A few years ago we attended a wedding in Austin where Daniel bumped into an old friend he hadn't seen in years. This friend told him he was now living in Milan ever since he had claimed his birthright citizenship in Italy. If you are descended from an Italian citizen and can prove it, you can claim your jure sanguinis right to your own citizenship. Italian citizenship, of course, comes with full rights and privileges of a European Union citizenship allowing you to live or work anywhere in the EU.

It wasn't for a while after we got home that we really got curious and started looking into whether this was a viable option for Daniel or not. We knew for certain he was Italian by blood, but just weren't sure exactly what the rules were, if we could sufficiently prove it, etc. We finally decided to take action and looked up the consultancy that his friend had used and set up an appointment. The guy did some genealogical research on the fly with us watching. He did it so incredibly fast using a multitude of tools. And what I appreciated the most was fast and accurately he could type. He was just zooming around the internet, pulling down documents, loading them into a folder.

He told us we could proceed and gave a list of documents to procure. And it was a lot. Basically every birth, marriage, and death certificate for EVERY member of his lineage all the way back to his great-grandfather, Segundo. It was time consuming and bureaucratic, but not terribly difficult. For some of the old documents from Italy we had to hire somebody to physically go look them up. The rest we could pretty much order online for a nominal fee. Some of those were quick and easy, some required telephoning some lady in an office in upstate New York and asking what the dillyo. But after a couple of years we had compiled the full list.

That then had to be notarized and approved as legit by the US government before they could be translated and sent to the Italian government. Then we waited. Last December he was informed that he had won his elective court case in Turino, Italy and was now a citizen! There was still more waiting for this decision and the resulting paperwork to be officially filed and on record in Asti. But we got notified last week that his Italian birth certificate and our Italian marriage certificate are both on file and official!

For next steps, he has registered online as an "Italian Living Abroad" and we'll probably have to wait a few months for that to go through and get approved. Then he will have access to services from the Italian consulate in Houston including getting his passport.

All we have to figure out then is when and where we're moving to in the EU.... Stay tuned!

I have been keeping up with my DuoLingo lessons. The streaks and friend streaks and leaderboards do enough to make sure I never skip a day. That and the incessant notifications from the app. But ... I do have one distraction from my language lessons.

DuoLingo has chess lessons. I've always wanted to learn to play chess, but beyond learning how the pieces move and then getting destroyed repeatedly in online games, I never pursued it. But now I'm getting little tiny play by play lessons of different scenarios and how to respond and why. I am BY NO MEANS good at it. God damn, is it ever hard. When I do go on Chess.com and play strangers, I do NOT do well. I get so nervous and make so many bonehead mistakes.

I will say this though. I know very little about openings. And I'm completely lost in the midgame. But the endgame. Man do I seem to be good at the end game. After my opponent has decimated my ranks, I can dance around, gobble up their pieces, avoid checkmate, and usually in even the most dire circumstances end things in a stalemate draw. I'm sure a lot of that is due to me being matched with people with similar ranks who don't know how to close out a game and against anyone competent I would be dead in seconds. But it's still fun. I wish I could play someone I know regularly but I can't find anyone willing to play me. So if you have a Chess.com username and want to play with me leave a comment. I love saying leave a comment like anyone is reading.

Also, side note. I now know what a Queen's Gambit is and honestly it's not that cool. It's just an opening move/moves. It sounds like it's some kind of dramatic endgame sacrifice of your queen to win the game or something. But nope. Just the first move or two with your pawns.

Any time anyone asks what superpower I would most like to have, I always answer that I would like to speak every language with native fluency. And yet, I've rarely if ever done anything to approach that goal. Daniel and I did take a semester of French at SMU one time. That was fun but without continued effort didn't really stick.

Then my best seven foot tall woman friend suggested I download DuoLingo. It's free and you can learn any number of languages. So I did, and I started taking French lessons. Then I decided to throw in German since I already know it pretty well and it would be fun and easy to refresh. Then we planned a trip to Portugal so I focused on learning was Portuguese I could in the months leading up to our departure.

THEN I got so sick of the advertisements that I paid for a subscription. They got me. I admit it. But now that I'm paying for it, I'm going all in. I am currently switching daily between: French, Germany, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Danish. What's weird is that while switching between them certainly slows my progress, learning seven sets of vocabulary at once hasn't really proven to be any more difficult than one.

I know that these little exercises and AI driven conversation and voice recognition are unlikely to make me fluent. They're unlikely to allow me to converse easily in a foreign country. But I don't really care. Because (A) it's fun, (B) it's better than doom scrolling, and (C) it really does teach you a LOT if not all you need to know. When we were in Portugal, I busted out a few phrases with our guides (which of course ended with hilarious failure as I spoke Brazilian Portuguese), but also just consumed words around me. I knew what the little Brazilian kid was talking about when he screamed, "Abacaxi! Aacaxi!" at the top of his lungs (he saw a pineapple laying on the ground).

And that was enough for me. I cannot explain how utterly maddening it is for me in a foreign country to see words all around me and not know what they mean. I don't CARE what they mean. It just bothers me not to know. This really helped with that mental fatigue. To see a sign in a store window and know that it says "Closed on Mondays." It allows me to move on and not fixate on wanting to stop and translate.

So anyway, that's my plug for DuoLingo. It's free if you can withstand the most obnoxious assault of ads for phone games deliberately designed to wear you down into signing up for a subscription. But if you've ever been even a little curious, this is a super low effort, low risk way to delve into it and feel like you're accomplishing something every day.

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

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

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

Daniel's lil sister let us borrow one disc of the latest season of Family Guy. We couldn't help but watch the entire thing last night. On one episode Stewie is getting annoyed because people keep talking while he's trying to watch Mr. Belvedere. So he starts screaming the theme song on top of them. Way funny. But I remarked to Daniel, "How many people on Earth know the Mr. Belvedere theme song well enough to make that joke?" You can be sure it's a minority ... a minority I must be a part of. So we went to YouTube. g*d bless YouTube. Of course they had it. And now, for your viewing pleasure ... the first YouTube I've ever posted on my blog:

I need you all to watch it because you can't hang out with Daniel and I right now without being able to laugh when one of us imitates the trombone intro and we start singing, "Streaks on the china ... never mattered before. Who cares? Drop kick your jacket as you came through the door. No one's there! According to our new arrival, life is more than mere survival and we just might live the good life yet." Hilarious. As if people who can afford a fucking fat, sassy British live-in butler haven't quite gotten to experience the good life yet.

When I was trying to find the Mr. Belvedere theme, I was thinking all I could remember is that there was a montage of photos for each cast member. So I'm going to try and recreate it for myself.

Oh man, I'm awesome. Lastly, I just have to mention the SNL sketch where they had a support group for people who were in love with Mr. Belvedere. Only they called him Brocktoon or something like that so that other people outside of the club wouldn't know they were talking about Mr. Belvedere. Holy shit, I never thought my life would be so inundated with a crappy 80's sitcom starring Bob Uecker for xrist's sake. Oh well, you should all be so lucky.

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!

Thanks for all the wonderful comments on the scorpion. I told my yoga teacher about it and she said I should join the Yoga Center of College Station, and I think I'm going to. They do more advanced stuff ... because I'm good at something besides drinking now. Speaking of, I managed to get shit faced in the span of like 40 minutes last night. I rule. Marshall probably thinks I'm psychotic. Oh well, he'd be mostly right.

I don't know what made me think of this, but I thought I would share with you all the story of the first time I got on the internet. Well, actually its the second. The first time I got on the internet me and my brother Stephen went to go see if there was a sex.com. Sure as hell enough, there was. Good thing somebody thought of it. But the story...

The first time I ever sat down at a computer and got on AOL, back when I was known as Vidster007, I went into a random chat room. And I had no idea what any acronyms were or anything. I probably only typed like 30 wpm. And someone said, "hey anyone in pa?" And I had no idea what that meant, so I said, "i'm in pa." And an instant message popped up and they said, "where in pa," which I then figured out meant Pennsylvania. So I responded, "Nunya." And they said, "where is that?" And I said, "Nunya bidness." And they said, "well fuck you." And I laughed, and immediately knew that I liked this internet thing.

Unfortunately, nothing exciting is happening at SideshoViD.com. I am still alive, however, I'm not really enjoying life much right now. I am seriously busier than I've ever been in my life. If you don't like that, you know what you can do. This page is now on hiatus until at least Wednesday of next week. Sorry, kids.