would expect, and I torched Thompson. Well, I guess torched is putting it mildly. I mean I put explosive charges all over and doused the whole building in fluids, and all these people were begging me to stop, and I didn't. And I burned it to the ground. That ... dream ... was ... AWESOME!

Not sure what's on the schedule as of yet. Right now the only thing for sure is that I start work June 7th. Until then, who fucking knows. Maybe Allison and I will nail something down this afternoon. If so I'll let you know as soon as I get another chance to be online. Hmm, it appears to be Beer:30, gotta run!

Hey guys, I just really want to thank you all for the outpouring of sympathy over my deceased fish. *makes masturbatorial motion* David27 still has the thing in a container under his sink and the water is all cloudy and he's pale and floating at the top. Very morbid, but he is still planning on returning him.

Yesterday I finally got my hair cut. No more Milwaukee circa 1983 soccer dad hair for me. Even though I loved that hairdo, everyone else hated it. I guess it's because no one has any style. Anyway, Hannah is a genius, I don't know how she consistently takes a slob like me and makes my hair look good. And she barely cut it this time. I was seriously in there for like 5 minutes and we were done. I'm really excited about my new hair.

In other news, I don't know if I ever specifically mentioned this on my website, but I've been doing the Atkins thing for like 3 weeks now. Well, I've been trying to. I am not altogether happy with my body, and the only solution I could come up with was anorexia until Rick told me to just quit eating carbs. I figured it couldn't be as bad as starving so I started doing it. It is a lot harder than I thought it would be to come up with meals that contain no carbohydrates, but I did okay. I mean, I couldn't completely cut them out, due in large part to them being in beer. And it has been WEEKS since I've had a soda ... or anything other than water to drink, really. That I'm proud of.

The reason I mention this is because David27, Brian and I all went and had a hottub last night. And a few weeks ago we had all gone to lay out by the pool. Brian said it looked like I had lost weight. He is the first and only person to say so. Actually, he's the first person to finally shut the fuck up, quit rolling your god damn eyes, and realize that I actually did have fat reserves and I am not "too skinny already." I was kind of getting off of my diet, but now that someone thinks it's working, I'm back on with renewed vigor. I can't wait to have visible adominal muscles.

Tomorrow's another exam for my class that I haven't been to since the last exam that I knocked out of the ballpark. I am going to spend the whole night studying. Weeee. I'd rather go out, but tomorrow is gonna be too fun so everything will even out in the end. Hope all is going well for you sluts since I haven't gotten a comment in a while. See you on the flip side. Excelsior!

I know you wouldn't guess it by the fact that there are comments on my website, but I really don't care about anyone's opinion ... on anything. But it sure doesn't stop everyone and their mom from putting their two cents in. I guess that's cool though, it's basically the same thing we were doing today. Any politics aside, what went on was a bunch of fun people getting together, listening to good music, and generally having a good time. I had to go when the group finally decided to go listen to Tom S■■■ again. I really can't handle that guy more than once in a week, so I went and finished up a project for the class I'm worried about. Well, "finished" is a relative term. I didn't actually "finish" as much as I "quit."

Now I'm supposed to be working on completing my documentation over the project. I would tell you all what the project is, but it wouldn't make any sense and it would bore you to tears if you happened to understand. I don't want to write a paper. I don't want to do anything. But I guess thats the whole point of college, right?

This weekend I'm supposed to go back to Dallas to see Clay who is in from Spain for the week to have his wisdom teeth removed, but I'm really not looking forward to another field trip. And I couldn't stay at home because I really don't care to hear my parents reaction to the new hair color. Anyway, I have no idea what I'm talking about ... I'm just stalling. Now back to Alton Brown...

Today was just a rip roaring good time on campus. I had my weekly senior project meeting, which went flawlessly as always, and then met up with some of my friends who had gathered at the Straight Pride rally over by Rudder Fountain. Damned free speech areas. Has anyone noticed that not once have the free speech areas on campus been used to promote liberal, democratic, tolerant, or educated viewpoints? It's always a bunch of dumb fucking redneks abusing the power.

So we went and had a discussion with them all trying to inform them that every day on campus is Straight Pride day and to try and belittle Gay Awareness Week, no matter how good your intentions may be, will be misinterpreted by the less educated (i.e. most dangerous) members of our little society. We didn't have long to talk to them because they were closing down camp for the day, but promised they would be back tomorrow if we wanted to talk to them some more. So I think we're going to get a big group of sane people together, just to show that on this campus, for every idiot who thinks Straight Pride is funny, there are two people who realize the implications.

You might think we were out of fun after these idiots cleared out, but no, OH NO, our fun had just begun. Our beloved campus evangelist, the one and only, Mr. Tom S■■■ was back! Hoorah! Our friend Jon S■■■, like the leader of Aggie Democrats, and a Jew, no less, had quite a time talking to Mr. S■■■. I don't like to talk to him because I know that he is an accomplished speaker and the last time I talked to him he turned my words back around on me. I prefer to prey on his little minions that he positions throughout the crowds to talk to you as you bad mouth him under your breath. I got sucked into an argument when I overheard some guy proclaiming that g*d was obviously real ... just look at the tree ... how could you possibly explain the tree without g*d? So I pointed out that it could be explained with Horticulture, a subject that is taught at this very university! Shazam!

Then he tried to tell me that faith was logic. To which I countered that faith is the opposite of logic, at which point, a guy who is in my major, and an active BUc (Brother Under christ) jumped in. We talked for a long time much to the amusement of my friends who were sitting near by. I've never really been observed in one of these arguments even though I tend to have them WAY more often than I'd like. But they were all laughing because, apparently, I show no emotion ... big shocker there, I'm totally monotone all the time. But they said that the other guy would get worked up and I wouldn't give a shit, which is basically true. We had to stop arguing though because he wanted to go on forever when it was apparent to me that our beliefs were fundamentally opposite, and no common ground could be met. For every christian bullshit line he pulled out, I put it back on him. He said he was trying to spread g*d's word to help me, I told him I was trying to convince him otherwise to help him.

All in all it was the same argument I always have with these people. I always think that it must be such a treat for them to get to talk to me, and such a drag for me to talk to them. Because I formed my own opinions on everything and they're good and funny and logical, whereas they all read the same stupid fairytale book for their opinions, so I know exactly what they're going to say next. Fucking automatons. My favorite part of the discussion was when I informed him, "There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is no g*d. There is no jebus. There is no salvation. There is no sin. You've got to stop thinking in terms like that." Lovely, just lovely. I love myself.

I am God.

I took a picture of my brown hair but I don't like the self portrait thing with my camera, so you all have to wait until I get someone else to take my pictures before you can see it. I am totally styling it in 70's retro style, and everyone hates it but me. But it completely cracks me up so I'll probably keep it up for a while. In the mean time, if you'd like to meet us out at Rudder Fountain tomorrow to speak more with the bigots, do just that. We'd love to have you. Laaaaaaaaaate.

In order to keep up with the foreign exchange program we've got going on, it was College Station's turn to go visit the Dallas kids. Everyone rearranged their work schedules (well, not me cause I have no job or responsibilities) and we decided to leave at noon on Saturday. The crew was comprised of 27, Marshall and Thommi. I said we were absolutely, positively leaving at noon, whether they were there or not, no questions asked, just leaving.

Around noon, I woke up and started getting ready. I had no intentions of leaving at noon, but I figured that setting an early, firm deadline was the only way to get there before midnight. We ended up arriving at Ryan S■■■'s loft around 5:00, which left us enough time to go to the Northpark Mall. I bought this shirt at Guess that is inside out. It's so me. Like, the shirts not inside out, but the material is. I'm in love with the shirt. We got back, visited the quaint little liquor store on the first floor, and then started getting ready. Two really loud girls ended up in tow with us, one was 27's best friend, the other I have no idea. Once we were ready we went to Ryan H■■■■■■'s party.

That was alright, but there sure were a lot of people in one small space and I think he forgot to pay his A/C bill that month cause it was toasty. And we could only smoke on the balcony that is the size of my coffee table. And the boy who was drinking an entire bottle of wine, from the bottle, was talking about his faith in his lord and saviour, jebus christ, and how he never tests him with more than he can handle. An excellent topic to have at a boozefest while endulging in far too much of the sacramental fluids. The cops showed up, shook things up. The plan was to go out to the Village anyway, so it hastened everyone's retreat. Chaos ensued. My clan hopped into someone else's car and were whisked away, leaving me and Ryan's roommate, David, to walk back to Ryan's apartment to get my car and drive ourselves to the club. Charming. To be fair, Ryan did offer us a ride back to the apt but since I was under the impression that we were all going to meet up back there, I said we would just walk. Turns out, that was also our ride to the club.

So I was a little nonplussed by the situation. When we got back to the apartment I saw Marshall walking out and said, 'Wait, where are you going?' 'To the club!' he gleefully replied as he walked out the door. I was drunk enough that I didn't really want to drive, I hate driving (and especially parking) downtown, and David did not want to go ... all of this culminated into this final straw and I proclaimed, 'Fuck 'em. I'm not going.' So I did just that. David and I went to the gas station to get some beer and cigarettes, and we sat and watched movies. David is really cool and has the same sense of humor that I do, and we are never afforded the opportunity to hang out just the two of us, so I had a blast.

I chugged beers all night until I passed out. I don't remember the rest of them getting home, but passing out on Ryan's bed worked out to my advantage cause I didn't have to sleep on the hardwood floors. The next day we went and got smoothies and sandwiches and then made the long drive home. All in all, it was an excellent weekend, and we can't wait to do it again. In fact, it may be next weekend since Clay is coming home from Spain to get his wisdom teeth out and has promised me a bottle of Absinthe. Oh yeah, and I'm off carbs and am no longer blonde.

Ahh, what a week this has been. I haven't been to class all week. I place the blame squarely on jesus. I did make it to yoga today though, because as you all know, I do not miss yoga for any reason. Now I'm back on my signiture couch vegging out. I'm watching T3 again. I watched it last night with Raul, Tommy and David, but we didn't really pay attention. It has been out from Blockbuster for SO long now, but it's on Tommy's account so no worries here. I really should get it back at some point. We also watched Circuit. Believe it or not, I didn't like this movie despite the title. There wasn't one integrated circuit, resistive network, soldering iron, or pc board in the entire movie.

Today after yoga this girl came up to me and said, 'Hey do you ever hang out at Revolutions.' And by god, I do. She said she recognized my hair from the other weekend and wanted to tell me that she liked it. I hawked it today for the first time since the bleach incident. I've been kind of scared to put a flat iron to it in fear that it would just melt off.

Since the incident I've been doing just about everything I can to get my hair back to ... well, hair status. First I bought some shampoo and conditioner specifically designed for bleached, fried hair. That's helping a little bit. Then I did a protein pack on it, that was really good, I might need to buy a couple more of those. Finally, I got some Infusium leave in conditioner. All of this together, Pesci willing, will give me back the hair I once had. Wish me luck, have-nots. Back to T3...

So I decided tonight that my skunk stripe isn't what it used to be. The roots had started growing in and the blonde was severely faded, giving my hair almost a natural look ... which you all know I hate. So I decided to get my stylist, Ryan, back over here to bleach out my skunk stripe again. Only this time I decided I wanted it fucking WHITE. To achieve this, I left the bleach in my hair for a solid 45 minutes. And this is the Frost 'n Glow of yesteryears for dark brown hair.

Well there it is. I achieved my goal of getting it white, however, I'm afraid that it might be falling out. My friend David (WHO IS SOMEONE OTHER THAN ME, YOU HALF WITS!) is over here monitoring the drying process and keeps telling me that its falling out. Then he tells me that its fine. Then he says its falling out. I'm freaking out.

If it holds together, it will look really cool. If it all falls out I'm going to have to shave my head. This could be catastrophic to the fox hawk. I will certainly keep you all posted. Pray for me (in Keith's case, that will be to Joe Pesci ... but whoever you pray to works). Thanks, you have-nots, catch you on the flip side.

I had my first big-boy interview yesterday. It was with a company called ■■■■■ even though I don't know what that stands for. Anyway, they make automated systems (just like me!). We were sitting in class on Tuesday when my prof said that whoever didn't go to this luncheon had to take a quiz, so we all went to go eat. I was done eating and decided I wanted a free pen, being as I love free pens. I got busted trying to steal one and had to talk to this woman about the company. Bear in mind, I am wearing my safety pinned sweatshirt and had my hair gloriously hawked.

Turns out their company was right up my alley and my senior project (which she had heard about) was in keeping with what they do so she told me to send her my resume and she would get me an interview. Lo and behold, not 24 hours later, there I am in the interviewing room in a new suit (yes, a suit). I think it went really well. I'm pretty stoked about it. If they make any offer, I'll probably take it. What a load off.

Then this morning I had to return to take their written exam. Gimme a break. They make all applicants take a test that goes over math, grammar, and personality. It was supposed to take at least 2 and a half hours (the untimed portion), but I finished the whole fucking thing in about an hour. It was ridiculously easy. All of the algebra and word problems were a total cinch, I wouldn't have used a calculator on them even if I had had one. Then the grammar came. That was even easier. They gave me a sentence to find the error in ... like:

But, if any of you have ever had a paper proofread, editted, or, god forbid, graded by me, then you know that it looked more like this in my head:

I breezed through that rather quickly determining which were complete sentences and which were fragments (something I've become quite good at after working with Sean) and deciding which version of (to/too) was correct (something Marshall would have certainly failed).

So that's my good news for now. I will keep you posted on the employment status of your favorite sidesho attraction. Peace out you have nots, and don't have to much fun.

Oh yeah: I almost forgot to mention. There was also a handwriting portion to the test. Which I also aced. Laaaaaaaaaaaate.

I don't even know where to begin. I had intended to make a large post detailing the cruise, but instead I'm just going to say that it was a total blast. 5 days was enough for me to be on a boat though. Cozumel and Calica, the two places we got off the boat, were both beautiful and warm. I drank a lot. Surprise!

Then I came home for a couple of days, and then had to hop in the Cavy and drive back to Dallas for my dentist appointment. I hadn't been to the dentist in over two years so I was sure there was going to be a cavity or something, but I was wrong. My teeth were perfect. They took like an assload of x-rays though. I met up with Chevy while I was in Plano cause I was at Starbucks by myself and I was bored. She was kind enough to keep me company. I've only met her in person once before, so all of our communication has been via the internet, mostly from my webpage. She's an avid reader. So she decided to ask me if I wear the 'foxhawk' a lot. Foxhawk. She saw fauxhawk and read it foxhawk. I was aghast. Just so everyone is clear on this issue, it's pronounced 'fo-hawk' like 'mo-hawk' but fake. Makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? Foxhawk ... Then, I came home to College Station after having dinner with my parents at the Cheesecake Factory. Yum.

Since then I've been doing a lot of drinking. Leslie and I have been the best looking people at the club two nights in a row, and its about to be three. On Thursday night we gave her a foxhawk like a picture of Carmen Electra that she has. I put a handful of pomade in her hair to make it all dirty. It was so cool. And then she went and got her hair cut in this stair step chop cut thing. Its hard to explain, but it is so cool and original. We got new outfits to accompany her new hair. I found some badass shirts at Express that were on clearance. Bonus. I showed up to lunch today with James since he was kind enough to carry me home last night and give me a couch to sleep on. What a good friend. I'm supposed to be out with friends right now but I feel like ass and I'm probably just gonna lay on the couch instead. Hope all is going well for all of you. Ciao.

So I was supposed to go to Houston on Thursday to take pictures of furniture for my uncle, but he never got around to telling me when or where I needed to be. And Leslie had purchased a new outfit for the occasion at eluxury, but they fucked up her expressed shipping so that got ruined as well. I woke and messaged her to see if she still wanted to go to Houston just for the hell of it, and she totally did. So we stopped off at McAllisters (If you haven't tried this place yet, you are missing out. Make sure you get the tea, its incredible) for a quick lunch and then hit the highways for H-town.

We probably got to the Galleria around 4, I don't really remember. I only say that because I think we left around 3. Regardless, the first thing we did was go to Niemans to try and find the outfit that Les had tried to order online. Tweeds are so in right now, but I didn't really care for any of them. We never found the exact outfit she wanted, and while it was a different kind of tweed, I still think she might not have liked it in person when she got it. So we decided to hell with that. She ended up getting a sassy black dress with some flowers patterned onto it ... and a black shawl. She was looking gooood last night.

I went to Saks because I was bound and determined to buy myself an appropriate pair of jeans. Les told me that Sevens were the way to go, and she couldn't have been more right. These jeans are so comfortable and look so good on me. Then I bought a shirt and a sweater at Express to round out the outfit. I also spent some time on my hair, something I haven't done since I got it cut. I was afraid that all the fun had been cut out of it, but I managed to get it into a really good fauxhawk. Needless to say, Leslie and I were the two best looking bitches in Halo. I was really happy that a lot of people commented on the outfit, since I am an attention whore.

Then afterwards we all went to Tommy's apartment. I had the goal of getting shitcanned and succeeded. I have no idea what time I fell asleep but I know that it was with my head on a table, and I woke up on the floor next to the chair. Thomas was sleepin on the ground so I went to his bed, and passed out whenever I realized I was on the floor. I guess everyone else left and Thomas went to work and stuff, who knows. I woke up when he got home from work like 12 hours later. It felt so good to just sleep and sleep and sleep as much as I fuckin wanted to. I am totally refreshed. I think I may go Goth tonight.

The other day on campus I saw a guy with a Jedi padawan hair cut. As embarassing as it is that I knew it was a padawan (hopefully, I'm misspelling it), he should be 10 times as embarassed to have the haircut. I would waste my time going to find a picture of it for you all, but meh. Its like a normal haircut but it has a tiny little pony tail in the back. The point of my story is that it was ridiculous looking and despite the fact that I've never been a physical bully, I was compelled to push his books out of his hands.

In other news, I hadn't talked to Brandon in over a month, and decided I would give him a call the other day. Turns out his phone had been disconnected, and I didn't have his new number. No biggie. I sit on the issue for a couple of days. Then I was talking to Dave and he mentioned that Brandon had gotten a new phone and shared that number with me. I wasn't particularly busy so I phoned him up to see how he's doing. The conversation went something like this:
ViD: "Hey, how are you."
Brandon: "I'm good, how are you?"
ViD: "Good, good, keepin busy with school, you?"
Brandon: "Oh I've just been working a lot"
ViD: "cool ..."
Brandon: "Did you call me today because its my birthday?"

Haha, whoops. Of course I forgot when his birthday was, I have a hard time remembering my own birthday, but I just thought that it was funny amongst the birthday calls to get a ring from me and me have no idea. I tried for about 30 seconds to play it off like I'd totally known, obviously, why else would I call. But he didn't fall for it. So I had to fess up. Oh well.

My hand is healing nicely, the red spot is getting smaller. It still hurts like a bitch. And in response to several recent inquiries, yes, I REALLY did stick a 9V battery to my braces and I REALLY did flash a flash bulb in my eye. So sue me.

And of course bundt cake is spelled b-u-n-d-t but it wouldn't have made sense in the context to spell it that way, smarty pants.

When you walk into my bathroom at the new apartment, it feels akin to a carnival fun house. The mirror is a good 6 inches too low to fix my hair. The ceiling is less than a foot above my head. And the shower sprays directly onto my chest. Just getting ready in the morning has become a bit of an acrobatic adventure.

I decided I didn't like my new hair cut last night, so I gave myself a new one. I think it looks pretty good, and the hair in the sink looked as though I'd opened my own barber shop (on account that it was 4 different naturally occuring colors). I'm gonna get Todd to thin out the sides and back for me some time. I trust him, though I don't know why. He gave me one good haircut about 3 years ago ... which makes him the most experienced of any of my friends.

Owen came back in town last night, plugged in his computer and got on the internet without any problems whatsoever. We troubleshot and determined that my wall jack is jacked. Typical. Chris leaves for Yale tomorrow so we're gonna go out and party one last time. And then tomorrow is Ryan's birfday, and we're gonna party like its his birfday. More on that, after this ...

Man, I wish I had internet at home. As soon as I do, I will take a picture of my new haircut and show it to all of you. It is wild. My mother would hate it, which means that I really, really like it. I got sections of black, brown, and bleach done today and then she cut it REALLY uneven and its spikey all over. I am so conceited that I've spent most of the day trying to find a door or a window or a mirror to look at myself. Whoo. I'm excited. Okay, thats all I had to say, see you all this weekend on the floor.

500 more miles on the car, 500 more P-town memories. Lets recap, shall we? The whole reason that I even decided to go home was because my brother from California was in town and I haven't seen him in a long time. But as it turned out, I didn't get to see him even once the whole time I was home because he was busy with one of his best friends marrying his wife's little sister. It all sounded a little incestual if you ask me.

So Friday night I dropped in on Simply Fondue to see my friend Blake that I haven't seen in a while. We chit chatted for a while and then I went home. Saturday I was woken up by JennyC■■■ who wanted me to go to Stonebriar mall with her. And I did just that. We shopped for new clothes for her for a while with her mom and then I decided that I needed to find a new outfit to go out in since I had made some plans so I went to Willowbend. I walked around for a long time and didn't find jack shit to wear. It was pathetic. I was getting frustrated and had an entire day to kill since my family was all at the wedding, so I stopped into Toni & Guy and asked if they had any appointments available. They had one open but it was with the top designer guy so it was more expensive. Sounded good to me. An hour and a half later, I walked out of there looking and feeling like a million bucks.

I went to Coach then because my friend Clay that I was going out with works there and I needed to discuss our plans. He got off at 9:30 and then came to pick me up. We ended up at a bar called Minc around 11:00. We had one drink there but it was really dead because there was some huge $40 cover charge party going on elsewhere that everyone was supposedly at. So we decided to go downtown to the Village. I'd never been there before, and after skipping out on the line and the cover charge by darting in the ajar "Re-entry Only" door, we made our rounds. Not 10 minutes after being there, who do I run into but my old pal Ryan S■■■. I didn't even know he was going to be there. That was too much fun. We caught up on all the pertinent gossip. The cool thing about every other fucking city on the face of the planet besides College Station, Texas is that when the bars stop serving alcohol they don't turn on all the lights and kick you out.

I started noticing though that Clay, who had driven to the club, was almost doubling my alcohol intake, so I decided to switch to water in anticipation of having to drive home. Its a good thing I did too. We ended up staying until about 3:30 in the morning dancing to the best remixes of today's hottest hits. I was completely drenched when we left. It was so much fun. Clay had to crash at my house for the night, but since we had 4 empty bedrooms that wasn't a problem.

Today I woke up and went swimming for a while, got my first taste of the sun this summer. I got packed and ready to go and then met Chevy at Starbucks to share some smokes and stories, just like in the days of yore. Now I'm back home in College Station and I'm really rarin' to go for this next week of work. Hope you all had as much fun as I did this weekend and I will see you on the ol' flip side.

Sorry for the Dave Matthew's Band reference in the title, it was all that came to mind when I was trying to title a blog that I had so much to say in. Don't get me wrong, I like Dave Matthew's one song, I just don't think he should have been allowed to release it 15 times. Anyway, I haven't blogged in a really long time which means that half of the things I really wanted to tell you about are going to have to fall by the wayside.

I went to Dallas last weekend and had an absolute blast. I went shopping with Allison. She needed to pick up some make up. That was totally fun. I bought some rad new pants that I just debuted at Northgate on Thursday to rave reviews. I also got my hair cut and colored. I'm now the proud owner of black highlights. Who gets black highlights? No one does, thats crazy talk.

Work has been going well. I work long hours and have been fairly productive as of late. The gravity sickness is starting to go away and I'm actually kind of getting used to the space food. The strawberry dried ice cream isn't as bad as the vanilla that I'd been eating. I have to do a spacewalk next week that I'm a little nervous about but it shouldn't be too bad.

Brandon just came in town this past week as well as this afternoon. He was subleasing his apartment for the summer and had to fill out some paper work on both of those days. We went to go see Finding Nemo with Allison. I highly recommend. I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Of course I also cried, but what movie do I not cry in, am I right? We saw a preview for a new Will Ferrel movie where he's an elf. If you get the chance to see the preview the movie looks absolutely hilarious. Its coming out in November.

Damnit, I know there are way more things I wanted to talk about but they'll just have to wait or be omitted because I'm sick of typing. I haven't been very dedicated to the blog as of late and the numbers are starting to suffer, but fret not, this happens like every summer. Soon enough we'll be back to the daily blog fest and you will all be able to satiate your insatiable appetites for all things ViD. Have a great weekend. LAaaaaaaaaate

Man, a lot has happened since I visited you last. I apologize for the hiatus, but I've been keeping pretty busy at work. Yes, I have a job. I'm doing some work for this company called NASA. They're like an aerospace company based out of Houston or something. The important thing is that they're giving me money! And its to do what I love doing best ... reading technical documentation and designing real time control systems. Yay! So that takes up my 8 to 5's. I'm about to start bucklin down and really churning out some results.

I had also planned this summer to work out every day. But as it turns out, the fucking rec center closes at 8pm every day, a time that is not convenient for yours truly. I already paid for the summer though, so whenever I get a free chance during their regular business hours, I'm going to sneak over there and argue with them and try to get my money back and take my business over to Gold's so I can actually get started on this workout routine. I did get my haircut though, that was another part of my plan, so check out the new webcam shot and compliment me.

I did manage to have some fun last week in between working. Like on Wednesday, Brandon called me in the morning to tell me that all of his hours got cut from work so he had the day off. Just then, my boss told me he was heading to Dallas for the day ... coincidence? I think not. So I hopped in the car and drove to Austin. Brandon's family just got a new house thats right on some river that feeds off of (or into?) Lake Travis. So it was like a 5 minute drive over to the Lake where we spend the day swimming and laying out in the sun in this field. I really felt like I was in a Country Time Lemonade commercial. It was much more fun than working, I'll tell you that much. I ended up leaving the next day cause I was too tired and lazy to drive home in the dark. Fantastic time.

I also managed to sneak over to Northgate a couple of times. It's been rather mundane what with everyone being out of town, but its still fun to sit and drink and chit chat with friends and strangers. In fact, I might try to find someone to go out with me tonight. I'm in the mood for a good hangover.

But, my friends, most importantly, lets talk about a little flick we call The Matrix: Reloaded. I'm not evil enough to divulge any of the plot on this website, but I am able to tell you that if I were to choose two words to describe it, they would be infuckingcredible and unfuckingbelievable. This movie is so damn good, just like I always knew it would be. I saw it last night for the first time with Ryan. And then today me and Owen were looking for an apartment. First we got hungry, so we ate, and then I started talking about the movie so we went to go see it. So we didn't find a place to live, but we did get to see the Matrix, so that makes it all worth while. I might go see it again tonight if no one will go out drinking with me. Oh my god its so fucking good. Go see it now so we can talk about it. And if you've seen it, IM me and we'll discuss. Okay, hope everyone's having a great summer, don't forget to check in with me from time to time. Laaaaaaaaaaaate.

Alright, alright, alright, children. Enough with the nitpicking of each other's posts. As the Grammar Sheriff, I can only hope you Grammar Deputies will start behaving yourselves. Nobody is proofreading here (well, I don't have to, thats why I don't) so it's stupid to disect each other. Jebus, sometimes I feel like the focus of this webpage is drifting away from its original purpose: the unadulterated adoration of me. The CTRJFS.C may be inadvertantly destroying its beloved SVC. Just something to think about.

In all honesty though, that would be impossible, because I rule and I'm the master of my own domain, so to speak. If you can't tell by my demeanor, I've been spending a little bit too much time recently reading over Maddox's webpage. If you don't know who Maddox is immediately, then you suck, really hard. And you need to go his website STAT and read all of his posts. Its the best webpage in the universe. http://maddox.xmission.com/

So for the more day-to-day update. I did not go out to Northgate this Thursday because I had a hair appt early on Friday morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, say what you will, but it was the only time I could get and I did not want to be hung over for a haircut. And lord knows, I refuse to party in moderation. Anyway, my hair looks sabulous. I think I'll snap a pic of it on the webcam as soon as I take a shower and fix it cause right now it looks like that Indian chief guy from Dances with Wolves. If any of you in College Station need a good haircut and are sick of the bullshit you get from EVERY dumb whore with a pair of scissors and want, just once, for someone to understand what you want and make your hair look good like you want it ... then you have got to go to Cutler2 and ask for Hannah. If you need the phone number, hit me with an IM and I'll give it to you. She's incredible.

So since I didn't go out Thursday, and I was looking so good Friday, I decided to hit the Northgate with AllieD and Jamie. Jamie still isn't drinking because of his whole lenten thing. Hopefully it will help him get into heaven. Anyway, this weekend all of the kids got their Aggie Rings, so Northgate was insane with people dunking at the Chicken (an absolutely attrocious idea). So we get there and there is this throng of people out back. I'd estimate at least 250 people. And you know me, I can't handle crowds, so I'm like "oh shit." But being the trooper I am, I got some cash and we headed for the Library. Mmmk, we walk in and there are like 8 people in there. Wonderful! People came and went all night, but it never got crowded because all the people that were outback were dirty locals and inbred rednecks who wouldn't be allowed in the Library even if they wanted to. Oh yeah, and the power went out. That was so exciting. All of Northgate lost power. Actually, it wasn't that exciting. It was just a little darker. Luckily, we already had drinks, so we continued to sit and drink and chat unphased by the lack of light and AC. I was tempted to steal this really kickass painting off the wall and escape out the back door, but alas, my conscience won out once again.

So thats my update for now. Everything else is pretty fabulous. School's going good. I probably shouldn't post this on my website, but my ring dunking is next Saturday. Its going to be a pretty big party. I won't disclose the location tho, but if you feel like you should have been invited and weren't hit me up with an IM. Just a hint: If you weren't invited, that was probably on purpose. But its worth a shot right? Ha. Well, I gotta run, I'm meeting Joseph for lunch. Peace out, you have fucking nots!

Spider-Man is finally here on DVD. I'm so excited. I bought it yesterday but only got around to watching it once. I'm sure more viewings will follow this weekend. Then its back to the grindstone for me. I also bleached my hair yesterday. I haven't dyed my hair in so long, but I have been wanting to since day 1. And I decided to get it cut today, so short and blond I go again. I'll get a pic up here as soon as the final product is unveiled. Not sure whats on the slate for tonight, I kinda feel like gettin' kronk. One final note, I made this today and I don't know why. It serves me no purpose, so I thought I'd share it with all of you, so at least its not a total waste. Ahhh color! Peace, i'm outta here.