Owen A is mentioned in or commented on 93 posts, which ranks #6 overall for people. They are most often associated with these...

People:

Places:

Things:

I don't know if you've noticed the conspicuous omission of any posts about Febrehab this year. It's not that I'm not doing -- I am. It's just that it's really not much of a challenge this year. I really don't drink a whole lot these days. And, I wasn't going to mention this publicly, just in case, but now I think it's pretty official: I quit smoking 6 months ago.

Right when we got back from Owen's wedding when I wasn't feeling well, I didn't smoke and then I just kind of figured I would keep it going just for the hell of it. So now that's that. I don't foresee myself ever going back to it. I don't even miss it.

But that does kind of take the fun out of rehab if you're not addicted to anything. But this year I am trying to focus on sleeping more, so I've moved my bedtime up to 10:30pm. I do not stay up past that for any reason. And the other side challenge is to do something cultural in Dallas each weekend in February. So yesterday JennyC■■■ came into town and we went with her to the Dallas Museum of Art. Got some general admission passes and walked around and looked at art. She'd been there 100 times, Daniel had been a few times, but I've never been. It was a really fun way to spend the afternoon. Then we came back and chit chatted for a while and then Jenny had to leave.

So far so good, just not a lot to report so I've kind of forgotten to keep the blog up to date, but you're probably getting used to that these days, no?

Last weekend, Daniel and I took off Friday and Monday so we could fly out to San Diego for Owen and Kimi's nuptials. I'd never been to San Diego and Daniel was quite familiar with it so he was excited to kind of show me around. We had a bachelor/bachelorette party on Friday and a wedding on Sunday so there was plenty of down time. San Diego is such a lovely little city. The weather was immaculate -- especially after a few weeks of 100+ temperatures here. The people are all really cool, friendly, and generally proud of themselves for living in San Diego. The wedding was really pretty out at this little marina outside with a backdrop of boats. The reception was really fun too. So that was ... man, it was just great....

So Monday morning, because the newly weds were staying in our hotel (which was pretty bomb, btw) we asked them if they'd like to meet up with us for breakfast. And walking down to the restaurant, I kept like losing my balance, putting my hand on the wall to stabilize myself. I was DD at the reception so I really didn't drink much, but I just kind of shrugged it off thinking it must have been the dark beer I'm not used to. But then it happened again, and again, again. And now at this point I'm getting nervous and my heart is like fluttering. But I figured a nice big breakfast, and a couple hours of napping would take care of it since we didn't have to check out or be at the airport for some time.

It helped a little, but after we turned in the rental car, it happened like 100 more times. I just couldn't keep my balance, I kept feeling like I was falling over. Not wanting to alarm Daniel, and not wanting to delay our departure, I decided to chance it and say nothing and get on the plane. I managed to sleep most of the way through the flight and survived. We landed, got our bags, were walking out to the car, and this time I went like down to the ground. It was really scaring me. So when we got home, I said something to Daniel about how this had been going on all day. My heart wasn't beating regularly and I was passing out every 10 minutes. So we did the only thing we could think to do and went to the ER.

They hooked me up to heart monitors and took chest XRays and blood and urine and said everything came back perfectly healthy. Maybe it was stress. I should go home and rest and I'd be fine. If anything happened though to come back immediately. The next day I went to work, fell down on the way to the bathroom, didn't know which way was up, so back to the ER I went. This time they took blood again, then did a catscan and an MRI of my brain. Everything was normal so they sent me home. I started thinking about it, and my symptoms were so acute that I couldn't think of anything it could be but an ear problem. So I called our old friend Dr. Schwimmer at the Snoring Center of Dallas (since he is an ENT doctor by trade) and asked him if he could help me. He is so nice. He said swing by the next day and he'd take a look.

Well, I'm pleased to tell you that I have an inner ear infection that should clear up on its own in 3-5 days. He advised me to not drive, stay home from work, and sleep as much as my body wanted to (which just so happens to be like 20 hours a day if you include naps). And I already feel much better. I'm a tad embarrassed I went to the ER, but you kind of have to decide in that moment if you want to ignore this and see what happens or if you want to be safe. At least I know now for sure that my heart is healthy, my brain is defect free, and I have no bladder infections. How many of you can say that? Still, I imagine there are cheaper ways to get physicals.

Alas, I'm on the road to recovery. My touch of the dizzies has already waned. Here's hoping I'll be fine by Monday. Just wanted you all to hear this story in case it happens to you, I might be able to save you a few trips to the hospital.

My apologies for back to back politico blogs. I'm not usually this involved, but then again, I rarely have two such awesome ideas in rapid fire succession. Today I'd like to discuss a little bit about Obama's health care dream. Affordable, government provided health insurance for all? Makes me sick just thinking about it. Imagine! People without jobs being healthy. It's disgusting. Preventative health care eliminating much of need and ultimately dropping health care prices for everyone? Unacceptable. I work hard, damnit, and I don't want some free loading single mother ass hole cashing in on that. In fact, once we effectively squash this SOCIALIST movement, there are a couple of other arenas I'd like to address.

Police. Why is it that the people who generally utilize the police the least pay the most for it? Why do MY tax dollars go toward equipping and training a police force that is going to protect EVERYONE. That's socialist bullshit. If you can't afford protection, then news flash, sucker, you don't get it. I would like to see the police stations in this country disbanded. I will use my own personal finances to hire myself a police force. That way I won't have to sit helplessly as my house is broken into waiting for help to arrive because they are out somewhere protecting illegal aliens.

Fire. Imagine this. Your house is on fire. Small, contained, maybe just in the kitchen. You call 911. Doing everything you can to control the blaze waiting for help, you start to lose the battle. Finally, sirens and lights outside and a team of well trained experienced firemen rush in. "May I please see your FMO card?" "I don't have it, oh god, it's in the bedroom but its expired." "Ma'am, ma'am, calm down please, if you do not have fire insurance, we cannot help you, you will have to call someone else or deal with this yourself." Sounds like a little slice of heaven to me. If it weren't for this SOCIALIST movement sweeping the nation, it could be like this. My house has never burned down. Why should I pay for firemen? It's ridiculous.

Look, people, I think my point is pretty clear. When it comes to health and well being of yourself and property, why should you pay to protect other people? I mean, come on, you work hard to fend for yourself, why can't they? Am I right? Now let's cut out this bullshit and get things going in the right direction.

As long as I don't get laid off in the next year, I mean.

I cannot tell you how much satisfaction my new job brings me. I feel like I have actual responsibilities with actual challenges being "managed" by an actual manager. It's pretty fun to look forward to work every day for a change. And to only work 8 hours a day. And to ride the Vespa every day since I won't be required on any construction sites. I just couldn't be happier.

It's also freed up my weekends completely for revelry. I always love it when drunken meandering leads you to random fun. Last weekend Daniel and I found ourselves in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, surrounded by xmas lights, drinking red wine. We went all around the neighborhood zig zagging through buildings, even stopping off at a bar to get topped off with some wine to-go. I must admit we were merely along for the ride while our crazy neighbors made it all happen, but still it was good to be out and about every so slightly breaking the law to turn a good time into a great time. I wanted Daniel to take off on the horse bareback through the park after we watched him get unsaddled, but that probably wasn't as good of an idea as I thought it was right at that moment.

I also have signed on with a new personal trainer at the gym. He's this guy we kind of know from the neighborhood who is giving us a really good deal so we're gonna train 2 or 3 times a week depending on how we like it. Gotta get in shape for St. Thomas.

Did you know we are going to St. Thomas in June -- which is going to be amazing. Then it's off to San Diego in August to watch Owen get married. EEEEEEEE!!1! Then in October we're going to Vegas because we have floor seats to Kylie Minogue's first every North American tour. Couldn't be more excited about that. My dad even got us two free hotel rooms in Vegas with his timeshare for me and my friends. Suck on that.

Sorry about the lack of updates. It'll probably stay this way for a while, I'm completely unmotivated to blog. Maybe I should start twittling or whatever.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why people are always trying to get out of jury duty. In my case, at least, I'd always reveled in my ability to skirt my civic duty but only because everyone else was doing the same thing. When I finally stopped to think about it, I realized that jury duty is awesome. And if you're on the bottom rung of a totem pole, not sacrificing your salary, then it's like paid vacation. I was determined right from the beginning to get seated on a jury and campaign to be the foreman.

So you get there and walk into a huge auditorium with thousands of others. And you take an oath and watch an orientation video and then you take a nap. It's supposed to be a cross section of the population and I found it hilariously interesting how true that was. There was just every walk of life in that room. Prime people watching. If you're a people watcher like me, try to get summoned, it was heaven. Everyone has a juror number, mine was #1133. And they call you in groups by your number. So 1-400 go to the fifth floor. But that doesn't mean 400 people are going because only 25% of people answer their jury summons. So I finally got called and I was excited because it was a criminal court -- longer trials.

Then you go upstairs and wait some more. And they're reading through my information card -- age, sex, race -- and compiling a list of 65 out of the 100 or more who are waiting. And the lucky 65 get a clip board with a questionnaire. So I got one. And up to this point is been pure luck, but here's my first real audition. So I start filling out the questions and I think it asked what do you think of the judicial system, what do you think of cops, prosecutors, defense attorneys. And I'm just saying the most bland vanilla things I can. I think it's good, they're good, I have no strong opinion. I answered NO to every single other question that asked if I had been the victim of a crime, known someone who had, had any experience in life that may bias me one way or the other.

And then its into a room for questioning from both the sides. They each get to strike 10 people from being on the jury. So they're trying to find the 10 most opinionated or stupid people by asking pointed questions. The prosecutor asked, "If a bank is robbed but only one person has a gun should everyone involved be charged with armed robbery?" Some people said yes, some people said no. Yours truly said "Well that would depend heavily on the evidence presented. If everyone knew about the gun and it was part of the plan, then yes, but if one guy deviated from the plan and introduced a gun and it can be proven that the others had no prior knowledge, then I would say no." Then the defense attorney got up. He asked me, "What is a reasonable doubt." And I struggled. So he said, "Let me put it this way, if certainty is 100%, what percentage is reasonable doubt?" And I said, "Well, I think maybe the answer you're getting at is 99%? But I'm not sure that even makes sense to quantify that. It's going to rely on concrete evidence and witness testimony lining up in such a way that I'm personally convinced of the truth. But that is going to be unique for each person sitting in this room."

So I'm feeling pretty good. And it worked. I got onto the 12. I was so excited. And I showed up the next day ready to serve but instead all we did was sit in the jury room cracking jokes. 11 lively, funny, and energetic people joined me in this little room and we just had the time of our lives. Around lunch they brought us into the court room and said go home, he took a plea bargain. He had committed 5 robberies at gun point in a short span and had been caught basically red handed. So he was guilty. They were just using us as leverage to get him to take the plea. Afterwards I asked the prosecutor what it was that got us all selected. And she said "Well, it's really a deselection process. None of you said anything to get you deselected." And she pointed out a few examples of things people had said that made them seem impartial. And she added, "And you, Mr. F■■■■. Well, you didn't say ANYTHING that offended ANYONE so you were in like flint." Score.

So I was disappointed to not sit through a long and interesting trial. But I suppose justice was served. I can't wait for my next summons. I'm checking for it daily.

A really strong weekend has put me over the halfway mark just as we round out the second week of Febrehabruarv. I actually felt really strong today so I went nearly 5 miles. I'm starting to think I could actually pull this off. A few more days like the past three and I'll damn near be there. I haven't decided yet if I'll just quit as soon as I reach 100 or if I'll keep going every day to see how far I can go. One thing is for sure, I'm going to take a well deserved break from running in March. But my hope is that, like the Veganism of Febrehabruariii, this will remain a moderate part of my life going forward.

The thing that strikes me as kind of odd about this year is how much harder its been to give up the cigarettes than usual. And I hardly ever smoke. But I think maybe that's why my body isn't quite convinced yet that it's not getting any nicotine. I have been known to go a week without smoking in a regular month, so I think reducing my habit has actually made kicking it completely harder. Maybe its because I only smoke when I really want to, so it's always really good. Who knows.

I had this dream the other night that I was in a restaurant and went to use the bathroom. And you know how sometimes now there are TV screens above the urinal? And you know how you go to Dave & Busters and they have like 8 race car games lined up and you can race other people? Okay, now put those two ideas together. Only the controls for the racing game were on the urinal and wherever you peed was which way you steered. And I was racing against the other people at the other urinals. I think this could be a multi-million dollar idea. Don't steal it.

Not a whole lot else to report. Had a grood Valentine's Day. Our dear friend, Ryan H■■■■, should be getting back from his Mexican wedding soon. I should call him tomorrow and see how everything went. I wish I could have gone. Oh well. See you all in a few more miles!

Our annual 3rd of July KaboomTown extravaganza, this year called Shish-Ka-Boom, was a huge success. I got off work pretty early and hit the grocery store on the way home. I picked up some beef shish-ka-bobs that were already skewered with vegetables. So much easier than trying to figure out the process on my own. And as an added bonus, the bargain expired meat bin is never without a few shish-ka-bobs, so a couple packages of them were half off -- just because they'd turned grey!

Then for dessert, I bought a huge thing of strawberries and a Sara Lee pound cake. I cut the strawberries in half and cut the cake into little cubes. Then I put them on bamboo skewers. I whipped some fresh cream with sugar and vanilla. And made a chocolate ganache out of Giardelli chocolate chips, two shots of real espresso, a teaspoon and a half of vanilla, and a little bit of fresh cream. I sprinkled the plate of dessert shish-ka-booms with a few random blueberries just so it would be red, white and blue. It was so delicious. I really think Ina might have approved of this spread.

Then we all watched the spectacular fireworks and got drunk. Not a single fight this year! So proud of all of our friends. Now tonight its time to switch modes to birthday celebration. My birthday is tomorrow so I arranged a little get together at a bar here in Addison. I purposely didn't put an RSVP thing on it because I'd rather just go out there with Daniel and drink a few beers and see who shows up. I didn't want to get a bunch of positive RSVPs and then be left at the bar alone crying. Set the bar low and be pleasantly surprised if it rocks. That's my new mantra.

So anyway, if you want to come, give me a ring and I'll disclose the secret location.

Yesterday I became a home brewer. I decided to start with hard cider which I figured would be marginally easier than beer. So there are 6 gallons of apple juice rotting in a bucket filled with yeast in the guest bathroom bathtub. In three weeks, it should be delightfully alcoholic and I'll probably start winning competitions and whatnot at that point. So if any of you are in town or around at Thanksgiving, come on by. I haven't come up with a name or a label yet but you better believe I'll be spending some time getting that sorted out.

I'm not sure if I even really like hard cider since every hard cider I've ever had has actually been an apple flavored malted beverage. And I'm definitely weary that I like it 6 gallons worth. But if I drink even one glass from the bucket and it has even 1% alcohol in it, then I will consider this a sweeping success. Who knows though? Maybe I really do like cider and I'll drink 6 gallons at 6% alcohol and die. Keep your fingers crossed.

Do any of you have a Wii? My parents bought one unexpectedly and I have go to say it is wildly entertaining. I like bowling and tennis. My whole family was in town a couple of weeks ago and we spent so much time playing these stupid games that the children got upset and the entire right side of my body was sore for like 3 days. What a brilliant invention to try and get fat little kids to quit being so fat and disgusting. I want one for xmas, so if you could just buy me one and leave it at my doorstep anonymously, I would appreciate it. That way, I don't have to feel indebted to you for your generosity and I can play my Wii without a burden on my conscience.

Back on October 1st, I swore that I was going to live on $100 dollars a week, no questions asked, no holds barred. A month later, I find my system unravelling. "Emergencies" are getting put on the credit card ... hard cider is an emergency ... and my checking account cushion is dwindling. So I had to supplement with some money from savings. That totally defeats the purpose, but if I can just make it one more month, then I'll be loaded and happy and ready to go to Las Vegas and gamble it all away. As it is, I've saved a ridiculous amount in the first month anyway, so I still count this as a victory. I'm pretty easy on myself.

I have pictures from Halloween but I'm still working on it before I post it here. So sit tight and wait for those, I promise to have them out by 2008. Peace.

If you think the only thing I ever really talk about on my webpage these days is my bar, you are only half right. The only thing I ever talk about all the time now is the bar. I can't wait until it's done so I can shut the hell up about it. I made some good progress this weekend. I got the tile and some mortar and laid the tile and embedded the cutting board and hammered some copper and raised the microwave so the door would open. Later this week I have to grout everything. Anyway, here's a picture.

It's really starting to take shape. You can see where I put copper around the trash hole. I just wanted to add another natural element to the overall design. It was originally going to be a trash chute but since I couldn't really do that, I thought this was a nice compromise. And the cutting board couldn't look nicer against the tile. Turns out they don't make rectangular tile like I wanted so these 1x1 mosaics work just fine.

Sooo yeah. That's all I got. Late.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy to report things are still going well. I just got back from Daniel's parents' house. His mother cooked this vegetable medley that we poured over soy cheese biscuits. It was pretty delish. She's made a few really exquisite meals for me this month. Such a treat.

One more weekend to go and then, while I am not stopping Febrehabruariii, I am going to reward myself by relaxing the rules a bit. Like tonight, Daniel's mom was going to put anchovies on the salad and remembered last minute to leave them separate. If it were March and there were anchovies on the salad, I would just shut up and eat them. Or if there were wine at the meal, I would have a glass. But for the most part, I am not going to have a cigarette and I'm not going to binge drink. And I'm going to continue to eat a diet that is rich in an assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables instead of 98% soft chicken taco combos. Then we'll just see what happens from there. I am happy to report that my weight loss has resumed, thank g*d, and I've lost a solid 5 pounds now. I'd really like to see more go away, but even this 5 pounds has made a little bit of improvement.

Last weekend we joined our fellow Febrehaber, Lauren, for her game night. She just wanted to have a few friends over to play board games and enjoy a little sober fun. To get people to come, though, she told them if they would like to bring something to drink they could. It turned into too many people drinking and not really being too interested in the games. But I still had a blast. We played Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture Edition and I did pretty well at it. I wasn't the self proclaimed champion of Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture Edition like some people, but I still did better at it then I do the original version that we play at my parents' house.

There was even a chocolate fondue fountain there. It was making a squeeking noise, though, so someone turned it off halfway through the night causing it to solidify and become a total mess. The girl who brought it set out to trying to clean it up. So she had the outer portion of it removed and all that was left was the internal screw that draws the chocolate to the top. Keith told me that he was going to turn it on without the outer portion on. I tried to stop him. I begged him to consider the consequences for his actions. But, alas, I was unsuccessful. Some people. Sheesh. Chocolate went EVERYwhere. We're talking counter tops, carpet, walls, clothes. All I could do was shake my head emphatically and give Keith disapproving looks.

When the wall wouldn't come clean, Daniel and I set off to Walgreens to pick up a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (the greatest cleaning product known to man). While we were walking around, I got a hair up my ass to get Lauren an "I'm sorry" gift in case she mistakenly thought I had anything to do with turning on the chocolate fountain. What we ended up with was a card that sings, "I'm sorry ... soooo sorry," a decorative bag with tissue paper, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, and a box of Summer's Eve douche. The card read something like, "Lauren, we're sorry chocolate accidentally got all over your apartment. To apologize we got you the best cleaning products we could find." We giggled for about a solid hour over giving Lauren a box o' douche. The ironic part was that after she opened it, the Summer's Eve still wasn't the biggest douchebox at the party.

But still, it was a great time and we will definitely have to do it again some time. Thanks for being such a gracious hostess, Lauren, and congratulations on being one week away from your first successful Febrehabilitation!

I finally did it. I've waited for 2 full years and the other day, I just decided to do it. I'm speaking, of course, about curtains for my bedroom. I was really daunted by the task of keeping my vertical blinds up. I could take them down, but then I'd have to store them and I have nowhere to store them. And to cover them means curtain rod extenders and screwing into studs, and I know nothing about any of that. So I came up with an idea. Instead of big beautiful curtains, I got blackout fabric. It's thin, it's light, and it blocks 100% of the light. I measured each window, cut out a piece of fabric that fit it perfectly, folded the top over, put a few grommets in it and hung it on nails. I can take them down, put them up, fold them in half to get some heat in the winter -- you name it. From the outside it looks all white, just like the vertical blinds, and from the inside, all you see is the vertical blinds, just like the vertical blinds. I couldn't be happier with myself. I have had a string of successful projects. I hope it doesn't end. I can't wait to be hungover this weekend and spend allllll fucking day in bed.

Speaking of bed ... my sleeping is much better. I have been on time to work 3 of the 4 days this week. That's unheard of. I even started showering in the morning instead of at night because I have so much extra time. I was pretty ecstatic. That, sadly and predictably, has faded. I could feel myself building up a sleep debt as each day went by and this morning I finally had to pay it back. I was one hour late to work. Today, coincidentally, was also the day I got the results of my take-home sleep test. I no longer stop breathing 70-90 times an hour. Now it's 22. 22 is the magick number. The lady from the doctor's office asked me how I'd been feeling and I said, "Much better, but not great." And she said, "Oh, how funny. I was just about to say your test results look much better, but not great." At least I'm no longer severe and am now considered moderate. It's looking like the tonsil are going to come out. I'm shying away from it, but I know that I'll eventually do it. I'll keep you all posted.

I bought a pumpkin today. It was an impulse buy. All I wanted were the seeds. I tossed them with butter and salt and roasted them in the oven. They're delicious. My culinary skill grows little by little every day. I can add that to the list with roasted chicken and blueberry pancakes. Rawk.

Have you ever heard of the mosquito frequency? It's this thing that businesses are using to cut down on teenagers loitering outside. It emits a sound at around 17kHz. Apparently teenagers can hear it and it annoys the fuck out of them, but adults cannot hear it. Trey told me about it at work today so we googled it. I found an MP3 of the sound and hit play. It was maddening. Trey accused me of not really hitting play. He couldn't fuckin' hear it! It didn't take long for everyone 25 and under in my immediate area to come over and ask what the hell the sound was. Then Trey believed me it was real. Which is funny because I'm the one that didn't believe him it existed. We gathered up all the old people around us and not one of them could hear it. One guy put it as his ring tone on his cell phone. Apparently teenagers are also using it to their advantage to allow their cell phones to ring during class without the teacher hearing it. I thought it was fascinating enough to share it with you all. CLICK HERE to listen to the most annoying sound in the world. And tell me if you can hear it.

Methinks it's time for me to go to bed. Gotta stick with the sleep rules now that they're slightly effective. Night, sluts.

g*d, I have been dreading this post. You know how you just have too many stories to tell and then you don't tell them and they pile up to the point where you really would just rather let them go by the wayside? Well, no, none of you understand. All of your blogs died after a few months. Trust me, though, it's rough.

I've been in Seattle for over a week now. All in all I'm liking the city. I don't like the way people drive here though. They take the speed limit as some kind of "limit" for your "speed" instead of a starting point for negotiation that you automatically add 5mph to... y'know, like normal people. It's fucking annoying. The bigass van they gave me to tool around in more than justifies any kind of driving I feel like doing.

On Tuesday, I made some friends. For some reason I never have any trouble making friends when I'm living in a foreign city. I guess I'm just that fun, outgoing, and internet savvy. Their names are Phillip and Robin and they're my new SBFF. They live up on Capital Hill, which is a literal fucking hill that I have marched up and down countless times in the past week. It's been worth it though because we always have fun when I get to the top. They have this cat. Oh man, I have to tell you about this cat. It is half cat, half bobcat, and it's obvious in its markings and in the face that this is the case. He also has short ears like a bobcat. What they tell me is that a bobcat is the only feline other than a domesticated cat that can successfully mate with a domesticated cat. However, the babies are usually so retarded that they don't even make it full term. Well this cat beat the odds. His name is Webol. They calls him that because he wobbles when he walks. He looks like he's severely intoxicated when he walks. It is so damn cute. If he wants you to scratch his head, you have to use two hands -- one to stabilize him, and one to pet him. I'm not an animal person, but I like this cat.

So I've pretty much spent the week working some, and then meeting Phillip and Rob, or one or the other, for food and shopping and drinks. We went out pretty hard this weekend. Another city's gay clubs under my belt ... maybe that's not a good way to describe my collection of gay clubs. Anywho.

I am so ready to come home. I miss Daniel and the stoop and Coors Light and Mexican food and Whataburger and my couch and my TV and my bed and Salmie and J's. Good thing I'll be home just in time for Kaboomerang (what I was calling Kaboomtwon, but I'll conceed their name is better). Friday can't come soon enough. I've had fun here, but I want to come home. ARG. I'm going to be coming back to Seattle a lot.

I'm on the phone so this post is over.

Where to begin? I guess, first, I should mention that I'm reaching out to you all from a two-story Starbucks in Seattle, WA. Not three days after I returned home from my DC/NYC vacation, I boarded a plane for a four-hour flight to the great northwest.

When I was sitting in the terminal waiting for my flight, I noticed a particularly ill-behaved toddler screaming his head off. I just knew he would be sitting near me. And I was right. This little fucker was directly across the aisle from me ... and he did not shut the fuck up the entire flight. He was screaming for the sake of screaming. Now here's what really bothers me. His mother catches my glare, smiles, chuckles, shakes her head ... like she's expecting me to be the same, like, "Eh! What'reyagonnado?!" and ruffle the kid's hair. I'll tell you what you should do. You should smack that kid so fucking hard that the next time he ever thinks about screaming on a crowded airplane, the resulting Pavlovian headache is crippling enough to quell that impulse. Good lord, people, it's bad enough you decided to breed, then decided to do a poor job in raising your children, but at least have the foresight not to bring them in public. No one thinks your kid is cute but you.

Except my nieces. They're all adorable.

So Seattle kinda sucks. The weather is pretty kickass, but I'm bored out of my gourd. I don't know anyone here and my room doesn't have internet access until I move hotels on Thursday. I really just want to be home, but that won't happen until September 1. Somebody call the whambulance.

My trip to DC was spectacular. Daniel and I got along famously, something that had mildly concerned me before our departure. While we spend nearly every hour outside of school and work together, that doesn't always give you a good indication of how you'll handle 24/7 with a person. But it was not even an issue. We spent every night in DC gay bar hopping. We got to meet up with Mr. K■■■■■■ and my dear friend JonS■■■. DC is a pretty cool city, but it's missing that essential pretentious attitude that makes going out really fun. Nobody dresses up. They wear flip-flops and cameo shorts and sleeveless Ts out the bar. What's the fun in that? Daniel and I had to get all fancied up and go out with our sunglasses on to show em how we do. Daniel's dad had a nice apartment in Dupont Circle with a huge terrace. The terrace was surrounded on three sides by a tall brick wall, and the fourth side was a rod iron fence. So every night when we were smashed and getting home, we'd climb the rod iron fence to sit on top of the brick wall and smoke cigarettes. Every single night one of us got hurt. Daniel tore his foot open. I have a puncture wound on each knee. You'd think we would learn our lesson after a few nights, but we managed to avoid any lessons learned.

New York was a b-last. I still don't like the city, but I definitely like the time I had there. We stayed with Daniel's friend David (so bear with me during this story, I'm not speaking in the third person). David showed us as much as he could in the short weekend we were there. We went to some good bars, but they were all so fucking packed. I can't imagine paying 8 times as much for an apartment 1/4 the size just to spend every night packed into bars so tightly that it's hard to even drink. And if you go to New York, make sure you take a lot of cash. IF places even took credit cards, they all had minimums. 5 dollars at most stores, 50 at some bars, and one bar even said they wouldn't swipe my card more than once when I told them to just run it. I suppose if you're marking up alcohol 800% customer service isn't at the forefront of your concerns. But like I said, we still managed to have a blast. One day we went on a Project Runway tour of the city. We went to Bryant Park, and Parsons New School for Design, and the Red Lobster that Santino made fun of Tim Gunn and Andre about. We went to Mood, the fabric store they always shop at and had a fabric scavenger hunt. We managed to find 3 of the fabrics that they've used on the show this season. Too exciting. We also went to the flagship Macy's and they had a window display with all of the winning outfits so far this season. It was fun to look at them up close. By far one of my favorite parts of the vacation. The other day we just kind of strolled around Central Park. Thank you thank you thank you to our most gracious host and newest Sidesho-Viewer, David. Can't wait to see you again soon!

We did so much walking on our trip. I really felt like my legs got a good workout, since they haven't had any recently. We also took a train from DC to NYC. That was a first for me. I like the train. The train is kind of like what I assume airplanes would be like if there weren't assholes trying to blow them up all the time. You just kind of get on where you need to get on and then get off when you need to get off. It just made a lot of sense to me.

I have to apologize for the length of this blog. I had a lot to say and nothing else to do in this fucking city. I'm bored. If anybody knows somebody who lives in Seattle, or knows somebody who knows somebody PLEASE get in contact with me. I would kill for some company. Alright, I'll update more when I have internet in my room. Later, bitches.

Any of you that have been to my residence in the past seven or so years have probably had the good fortune of witnessing the most beautiful coffee table ever created. It started out as a normal coffee table donated to my dorm room by a friend of my mother. One freshman year later and the facade was horribly damaged and the finish nearly entirely removed by spilt Everclear. I knew something had to be done, so I enlisted the help of my very artistic and talented friend, JennyC■■■, and soon ended up with this...

It's beautiful. It's creative. I love it. HOWever, it does not exactly fit in with the color palatte of my apartment. I had considered the whole space/ocean/mountain/sky theme for my living room, but instead went with tan and red. Considering Ryan S■■■ and I are someday going to open up Tan & Red Designs together, it was a no-brainer. Anyway, the table holds a lot of sentimental value to me because Jenny and I did it together so long ago, so I knew I couldn't get rid of it. I thought maybe I could cut the legs off and use it as a wall hanging, but again, not really in keeping with my concept of "vintage Parisian." What to do? What to do indeed.

I've been using the table in my bedroom ever since the redesign. It sits directly behind the head of my bed and serves to hold my many extra pillows. You never know when you need to switch in the middle of the night to a softer or firmer or more Tempur-pedic pillow. It's a pillow table. A pillow-table? Solution! I present to each of you, the new and improved pillow-top coffee table. I used three blocks of foam to create each section and then covered the whole thing in faux leather vinyl stuff. After I stapled it down, I put a row of brass tacks between each cushion and then a border of brass tacks around the edge. I didn't think it would turn out showcase quality, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well I did. It isn't perfect, but it's perfect for me. I think it looks so cool. So fashion forward. (Sorry, I just got done watching Project Runway.) It was a fun little project, and one that I have a bruised thumb and several bleeding cuts to show for. You know me, my art hurts me so. I had to offer it up for your approval. As always, I'll entertain your comments as long as your comments entertain me.

My trip to Washington, D.C. and New York City is fast approaching. If you'd like to hang out be sure to let me know. I've already gotten word from JonS■■■ and Mr. K■■■■■■. Hopefully, I'll be able to hook up with Topher in NYC. As an added bonus, the Monday after I get home from vacation, I will be jetting off to Seattle! You believe that? So if anybody is in the northwest, also let me know. Mr. Ryan C■■■■■■ has already expressed an interest, but I should have puh-lenty of time up there, so I'd love some company. g*d, I'm such a jetsetter. I think it's bed time. Czech you sluts later!

Today was the first day since surgery that was not worse than the day before. In fact, today was better than yesterday. I want to emphasize that point. I'm to the point now where it feels like I have a raging case of strep throat. So not feeling great, but managing what I consider to be a naturally occuring level of pain. It's really encouraging. I can make it through the day with Motrin and use hydrocodone in the evenings. I wake up periodically throughout the night in a great deal of pain, but gargling with salt water quiets it down.

The last hurdle I need to get over is eating. Swallowing in and of itself isn't truly that painful anymore, but the open sores in my mouth do dictate certain rules. Temperature is a big issue. Food can neither be cold nor hot. Room temperature is okay, lukewarm is better. Anything outside of an acceptable 3 degree range results in about a 10 minute attack. Food can also contain no salt, pepper, or spice of any kind. Tonight I made my mom's homemade mac 'n' cheese thinking that milk, cheese, and pasta couldn't possibly hurt. It was far too hot and salty. I had to chase every bite with a gulp of lukewarm water. It's resulted in me feeling quite bloated. Ouch. Oh yeah, burping hurts like hell.

On the upside, the past two days I have gotten up early with very little problem. I don't want to celebrate prematurely, but it seems like this procedure may have made a major improvement on my ability to sleep. Maybe. Hopefully. I hope.

Um mumumumum. I think that's all I have to say. I can't think of any products to place. Ummm, drink Johnny Walker Black. It's scrumptious. g*d, I can't wait until I can drink again. I'm bakin' cookies. Later sluts.

Last week, our dear friend, Tuna, passed away. His health had steadily declined for a couple weeks prior to that. I did everything I could -- a heater, some aquarium salt for freshwater fish, medicine -- but it wasn't enough. He was just old. I'll miss him. He was a good friend.

Daniel and Kelly got me a new fish for my birthday. I was kind of upset about it at first and didn't really want it. I didn't want to replace Tuna; didn't want some other fish I didn't even know swimming in his tank, eating his food, sleeping in his reeds. But tonight I had a change of heart. I've decided to adopt Salmie as a part of my family. I rearranged the tank so it looks nothing like Tuna's and put Salmie in there tonight. Daniel and Kelly named him Salmon but I don't really want to call him that, so I changed it to Salmie (pronounced "Sammy"). So far he seems okay; he looks happy anyway. He keeps attacking his reflection which is kind of funny. We'll see what happens, but I think I like him now.

I bought twelve chrome tipped bulbs. I thought that I wanted them for my overhead lighting to soften it up. I read on the internet that you should dim your overhead lighting until it isn't bright enough to light the room. Then you add lamps and spotlights and whatnot until you get it just right. Unfortunately, these bulbs just aren't quite right for me. They don't really work in the fan fixture that I have. I have one in my lamp that looks alright. Anyway, I bought twelve off the internet because I couldn't find them in any stores, so this is me asking all of you if you would like to try them out in your house. If you like them you can have them. Just lemme know.

It is well past time for me to start drinking. Justin came to town and I went to dinner with him in the Land of Gar. It was a pretty funny dinner but that story will have to wait. I've got 24 friends waiting on me in the fridge. Peace out, sluts.

I'm pretty sure I've used that title before, but I'm too lazy to check. Tonight I finally got around to filling my new subscription to Nexium, the little purple pill. They really are pretty. It's for acid reflux. I really don't think I have acid reflux, being as I never experience acid refluxing. But, my doctor seems to think the elongated uvula (yes, that's what this is about) may be a sign of night time acid regurgitation. They said it would be expected if it was longer in the morning and shrunk throughout the course of the day, because snoring can do that. But since it's just fucking long, and always is, I thought I'd give this a try. C■■■■ confirmed for me tonight that the uvula is disturbingly long when viewed in person. So next time we hang out, ask me if you can see it. I do love showing it off.

I caught myself just short tonight of saying, "Man, ever since I started going to doctors, it seems like I take a lot more pills." Stoopid, I know. But it's true, dude. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a hypochondriac desperately trying to treat all these problems I may or may not have. My new philosophy though is, if it dudn't hurt, then I'll try it.

I spent most of the day today running around town with C■■■■. We met up with Kelly and Alexander for an evening of yachting. I think you'll all be pleased to know that my skills at driving a yacht have greatly increased. I finally learned how to negotiate the waves in front of you to keep the boat from jumping all over the place and causing bottles, flip-flops, and people to fly off the back. A little more practice should do the trick. That's why we're going back out tomorrow. I smell like the damn lake right now, I gotta take a shower. The water was so warm that we actually swam for a while. I dominated Kelly in a swimming race. I stiiiiilllllll got it.

Kelly told me they were gonna get some jet skis soon. I told her, "I am gonna drive that jet ski SO slow. Totally reasonable. You're gonna believe it!"

It's been a pretty good weekend thus far. Too bad it's almost over. I need a damn vacation. Nothing of the sorts on the horizon, so I'll just have to make [do? due?]. HA! I just said doodoo. Hilarious. Peace out, sluts!

Alright, look. I know why people do it. It's because I'm a bastard. I get it. Turnabout fair play blah blah blah. But look here to the right where I quote my little stabs at people's grammar and spelling. They're fucking hilarious. I take a typographical error within the context of the conversation and turn it into a joke. It's so different from what you people do to me.

I don't know how many times I have been having an IM conversation and I say some shit like, "I'm going to teh mall," and people will reply with, "TEH mall? What is TEH mall roflz!!!!1" Not funny. It's not that the comment in and of itself bothers me, but the fact that you are so fucking not funny. Correcting my spelling or my grammar or my word usage isn't cute, it's fucking obnoxious. People that do it are fucking obnoxious.

I'm not typing these things to you ever few days in some word processor with spell check. I write them in a format very similar to Notepad. I do this because as much as I write them in my head before I sit down, they always flow a little better and little differently when I type them out as fast as I possibly can. And that is unbelievably fast and usually with some sort of rythmn to the keys. I don't bother myself with spelling and grammar because it would be a detriment to the humor.

As dedicated as I am to being correct, and as much as I skim over the entries once before I post them, holy fucking shit, I occasionally make a mistake. Do you see how many words are on this fucking screen, how many entries I've typed in the past 3 years? What are the g*d damn odds that I would not know that stalactites aren't spelled the same as stalagmites. Or that a caveat isn't actually an exception to a rule, just a qualification or explanation of one. Give me a fucking break. And just be forewarned that if you find a mistake in this entry, it won't be the least bit amusing to point it out.

If you don't have something funny to say, don't say anything at all.

I am single again. Most you probably didn't even know I wasn't. I don't normally speak of personal things on my website, but I just want to say it once and then I don't want to talk about it anymore. After changing status four times in as many months, I am now single for good. Okay. Don't comment about it.

My uvula is up to its old tricks again. Instead of dangling in the breeze of my exhalations like a tiny stalagtite in my throat, it has decided to double or triple its length. It is now a slithering snake down the back of my throat when I swallow, encroaching upon my tongue when I do not. You know how when you try to take a pill without water and sometimes it gets stuck in the back of your throat before it goes down, and you have to run to the sink to get a drink before it drives you mad. Yeah, RIGHT there is where it's sitting. Have no fear, I'm gonna chop the fucker out. I don't like it. I don't want it. And I don't need it. So long uvula!

My dinner of dry boneless skinless chicken breasts and an ear of corn was fucking delicious. I just bought enough healthy groceries to last me longer than they'll last. Gotta love it. I'm actually not being facetious when I say that I totally enjoy chicken breasts and a handful of spinach for dinner. Not only do I think it's delicious, but it's doing wonders for how I feel and look. If I keep up this personal trainer set workout routine for like two months, you're not even going to recognize me. Except from the shirtless pics that I'll be posting on myspace. Wish me luck on that and I might let you lick me.

If I don't get my TV plugged in like now, I'm going to ... something something.

I've had this argument many times in my life. Mr. K■■■■■■ and I almost came to blows over it. It has become increasingly prevalent in my life because of the frequency with which my boss errors in his grammar. I am speaking, of course, about the answer to the age old question, "How are you?"

"Well" is an adverb. It modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb. "Good" is an adjective. It modifies a noun. I think we can all agree on that (although Ryan S■■■ has already begun his rebuttal before even finishing my blog or determining my stance on the subject).

There are two ways to tell someone how you are. You can say, "I am           ," or "I am doing           ." In the first sentence, the blank is modifying the subject "I," which is a pronoun, a type of noun. You would then use an adjective to modify that noun, so the complete correct sentence would be, "I am good." In the second sentence the blank is modifying the word "doing," which is a verb. You would then use an adverb to modify that verb, so the complete correct sentence would be, "I am doing well," or "I am doing drugs."

The reason people become confused on the issue is because it is grammatically correct to say, "I am well." It is a caveat to the rule, specifically created for when you are describing your physical well-being (coincidence?). Without this exception to the rules, your third grade teacher never would have corrected you when you told her, "I don't feel good," as an excuse to get a drink of water and wander the halls. To say, "I don't feel well," would (normally) infer that your sense of feeling is inadequate -- that you either can't sense when your hand is on the stove, or you're a cold hearted bitch when it comes to relationships. However, with this exception, you are clearly describing your state of physical well-being. You don't feel well. There is something medically wrong with you.

If you don't speak in full sentences, and no one does because we don't have time for that shit, then the unnecessary assumed words are, "I am." If you're still with me at this point, you'll then agree that if your boss, friend or bartender asks, "How are you?" you should reply, "Good." Only if a doctor or nurse asks you, "How are you?" should you reply, "Well."

So if you're continuously using, "Well," or, "I'm well," with your friends, family and coworkers in an attempt to sound smart, instead use correct English and actually be smart. Please?

Good.

I know you were all expecting an immediate reaction to my Thanksgiving, since it is my favorite holy day of the year, so I apologize for keeping you in suspense. In all honesty, it wasn't wild and or crazy, just nice. I drove up to OKC to see my sister. Her daughter is about 8 months old now. It's totally an age you don't want to miss out on, but, c'mon ... babies don't do much. She can't talk yet, she can't walk yet, so while I wouldn't trade seeing her for anything, it was pretty low key.

Our turkey was pretty good. I don't know that it was 140 dollars good, but it was scrumptious. The best part of the Heritage Turkey is that it comes with a barcode. When you enter that barcode at their website, it brings up your turkey's personal history. Our hen was born in March of 2005 and raised on a farm in Kansas. She liked roosting in tall trees. It was kind of morbid, so we gave her a eugoogaly before we tore into her roasted butter basted carcass. Thanks be given. We shared the meal with my niece's other grandparents, the baptits preacher. The baptits preacher doesn't drink or dance or believe anyone but him is getting into the pearly gates. Well since there was a baptits at the table (you guys have noticed I'm spelling it 'baptits' on purpose by now right? good) that meant that I couldn't drink either. So annoying.

As soon as he left we busted out the beer and scotch and played poker and me and my dad robbed my brother-in-law blind. It was too funny. Unfortunately though, the next day my sister was feeling sick. Her daughter was already under the weather and kind of cranky (which is not her usual demeanor). So my parents and I opted to leave a bit earlier than planned and drop off at Winstar for some gambalaya. I didn't win anything but I did lose the 20 bucks I'd won from poker, so I came out even. That's pretty good for me since I have a gambling problem ... my problem is that I suck at it.

Thanksgiving plans? I'm going to host one in December when Owen is in town. It will be held at the Hamptons by my gracious host Miles. Not only will there be booze there, but I imagine it will be at least 8 of the 9 side dishes. Bourbon soup, here we come. Look forward to your invitation to that, even though most of you won't receive one.

Lastly, I am done with sleep medicine. No more CPAPs, no more machines, no more masks, no more pills, no more studies, no more labs, no more brain waves, no more oxygen monitors, no more REM, NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE. I went to the doctor today, returned everything they'd given me, shook their hands and left. Best of all? No more payments. I just need to work on getting back to where I was 7 months ago before I started all of this nonsense. I was tired, but I was functioning. That's the combo I'm trying to get back to. If it turns out that I can't do it on my own, I will accept the advice of the doctor and return for an unlimitedly refilled subscription to Provigil, but I'm hoping it won't come to that.

Miles bought me a prescription to Details! UH! Thanks Miles!

I just got my Addison! newsletter in the mail. I really have not been utilizing all that this city! has to offer. Honestly, I just keep eating at the same restaurants! over and over again when there are literally hundreds I have not tried. There's the Water Tower Theater! a stones throw from my apartment and I have yet to see a show. Speaking of theater! they are playing The Santaland Diaries! by David Sedaris! December 7th through the 23rd. Tickets! are $17-30, anybody want to go?

I also hear a lot about this Addison! Gym. Apparently, if you can prove that you live in Addison! (which shouldn't be hard to do since ... I do), there is a one time fee of $10 for a lifetime membership. I was confused as to how this could possibly be profitable for them. But I found out that I already pay for the gym. It's like part of my taxes. I suppose since we don't have schools or anything lame like that, we can afford to allot money to the Recreation Department. So I need to go check that out and see if it's as nice as Lifetime. I pay for my gym, but my company reimburses me the majority of it as part of the employee wellness program, so I guess I could always have two gym memberships. It's just a matter of getting off my lazy ass and signing up.

AllieD's friend Jennifer IMed me today and informed me that Target has outlawed Xmas. In addition, they have started selling bargain-brand vibrators at all of their stores. This is unsubstantiated information from an unknown source, but I'm definitely going to have to research this. Anyone with any information, please let me know.

I've decided in 2006 to repeat my February experiment. I'm sure you'll all recall it from this year. In 2006, though, it will (of course) be called Febrehabruarii. Like you didn't see that coming. I'm thinking that this year will be even more intense than last year. No booze, no cigarettes, no caffeine, no staying up late, no skipping even one workout, no ground beef or fatty food, no spending money frivolously. Come March, I am going to be really, really, ridiculously good looking (and out of debt). Mark my words. Anyone want to take up the Febrehabruarii experiment with me?

I might be getting a new washer and dryer today. I'm buying Miles' old ones from him because mine squeak and it is annoying. Lil Jarrod randomly called me today and we went to lunch with Daniel at J's, yum, and he said he wanted a washer and dryer, so I'm giving mine to him. Does anyone have a truck that we could use? You'd have to drive from Addison! to Den-ton¿ but I'm sure we could find some way to make it worth your while. I don't know how fun it will be to have an extra bed and an extra W/D set all chillin in my living room. I mean I know I'm white trash, but srsly.

I'm going to OKC for Thanksgiving to eat my 140 dollar Heritage turkey with my parents, sister & fam, so I'll be out Wednesday through Saturday. I got another coupon from my company for a free Butterball turkey, though, so I think I'm gonna throw my own Thanksgiving party later. Probably mid-December when Owen is in town. Miles offered to let me throw it over at the Hamptons (his new house -- in the Hamptons of Addison!). So that should be fun. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on that.

This next week is going to suck, especially with this attitude, but it will be a short one so I'm sure I can survive. It's gonna be a big push to remain employed through the end of the year but I'm sure I can do it. And, I think that's all I had to say. Funny, when I sat down, I thought I had nothing to talk about. Carpe diem, friends! HA! HA!

After having lived in Covington, Kentucky and traveling back and forth from Ohio for two weeks, I think I can safely say that I know what it's like to live in America's Heartland. We residents of Northern Kentucky/Ohio are a simple people. We like Jesus and basketball and White Castle burgers. Said another way, I can't wait to go home!

I am going to fly back to Austin tomorrow night. I was thinking about going to College Station immediately upon arriving but those plans are in the air right now. We'll just have to see. I am so ready to get home, especially since my on-again-off-again roommate Andy will be there waiting to stay with me for a few days. And I've got that night to spend wired up to electrodes in the sleep clinic. But a part of me will miss Cincinnati ... a part of Cincinnati anyway, his name is Mikey. But Mikey is moving to Dallas in about a month, so no worries there. *WINK*

I didn't spend much time sitting in my hotel room alone. I really think I probably have as many friends in Cincy as I do in Dallas. That's either a really cool display of my social skills, or a blaring example of my lack thereof.

So I apologize for not updating the entire time I was here, but this social butterfly was too busy flapping his wings. I would probably come back here if they asked me to, but only for a week. Two weeks was just too long. That expense check I'm about to get should assuage any feelings of homesickness I ever had though. I'm gonna be rolling in it, people. I can put so much into savings for my Australia trip this month. Or I could buy that leather jacket at Source Paris. Yeah, I'll probably go for the jacket.

Hope all is well with all of you and to my Dallas crew and Addison Circle, I will see you all sooooon. Late.

I did it. I fucking did it. I traversed the globe from Austin, TX to Cincinnati, OH without a single hitch. I even rented my first car and followed directions to my hotel. From my balcony, I overlook a White Castle. I might have to try that tomorrow for dinner and see if it sucks even worse than Krystals does. The lady at the front desk here is super cool. She gave me a smoking room with a balcony, and had a fridge sent up to my room so I could keep the beers cold that she gave me. Who knows if she's this nice to everyone, but it sure does feel special.

I know Brandon had requested a big long blog all about my weekend in Austin, but that may have to wait a couple of days, which in effect means I will never get around to it. It is now midnight and I have to meet some dude in the lobby at 7am to go to the UC campus. So far I'm having a good time. Thanks jebus there's free internet access in my room. The workout facilities leave a lot to be desired, but it should be sufficient. But anyway, my weekend in Austin was awesome. Congratufuckinglations to Dr. and Mrs. Jamey Dent. Bang up job getting married, kids. The wedding was cathlick, the reception was fun, the nap I took after the reception was a fucking blast. I went out with Brandon and some of his friends. It was so, so good to see Brandon, not, not so good to see his friends. But, we all managed to make it though the weekend being painfully polite to each other. There's a whole sordid inside story to why that I don't feel like getting into. Let's just say his new boyfriend has every reason to hate me.

Beer #2 is now open.

So getting to Cincinnati (or Sin-sin-naughty, as I hope to come to call it) wasn't too bad. Lester took me to the airport and let me park my car at her apartment, so thanks for that, L.Bizzle said D.Fizzle. I scheduled myself a 4 hour layover in Chicago hoping that one of my two friends would be able to meet up with me for a while. Turned out that neither of them could, which was totally cool, I knew that when I scheduled the layover without asking that I was rolling the dice. So I had plenty of time to sit and eat a leisurely (free) dinner and then play Spider Solitaire for 2 hours while listening to John Denver's greatest hits.

My flight from Chicago to Cincinnati wasn't on a big American Airlines plane. It was on a smaller sub-airline, I guess, called American Eagle. I don't know about you, but visions of a flight crew dressed in tattered jeans and board shorts did not instill much confidence. But we made it on one piece with only minor turbulence, and then I masterfully navigated my (upgraded) rental car to my pimpass hotel. The fucking end.

Got a busy couple of weeks ahead of me, but so far I'm rather liking this travel thing. Now, to close, an homage to Drew Carey ... OHIO!!!1!!

I think I might need to start a Sleep Files of sorts. This will be last installment in that epic saga for a while. I went to the clinic today. They asked a lot of intelligent questions. They said I definitely need to come back and spend a night in their sleep lab. If anybody wants to go with me, we can totally spoon ... though I'm not sure if that's allowed.

The doctor was also kind enough to point out the two physical features I am probably the most self conscious about (although that term is just relative since I'm not really self conscious). He asked me if I'd ever broken my nose and then seemed to think I was lying to him when I said no. He said I have a deviated septum that could be contributing to my problem. He also commented on my overbite and said that my lower mandible being farther back could be pressing my tongue against the back of my throat as I sleep. Both of these could be corrected with very painful surgery, but I know a thing our two about blindingly painful surgeries, so I'd be willing to go along with it if they thought I needed it. That's kind of a last resort and they're not even sure it would come to that until I complete the sleep test. Still, if I did do that, I'd totally have a cosmetic surgeon come along for the ride to make the pain and suffering and rehabilitation worth it.

That sleep test won't be happening until I return from Cincinnati, though, so we can close this chapter for a while. I was quite tired at my appointment today due to breaking the sleep rules last night to go downtown for a couple glasses of wine with JD. Definitely need to make a habit of that.

Today at work, my body builder coworker delivered my 10 POUND BAG of whey protein that I told him I wanted. I am now supplementing my diet. But seriously, 10 pounds is sooo much more than I thought it was. Picture like a bag of dog food, only completely filled with powder. I laughed so hard when I saw it. It's going to last me well past its 2007 expiration date. So I came home from the workout, drank my shake, and then cleaned Tuna's tank. It was way past due. He seems rather pleased that I finally got around to it. I set him next to the laptop while I was in the bathtub scrubbin his rocks. When I came back out he was surfing around Friendster. Did he add you?

Finally, at lunch today somebody made a mention of an alias. All three of us in rapid succession offered up our aliases, mine being Donovan Blankenship. Then that made me think of Joey and Phoebe being Ken Adams and Regina Philange. And naturally that led me to think about how Allison adopted Fionula Flannigan as hers. Having a cool alias is a MUST. So I ask you, dear viewers, to post your pseudonym here on a comment. And with that, I bid you adieu.

My oldest brother, Michael, who lives in Sacramento is expecting a baby. I think I might have told a lot of you that this one was going to be a boy. This information was based on a sonogram in early July that said there was a 95% chance that it would be a boy. Well, turns out that our little Seabiscuit underdog is actually my third niece. How fun is that? I didn't really have my heart set on it being a boy or a girl, so it just cracks me up that the initial guess was wrong.

Speaking of crack, former Dallas Cowboys goalie and outfielder, Michael Irvin, was working out at my gym today. We happen to be there simultaneously on occasion. He works out while two guys stand beside him screaming encouragement. It's pretty ridiculous. They yell things like, "THROW IT UP! THROW IT UP!" and it makes me want to throw it up.

He asked me for my autograph, but I didn't have a pen.

I got my much desired referral to the sleep clinic, but now I have to go to a consultation with the sleep clinic doctors. That is tomorrow morning. I had to fill out a 13 page questionnaire regarding my sleep habits and symptoms. 2 of those pages were supposed to be filled out by someone who has regularly observed you sleeping. It's been a long, long time since I've had someone who regularly observed me sleeping, so I had to call 27. I actually learned a lot about my little problem when I asked him to 'check all that apply' given a list of symptoms. He said that I have severe problems with:
light snoring, loud snoring, choking, pause in breathing, gasping for air, twitching or kicking of legs, sitting up in bed not awake, getting out of bed not awake, becoming very rigid and/or shaking

That's kind of scary. I really didn't realize it was all that bad. People die from this shit. Wouldn't it be totally funny if I suffocated from sleep apnea the day before I went to the sleep clinic. That would make a great blog. If that happens, somebody take up the reins.

How come we spell it c-o-n-v-e-r-s-a-t-i-o-n but abbreviate it 'convo'? Shouldn't it be 'conver'?

One last note. Owen mentioned this to me first a while ago but it was down, now it's back up. Everyone, and I mean everyone, go to http://earth.google.com and download Google Earth IMMEDIATELY. It is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Especially download it on your work computer because it is amusing for hours and hours and hours.

Today I awoke at exactly 4am at which time I arose fully refreshed and took a shower. I spent time making my hair look nice, pressed my shirt for work, and looked put together. I had a nice breakfast of Kellogg's cornflakes with strawberries before brushing my teeth and leaving for work. There was no traffic since I arrived at work at 6:30. I brewed a pot of coffee for the office and got my Monday paperwork out of the way before arriving 10 minutes early to the 7:30 meeting. After the meeting I got out to a job site around 9 and finished out my 10 hour day, making extra time by skipping lunch. After bringing an entire school online, I went and worked out for an hour and a half. I've lost 4 pounds since the last time I weighed myself on Thursday. I tanned. I came home and cooked some chicken red beans and rice that was so good it'd make you slap your mama. I ate a reasonable portion despite being starved. I have leftovers for tomorrow. I did all of my laundry and folded it. I cleaned the entire kitchen and disinfected. I cleaned the toilet and scrubbed the bathroom floor. I smoked no cigarettes and drank zero beers. And I did all this with time left to make it to bed early tonight.

Who am I and what have you done with the real Sidesho?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of me starting work at my job. This little milestone has a bit of significance considering a year ago "one year" sounded like an eternity. Come to find, it's really not that long. Although, when you think about it, a lot has happened in the past year. In 12 month's time, I've started and kept a job. I've gotten my own apartment and managed to paint and semi-decorate it. I've been to six foreign countries. And I've consumed enough beer for a lifetime. Yeah, when you line up all my achievements, it's not too shabby.

I bought the girls I work with really cute little flower pots and cards and put them on their desks after work today. I hope they appreciate the sentiment. I really get off on doing random nice things like that. I'm not even sure anyone but me is realizing its the anniversary, but then again, they probably haven't been counting the hours like I have.

Tonight I went to Studio Movie Grill as per standard Funday night procedure. When I was leaving I got the hiccups. I always think that is so funny when you're drunk and get the hiccups. Makes me feel like a cartoon. Speaking of cartoons ... back to Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

I normally don't talk about work on my webpage, mostly because I do NOT want to get dooced. But I think these observations are fairly harmless. I decided to "steal" "Owen's" style of blogging and put some figure numbers on my images. Then after I was done with the tedious photoshopping of each image, I changed my mind on the order. So fuck off if you can't get past the point that my figures are out of order (although if I was my TA, I'd give me a zero on this blog just for that). These are just a couple of things that I find really amusing on construction sites that most of my readers will never see because you're not construction workers like me!

You know how there are electrical boxes like everywhere behind the scenes of a building? Well, there are. I've illustrated it here in our first picture, Figure 4, so you could know what I was talking about. When each of those metal pipes is connected to the box, a hole has to be drilled in the outer casing. The diameter of these pipes is roughly that of a quarter. So here is my advice to you the next time you are on a job site. Don't pick up the little silver circles left behind by this drilling. And whatever you do, DON'T yell, "Hey, I found a quarter! Is it on heads?!" and then pick one up.

Okay, now onto the topic that I'm really excited to try and explain. There are pipes that take hot and cold water from the boiler and chiller (respectively) all throughout the building. Air is then blown across a coil of pipes containing this water to either heat or cool the air (respectively). It is then blown into the room and all the fat teachers in menopause bitch that it's always too hot or cold (disrespectfully). These pipes have to be insulated, naturally. After a foam insulation is wrapped around the pipe, it is usually finished off with a PVC coating like the one shown in Figure 1. There are just pieces layin around all over the job site. And every day, I have to fight, fight, fight the insatiable urge to put these pieces on my body like a Storm Trooper. They would be soooo perfect. Just to prove my point, check out Figure 2 where I actually found a nerd on the internet that shows you the pieces you need to be a Storm Trooper. Can you imagine how cool I would be if I came out of the chiller plant dressed up like Figure 3? Not only would I not need a hard hat and safety glasses ... but I could sleep standing up and no one would be the wiser. Thanks for bearing with me while I explained these very technical ideas that came to me as I wasted away on a job site. Laaaaaaaaaaate.

I am back home from College Station. It was a somewhat spur-of-the-moment decision to make an appearance there. I was sittin around last week when I realized that next weekend is graduation (my own graduation anniversary also, get me presents) and that this would be my last chance to see the remaining friends I have all together. I drove down Friday after wearing a hard hat all day and got down to some serious drinking. I was staying with Raul and Brandon this time around so thank you, thank you, thank you to them for letting me stay in their apartment.

I did some serious drinking on Friday night which led to a lackluster attitude all day and night Saturday. But it was really nice to see everybody while I was around. Who knows when my next CS venture will be, so if you want to see me again, you bitches will have to come to Dallas.

When I was in Brandon's room he had music from his playlist playing the whole time. One of the songs he played was Ashlee Simpson's "Autograph." If you'll recall, I publicly stated my hatred for Ashlee Simpson back in June of 04. I just want to make sure you all know that she's a talentless whore. Anyway, I totally recognize this song, and there is absolutely no reason why I should have heard it before ... unless I heard the same song performed by Juli, a German band whose CD I bought when I was in Berlin. Juli has a song called "Traenenschwer" that is the same as Ashlee's "Autograph." I tried to do some research tonight to figure out what the deal is there. Owen seems to think it is very common for bands to share tracks, but I think that's a total lie. No band is gonna be like, "Ja, we've got this really kuhl song, why don't you take it, you shitty American pop wannabe, and put your own fucking retarded lyrics on top of our music." Somebody find something out for me that I don't have the patience to find and let me know. If this could effectively bring an end to Ashlee Simpson that would be even better.

I've decided to kind of split up the next few blogs into a few different entries. If I were to try and tell you all about my week in one, it would be far, far too long. I'll try to do it in under 5 though, so they can all remain on the main page. Hopefully you've scrolled to the end so you can read them in order.

So Thursday night we decided to treat ourselves to a last-night-in-Malmo type of party. Keith and I went to the Pickwick, the only pub we found that had a true "Happy Hour" as we understand it. I brought my camera with me because I had failed to take a single picture the entire two weeks. I felt so stupid stopping and taking pictures of stuff we'd passed a hundred times before. There is nothing to transform yourself into the perfect tourist like a few Heine pints. We were snapping pictures of everything and everyone and laughing our asses off. So now it's time for dinner.

We would meet Paul the Englishman and the Dweeb in the lobby every night at 7 before we walked to dinner. So around 7 Paul comes down before the Dweeb and we all kind of looked at each other and at the same time said, "Let's go!" Well, really, Paul said, "Shall we?" but same idea. We decided that for our last meal we would enjoy some free time from the Dweeb and it was a great time. We had many more beers with dinner before heading to our favorite little Irish pub for some darts. I was so on fire the first round. They were both like, "Damn, you did learn a lot the other night." But trust me, friends, as the time went on and the beers went down, I started having trouble even hitting the fucking board. It was getting sad so I had to excuse myself.

The next day I was so hungover and tired. I was pretty much just blatantly sleeping at my desk without trying to hide it. What were they gonna do about it? Around 2 I split a cab with Paul the Englishman and we went to the Copenhagen airport at Kastrup. We said our goodbyes and split ways to find our gates. I had a couple hours to kill so I decided to exchange some money into Euros when a familiar voice said, "Better yet, why don't you waste those Kroner on pints?" Oh, Paul the Englishman! He'd found me as we both waited for our flights so we sat and got drunk one last time. It was pretty good for my nerves because I had no fucking idea what I was doing or why. Just going to Paris for the fuck of it. Tres not my style. So off I went into the great unknown. I still miss Sweden, but as you'll see ... it was not the best part of my vacation afterall....

I can only assume I did not win the HGTV Dream Home. Alas. To console myself, I decided to beautify my own little space just a little bit. As you all know, I've been collecting wine bottles for some time now with this grand idea in my little head about how I would arrange them fabulously atop my kitchen cabinets. Today, I got the last two bottles I needed, and the gumption to git'erdone.

What do you think? Say nice things about it. And by "nice things" I don't mean "bitchy things followed by less-than-threes." I spent my entire afternoon and evening putting together my new decorations. I must say thank you, thank you, thank you to Ryan S■■■ for helping me buy those little pewter-inlayed shelves with my Pier 1 gift certificate he got me for x-mas. It just wouldn't have pulled together with out it.

Since I had my camera out, I took a quick pic of Tuna's new tank that I told you all about. It's just a little bit more sophistocated, a little bit more Tuna's taste. He was always a little bit patronized by the rainbow castle, so I could see his sigh of relief when I inserted this shroom-tastic rock. Literally. Little sigh bubbles. Then we high-fived.

I watched a really long special tonight on Prader-Willi Syndrome. It's this biological disorder where your brain will never tell you that you are full. In fact, you are in a state of constant starvation, not only mentally, but your body acts accordingly. It would be like if you were stuck on an island for 2 weeks starving and then someone walked by with a steak. You'd do anything to get that steak. That's how these people are every minute of every day. Can you imagine? This dude was like 400 lbs and he JUST got done eating and said that he was doing everything he could to not immediately eat again.

I don't know why I felt inclined to share that. I just thought it was fascinating. I rounded out the evening watching MRIs of people doing the dirrty on Discovery, and everything you never cared to know about booze on the History Channel. Best St. Patricia's Day EVER!1!!!

Here's the deal. The power jack on my laptop, like the thing inside my laptop, has come loose. This happened sometime around April, but hasn't really been an issue. Anytime I lost contact, I would jiggle the cord and all was well. But now, it seems, I have lost the ability to fix the problem with a jiggle. I took my laptop to Best Buy today for their service department to fix it. It's not so much a service department as it is a shipping department. I just wanted him to open it up and take a look, but he assured me that it had to be sent off for three weeks. I don't want to give up my computer for three weeks, but I also don't want to spend an hour getting the cord in just the right spot any time I want to use my computer (like I did tonight).

This was my thought. February is already going to be hellacious and productive. I am giving up alcohol for one month. I am giving up cigarettes for one month. I am giving up the night life for one month. Why not give up chatting for one month?

That's a terrible idea.

I don't know what other choice I have. I can't afford another laptop. Hell, I can't even afford lunch this week due to a savings miscalculation. Still gotta get to the bottom of that, I think somebody stole 125 dollars from me ... which would simply augment the 87 dollars the Velvet Hookah already stole from me (and won't give back, those rat bastards ... but their bartender is hot).

My bedroom is mostly green. Mostly. I need two more gallons to finish up the job. You would think I lived in a 8,000 sq. ft. apartment with how much time I spend painting. Truth be told, I just derive a certain pleasure from doing things slowly. I always have. I like to eat slow. I like to walk slow. I like to paint slow. And I like to tilt my head back and then bring it back up slow-ly.

I'm not 100% certain when to use "slow" and when to use "slowly." Can anybody shed some light?

Quick life update. Drank too much. Made it back to New Amsterdam Coffeehaus with Mr. K■■■■■■. I haven't been back since I went with Ryan C■■■■■■ who now lives in Port-land, so I have to call him to let him know. I think something good may be beginning, but I am always skeptical of optimism. Netflix continues to rawk my world and work is even less of a concern than it ever has been. I talk to Tuna too much for a well adjusted young man and I haven't worked out since I started painting. I will be sick within a few days and the only thing in my apartment suitable to ingest is water from the tap. And beer. I think that's about it. How are you?

I am so sick of painting. I feel like I've been painting for weeks. That might be because I've been painting for weeks. I'm not into that "buckle down and get things done" kind of manual labor, so I've been doing a little here, a little there. I have one more coat on one more wall of my living room and I am done, done, done with the kitchen and the living room. Then it's on to the bedroom. I bought a pretty dark color for the dungeon of a bedroom I have planned -- a veritable shrine to hangovers. Ironically, I'll be spending my sober month to accomplish this... or is that appropriate?

As soon as I finish up, you will all be the first to see pictures. I'm not sure how comfortable I am having complete strangers knowing what the inside of my apartment looks like, but whatever. It's not like I have anything worth stealing. If I got robbed, it would really just save me the trouble of moving my old stuff out. (I keep the extra key under the welcome mat.)

(I don't even have a welcome mat.)

I put too much money into savings this month. I did it on purpose, to make sure I'd run out of money before I could spend it all. But now, I'm sitting home with no money and it kind of sucks. I need to stay home and paint anyway, and I've got 14 beers in the fridge screaming out for me. Perhaps I will combine these two activities.

I called Owen today because I haven't talked to him since he graduated. I asked him what he was doing and he replied, "Sleeping." I was really asking him what he was doing in life, but I had a feeling the answer to that would be the same, so I let it slide.

I am contacting you all from the year two thousand and fabulous five ... oooohhhh. Rang in the thang with a bang, and then a hang ... over. Pacey McSipperson came up to hang out with me. I apologize for the code names, but his massive web of lies has engulfed me. We went out to the Velvet Hookah Thursday with Allison and Noah, and Kieffer showed up. Disaster! The service was the worst I've ever experienced, the drinks were so weak we had to send them back to have them put liquor in them, and my tab was 100 fucking dollars. If I spend 100 dollars at a bar, I expect to at least catch a buzz. I will have to be more weary of the help the next time I go. Owen's friend Joanna's friend Aaron has always been a good bartender, and he's more fun to look at.

After all that nonsense we went out to the bars and got drunk. I accidentally didn't make it to work at all on Friday, which is an unprecedented first for me (at this particular job). I hope no one noticed. I might have to sacrifice a vacation day if they did. That or be fired, whichever. Friday was New Years, so Debbie Downer and I went shopping for new outfits. We both got the coolest shirts from Source Paris in the West Village. Everyone go shop there. Their clothes are incredible. Adam was stalking us the entire time.

Went out with the crew, much of the DS Crew was out as well. Hit up Station 4, henceforth to be referred to as S4. There was much revelry to be had, although at midnight I didn't get a kiss. Instead I got a dirty look from Glarin' Thomas right before he ditched me. So now I'm walking around the club by myself looking for my friends. I found them though and all was well in 2005. Next night, much of the same. Went to S4, got ditched by Shady McDitcherson and entertained myself until Glarin' Sean called me over to Round Up. I met a bunch of A&M people so that was fun.

Enough narrative though. To sum it up, I've spent an exorbitant amount of money and drank an unhealthy level of beer, vodka and wine. I also painted two walls in my living area red like my kitchen. I love it. But you have to wait to see it until I finish painting the rest of it tan. It'll look much better then. Get excited!

Last bit of news, I went to this website because they had an advertisement on myspace. It's too fun. Everyone go to Neighborhoodies.com and buy me something. Then we'll see whose hoodie or tshirt fits my personality the best and that person will win. If you need my shipping address let me know.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

Free at last. Free at last. Thank g*d almighty, free at last.

I guess thats the last time I'll get to utter those words in response to the end of a semester. That's right kids, you heard me right. I am DONE with college. I just wrapped up my final doc for my final project. I need to go to Copy Corner when they open at 7am and have it printed and then turn it in and that's that. It's an odd feeling. Graduation is on Friday at 9am at Reed Arena, if anybody feels like coming.

I was pretty stoked about my plan to just be a bum and try to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my future. Then as luck would have it, I received this email from ■■■■■ (that company I interviewed with):

Dear David,

Good afternoon! As a follow up to the phone message I left today, I am writing to let you know that we are very interested in moving forward in our hiring for the project engineer position, and you are a top candidate we are strongly considering. Please let me know as soon as possible what your employment status is and if you are still available to be considered by ■■■. Thank you!

I told them I was still interested. We'll see what comes of that. They haven't made an offer or anything yet. Sigh, I am so tired but unable to go to bed just yet. I can't wait to be done so I can sleep all day. I slept all day yesterday but it didn't help much. By the time I went to bed I had been awake and working for roughly 80 hours. I took one final, gave a presentation, finished a project (well, Owen did), wrote 5 papers, and finished a takehome final in that time. Our presentation went wonderfully. Its looking like I'm really graduating.

Pretty soon I'll be leaving College Station. Seems like it will be for good. It's odd. For five years all I've wanted to do is leave. And now that I'm leaving, I'm not sure I'm ready. But I'll tell you what I am ready for. Tomorrow Allison and I are going to the Association of Former Students party to get stickers for our cars, and then we're getting all snazzy and having dinner at Mesina Hof. That was one of our other goals before we left ... eating at Christophers and Mesina Hof. It's going to be so good. I love rawkin' the Hof. Then its drinky drinky time. I hope I'm not too tired.

Can't think of what else I had to say, but I wanted to let you all know whats been going on. My whole family will be in town on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but I'm hoping to sneak away for some just-graduated-college style partying, so hit me up if you want to join (and buy the first round whooaahh). Later you have-nots!

A limerick by my wonderfully creative and observant friend Justin B■■■■■■:

An Aggie named David was near
to the end of his college career.
He grew quite impatient from sleep deprivation,
and decided, at last, to cashier.

In other news, several of you have expressed your disappointment in my absence as of late. Oh okay, fine, I'm lying. Not one person has missed me. But during those long hours, I sit back, close my eyes, and imagine loyal Sidesho-Viewer after loyal Sidesho-Viewer logging on and getting this forlorn puppy dog look on their face when their Buddy List is devoid of the SideshoViD. Regardless, many of you know that I have been spending the majority of my time out at "the greenhouse." But what is the greenhouse? I am referring to ■■■■■■ ■■■■■■ in Navasota, TX. You've probably driven by it on your way to Houston. Next time be on the lookout for the little grey Cavy.

Anyway, I thought if you couldn't be there with me, then perhaps you could be there in spirit. And in order for you to do that, you need to know what the place looks like. Or maybe you're just plum curious. I took my camera out there today to take pictures for our final documentation and presentation (rescheduled to Monday) and some of them are worth sharing. I didn't put up a lot of the pictures of boring valves, pipes, and switches, but chose some of the few cool ones.

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY PICTURES1!!!!1!!!11!!!

You happy, Owen, I switched up the 1's. And David27, I expect you to take a look at the circuit board I designed and leave me a comment identifying at least two of the components on the board. This is your final exam. So its 4:45am and I am up watching MacGuyver on TV Land. Why?

That was a rhetorical question.

Update: MacGuyver just beat up a guy who knew kung fu and had a chainsaw and a knife. And he did it all with his bare hands ... no MacGuyverish tricks. Fucking sweet. I wish I had a MacGuyver mullet.

OUCH, my head hurts. It's 3:30 in the am ... I woke up a couple hours ago completely disoriented and confused as to what time it was, where I was, etc. Owen was watching TV and I was sleeping on the couch and the shows he was watching kept ending up in my dreams. It took me a few minutes to realize I wasn't the general of an army throwing people from a moving vehicle. God, why do I always have such murderous dreams.

Anyway, the reason my sleep schedule is so fucked up is because I pulled an all-nighter last night to finish a project. I did a piss poor job. I'm concerned I won't pass this class. Hopefully there will be a large curve. But I was already so tired to begin with, I couldn't believe I made it through the night and into the next afternoon. It was not without the help of coffee and cigarettes. I finally got to bed around 1pm and woke up at like 6. I thought perhaps I could stay up and be normal but after Owen and I ate at Fitz's, I crashed again, hardcore. This is not good because I have an assload to do by Thursday, but once again my stupid body is requiring food and sleep. It is so annoying like that.

The schedule for the next two weeks or so: Thursday, user manuals, installation guides, trouble shooting guides etc are due as well as the technical presentation and demonstration of our greenhouse project we've been working on for the past year. Probably the biggest hurdle. Friday-Saturday, feverishly finishing final documentation for that project, studying for a final in the class that I'm concerned about passing. Monday, take that final. Monday through Wednesday, work on a program that will test parameters of an Analog to Digital Converter that Owen and I haven't started yet. That is due Wednesday at noon along with our take home final. Wednesday night -- drink lots and lots, pray that grades go through. Friday at 9am, my graduation. After that, I will move all my stuff out of my apartment back home to Dallas. May 20th my lease is up and somewhere in there, I am going to California with Allison. Very hectic. Cannot wait to be done.

So if I don't update, please don't hate me. And for those of you moving back home for the summer and stuff, don't forget to bookmark SideshoViD.com and keep in contact with me. Where ever I go and whatever I do SVC will remain a constant way to see what I've been up to. I love you all, in spite of the fact that you are all a bunch of have-nots.

Today I woke up kinda early for me and had time to walk over to the pet store and look at their bettas. I found one that I thought would look really cool in my new tank. He serves two purposes though. First, he's my pet. Second, he's my guinea pig. If he dies then I know the tank is inhabitable and I shouldn't let Marshall bring me his fish until I get the water fixed. I would feel so bad if I killed Marshall's fish right off the bat. I still need to go to David27's and get his unused betta food so I can feed the little guy.

At first, the water level was kind of low to allow the water spilling in from the filter to make a water noise and produce lots of bubbles ... something to hear and see. As soon as I put the betta in, the force of the induced current shoved him up against the wall. I had to add more water to reduce the impact it has on his environment, but I think he still doesn't like it. I'm not sure, I don't speak Betta. But, I also know I don't want to clean this tank all the time, so he can just learn to deal with it.

Tonight, my friend Brandon is driving in from Austin to visit. He hasn't been back to College Station in a long, long time, so that is going to be fun. Idk what we're going to do but I'm sure we'll be able to find something. I just found out that I haven't been skipping class this week. My prof has been out and may be out for a while. So yay! No early classes! Excelsior!

I would be lying if I said that I was having the Best Week Ever (btw, I fucking love that show). But, ever the optimist, it's not impossible to put a positive spin on things. I will give you all twenty-seven guesses as to what's going on, but you'll only need one. Anyway, I don't want to talk about that now. What I do want to talk about is my new fish tank!!1!

Isn't it beautiful? I bought the tank at Wal-Mart. It was one of those all-in-one packages. I set it up last night and got the filter running after I forced Tommy to put it together for me. Then today I went to the pet store and got two colors of rocks and a couple fake plants. They didn't have any of the goofy shit I wanted though. You know what I mean, like a frog wearing overalls sitting on a log, or a diver and a chest of treasure that bubbles ... goofy shit. They did have a Squidward doll, but I wouldn't want to get him unless I also had Spongebob and they were all out of him. Before you ask, no I do not have any fish. Part of me is thinking I don't really need any. I like the way it looks and the sound of the filter spitting water is soothing. My betta from David27 was dead so there goes that option. Marshall might give me his two fish that he doesn't want anymore. That would be fun, but idk when he's going to bring them to their new home.

Other than that, not a lot has been going on. I've not really been eating or sleeping, because those are overrated. And I surely haven't been to class because that's a hassle. I did start walking a lot, good exercise. I like meandering. And in other news, my flowers are looking awesome, they're getting so big, but none of them have gotten a bud yet, so I will spare you a picture until that happens. Later, you have nots.

UPDATE: Marshall came over to work on some scrapbooking thing for one of Thomas's project, and shortly thereafter Owen came home from school and saw my tank decoration. There was an overwhelming sentiment that having a tank with no fish was a waste of time and money. So I shut their asses up by putting some fish in my tank. The first piece of goofy shit that I have planned. This is cool though because even if I do eventually get the fish from Marshall, now they will be forewarned not to fuck with me. I don't take shit from the help, no matter what the species. Swish out of line one time, and you'll end up in a can! Haaaaaaaa!!1!

I guess everyone wasn't as excited about my flowers as I am. I continue to grow more excited each and every day as they continue to grow. The day that one of them blooms, drink are on me! (No, thats not a typo -- drink are on me!) In other news, Owen and I finished rearranging the living room finally. Everything is at an angle, but they're at different angles. It's very avant-garde. The spaces left in the corners by furniture being at wonky angles allowed me to put a little bit of back lighting, which I think really pulls the whole room together. Yay me.

Last night I went over to David27's to watch a movie with our old friend Michael P■■■. Good times. We watched Party Monster. It was a pretty good movie, I missed the beginning, but if you get a chance to see it I recommend. I brought a bottle of wine as per Mr. P■■■' request, and then he decided he didn't want to drink. But David27 did not have a corkscrew, so using a round thing and a hammer, Michael hammered the cork into the bottle instead of pulling it out. Ingenious. I never would have thought to do so. Why, oh why must I always think inside the box?

I've decided not to return home for jebus's second birthday. I would have to drive there and back all in like one day and I hate doing that. Plus the whole church fiasco will reer its ugly head betwixt the parentals and I. Besides that, I think I am deathly ill. It feels like someone has been standing on my chest for like 2 days now. And I can cough until the cows come home but nothing will come up. Maybe I'll try not smoking and see how that affects things. As it is, pity me! I'm sick! Check you sluts later.

Oh I am so excited. My wildflowers have only been planted for like 4 days now and they're already starting to sprout. Can you believe it? I actually thought there was a good chance that they would not grow for me. You see, I don't exactly have a green thumb. In fact, everything I touch turns brown, even my beloved cactus. But not this time, my friends, not this time. I love my wildflowers and I am going to nurture them and love them and make them bloom. It's almost time to hit them with another batch of plant food.

In fact, maybe I should give my new friend a hit of plant food as well. He is a palm tree and he now lives behind my TV. I've been wanting to rearrange the living room for a while now but Owen has not been very keen on the idea. So I decided to do it in stages while he was out of the apartment. I put the TV in the corner but it looked stupid with the speakers turned all inward so I brought the TV out flush with them, which looks good but created a huge empty gap. Long story short (which I know is ridiculous to say after you've already told the long story) I bought the palm tree to go in that space.

In case you're wondering that's Ben Affleck on the TV screen. I was watching my new Best of Molly Shannon DVD from Time Life video. It's turning into quite a collection now, I wasn't even aware more were on their way. Joy! Easter is almost upon us and everyone is kind of meandering home to celebrate, but I think I will just stay in College Station. I dunno, maybe I'm just jealous of jebus. It would be so awesome to have two birthdays.

When last we left our intrepid hero, we found him in the throws of Keystone admidst strangers. Let us now discuss everything that has occurred ... from blackout to blackout. Ryan S■■■ left Dallas with three friends in tow -- Aaron, Aric and Brett. None of the three had ever been to College Station or anywhere nearly as cosmopolitan. They were expecting a cow town, and while we certainly are one, we did our best to restrict their visit to my apartment, HEB, Halo, and Johnny Carino's. In other words, no Dixie Chicken, Duddleys, Shadow Canyon, Chicken Oil Co. (or any Don Gainer owned, shotty wooden construction establishments).

I was over at 27's apartment when they arrived, but had left Owen with a phone number where I could be reached, since I had cleverly forgotten my phone at home. Once we arrived, we had a lot of fun ordering pizza, drinking beers (and Smirnoffs *shakes head disappointedly*), and inviting everyone we knew over. Even our dear friend Christina L■■■ from my major dropped by and ended up going to the club with us. My shirt from the Gap was still too big so I just wore the graphic T I had originally purchased as an undershirt. Many hours later, a large group of us were ready to get our drink on ... and we did just that. Aaron, the bartender, was very nice to us ... even giving us a free round of shots that I vaguely, vaguely remember. I had gone in with the vocalized goal of getting too drunk, a goal I never fail to meet. Several vodka tonics later, things get a little hazy. I know that we spent the night dancing erratically.

On the way home, we stopped off at Whataburger to get some taquitos. This is just a given for me, I always stop at Whataburger, but it has become a sort of College Station activity for Ryan S■■■, and he wanted to share it with his crew. And I guess us talking about it got everyone in the mood, as is evidenced by the many, many fast food bags strewn about my living room. I'm not entirely clear on the rest of the night's activities. I know I drank a few more beers and woke up with no bruises ... so it couldn't have been too crazy. Let's just say "the sun came up on us" because it did. Which I hate. Off to sleep in a massive heap on the floor because some party poopers had crashed early in my bed.

The next afternoon, the grogginess starts to fade as we're motivated to stand up and drive to Johnny Carinos (which is literally across the street, a stone's throw from my apartment). I wasn't quite ready to eat, so I got a box for mine -- so trashy, I love it. Dallas boys bid adieu, 27 and I immediately went back to bed. My sleeping schedule is so wiggity whack ya'll. And my apartment looks like a train wreck ... provided that train had been carrying an assortment of empty beer cans, bottles, and fast food wrappers. Maybe I'll remedy that today ... or maybe it'll still be here the next time the Dallas boys come party.

There is a tentative plan to make our own pilgrimage to Dallas to live it up with them. I've been out in Dallas with Ryan S■■■ many times, so I know that these country bumpkins from south Texas would absolutely love it. I will surely let you all know when that date is afoot. Until then, thanks to everyone who partied with me this weekend, you all uniquely enhanced my fun that had already runneth over. Later, have nots, have a good week.

I got that outfit I wanted, but when I got home the shirt was fucking huge so I couldn't wear it. We got ready anyway and went to see Starsky and Hutch. I didn't bust out crazy laugh at all but I did laugh constantly through the whole movie. I would suggest it to all of you. The movie ran a little late so we had to call Christopher's to push our reservation back about 20 minutes. We went home and freshened up and then it was off to the restaurant.

Ohhhh emmmm geeee. We started off at the bar enjoying a couple glasses of wine while we waited for our table to be ready. There was a live jazz trio that was pretty cool. Our table was ready after only a short wait so we took a seat. We were so prim and proper all sitting up with correct posture and everything. It was so fun. Allison ordered the mediterranean salmon and I had a duck breast in a blueberry sauce. Holy fuck. You can't imagine how wonderful the food was. It came with all kinds of vegetable sides -- mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, some kind of greens, rice, and these little sweet potato crispy things. That's all I can remember. Needless to say it was fucking decadent. We also treated ourselves to a bottle of 2000 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. It was definitely not the cheapest bottle available, but not nearly the most expensive either. Delicious! Just when we thought we couldn't eat another byte, they had to bring around the dessert cart. A raspberry chocolate truffle?! Give me a break. I will do anything for raspberries. It was incredible. Allison's said "Happy Birthday from Christopher's" in chocolate around the edge of the plate. Very classy. Thank you for taking me, Allison!

We could barely move after the meal was over. Allison was out for the count, going home to go to bed, but I had social obligations. I was supposed to go that concert with Marshall. Unfortunately, I was too full to do anything. David27 came over and I slowly but surely got ready to go out. Sometime after midnight we finally ended up at Halo, had a few drinks, met up with Marshall, Sonia and Chevy, and then went home.

When we got home Owen was complaining that someone in the parking lot was playing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" entirely too loud, so me and 27 went to tell them to shut up. It was two girls jammin out in a car after coming from Northgate. As it turned out, it was Erin, the girl that I got into an accident with in my parking lot. She was with her friend Courtney and they invited us to go back to Erin's apartment to party with them. She lives in the apartment like next to mine but upstairs. It was so close. We took some beer with us and sat on her porch drinking and smoking cigarettes and bullshitting. They were so cute and fun. They said they want to go out with us tonight to Halo and I'm totally going to invite them. I will have to let you all know how that turns out. Ryan S■■■ is currently en route to College Station with 3 Dallas boys in tow. Tonight is sure to be crazy. More on that, after this....

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

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

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

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

I'm sitting in my apartment listening to my heart attempt to jump out of my chest. I'm pretty freaked out because someone just tried to open my front door. I never lock the door, but just so happened to do it tonight. Thank jebus. Justin is on his way over here so I can get some peace of mind and have a looksee outside. As it stands right now I'm too scared to look. I thought blogging might put my mind at ease. There is much to talk about, and I shall type it in between paranoid perceptions of twigs snapping beneath imagined burgler's boots.

Friday night was Boys 'n Beads, the Mardi Gras party. Marshall had spent the few previous days making masks out of stolen supplies from Hobby Lobby. I knew Marshall was crafty, but damn, I was impressed with his skills with the feathers and glue. The one I made looked like a retarded 3rd grader had done it. He fixed it a little bit for me. I still looked like Ms. Finch from Follow That Bird. It all paid off cause Marshall won 3rd place in the costume contest and was awarded a 50 dollar bar tab, which you just know I was all over. I ended up getting way too drunk, as I always do. Excess is my middle name. There was much dancing, much revelry, much too much vodka in my drinks. Sometimes I think Aaron, the bartender, derives some sick pleasure from watching me get wasted. Luckily our pal David#27 was there, and sober, and driving, and took care of me. I passed out as soon as I got home and woke up hungover like a muthafucka. It's all good though because I got to wear my new hangover mask from Bed, Bath & Beyond. It's this gel mask that you put in the fridge. Omega, it was heavenly. Made my hangover an absolutely enjoyable experience.

Skip ahead to Saturday. Marshall's bar tab awaited us, so we got dolled up and went out again. Why on earth do I drink like I do? It's so stupid. I'm drinking double vodka and vodkas and accepting shot after shot. We had to pull over again this weekend so yours truly could nearly roll out of the car whilst vomiting. Again, I passed out as soon as I got home. In other news, someone had spread the word that the afterparty was at my place. Wrong. Owen got woken up and had to tell them all to leave. I felt bad about that, even though it kind of in a way wasn't my fault. Moderation. Someday I will learn it.

Justin just left after we made sure no one was outside my apartment. I still have the door locked and the chain on. Seeing as how its almost 3 and I'm never gonna get up for class tomorrow, I don't think I'll even set my alarm. I'm just gonna read and then fall asleep. I've decided to re-read Clan of the Cave Bear for the umpteenth time. Watching the movie just totally put me in the mood. You should all get a copy and read it cause it's the best story ever. Alright, peace out, you have-nots, and stop fucking trying to open my front door.

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.

This is a post I've been meaning to put up for a while. I've just been waiting for a day when I didn't have anything to really say. This is the blog blog, if you will. And I will. Those of you who know me know that I spend a ridiculous amount of my life on my website, but I spend just as much, if not more, time reading other peoples' blogs. I wanted you all to appreciate just how insane I am with this. I read all of these blogs ... on a more than daily basis. Here they are now, in the order that I check them every day. And the nominees are...

• Sounding Board: Chris
• Breakfast Parade: G■■■■ et. al.
• This is my blog. But you can read it.: Alfie
• noezoom's Xanga Site: Owen
• Ryan S■■■'s Diary: Ryan S■■■
• Rock N Roll Suicide: Keith
• Welcome Spielmaniacs!: Spielman
• Welcome to Spain: Clay
• Really, it's not that interesting.: Justin M■■■
• www.Burns.tk -- Redux: Burns
• ifiam.org : do you love me?: Posterboy
• toothpaste for dinner - daily drew drawings: Drew
• natalie dee: huffing it up, every weekday: Drew's sister
• ChevyRSK: Chevy
• me: Sonia
• Day in the life of Jon S■■■: Jon S■■■
• David T■■■■'s Page of Misery: David T■■■■
• clr84's Xanga Site: Chris R.
• I like my eggs all runny...: Surge
• bryceareeni's livejournal: Bryce

So, as you can see, I'm not fuckin around. If everybody just had a blog, we could completely eliminate the need for interpersonal communication. Think about it. We'd all still carry cell phones though, so when we saw someone we knew, we could pull up their webpage and read it while they stood there silently. Sigh ... in a perfect world. If you're not on this list, that means I haven't been reading your site and I need a link. Later, you have-nots.

I'd like to introduce myself. I am Sidesho, the best typer in the world. Okay, well maybe I'm the second. Allow me to explain. There is a little typing game on the internet called LEtters 0.9. I want you all to go play it now [click here]. It's a no-bullshit typing game where individual letters scroll across the screen and you have to type them before they reach the other side. Every letter is worth one point, every mistake is a minus one. I got pretty good at the game to where I was fairly confident that I could play this game indefinitely. I was almost right.

Owen and I got back from Jin's World Cafe (excellent ... try the combo lo mein) around 2:00. It is now 4:30 and I just lost the game. You'll see my name at the top of today's top scores, but it hasn't transferred over to the all-time scores yet. When it does I'll be there pretty permanently, as it is the second highest score ever, below 109,372. So if you've found my site through LEtters, welcome! I achieved a score of 56,306 ... not bad considering my last high score was 698.

I found that the typing was not a problem. I had those letters completely in control. However, after two and a half hours of staring at the screen typing little letters, I started getting really, really dizzy. Towards the end there I thought I might fall out of my chair, but I was completely willing to do so. Also, its freezing in here, so my hands are completely frozen right now. I kept hoping someone would walk in and be willing to blast me a little bit with the shrink-wrap gun, alas no help arrived. These factors combined kept me from seeing that little 'L' in the upper left hand corner and stopped me short of the highest score ever. Although, in reality, I was already cracking and I was only halfway there. Kudos to whoever achieved that score, I know it couldn't have been fun.

Owen told me he wouldn't believe me that I was a good typer unless I got the high score, and while I fell a little bit short, I still feel vindicated. It's almost time for me to attend a lab, so I must go, but before I do, I'll insert a screen capture for all of you (since my picture blogs have been ever so popular as of late).

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

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

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

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

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

I just rode the bus home. Owen has repeatedly told me that he rode this bus, but I didn't quite believe him. I'm speaking, of course, of the Milk of Modern Art bus. (Check out Tuesday, November 25, 2003: Milk of Modern Art if you missed that story). I was overjoyed to see the painting again, but a little saddened that it had been completely decimated by footprints since I saw it last. I guess thats really appropriate in a way. Art is so tragic.

In place of the modern art, there was some performance art on the bus. The actor was a small, half-full Dr Pepper bottle. (Make sure you don't put a period after Dr -- it's just plain incorrect.) He was sashaying along the aisle, moving erratically left to right. It was harder for him to move forward and back because it required a good deal of acceleration to overcome the static friction. I never really realized how much the bus rocks back and forth, even on seemingly even streets. This just further resolved my stance against ever giving up my seat on the bus for a girl (see Thursday, September 4, 2003: More like chauvilry for my views on that).

To top off the entertainment, there were two dumb sorority chicks on the bus with me. They had to sprint in order to catch the bus outside of the MSC. Of course, they were too dumb to realize that the bus wasn't going anywhere. We sat in front of the MSC for a good additional 5 minutes after they came on huffing and puffing and screeching without every once thanking the bus driver they thought had waited for them. At one point, the girl with the nose ring was trying to express to the other, as loud as she possibly could, that their mutual friend was going to fail this semester. "She has taken 1 out of 3 tests so far," she stated aloud. Her friend pointed out what I found to be blaringly obvious ... she had held up 1, and then 4 fingers to illustrate her point. She realized her error, and laughed, explaining that 4 minus 1 was 3, and that was why she had been confused. Sorority girls should be terminated excecution style. Refer to Monday, September 8, 2003: Sorority girls are dumb for more on that subject.

The final thing I wanted to discuss was my cell phone. I was bored on the bus and desperately trying to ignore the destitute art, dancing soft drinks, and waste of breath sorority bitches, so I started clicking around on my cell phone after Allison McDoesntpickup called me back. It had a running total for hours that I've used my cell phone since I got it. You all know how I feel about cell phones (and if you don't -- Monday, November 10, 2003: A definitive opinion on cell phones). My total since I purchased the phone was just over 40 hours of total talk time including incoming and outgoing. I bought this phone around the beginning of July. Lets just say for math's sake that I talked for 2 total days. There are roughly 160 days in that time leaving me talking on my phone for about 1.3% of my life. I have got to get this number down.

I'm on my way to HEB now to buy a turkey with Allison. How do you like that massage Mr. Turkey? I hope it thaws in time. Then tis go time on the documents I have due next week. We are so fucking screwed. Peace out, sluts, I will see you all here tomorrow.

Last night I spent the better part of the evening making pajama pants for Josh. He went with me to Hobby Lobby a while back so I could get some fabric to piece back together a pair of jeans I tore up when I was drunk, the same pair given to me by MattyK after I ripped them up for him (also while drunk). So Josh sees two prints of Dr. Seuss fabric and I mention that I can turn it into pajama pants, but he can't decide on the green or the blue. He ended up getting both, and I fashioned them so one leg is green and the other is blue. You know I have an affinity for asymetrical clothing. They are so kickass. I want to keep them for myself. As soon as he gets his skinny ass over here to try them on so I can make them the right size and length, I'll get a picture of him wearing them for you all. I am too crafty for my own good.

So this took me up until about 2am, at which point I realized I was never going to be able to get up for my 8:00. I haven't been since the last test that I waxed, so I figured I would drop in for the supposed review. Owen was already planning on staying up until class so I decided to do the same. Monkey see, monkey do. But I was bored and drifting so I decided to drive out to Boob's house and join the SideshoGang in their revelry for the night. We had a good time, watched some movies like Ellen Degeneres's stand up. Way too funny. Everyone was passing out around 5 but I knew that I could not join in. Rick was pissed the TV was still on and Kyle was telling me to turn it off as well. So I did, and I laid down, but I did long division in my head to stay away. I took 1/31 out to like 10 decimal places. HA!

I managed, somehow, to stay awake and left to get ready for class around 7. I showered and got on the bus and arrived a little early. Owen and I were joined by two other guys in our class of like 50 people, and around 8:10 realized that we probably had a walk that neither of us had heard about. Thanks for giving me the heads up, if any bitches in my class are reading this. Preciate that. So I came home with every intention of going to work, but instead my head hit the pillow and I was out for the count until about 2 when James called. We went and had a little good clean fun and now here I am again. I'm actually on my laptop right now. I decided to go ahead and install Windows XP Home instead of digging around for my XP Pro CD since my PC has decided to freeze every time I send and instant message now, and I was feeling quite unplugged.

Tonight I have to start getting serious about school work and make a cheat sheet for my control systems exam. That is going to be a doozy. I have two exams on Friday and I have got to find my way into work somehow during this week or I'm gonna get fired. I also need to go buy a turkey today or its not going to be thawed by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. I hope none of you are forgetting about Thanksgiving. It is this Wednesday (as in two days from now) and I'm shooting for around 7pm. That way, we can gorge and then get drunk, and Thursday is a dead day. Good plan eh? Not many people have RSVP'ed ... in fact, none have ... so if you think are coming, I would appreciate an IM. You can come regardless, but it would be nice to know how many people to expect. Even if its just me, I won't care. I'll just eat the turkey with my hands like a caveman. I've always wanted to do that.

Today, I was riding the bus home from my morning class. This guy sitting across from me had left his uncapped bottle of milk sitting on the seat next to him. When we took a sharp left, the milk fell off of the seat and onto the floor where the contents exuded. There was a rather large puddle of white milk on the dark grey floor of the bus. And then we started turning, and long horizontal lines were painted. We stopped short, and then accelerated creating a grid. The more we traversed the route home, the more complex the milk painting got. By the time I got off the bus, I thought it was rather beautiful.

I wanted to find you all some kind of painting online that looked like the serendipitious modern art I was treated to, but instead I ended up looking at the Museum of Modern Art webpage for like an hour. You have got to see this exhibit called Tempo. I was very inspired. I especially liked the augmenter hammers and the chick laying on oranges. "Hold your breath and think of Spinoza." Wonderful. I think its about time for me to make a hair nest and start doing speed. (Name that allusion.)

I'm sorry you all couldn't have seen it. Maybe I'll make a painting. Probably not. I'm going to go have coffee with Topher.

Last night I was starving and we didn't have much to eat around the house. I checked on my apples in the crisper and one was all brown and mushy, but the other appeared to be edible. (SiDENote: I was just going to make a clever comment about how the word 'edible' should be spelled 'eatable' but dictionary.com says they are synonyms. Somebody thought of it first.)

Anyway, I'd been watching the Food Network all day celebrating their 'Let's Talk Turkey' programming, and everyone was doing fun stuff with apples. 'How do you like that massage, Mr. Turkey?' So I decided I wanted to do something fun with my apple and set about to frying it. First, I cut it up into thin slices, and then sprinkled it with generous portions of sugar. Then I melted about a quarter of a stick of butter and heated it up. Now, I have always enjoyed the smell of melted butter, especially when it first starts to brown. It makes my mouth positively water. But I'm starting to learn that it's rather nauseating to other people. Keith used to complain every time I cooked (since nothing I cook involves less than a stick of butter) and last night Owen was in his room with his T-shirt over his face to avoid the smell. Go figure.

Anyway, once it was really hot, I put my apple in and fried the hell out of it. I tasted it to see if it was good and it was a little bit too buttery, so I thought that if I just had a crust to soak in some butter it would be alright. In a last minute alteration to the recipe, I crumbled up some Saltines and poured the apple concoction on top. It was so delicious, I don't mind telling you. It tasted just like apple pie.

Not to be out-done, Owen went to the grocery store later that night and returned with a huge smirk on his face. He'd bought an assortment of strawberries, bananas, apples and pita bread, and said he was going to make us a dessert. I didn't know about his 'secret' ingredient though, and when I got my fruit pita, it had a white substance on it.

It turned out his secret ingredient was cream cheese. But I think traditionally if you're going to combine cream cheese with fruit you mix in like 2 cups of confectionery sugar first. He didn't do this so it ended up being really nasty. We ate the fruit and shoved our pitas down the garbage disposal. So now we each have our own special recipes for desserts that will really make you hurl! And since nobody seems to post comments much these days, I pose this question: Have you ever invented your own recipe (dessert related or not) that went horribly wrong? Comment amongst yourselves.

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

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

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

The other day Owen mentioned that he'd never seen a pomegranate before, so being the gentle educator that I am, I bought him one whilst at the grocery store the other day. When I gave it to him last night, he refused to eat it. So being the gentle indian-giver that I am, I ate it. It was so delicious too. But as people IMed with the usual mindless "sups" I informed them all of my fruity delight and was met with an overwhelming "wtf is a pomegranate" response. So, since I enjoyed myself so much, I thought I would enlighten anyone who wasn't already aware.

This is a pomegranate. Each of those little seeds is a wealth of delicious juices. You might have heard of the pomegranate in Greek mythology. Here's a quickie version of the story (you all know how I'm big on quickies):

Zeus and Demeter had a beautiful daughter called Persephone. Hades fell in love with her and wanted to marry her. One day as she was sitting alone by a lake Hades; god of the Underworld stole her and took her away to his home to become his wife. Demeter was so upset she would not let the plants grow. Zeus sent for her and said that as long as Persephone had not eaten in the Underworld she could be freed. Persephone was back in her mother's arms when Hades gardener arrived and said that she had sucked on seven pomegranate seeds. That meant that she had to go back to the Underworld. Persephone cried and Demeter cried. It was decided that Persephone could live on earth for nine months, but must spend the other three months each year in the Underworld. Every year whilst Persephone was away Demeter refused to allow any plants to grow. The trees would lose their leaves and all plants would die away to come again when Persephone was free. For evermore there was to be a winter each year.

God, the Greeks are way more clever than christians. jesus never rode in a golden chariot across the sky or battled 3 headed monsters. All he ever did was just hang around.

Anyway, so now you all know! Head on out to the grocery store and buy yourself one of these miracles of fruity goodness. Or, if you want, I have a ton left on mine and even though everyone I was talking to last night, namely Thomas, refused my generous offer to come partake in my bounty, you're all still invited to snack on my seeds. Peace out, sluts.

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

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

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

Walking back from Yoga I saw a large crowd of people gathered around the Sul Ross statue outside of the Academic Building. My curiosity piqued, I ventured closer to find out which insane right wing christian group was starting shit. The only reason I did so is because occasionally someone will be out there yelling the word "VAGINA!" and I love playing Vagina Day games. As I got closer, I recognized the all too familiar foul stench of Tom S■■■, nationally known campus speaker. My natural instincts are to turn and run from this man, not because I'm intimidated (although I've witnessed first hand his ability to talk his way out of any logical situation) but because I think the only way to send a message to him that he's not wanted is to ignore him, not argue with him. Arguing with him is just what he wants.

Against my better jugement, I decided to see if Owen was sitting out there listening to him. Owen has some sick fascination with Tom S■■■, as well as Mormons and his friend Adrian. Alas, he was not out there, but I made the mistake of coming within earshot long enough to hear him say something about homosexuals. Then I was stuck. Here's his story pretty ver batim (that means 'word for word,' Joseph).

"I was talking up at the University of Maryland one day and a young man who identified as gay said, Tom, do you think we should kill all the homosexuals? And I said we need to save them. And he said again, Tom, do you think we should kill all of the homosexuals? And again, I said that if they found Jesus etc, he said TOM, do you think we should kill all the homosexuals?

"And this went on for about a half an hour before I finally decided to address this young man's question directly. And I said yes, I think we should kill all of the homosexuals. But first, why don't we start with the young man that corrupted and perverted you, the one who made you think you were gay. And he stopped, and his face softened, and he said, you know, Tom, you're right."

WHAT?!?! WHO THE FUCK WOULD AGREE WITH THAT?! My god this man is a fucking idiot. I don't mind so much that one guy is a fucking worthless piece of shit beyond all reason and so entrenched in a 2000 year old fairy tale praying to Mother Goose that he should be fed to the lions, but I can't believe he is allowed to spread hate throughout the nation.

This man needs to learn that what he is doing is wrong. But since he knows how to work the free speech areas, we can't exactly silence him. So this is what I uncharacteristically suggest. If you see him, lets teach him that ignorance breeds intolerance, intolerance breeds hatred, hate begets hate, and hate begets violence. So if you see him, pick up a rock or something and throw it at his face. The more adamantly you know he's wrong, the bigger the rock should be. I gotta go now, I have some bricks to throw.

Holy shit, where do I begin? I guess we should start with the costumes. I forgot to charge my camera so I wasn't able to get pictures, but Allison took a couple. Only they were with a real film camera, so its going to take time to develop them and scan them etcetera. Anyway, to dispell the anticipation, I was Santa Pimp and Allison was Slutty Mrs. Claus. They were good costumes, too. Owen went with us to the party. He was dressed as the Incredible Hulk, e.g. painted green and wearing a ripped up T-shirt. Classic.

It was a killer party, too. Everyone was pretty into our costumes. And the fact that Santa showed up with a gift sack full of condoms didn't hurt either. I hope everyone who got to reach into Santa's sack had fun playing with their new toys. So the drinking ensued, and I got more and more obnoxious with the fact that I was Santa as the night went on. Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture.

Also at this party was none other than Spongebob Squarepants. This was a pretty big dude wearing a foam shirt with corners on it shaped like Spongebob. And he was pretty drunk. We talked to him for a little bit and he asked me what year I was about 5 times, and I think he asked Allison about 12 times. He was class of '05. He told us so many times that I still remember today. Weeeellllll, as things would have it, I pissed him off. I don't remember what I said, or when I said it, or if I really actually even said anything. But the next thing I knew I overheard, "Santa better watch his fuckin ass before I kill him." I'm not a hater, so I went to diffuse the situation. I was like, "Hey Spongebob, everything's cool man. If I said something I'm sorry, I'm not talkin shit, I'm not saying anything." And he was assuaged momentarily, until I start hearing, "Santa better get inside and get away from me."

Time out. Just for a second. I want to make sure nobody is missing out on this point. He was dressed up as Spongebob Squarepants. Mmmkay, looked like an idiot. And he is threatening to kick Santa's ass. My life rules. So all these people on the porch attempted to mediate one more time, I told Spongebob that I was sorry, they all told him that Santa was cool and wasn't talking shit, but in the end they decided that maybe Santa should go inside. Next thing I know, Kevin, the guy whose party it was, is asking me to please hide in the kitchen while they escort Spongebob out of the party. BAM! Somebody is pounding on the outside of the house. You guessed it. Spongebob was out of control.

We had been talking to these two twins for a while in the party, and they joined me in the kitchen as I hid like a little bitch. So I did what anyone with a brain would do. If this guy was going to kill Santa, then I'll stop being Santa. So I took one of the twins and innocently said, "Hey dude, put this on." On went the beard, the wig, the hat, and even the shirt. I don't think he was really cognizant of the severity of the situation because as a group of people were ushering a belligerant Spongebob out the front door, here comes the psuedo-Santa around the corner screaming epithets. And Spongebob fucking lunges at him. And he was just egging him on like, "I'm not scared of you bitch." Classic. This girl yelled at him to "shut the fuck up" so he cooled it. Once Sponge was gone, we all had a good laugh about the entire thing.

I'm not sure what time we went to bed, but I know that we woke up at 1pm. Or should I say noon. Rawk! I should probably go to work today, but more immediate concerns involve Excederin, tacos and a nap. Peace out sluts. Merry Christmas, and remember to wrap your meat. Santa hates VDs. Ho ho ho.

So today I thought I would share a bit of yoga progress with you all. Since it would be hard to explain the insanity of the Plow Position in words, I thought I would include a little picture. I did this posture today. Me. Ouch. Keep the comments g-rated.

In other news, I have a test tomorrow in my LAN/MAN class that I am completely unprepared for. And on top of that, its at 8am, so there is no way in hell I can go out tonight. That's very upsetting to me. But I just ran into Dustin on campus (don't worry, he's okay) and he said he's not going out tonight either, so we'll both be rarin' to go on Friday night. It's going to be nice to be able to just lay around for a weekend ... what a change. Owen is going to Dallas after our exam at 8, so I'll have the place all to myself. Maybe I should throw a par-tay. We'll see. For one thing, I have GOT to clean my house. I just did an emergency load of laundry at Harvey Gangbangers yesterday since I've been recycling for the past two weeks. Feels good to be clean.

I dunno, not a whole lot to port or report. Hope everything is going well for everybody. Catch you on the flip slide, you have-nots.

Tonight I was going into my backpack to get out some homework assignments due tomorrow when I came across my Yoga textbook. I realized that I've barely cracked the thing since I (and by "I" I mean "my dad") bought it those weeks ago. I felt like I was at a point that I could do some independent yoga, so I popped it open to see what was in store. You're supposed to start with basic spinal twists and stretches ... which is major boring shit. So I skipped right to the head stand. After a few painfully unsuccessful attempts, I decided to start with their starting positions and read the instructions, rather than just jumping on my head. I'm proud to say I successfully held the headstand for a few seconds. As Owen as my witness, I did it. I wasn't too successful at the Crow, even though I did get into it, just not as cleanly as I would have liked. And the Peacock was NOT going to happen anytime soon. I also came dangerously close, with the help of Owen pushing on my back with his foot, to touching my nose to my knee. Allison made a bet with me, I do hope she's remembering, that the first person to touch their nose to their knee gets an entire night of free drinks at Northgate. And I am actively persuing that goal.

Why do I keep having dreams that I've killed people? They're never violent dreams, they generally only deal with the guilt and paranoia of having just killed someone. Why can't I have wet dreams like a normal person...

Last night I decided I needed a proper meal, so I coerced Owen into going to Outback Steakhouse with me. Holy shit, it was the best meal I've ever had. I got this $25 steak, and it was rare, and fatty, and bloody ... and oh my god. I still get happy when I think about it now. It was dead on what I was looking for. It reminded me of the scene in the Matrix where Cypher is meeting with Agent Smith and has the red wine, and red steak, and cigar. Only I had a bigass Coors light, red steak and a cigarette. It was absolutely incredible. Some day I will eat like that every day.

In other news, I have a few humorous stories that I should probably spread over the next few days when I run out of things to talk about, but I just can't wait and I don't want to forget them.

The other day I saw an American flag bumper sticker that said, "These colors don't run. Never have. Never will." And it was completely faded by the sun.

This sorority bitch on the bus this morning was talking on her cell phone entirely too loud (like they always do) and said to her friend, "I don't know how half the people got into this university much less to the point they are at. Charles was a softmore in college and didn't know how to do a bibliography. Can you believe it? A SOFTMORE! A SOFTMORE in college and he didn't know." And no, children, I'm not the idiot here, I'm typing it exactly how she was saying it. Very clear with the T.

I was walking behind two girls on campus today after yoga, and eavesdropping as I often do. And they were talking about Jesus. Only it was the weirdest conversation about Jesus I had ever heard before. They were saying things like, "We had Jesus at our party," and, "Jesus everywhere." So I kept listening trying to figure out what kind of whacko Christians these were. It wasn't until I overheard her say, "Yeah, we had them all ... Cheddar, Provolone, Swiss..." that I realized I was an idiot with a hearing problem.

Exit Weekend. Time to put the ol' nose to the grindstone once again tomorrow ... y'know for 50 minutes since thats all the school that I have on Monday. Man, school sucks. The only class I like is Yoga, and I really, really like it. If you have the opportunity to take it as a kineseology, I would highly suggest it. I will report more on that after I go to it a few more times, but its only once a week so that might take a while.

So I went to Humble, TX this weekend for my brother's housewarming party. Owen went with me, as did the famed fog machine. It was quite a hit once people got used to the haze. Deauxcheck was there, but Boozer and Tim, two of my brothers friends who probably read my website religiously totally bailed. It was a pretty good party considering how many people showed up and stayed late. I took on the single handed responsibility of floating an entire keg. And while I wasn't technically successful, I did end up hurling in the backyard with only a vague sense of what was going on around me. That was pretty cool. And I woke up with very little hangover. Always a bonus. Anyway, my bro's been living in this house for a longass time so I don't know why this was a housewarming party, but whatever. I know he put the pictures up on imagestation but I can't seem to find his albums, so I'll update that later. Enjoy your week, you havenots. Laaaaaaate.

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 ...

I am updating you all from my laptop in the International Space Station because my internet at the new place is not working yet. I was hoping that I would plug in my computer and it would just fucking work, but of course, that was too much to ask for. I didn't want to mess with the the connection or the settings or anything, I just wanted, once, to plug it in and have it work. So it didn't, end of story.

Moving sucks, by the way. I forgot how bad it sucks. I do want to thank everyone who helped me move this weekend though, it really helped out.... I'm not entirely sure the sarcasm came through on that last statement. Nobody helped. Just Owen and his parents. And of course, thank you to the old roomies who left, not only everything for me to clean, everything in the pantry, everything in the refrigerator, everything in the laundry room, everything they didn't want, not to mention a huge pile of trash in the kitchen that ended up filling 10 fullsized garbage bags. No problem. I'm happy to help. No, really, seriously, I was happy to do it.

But its over now. Everything I own is in my new place, albeit in piles around the place. I'm hoping to have it all put away within a week. Owen is out of town for the week in Dallas and I'm trying to have it rearranged by the time he gets back. If anybody wants to help me arrange furniture let me know (that'll happen).

And speaking of polls, thats what this site needs. I'll have to look into that. Several people also suggested that the SiDESHO always direct you back to the main page. That can be arranged and probably will be soon as soon as I take a moment to work on some upkeep. I have tried to remain dedicated to updating the word of the day by suggestion, as well as the IM Quotes and Convo. There is also a new digital camera pic up above. This ass-to-the-ceiling thing is really catching on. You know you secretly tried to do it while you were at home. Fess up.

Enough with the bizznazz aspect of this blog. Here's the scoop. I am moving out of my duplex on Friday. Or rather, I want to. I have access to a truck from my new roommate, Owen, on Saturday, but I would like to get some of it done on Friday. So if you are in the Bryan/College Station area ... AND you own a truck ... AND you like beer (or wine or liquor or cigarettes (or whatever your fancy is that I could possibly bribe you with (provided its not too illegal))) let me know. I have a shitload of furniture to move. And I mean a shitload. I think it'll be too hard to do all in one day. I don't have to be out of the duplex officially until Sunday, but knowing me, its going to take all 3 days to get it done. I'm lazy... and fat.

Welcome one and all to yet another rebirth of SideshoViD.com. This would be the ninth spawning of the Sidesho-Phoenix. I thought that it was going to be rather obvious to everyone that came here, that this webpage was inspired by the artist, Mondriaan. He did a lot of paintings that were just black lines and blocks of color. The kind of paintings uncultured people look at and say, "I could have done that when I was four." Anyway, if you want to sound intelligent on your next date, spend a couple seconds looking him up and talk over coffee about the futility expressed in simplicity.

You'll notice (hopefully) that I tried to bring back a lot of the content that has fallen by the wayside here. We've got recent pictures above that I've taken with my digital camera. I'm hoping those change often, but we'll see. Click them to open a full version. You'll see some pictures of me to the left that also open up to full size. The webcam is back to 24-hour version and automatically updates itself without updating the entire page. This happens every 30 seconds, so sit back and enjoy the voyeurism. I brought back the search function, as well as links to the archives. The song of the day is now the 3 songs available for download. And I have brought back the word of the day as well -- trust me, you people need it. Finally, I'm going to post funny IM conversations I've had, so if you want to appear on my website, say something funny ... or just be an idiot.

I hope you all like the next site. If you have any suggestions for content I could add, let me know in a comment. If you like the site, let me know in a comment. If there's something you don't like, go to hell. Thanks and gig this.

Well first, I'd like to welcome every last fuck who ever went to Texas A&M or t.u. to my personal website. Much like the 3,000 of you who have visited my site in the past two days (about 30 times the number of hits I'm used to) I'm assuming you've found my site by following the url on the picture of the overzealous Aggie shaving the school eblem into his chest. If you're not familiar with it, you can see it below for the time being.

Its incredible to me that 3,000 people were so enthralled with a picture of a man shaving himself that you felt obliged to look up the url and follow it to my site in hopes that you might find more pictures. In fact, I've gotten so many hits from the Austin area that we're planning an entire calendar that will be available for sale later this year called "Aggie Bears Bare It All." If you want an advanced copy, send me $20, idiot.

In short, if somebody wants to shave their damn chest, then thats his prerogative. I thought it was pretty hilarious, as would you if you didn't spend your days on internet forums discussing body types of people you've never met before. Mother fuckers.

I'm headed back to Plano right now. My brother, Michael, is in town from California, and since I never get to see him I thought I would mosey on over. His wife's little sister is marrying one of his best friends. I don't care for weddings, especially of people who aren't immediate family, so I've forgone the invitation, but I am sure I'll see everyone involved over at mi casa.

A couple of shoutouts before I go. This blogging thing must be contagious. I see friends' blog popping up everywhere ... and not like Keiff's adventures in blogging that lasted two days, I mean real ones. So, if you ever get bored of mine, you should check out [Owen] and [Ryan S■■■].

That's all for now, folks. Have a wonderful weekend and I shall return on Sunday.

Holy crap. I've just been inside the mind of a genius. My soon-to-be-roommate, Owen, is enrolled in SCOM (Speech Communications to the layperson) this summer. His first assignment was to write a speech comparing him to a famous person. In the end, the famous person he chose was ... the common household lightbulb. I thought it was pretty cool that he'd chosen a person invented by the late, great American-extraordinaire, Albert Einstein. But I had no idea how cool it was until he sent me a copy of his speech. My favorite part of it wasn't even a part of the speech, just his notes at the top. And now, I invite you all to take a taste of the sheer madness that is Owen:

Light bulb: bright. internal circuitry. pale white. 60W(use power). give off heat(how much heat?). / incandescant. 120VAC(call someone at the electric company[ants crawling up arm]). canada(ask mom[how do i know this? i asked the one person that would know.). thomas edison. tungsten(what is that, and what is it made of?)

That is all, thank you.

Well, here it is, without warning ... a little something I like to call SideshoViD.com Version 8. I woke up this morning, decided I didn't want to go to work but that instead I wanted to redo my webpage, and I did just that. Its almost midnight now and I'm just finishing up. So far this layout has been met with mixed reviews, but I don't care, I like it. SVC has always been about metamorphoses and reinvention. Who wants the same old webpage version after version just in different colors? I always try to take a radical departure from each of my old layouts.

Anyway, hopefully some of you find this one at least the smallest bit amusing. Leave me some comments and let me know what you think. I'm about to go watch a movie with Allison now but she is already drunk because she graduated college today. Yay. Congrats to her. Later, have nots.

Oh man, was Thanksgiving ever delicious. It turned out to be an awesome meal and even better company. Lets recap. I came home early from work to prepare the turkey and get it in the oven. Allisons stayed at my house to keep an eye (and a nose) on it while I went back to work to finish up for the day. When I got home, I smelled the turkey and got prepared for the other dishes. I was also responsible for the scratch macaroni and cheese. Its an old favorite of mine that my mom makes, so you know it contains mostly Velveeta. I also made the salad. And by "made" I mean I cut the bag open.

Allison was the champion of the evening being responsible for the most dishes. She made green bean casserole, candied yams, boxed mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin pie. They were all delicious. Will showed up with a fancy schmancy loaf of bread that was enjoyed by all. Owen contributed a bottle of cabernet saviougne (or however the hell you spell that, I just tried to make it look French). The wine was a big success and his job of seasoning the mashed potatoes was not overlooked, even though the potatoes would have been better suited as an industrial strength adhesive than a side dish. Joseph also contributed a bottle of wine -- he was rawkin' the Hof. Once he decided to share we all enjoyed it very much. AllieD beefed up the dessert with some homemade brownies that I am still enjoying on a regular basis. She made way too many, but as long as I've got milk, I'm not complaining. Finally, there was Cappy who brought the cranberry sauce at the last minute to save the day after Joseph really dropped the ball.

After we all stuffed ourselves to excess, discussed our favorite pies, and finished off the wine, I headed up to Kroger with Owen to get another 30 Stones. When we got back, Allison popped in Old School and we drank and watched the movie. Next thing you know, the fuckin fridge is empty and I'm drunk. Who woulda thought. The crowd dispersed and I passed out ready to face another day hungover. I would have to say that last night was a blast and I can't wait to do it again the next time Thanksgiving rolls around (and who knows when that will be). Thank you to everyone who brought something and I will see the rest of you have nots ... on the flip side.

Never being one to disappoint my most loyal Sidesho-Viewers, I thought I would do my old roomie, Keiffer, a favor and update my page. He told me that since he's been home he has checked my webpage every day in order to feel like a part of him is still in College Station. I was much chagrined at the fact that my best viewer was sitting expectantly day after day and I was only updating once a week. So to Keiffer, I apologize. And to all the ladies of Flower Mound -- this one's single!

Today, Owen and I sealed the deal on our apartment for next semester. Looks like its off to Sundance for yours truly. Its a pretty nice place, especially after the floors, cabinets and fume hood are replaced. They drew the line at crown molding though. Bastards.

I just got a call from the Aussie Allison. She is finally back from her world tour. I might head on up to P-town this weekend to see her and Keiff and some others. I'll have to keep you all posted on that venture. Until then, I bid you all adieu. And, Keith, go make some friends. Laaaaaaaate.

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.

Hello, friends. Today, for a little twist, I thought I would address you all from my home away from home away from home, Thompson Hall Development Lab. For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, that's where I work. Its tres fab. I'm sitting here with Owen. We're going on the 14th consecutive hour of working on final documentation for a couple different classes. I finished documenting my calculator earlier this afternoon and got started on the mobile platform documentation almost immediately. Well, first I went and had some delicious sushi with Owen from Kyoto. If you haven't tried it yet, you need to go today.

I decided a while ago that it was not going to be possible to finish this document before my final exam tomorrow, so I am pulling an all-nighter. I might take a quick nap on the couch if it needs be, but I think I should be alright. My goal is finish the document around 7am, which leaves me a few hours for formatting and perfecting everything. Then I'm going to drive to Copy Corner to have them print it out and bind it. Its going to be fucking expensive because every page is in color. And I'll be a monkey's uncle if I'm gonna let fucking Kinko's get their hands on this baby. If you haven't heard my Kinko's rant yet, just do yourself a big favor and never ever go there unless it is your last fucking option on earth.

Anyway, I'm gonna get back to my documentation. I'm on page 24 right now and we're shooting for about 50 pages. Which does not, by any means, equate to being half done. I hope no one else is experiencing this much of an end-of-semester crunch. I wouldn't wish this on anyone ... well, maybe a select few. Anyway, I miss you all, dearly. And I will see you on May 7th. Laaaaaate.

First, lets flash back to Thursday where our story begins. We had the IEEE-Tech golf tournament, which is like a big deal in my major. All these dudes from industry come down and they each get put into a team of 4 with 3 students. Its like a networking thing, and everyone plays golf. Well, I don't play golf, nor do I walk around on an 18 hole course, so I asked if there was anything I could do to help that didn't involve golfing. So I got to drive the beverage cart. It was so damn fun. I spent all day cruising around the Bryan golf course handing out drinks to the golfer. Those golf carts are like big go-karts and it was totally fun for like 5 hours. And I got to drink beer and be outside on a beautiful day. I had such a blast. After that, we all went to Rudy's for a free dinner and one of the industry guys started a tab and called an open bar. Open bar, dude! Then, me and a few others reconveined at Fox and Hound to drink some more. And THEN, AllieD met up with me there and we went to Mad Hatters for the rest of the day. It was such a great day of reckless abandon and boozing.

The next day I only had one class at 3:00, thank jebus. I managed to make it to that class and all he did was give up back our grades for our calculators. We spent all semester making our calculators and I got a 91 on mine, which was fine with me. If I do well on the final I can make an A in that class, no problem. That night was also my neighbor, Breezy's, birthday party. So we just had a keg in our backyard. Not many people showed up at first, but people started trickling in later and it was also a total blast. Just shootin the shit and drinkin some beers.

Then Saturday I had to get up kinda early to go to Zachry for the MPX. In another class of mine we've been studying wireless technology by controlling these mobile platforms (MPIII's). And we had organized this race amongst all the teams. It had all kinds of tricky parts in it, like a section that was blacked out so you had to use a light and a camera to navigate it. It had a figure 8, a hairpin turn, and a section where you had to drive backwards. Anyway, me and my team MARS (Sean, Owen and Max) got first place with a time of 2:50. Second place came in at 2:51, which was really exciting. So we got little trophies and the highest grade on that semester project as well. Like I said, it was a great week to be ENTC.

Today I already went to the Rec and laid out by the pool. Gotta get back into the swing of laying out for this summer. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do this summer, but I'm not too worried about it. I know it'll be fun. This coming week I have presentations to sit through, projects to work on, a webpage to make, and a shitload of documentation to write. So I'm gonna be staying busy, that's for sure. Soon enough, my friends, soon enough, this semester will be over and we'll all have a chance to regain our composure and get ready for the next. I have two more semesters before graduation and then I'm really going to have to decide what I want to do with my life. How freaky is that. I try not to think about it too much. Anyway, I hope everyone has a good week, fun during dead days and does well on finals. I'll see you all on the other side.

I would be lying if I said that this past week has been the best ever, but things are starting to look up. Its nothing a little Tums and some prescription drugs creatively acquired from Beutal can't fix. I put up a new song of the day by the Goo Goo Dolls. It's pretty descriptive of how I've felt lately. Check it out even if you hate the Goo Goo Dolls. The downside is that whenever I get down, I get apathetic. So its been really hard for me to get excited about spending my days at Thompson getting shit done. I wouldn't say that I'm behind, but I'm definitely not as on top of my game as I used to be. I needed a break though. Hopefully I'll be rarin' to go by the time finals come around.

Speaking of, my god, finals are right around the corner. I didn't realize that this semester was so close to over. There's like 2 weeks left or something. Its almost time to start sitting around reminicing over everything that's happened this semester, but I'll save that for a later blog.

I still don't know what I'm going to be doing this summer. I turned down an internship at NASA that would have required me moving to Houston for 10 weeks. I like can't break my lease and don't feel like finding storage and a moving truck and everything that would be required. So I'm gonna be stayin here on Medina. Speaking of, if you are looking for a summer lease, we need to sublease two rooms so let me know. The price is good, and you can't beat the location.

I just talked to my lab partner, Owen, and we are going to live together next semester. Soon enough his title will change from 'lab partner' to 'roommate' which is a pretty substantial promotion. So look forward to his name being in this blog more often. Well, I'm gonna go reheat some more of my massive stash of Olive Garden leftovers and then hit the hay. I'm driving the refreshments cart at the IEEE-Tech Golf tournament tomorrow and I want to be up and alert. Rawk!

So I looked at my friend Matt P■■■'s buddy profile and saw a link called "FUNNIEST VIDEO EVER." I clicked it cause I'm bored, and I was rewarded with what was, indeed, the funniest video ever. I hope he doesn't mind me linking to him. If its a problem with the bandwidth or something, just let me know.
MEOW!

Also, I saw another magic special with David Blaine today. I am convinced that this man is Jesus. I saw him bite a quarter in half and then spit it back into once piece. Its fucking incredible. I've seen him levitate too. If that isn't evidence I don't know what is.

And on a final note, check out the new Beastie Boy's song. Its really good ... and my first comment on this war on SideshoViD.com thus far.

Ahhh, the joys of a dual blog. I can always rely on ol' Joseph to fill in the parts of my stories that I conveniently forget to include. No harm done though, I doubt anyone was met with any amount of resounding shock at the implications of Joseph's last blog concerning me.

This weekend I am going to be going to San Antonio to visit Kevin. I haven't seen him since our birthday (which is July 6th, write it down). The catalyst to this decision is this gift certificate thats been burning a hole in my pocket. My parents got me a gift certificate to Steve Madden shoes for Christmas, but in the post-Christmas shopping madness, their entire stock was wiped out. So rather than settle for something I didn't want, I decided to hang onto the gift certificate to order online at a later date. Well it turns out that you can only redeem this gift IN the store. Also, it turns out there are only 3 Madden outlets in the state of Texas. Two are in Plano and one is in San Antonio about 15 minutes from Kevin's house. So wahlah, there was my decision. Earlier today I told my buddies in lab that I was gonna go to San Antonio and when queried as to the reason, I prompted them to guess. Eerily, Owen's first guess was to buy shoes. He swears he didn't over hear me saying it earlier, which just means that I have GOT to get out of the lab and stop spending so much time with him.

My brother informed me that he's going to be in College Station on Saturday which kinda sucks that I'll be out of town, but the wheels of destiny have already been set in motion and I fear the inertia is too great to reverse. So I won't get to hang out with him.

Joseph's been sending me some emails and IMs about some pretty exciting things that he would like to go on at SideshoViD.com. I don't want to reveal anything at this point, but lets just say that SideshoViD.com might be coming to a theater near you ... Okay thats a complete lie. But do look forward to some new innovations. Czech you skillets on the flip side. Laaaaaaate.

sobriquet (SOO-bri-kay) noun, also soubriquet
- A fancy nickname or a humorous name.

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

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

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

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

Last night was not nearly as drunkenly crazy as the past few nights have been. No, my friends and fans, last night I spent nearly 12 hours in lab. Yeah, I know that school is basically over, but we still find things to do in there. But I am proud to announce that RF Communication is our bitch. Thats short for Radio Frequency, meaning that we can control our motor from the other room if we really wanted to.

The fun part of the night was the random breaks we would take to find stupid shit on the internet to laugh at. I introduced them all to my favorite ninja site, Real Ultimate Power and we had a good laugh at that. Then I showed them Monkey vs. Robot, because it reminded me a little bit of the classic battle between ninjas and pirates. Then I had to go an pose the question, who would win in a fight between Monkey, Robot, Ninja, and Pirate. We all made our gut instinct guess to the question and then set about solving the problem logically.

First, we took our four givens: Monkey hates Robot, Robot hates Monkey, Ninja hates Pirate and Pirate hates Ninja. From there we had to make some assumptions in order to solve the problem. We decided that Robot hates everyone, since he's an unfeeling machine. We also decided that Ninja hates everyone. I mean, he'll flip out and kill and entire town and not even think about it, how could he have compassion toward Monkey, since we already knew he hates Robot. Next we decided that Monkey LIKES Pirate and Ninja, since his only real beef with Robot is that he hates technology. Finally, it was decided that Pirate hates Monkey since pirates generally eat monkeys (a fact Owen pointed out that might have gotten by us otherwise). And we decided that Pirate LIKES Robot, since pirates are easily amused by crap like that. Next, we made a graphic to represent this situation. Red arrows represent hatred, and blue represent a like.

From here we were able to assign a precedence to each character to see who would actually win. Monkey has the most enemies of anyone, so it stands to reason that in an all out post-apocalyptic head to head battle, he'd be the first to go. We assign Monkey a 4. With monkey out of the picture, Pirate is weakened by the fact that he likes Robot. While he's busy fighting Ninja, the Robot waxes him from behind. Pirate is assigned a 3. Now that Ninja and Robot are left, it was determined that Ninja would indeed lose. The only one who's been trying to hurt Robot is Monkey, and he was out right at the start. So the fact that Pirate has been hurting Ninja will weaken him until Robot kills him. Ninja is assigned 2, and Robot wins, with a 1.

The only one in our group to guess what our analysis confirmed as the right answer was Owen. I was still really pulling for Ninja. But really, we didn't even consider their different powers or how that might play into it. That's another argument for another day. It was fun deciding this shit. If you've read all of this and enjoyed it, I'm amazed. If you have any thoughts, or noticed some blaring mistake that we missed, please post a comment and share your ideas.

God I love Halloween. That is, like, my favorite holiday all year long. The day started off pretty sucky, but it got so much better once I mixed in some drinks. I went to class around 9 and did that whole thing. Then I had to talk to my prof about the presentation I'm going to have to give to a class next week. He said we're going to shoot for Wednesday. I really don't want to do this, but its going to change my D to a B, so its definitely worth it.

After that I had to walk to archery. We had our form test, which means we didn't even shoot. Each person took turns having the prof watch us. You had to shoot two arrows at a target that was like 5 feet away, cause he didn't care if you could aim, just your form. I got 14/15 points. He said my form was really good, but I didn't pull the bow back the same distance both times, which I'm sure is true cause I'm not very good.

Then I went to my circuit design class. That was business as usual. That gets out at 3:30 and I decided to get ahead of the game and figure out my schedule for next semester. Turns out my department has a new lady whose only job is to be an advisor. We have a real live advisor now! Like someone who actually knows what she's talking about and gives a shit. Its nice. We used to just talk to professors who had way more important things to do. Anyway, I got my sched for next semester kinda figured out. I might take chemistry at Blinn, but I don't know how to do that, so we'll see.

After that I went to the computer lab to work on my presentation a little bit, but that didn't end up happening. Instead me and my lab partner, Owen, ended up on Yahoo! games playing pool against each other. I lost twice and won once. It was really fun. Then at 5 it was up to the lab to work on our multi-channel pulse width modulator. Fun stuff, it never ended up working. Then I left to go to my car and realized I never went home so I didn't have a car. That's always a fun feeling. So I started making calls.

Keith was in Fort Worth. I swear I need to start listening to him sometimes. Then I called Allison and she was too drunk to drive ... at 9 oclock. Halloween rules. So I called Brandon and he gave me a ride home. Then he came in while I made myself some leftovers and he ended up falling asleep on my couch, and he slept there all night. Didn't bother me. So I got ready to go out and did just that. I had my neighbor Brianne paint my face with eyeshadow so I looked like really sickly. I tried to snap a pic of it, but most of it rubbed off last night. So I went and picked up Ryan and we hit Northgate.

We started out at 315, the place that used to be the Reef. Then we ran into Allison and we went to the Library. That was pretty hopping. We spent the rest of the night there. Halloween on Northgate is too much fun. Everyone's in costumes and just getting CRA-ZAY. God I can't wait for next year. So then we went to Stev-o's house. It was fun. There were drinks and I think there was some oregano going on in the back room, but I'm too innocent to know. Well I ended up passing out on the couch in blissful slumber. I was rudely awakened a while later cause I guess Stev-o's roommate came home and it was his weed everyone was smoking or something, I don't know. I was just told we had to leave 'now!' So then Justin gave me and Ryan a ride home. Thanks for that, that was cool.

Today, I might go to class, but probably not. I hate my Symphony class, its so stupid. I do need to take a quiz I missed on Monday cause I was sick tho. Ehhh, I dunno. Then I need to go to the parking garage and get my car. Its so cool that you can just leave it there overnight. Very good call on the part of College Station. They usually just do stupid shit, but this makes sense. Then I don't know what else is on the slate.

One more quick note, sorry this blog is too long. There are some very exciting things happening at SideshoViD.com. This time ... he's not alone...

Hey all. I'm about to run out to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding with Allison and skip out on open lab hours. Me and Owen (my lab partner) got a lot more done today than anyone else, so its time for another break. I had a fairly productive day despite the rain. I went and pulled a couple football tickets for Vergina Tech on Saturday. Me and Allison are just going together. Its too hard to coordinate a big group for us. Then I went and cut the sleeves off my Harley Davidson shirt cause they were bothering me. Then I ran into both Justin and Arash each on opposite sides of the campus (both of whom you'll remember from the towing blog). So that was fun. Then I had my Symphony class where I fell asleep, and then my lab, which I already discussed. Which brings me to the now.

This is off the topic, but me and Keith watched Wayne's World last night while we ate, and I made a comment about how much of that movie is in my regular rotation of phrases. And as we watched it, i kept count of how many lines from the movie I use on a daily, semi-daily (or even hourly) basis. The count got way into the double digits. Lets just put it that way. It made me kind of sad.

On another note, I told you all I would let you know how Jay's endeavor in the ToughMan competition turned out. This thing went against everything I believe in, but I found myself being very entertained. Jay 'Soda Popinski' did not advance past the first round. He lost after 3 one-minute rounds in a unanimous decision. It wasn't all for naught though, because he made the front page of our school newspaper today. And I felt obliged to share it with all of you. Gotta run, check you all latah.