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

Abolish marriage.

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

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

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

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

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

What a wonderful Febrehabruarv it's been so far. Without any dietary restrictions, the transition has been pretty seamless. I could most definitely go for a beer after the week I've had, but that temptation will be easy to avoid. The only hard part is that I have a bathtub full of beer bottles containing the most delicious brew you've ever tasted.

Saturday night Daniel and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary that just so happens to coincide with the onset of Febrehab. So we always do it up right. We had an outrageous meal of tenderloin, Chilean sea bass, ahi tuna, and lobster, accentuated with many "very, very, very dirty Grey Goose martinis with just a *splash* of vermouth and 3 blue cheese stuffed olives" (write that down). We got home feeling rather toasty and decided to pop open a few of the homebrew beers that I bottled a week prior. They weren't technically aged to fruition just yet but we figured what the hell. AND IT WAS SO GOOD. I'm not just saying that because I brewed it. It might be the best beer I've ever had. I can't wait to try it when its fully aged and chilled and everything. We were drinking it straight from the bathtub. So March 1st everyone come on by and I'll let you have one. I fully intend to brew again.

Then the physical challenge began. I am quite pleased to announce that I have gone running every day so far. This whole 4 miles a day bullshit is nearly impossible. I ran myself sick the second day and had to back off a little the third but now I'm back on pace. I have gone a total of 18.94 miles since Sunday and have no intention of slowing down. I have my progress charted in Excel and I know what I need to average every day for the rest of the month to meet my 100 mile goal and it is daunting. There's no way I'm taking a day off and raising that average.

Every muscle in my body hates me and my knees -- I think -- are about to fall off. But I'm still going strong. Anybody out there participating?

My brother just sent out a Picasa album to the family of his trip to Texas. It was a pretty large album detailing Kelsey's birthday parties and all the goings on of a couple different families around the holidays. Daniel was sitting with me as we scrolled through them and eventually got to some that we were both in. Then we stumbled upon the gem of all photos. It might just be my favorite picture of us together ever. We liked it so much, in fact, that we wished we had gotten it months ago so we could have turned it into a heartfelt xristmas card. Well, you know what they say, better late then ... ah fuck it. Merry xristmas!

Ever since I started back at work, it has quite literally been kicking my ass. Well, not literally. I hate it when people emphasize LITERALLY when they clearly mean figuratively ... like I just did. But it has literally been exhausting me mentally and physically. Instead of accomplishing anything while I was in Sydney for 2 weeks, they expended more energy on shifting around schedules to buy more time. So now I have just as much to do, only it's all 2 weeks behind schedule and stacked on top of each other. Pretty bullshit. It's Saturday morning now and I'm about to head out to a construction site. My feet hurt so bad from the boots I had to buy. And my right knee gave out yesterday and can no longer really support my body weight. There's a reason I'm good with computers and not football. I'm not cut out for this.

Luckily, I've figured out what I want to do with my life. I was watching Modern Marvels, as I so often do, and the subject was bread. And they talked about the best thing since sliced bread, etc. But at the end, they talked about the rise of the artisan bread makers. It's basically like owning your own brewery, crafting your own local varieties and stuff. But I just think it would be so awesome to open up an artisan bread making company here in Addison! Circle. That way it would always smell good like bread, and hopefully people would stop buying loafs of commercially produced bread and just drop by the neighborhood bakery every day for something fresh and delicious. I just need some start up capital, because I already have everything else planned out, including the name. I call my bakery "Yeast Infection."

I'm here all week.

After 3+ years of all talk, I am finally going to do it. I just booked my non-refundable 22 hour trip to the land of Oz. On August 14th, I will lift off from Dallas ... and on August 16th touch down in Sydney, Australia. I wonder what TV is like on the other side of the planet. I can't WAIT to find out. Do you think they have DVR? Do you think they call it DVR? Do you think it records backwards?! This is going to be so fun. Oh and I might hit up a wine tasting or a zoo or an opera house while I'm in the neighborhood. But best of all, I get to see my lovely friend, the Allistralian on her home turf. I will be gone for two weeks returning on August 27th. Best part of the flight home is I touch down almost before I take off. I will bring news from the future.

After booking my ticket, I was kind of on a roll. Like you do. So I went and ordered my KitchenAid copper stand mixer for my birthday. Really it's a birthday present from Daniel, but we used my credit card to get it. It's going to take a week to get here, but I really excited about it. I'm going to whip cream to stiff peaks.

Man, I'm more excited right now than Evan on American Gladiators. Rocket is the best Gladiator. And he's my friend on Facebook. I love TV.

We just went to listen to Salsa in the park here in our neighborhood. Turns out I really don't like salsa music. I had fun last week but the band was much better. Oh and I was waaha-hay-hay-hay-sted. So it was sounding good. Tonight I exited early. I basically woke up in time to go listen and it's hot and the band was terrible and I wanted I wanted to sit on the TV and watch beers. So I came home.

Oh, last bit of news. KaboomTown is next week. Everyone's invited. This year we will serve various skewered meats and vegetables. As well as skewered pound cake and strawberries to dip in chocolate. I call it ... Shish-Ka-Boom. You should come. And then the 6th is my birthday again. But this year it falls on a Sunday, so on Saturday July 5th, I am having a little gathering at a bar here in Addison! if you would like to join me. That would be awesome. Czech you all on the flip side.

I think this year, I've decided that instead of (or probably in addition to) celebrating the Solstice that I am going to celebrate Festivus. I saw them mention it on TV and Raul, who was visiting from Austin, had never heard of it. I made him google it and read all about it and I have been laughing about it ever since. I think it would be awesome to have a Festivus dinner. If you don't know what Festivus is, it's an alternative to the commercialization of xmas created by Frank Costanza on Seinfeld. That's where I believe it started, don't argue with me. Wikipedia.org describes the four major components of Festivus:

• The Festivus Pole: The Costanzas' tradition begins with a bare aluminum pole, which Frank praises for its "very high strength-to-weight ratio." During Festivus, an unadorned aluminum pole is displayed. The pole was chosen apparently in opposition to the commercialization of highly decorated Christmas trees, because it is "very low-maintenance," and also because the holiday's patron, Frank Costanza, "find[s] tinsel distracting." Local customs vary and you may be able to decorate your pole with non-threatening plain decorations, or ordinary green garland.
• Festivus Dinner: The Festivus dinner's menu is flexible, but it should be filling non-holiday comfort food (no turkey, duck, goose, or ham). The televised dinner featured what may have been meatloaf or spaghetti in a red sauce. (Presumably, an entree in a red sauce is more festive.) Although no alcohol was served at the Costanza's dinner, Kruger drank from his flask, so alcohol is optional.
• The Airing of Grievances: At the Festivus dinner, each participant tells friends and family all of the instances where they disappointed him or her that year.
• The Feats of Strength: The head of the family tests his or her strength against one participant of the head's choosing. Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned to the ground. A participant is allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the family only if they have something better to do instead. Other, imaginative, Feats of Strength have been developed, including washer tossing.

Oh my g*d, I can't wait. Who wants to come to my Festivus dinner? I'll be playing the head of the household, so get ready for your feats of strength. G*d, I love the holidaze season!

I've had a couple of stories up my sleeve for about a week now. Usually if I'm too lazy (hungover) to blog right away, the story never gets told. Who knows what awesome parties went unblogged and have since been forgotten. Well, not this one. Not Miss Lesbie Ann's Housewarming Party!

It was so grood to have the old gang all back together. It was Leslie, Rick, Josh, Bob, Raul, Tyresa, Aaron. So not the entire gang, but certainly some key players. We had planned on two days of merriment, getting drunk and retelling old stories. It made me miss the days of Halo when you just knew each weekend was going to be more interesting than the last. But back to my story, Leslie's house is just beautiful. I'm a tad jealous, but we Addison folk don't long for equity. Josh got her a delicious candle. Aaron got her a golden blanket. But Bob ... oh, Bob ... Bob got her cocknballs.

As soon as Leslie unwrapped the rather sizeable frame, Josh said, "That's BOB!" And indeed it was. This bit of expressionism is titled "Señor Humps." If you'll look closely, you'll see that Bob has painted his anterior and posterior with different colors of paint and then sacrificed his body for his art. There's really a lot of emotion in it. Emotion and pubic hair.

Thanks for the killer party, Lester!

Story #2. The other day, my most sabulous friend Brett texted me and invited me out to dinner. We decided to take up Smith and Wollensky (one of my all time fav steakhouses) on their "eat your age" offer. Every day after 8:30pm, you can go in and get an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert and pay a dollar for every year you've managed to survive (minimum $25, maximum $65). I'm not sure why they do this, possibly because we were just about the only people in there that late, but surely they're taking a loss on it. But who cares, everything that I ordered totalled $60-70 easily, and I paid $25. It's an amazing deal, everyone go check it out.

There are very few exceptions to the offer. There's some seafood boquet appetizer for 100 bucks that's off limits. And the live Maine lobster and like a 30lb. lobster tail. Pretty much anything over 100 bucks you can't get but anything else you want. So when I was asked if I'd like the 8oz. filet mignon or the 14oz. I replied, "Derrrrrrrrr." Not to be outdone, Mr. Sabulous ordered himself the 28oz. prime rib. And of course, we're connoisseurs, so we got it all rare. So there are 42 fucking ounces of raw meat on our table, as well as some potatoes (as shown), creamed spinach, and a wonderful bottle of wine. It was a fight to fit it all in, but we certainly ate until we could eat no more. g*d, I love gluttony. We had to save room for dessert, too. So we had all that plus crab meat and fried calamari appetizers, six shooter sorbets and the trio of creme brulees, and we got out of there spending next to nothing. What a wonderful way to spend an evening, thanks Brett!

I'm fresh out of stories now, until next time, same Sidesho-channel. Peace.

Things just couldn't be peachier than they are right now. I know I promise Raul that I wouldn't talk about sleep anymore, but it's really integral to the story I'm about to tell, so he can continue fucking himself. They think that curing my apnea has given rise to a bigger, more serious problem. Like when my brain is allowed to do whatever it wants in REM, it makes poor decisions about how to spend that time. I'm not sure if or how they fix that (nor do they know exactly what it is yet, we're working together to figure that out) but it does make for good conversation. "Hi, my brain doesn't work."

Last night we had far too many people on the stoop. It really was just a matter of time before the police showed up and told us to go inside, which they did. They acted pretty much the same way we did -- not surprised at all to see us. They rolled down their windows without getting out and were like "Hey guys" and we nodded emphatically and got up and went inside. That's when the Texas Hold'em tournament began. It was 10 dollars to play, which I was kind of upset with since I ALWAYS lose, but whathefuck, I played. I ended up doing very well for myself and winning the pot. Cha-ching! I owe everyone breakfast today, so there go my winnings.

I was reading Miles' website the other day and I was kind of jealous of the sentiments he was expressing. He talked about how lately he's been focusing and rekindling old friendships and fueling new ones. And I pretty much feel the same. My stoop community is really fun and funny and the more the Addison Circle grows, the happier I am. It's definitely rounded out like fer shur.

So the reason my sleep is integral to the story, g*d damn I got off track and here I am doing it again, damned hangover, is because I bought a bed! I was driving home from work, made an evasive maneuver and bought a fucking bed. It's a Simmon's Beautyrest king sized and it will be here at 5 today. It's been soooo long since I've made a several thousand dollar impulse buy. I forgot how alive it makes you feel! Just as soon as it gets here and I get sheets and everything, I'll invite you all to come spend a night in it. Uh oh, I think it's orgie:30!

The reason I'm up now is because they're running a water compressor outside my window, not to be confused with the fucking jack hammer they had going last weekend. Don't worry though, I have definitely called and complained twice now. But I'm real cool about it so hopefully I'll get something free. I think I'm gonna call Miles and Daniel now and see if they're ready for their free breakfast cause once I'm up I'm up (until I nap).

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.

Since the last time we met, my CPAP has turned from a g*dsent to the bane of my existence. It is absolutely ruining my life. I haven't slept in a week. I am unmotivated, emotionally unstable, and dangerously exhausted. But, this will be the last you hear of my sleep problems and solutions. Raul left me a lovely IM informing that apnea was not my problem, but that bitching about apnea was my problem. So while he's off fucking himself, you can all just wonder how I'm doing.

This weekend I spent some time with the kids from the stoop. For those confused as to what the stoop is, it's basically equivalent to the benches of Moore Hall. Many alcoholic beverages consumed, many cigarettes burned, many stories exchanged. It's an all around grood time. After an especially late night on Friday, Miles, Daniel and I all went to J's Hamburgers and Breakfast. It was so fucking good. Another old skool diner with a krazy waitress. We tipped her 30 bucks because she ruled so much.

She smoked cigarettes while she took our order. She told us about an 80 year old man who ordered his eggs from her "over ... over ... over at your house?" She brought us a caraffe of Dr Pepper so we wouldn't need refills. She disagreed with me when I told her what I wanted -- and she was right! She told us about her anorexia. She brought us extra eggs. Miles, what am I forgetting? She was so off the heezy, I'm not even lying.

Really, I'm kind of stalling because I forgot what I wanted to talk about today. Oh well, it'll come to me. In the meantime ...

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

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

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

I 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.

Happy Valentines Day, sluts! Mine started off with a bang! Normally on Vday, I drink a whole lot. This has been a tradition for the past 5 years. I was kind of at a loss wondering how I would celebrate (or exactly the opposite of celebrate) this year. I got my answer in the form of disease.

I went to work this morning and was blissfully programming along when all of a sudden it felt like someone had turned the heat on. I rolled up my sleeves and kept going. A few minutes later it felt like someone was holding a blow dryer to my face. I was sweating profusely and had like the top 4 buttons undone on my shirt. I could feel the heat pouring out of my shirt on my chin. One of my co-s walked by and I was like, "Hey, is it really, really, really, really hot in here?" and he was like "Uhhhh no ... you don't look so good let me feel your forehead ... damn, you are on fire." And then this other guy walked by and was like, "David, seriously, you are WHITE." Never the one to lose my sense of humor, I was like, "Okay, okay, I know I need to start tanning, this is hardly the time to bring it up."

A few more minutes and it was to the races! A race to the facilities that is. Yes, dear friends, I started off the day with a technicolor yawn in the work bathroom. How embarassing. And to add to the embarassment, this is the first work day after I told one of the managers I was bulemic. We went to a pizza buffet for lunch and I was like, "Ugh, I don't need another piece but I'm going to have one. Not like it matters, I'm just gonna throw it up when we get back to the office." Now he probably thinks I was just regurgitating my breakfast. Great.

After a few more jokes (including calling it a technicolor yawn) I was prodded out the door by everyone who did not want whatever it was that I have. Everyone has been sick in my department this year except for me and one other guy. And we had bet lunch on who would succomb to the bug this year first. Damnit, now I owe him lunch. I think it was Raul who said he hates it when people say "there's a bug going around" because its like saying "it's not the heat, it's the humidity." I thought that was funny.

Alright, kids, it's time for me to fall back asleep. This being sick thing isn't half bad. I hope you're all having a much better Valentine's Day than me. Woe is me! To be sick on my second favorite made-up holiday after Easter! I wish you all lots of action on this manufactured day for gratuitous sex, and I'll catch you all ... on the flip side. Peace.

My final weekend of going out prior to Febrehabruary was a stunning success. Raul never came, nor did he ever call. Disaster? No, time to call in the pinch hitter. Marshall was looking for a weekend outside of College Station so I told him to come see me. After blatantly ignoring all of my directions about 4 times, and circling the greater DFW metroplex, he finally arrived at my apartment.

For the next 4 hours Marshall got ready to go out. It wasn't a big deal that he took forever applying makeup since we were waiting on his friendgirl to get here. The girl was dreadfully abrassive. After I gave her directions to my apartment, she called Marshall's phone and said, "I'm here." We each took one final look in the mirror and put our shoes on before she called again. I answered and she said, "I SAID I was HERE so get your fuckin ass DOWN HERE." And I replied, "I beg your pardon? Do you think this is Marshall?" And she said, "I don't give a shit who it is, I SAID GET DOWN HERE." What a lovely way to introduce yourself to someone who has invited you to their apartment and offered to drive you downtown. It was pretty typical behaviour for her, it turns out.

We had a good time out at the bars with the whole gang. Since we arrived at 12:30am there wasn't much time to get a good buzz going. We did our best though. The night wound down with some dancing at S4. The next day, I took Marsha to the West Village for some real shopping. I forced him to try on some expensive clothes, but he didn't end up buying anything. I, on the other hand, bought a wonderful magickal shirt. It is the coolest shirt ever. It has a big sequin and beadwork butterfly on the back. I got so many compliments on it, its not even funny. Even though, it did make me laugh.

That night, we went back to S4, with Tagalong McIllmannered in tow again. I was looking good, feeling good, and got hit on for the first time in far too long. I probably got hit on by 26 people.

I have a bottle of vodka and a handful of beers (well, not a literal handful, cause that's just one) in the fridge that need to go away before Tuesday. I'm gonna blue bell it. That's a noun I just verbified to mean that I'm gonna drink all I can and give away the rest. If anybody wants my leftovers or wants to come over on Monday to help me dispose of it, let me know. I'll be contacting you all next from the land of sobriety. Laaaaaaaaate!

I spent the better part of today in the bowels of the ■■■ Airport. I wish you all could have heard my inner monologue as I walked around the caverns. I am flabbergasted that my life's path has led me to this. I have to go back tomorrow and possibly Wednesday. If this goes on beyond Wednesday, I will be looking for a new job. It is completely ridiculous to send me to places like this. They seem to assume I have some massive background experience with hands-on work, probably because everyone else I work with has at least 15 years of experience as building engineers and shit. I program. I like computers. The most voltage I ever saw in college was 5 volts. Now they're handing me a hard hat, a screw driver, and shoving me into 480 volt transformers and expecting me to know what to do.

How many times do I have to fucking repeat this, people? Electrical engineers ARE NOT ELECTRICIANS.

Some of it was kind of neat, I have to admit. I would love to see a show about the HVAC system on the Discovery Channel. They have one central plant that handles the cooling for the entire airport. You can't imagine how big these chillers are. Chillers make cold water and then pump it around to cool down the air that blows into the offices and terminals and stuff. There were at least 4 of them, maybe more, and each one was about as big as an airplane. Then there are cooling towers that use evaporation to cool down water. Each one of these was a round tower about the diameter of a basketball court length-wise. They had huge fans blowing air through the water, and we walked down to the sump, which was a little more like Niagara Falls than an air conditioner. At least in my experience ... which is NONE.

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow but I'm trying to keep a positive attitude. I'm not shaving today or tomorrow and I dropped by Target to get a shirt for work tomorrow. Hopefully I'll at least mildly look the part. My boss always pulls me aside when we're on site and explains the most BASIC concepts of HVAC to me in front of everyone else on the site. I don't think he's consciously trying to destroy any credibility I might have, but if he were, this is how he would do it. I know I've only worked there six months, but come on, I have managed to retain the slightest bit of information in that time.

If any of you know of any positions open in your offices ... jobs where you don't have to put your physical well being on the line ... please let me know about them. Sorry to be a downer, but this kind of shit just really rubs me the wrong way. Hopefully this will all be over soon and I can get back to sleeping at my desk. Ugh.

I apologize for my recent absence from the internet, but I assure you, I have been completely powerless. That is to say that my power cord still does not fit in my computer. For some reason, when I got home from work today (at 3:30 -- RAWK) the charge light was on and I was fully charged. I haven't even touched the thing all weekend, so that was weird, but welcome. I'm going to have to take the ol' porn player to Best Buy and have them ship it off to their service department. Hopefully they can fix it and hopefully its under warranty.

I finally went to a yoga school yesterday. I found this Addison Yoga place right by my apartment. They do hot yoga. Hot yoga is just like regular yoga, but its hot. Like really hot. They keep the room at about 100 degrees the entire time. I sweat my ass off. But I really, really liked it. It's only 15 bucks per class, or 12 if you buy a pass. I will probably do this at least once a weekend. I've already drummed up some interest from Lil Jarrod to join me. I think everyone should be doing this, it was so choice.

Today marks the first day of my 5-a-week workout schedule. I'd been going at least 4 times a week, sometimes more, up until the holidays and then I totally fell off. But my friend Greg from New York, he's kind of weird, and he signed up at my gym. So now I have a workout buddy. We both made it perfectly clear that we didn't want to work out together, though. We just want to carpool to the gym in order to motivate each other to stick with it. This is gonna be so great. The next time I show myself in public, I'm gonna be so hot. And by 'hot' I mean that my biceps are gonna be as big as my beer gut.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to address you all again. Thanks for your patience while we struggle through this predicament together. I am gonna send my computer off on Saturday so if I happen to wake up fully charged, I'll update before I let it go. Otherwise, I'll just have to scrounge around and see whose computer I can use. I really wanted to be able to keep you all up to date on my Frehabruary experiment. (I just now came up with that name, I kinda like it.) It's coming up so fast. I can't wait. Oh, and all my expenses got sorted out including the rat bastards at the Velvet Hookah. The owner called and apologized and offered me free drinks. Anyone wanna go?

Oh, and Raul, you should call me since you're impossible to get a hold of. I am still fully expecting you to come up the last weekend in January for my alcoholic swansong. The rest of you, refrain from calling, I get so annoyed when my phone rings. Thaaaaanks.

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 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.

Just a quick blog to inform you all of a couple goings-on in my life. I had to say goodbye to our dear friend, RyanC, on Sunday night. In general, I try to avoid posting anybody's full name without expressed written consent, but RyanC, otherwise known by his mother as Ryan Cloutier said that he wanted to be able to google himself. Since I am on the forefront of google technology (which Christine can vouch for), this will surely do the trick. Sidenote: My Google This! prank has TOTALLY worked. Somebody came to my site and searched for "Michael Phelps speedo." HA! Sucker! Anyway, Ryan Cloutier has moved back to Portland, Oregon (the capital of Oregon is Salem, btw). He's going to be a famous movie star and have his own page on IMDB.com ... kinda like Scott Mechlowicz. Scotty's new movie, Mean Creek, is coming out sometime soon, everybody be sure to see it. Anyway, I really didn't get a chance to hang out with Ryan Cloutier but a couple of times, but he was hella fun to go to New Amsterdam CoffeeHaus with and I will forever be in his debt for introducing me to Moudite.

In other news, I got to play with my niece today. She is such a crab apple. Never stops crying. So right before dinner tonight she went into a spell. My mom held her until she fell asleep while we all ate, so when we were done, I seized my opporitunity to hold her so my mom could grub. My niece was born on July 17th, for those of you just joining us. She slept in my arms for about 20 minutes, but I think she had grown accustomed to my mom's boob for a pillow and my collar bone just wasn't a suitable replacement so she eventually woke up. She started crying, but I bounced her around a little bit and she calmed down. She loves looking out the window so I sat in a rocking chair facing the windows in our family room and sat her up on my lap and hummed to her while she stared out the window. I was quite pleased with my performance, since so very little seems to calm her down for an extended period of time. It was really fun getting to see her. Makes me want a baby of my own, though rest assured, I am decidedly not willing to make one.

I just thought I'd throw a couple stories out there. I have too many backlogged, and I don't want them to go to waste. So I blogged before it turned midnight so I can blog again tomorrow. I've only blogged twice on the same day once in my illustrious career ... can anybody name that day? First person to answer correctly wins a free ticket to sit next to me and see Mitch Hedberg and Stephen Lynch at the Paramount in Austin on October 2nd. No joke. Catch you fuckers at a bad time?

... Also, name the movie that last line came from. Then you win. No joke.

This weekend I made yet another trip to beautiful College Station, Texas. There were good and bad things about my little vacation. Instead of dividing them into two categories I thought I would alternate between one good thing and then one bad thing to keep things all evened out. Starting with the good, naturally.

I got to leave work at 2:30 on Thursday because I had finished everything for the week, which means I got to take a Friday off for free! When I got to College Station, Marshall didn't want to go out and refused to even attempt to have fun. But AllieD was rarin' to go so we got all sloshed and had a rip roaring good time. The next morning I was completely hungover. So Allison and I went to see Napoleon Dynamite and it was really funny. That night I was ready to go crazy at the bar but got completely stood up by Marshall. Allison came to the rescue after I stopped by a party of hers and took her out to Halo. It was completely dead there. 27 showed up. I rounded out the evening back at the party fairly bored and not drunk enough. The next day I got see meet up and go out to lunch with Tommy. I was supposed to go see his new loft downtown when he got off work at 5, but despite knowing that he was home he refused to answer the phone and let me up and I haven't talked to him since. But he lives next door to a bar, so I spent that time drinking beer and talking to the hippies at Revolutions. I wanted to make a shirt like the one that Napoleon wore in the movie, but I ultimately couldn't find the right supplies. So I went back to Marshall's and took a nap. He never called me after he got off work, despite the fact that I put gas in his car that had been sitting empty on the side of the road for a couple of days. I had plans of my own, though, since Brian (Allison's fab friend) and his roommate James were having a party. I was still pretty hungover from my previous days' binging so I really couldn't drink a lot. And the highlight of the weekend, Chris came to the party.

End the pattern. Did everyone notice it alternated good and bad? (I color coded it after the fact.) I didn't even have to try, because the good and bad was chronological it turns out. But yeah, seeing Chris was really good. I miss that kid so much. It's a lot easier to forget that when I haven't seen him in 6 months, but seeing him again brings that all back. It was a good time though. Maybe I'll see him again in 7 years when he graduates from grad school. Raul and Rob accompanied us to the party. That's always a good time. Brian and James have the coolest friends. It was an excellent party. Other highlights included seeing Justin M■■■ and Charlie at Halo, 27s friend being delightfully nice, and Texas Toothpicks. Other lowlights included not seeing Stino, 27s other friend being dreadfully rude, and Marshall leaving for "lunch" while I was still in bed on Sunday and then never ever coming home. I don't think I'll be going back to College Station for a while ... not without reason.

Tonight I went swimming. It felt so good. I realized I haven't been out of breath or felt my muscles burn in months! I felt just like Michael Phelps. Oh great, now everyone googling for pics of the speedo-clad Phelps are going to end up here. It probably won't help that I'm about to say gold medal Athens 2004 Olympics. (After typing this, I've decided to make tricking googlers into coming to my site a permanent feature on my site.)

Last business to discuss. September 3rd: ULDE:IYDKYDG. Ryan S■■■, Brent W■■■■, and I are throwing a party to celebrate a day of Labor Pains. That stands for Uptown Labor Day Extravaganza: If You Don't Know, You Don't Go. If you would like to come, leave a comment, and IM or an email giving me your email address and I'll make sure you get on the e-vite list. And with all the e-vite list theft going on around town, you'll probably be invited to several subsequent Dallas parties as well. I'm expecting some College Station folk to attend. Also, October 2nd: Stephen Lynch and Mitch Hedberg, the two funniest men alive, performing together at the Paramount in Austin. I'm buying tickets this Saturday so if you would like to go, let me know. Tickets are $35.

I hope you all have an alternatingly good and bad time this week. And remember ... if you don't know .. you don't go!

When I got home today, my heart skipped a beat. I walked into my room to find my beloved Tuna floating on top of the water. I don't talk about Tuna very much on my blog (he's my fish, for any newcomers) but I sure do love him. He is the most expressive fish I've ever met in my life. People think i'm being facetious when I talk about Tuna being mad at me, but it is so true. Usually when I get home, he sees me walk in the door and swims to the top to wait for me to come say hi to him. But if I happen to forget to feed him for one night, when I come in the next day, he'll swim down behind the faux plants and ignore me. He is so moody but he's the fucking coolest fish ever and I love him. So I come in to find him on top of the water, and I freeeeeeeak, but he doesn't look dead. So I inspect and find that he's pinned above the water on top of one of the plant's leaves, so I pushed him off. He is quite upset by it, and I wish I knew how long he'd been there. Whenever he gets really upset, his purple and black scales turn a pale white, and he's like all white now. Just a second ago he tried to jump out of the tank he's in. I have a suicidal fish just like Amelie.

I joke but if he were really to die, I would be more distraught than you would probably find rational over a pet betta. Hopefully it won't come to that for a few more years. Maybe I should get him some guppy friends. I just don't know.

Last night I had the opportunity to go out to dinner with Sean W. and Tom the Australian. We went out to On the Border and introduced Tom the Australian to margaritas. He approved, naturally. Then we watched Ellen Degeneres' stand up called Here and Now. Can't remember if I mentioned this stand up routine already, but I rented it randomly one day and proceeded to watch it like 3 times a night until it was due and then I bought it and kept on watching it. Even though I've seen it about 50 times, we laughed our asses off. It was so much funnier watching it with other people around to laugh with you. And Tom the Australian hadn't seen it yet so he had some fresh laughter to contribute. It was a really great time. Of course, I was out until about midnight, a new latest record.

So today I spent the day getting pi out to 250 digits, getting all the states and capitals down, taking a look at the square root of 2, and getting started on the presidents in order. I also got scared that some of this might be a waste of my time and brain capacity so I prepared an excel sheet to help me memorize all 120 or so phone numbers in my cell phone. As I was going through the list, many, many of you got deleted, but the rest of you will soon be backlogged in my brain for eternity. It's so good that they're paying me to stay busy. Ha! The beers and jaeger shots are telling me to go to sleep now, so I'll see you have nots later.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am back in Dallas now after my three day excursion to College Station. It was so good to go back. I knew this was going to happen, but in my defense that was probably the longest I had been away from that shitty little city since the summer that I had knee surgery. I spent the majority of the time with Marshall, but it was so good to see everyone else as well. I spent the second most time with Ryan and Josh, but also got to see Leslie, Josh, Raul, Justin, Justin, Tommy, Robby, and some others that I'm forgetting. If I've left you off of the list, just hit me up with a comment and then I'll cleverly add you and post a comment right after yours that says something to the effect of, "Try reading it again, I clearly see your name there." It is hilarious when I do that.

There's not a whole lot of news from my weekend. I got drunk all three nights, two of which were at Halo. I miss belonging like that. Knowing all the bartenders and owners and every patron of an establishment, and having them notice when you've been out of the loop for a while. I am coming to love going out in Dallas, but there's just nothing like the CS crew. Marshall and I got shitcanned on Friday night even though I told him that there was no way I was going to last past midnight cause I was so tired. I was practically falling asleep on the drive down there despite the fact that I slipped out the side door of work two hours early. Shhhh. My supervisor was out of town so I didn't see any reason for me to hang around.

So Friday night was a FUCKING BLAST ... just what I needed. Saturday was a big drag show that I didn't even look at once the whole night. I drank a lot of Jaeger before we went out to the bar so the entire night's activities are a tad blurry. But I know I had fun and only ran up a six dollar bar tab despite telling everyone I knew to put everything on my tab. Rock out with your cock out!

Sunday night Marshall and I went over to Chris's apartment to sit by the hot tub and play volleyball. Well, I read magazines while the other boys and girls played volleyball. Sports aren't exactly my style. Then we got some beer and I drank a bunch. I am so fun. Then today I said my goodbyes to Marshall at Hoblob, swung by Josh's to pick up some of my stuff he was still holding onto and drove home. Yippee skippy. Oh but I got my diploma from Marshall who was having it framed at Hoblob. The four hundred dollar framing job that I inexplicably paid nothing for. It looks so cool. I'll have to snap a picture for all of you and include it on the picture post that I've been promising frequently as of late.

One final note: Tomorrow is my 23rd birthday. Make my day.

First and foremost, I want to apologize to the 6,734,381 loyal Sidesho-Viewers who asked me how work is. I had neither the patience nor the energy to answer you all individually with the same exact stories so I figured I would wait until I blogged to answer you all at once. It was nothing personal, I assure you. But first, just look at what I've become:

In short, work sucks. It's not like I'm shocked at this fact, I knew it was going to, but DAMN, it sucks. (And just as a side note, any of you that might find it like sweet vindication that I now have to get up at 6am everyday whereas every other job I've had was pretty lenient ... I'm still making like 5X as much as you ... so HA!) We spent the first day in what can only be described as a 9 hour meeting listening to boring person after boring person drone on about company policies and benefits and shit. We didn't get to leave this board room all day ... they even catered us lunch at our seats. THANKS!

To be fair though, there are 16 new-hires including me and everyone is really cool. Unfortunately, I won't be working with any of them, since I was the only one hired on to do any engineering. The rest are quality assurance, energy savings, sales and recruiters. But I guess I will see them around the office. I can kind of tell that they interviewed based upon personality because all of us immediately clicked and have really had fun making jokes about all the stuff we're going through.

Tomorrow I get to dress business casual ... thank g*d! I've been running home every day and throwing my suit on the floor. I can't stand it. My parents have been out of town and will be til Friday, so thats been nice to not to have to answer a million questions every day when I get home. And I found out a new way to take to work that will cut I-35 completely out of my commute, which is great.

I think this job is gonna get better, its just gonna take time. This orientation shit goes on for 3 weeks and I'm in training for at least 6 months. So I don't really know what I do but everyone keeps telling me they're glad I'm there because there's "Lots of work to do!" They won't let me download AIM at work either. Damn. There goes all my fun. But really, its not all that exciting so I have very little to report, but as soon as I get acclimated I'm sure it will be as hilarious as Dilbert!

Welcome to June, everybody. The date of my departure is nigh. I'm thinking I'm gonna go to Austin on Friday to stay with Leslie and hang out with Brandon and then head back to Dallas to await my start date. I have to be at work at 8am. This is going to be quite a challenge. The only way its going to possibly happen is if I'm in bed by 10pm. I'm not sure I'm ready for that lifestyle, though if you asked my body it would probably disagree. Who knows, though. Maybe work will just be a blast. I'm getting to do design instead of installation so that is good news.

Two nights ago, Allison and I got krunk on Coors and sat out back of Northgate drinking our free beer. On the way home, I was absolutely starving, as I've been saving money by only eating once a day whilst in College Station. We decided to stop through Whataburger (duh!). I just wanted to let you all know that this is a possibility, in case it had not occured to you previously. We got four bacon, egg and cheese AND sausage AND potato taquitos. Omega, get excited. They were incredible. And when I saw my friend who now recognizes me at Whataburger, I told her, "Oh yeah and also throw in a handful of fries for free." And she did! How fucking rad is that. I love her. I had to tell this story since there was a request for it on the last post.

You know what I was thinking about the other day? When you just kind of meet someone one day but don't really know them ... but every time you run into them you're obliged to say hello. And we call these people "Hi" buddies. Well when I'm online, I have "Hey. Sup? NM. Coo." buddies. Chew on that.

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!

Went to IHOP late last night to break my diet. Stuffed french toast was worth every carb. Went to bed watching Waking Life. Good flick. Hard to watch when dozing off at 3:00am. It's a thinking movie, not a drinking movie. Woke up with no cough, good news. Woke up (early, as you can see) with pain in neck and shoulders so intense that sleep is not an option. A hot bath did not alleviate any discomfort. Perhaps some yoga will help. Otherwise agony continues. Hope you have fun in church today, suckers.

I had the most fucked up dream last night. This one really took the cake. It was so long and weird that when I finally woke up, I jumped right out of bed despite the fact I'd only been asleep for a minimal number of hours. It started off with me and my entire family together in a car, and my dad making a wrong turn on a high overpass. Unfortunately, the way we went had no road and we plummeted like a 1,000 feet to our gruesome deaths. I remember thinking on the way down, as my stomach dropped, "Well, this is it," and experience a moment of extreme curiosity for what would happen after I died.

We were all instantly transported to what I guess would be the afterlife. The sky alternated red and blue, there were heavy clouds and lots of lightning. At first it was scary but then I realized it was actually quite beautiful. There were all kinds of people all living in their own little quarters, and I was sharing a house with my family. We met all kinds of people who taught us things about what it was like to be dead. One of them was how to return to Earth, which basically involved sky diving with no parachute. Once I got the balls to do it I went and checked in on all of my friends.

They had created some kind of twisted memorial to me that everyone I'd ever known had signed with a message for me. And I cried while I read them. I tried to return every now and again to check in on people, but time stopped moving linearly, and when it did it was inconsistent. Sometimes it would be the past, sometimes the distant future, and sometimes no time had passed at all. I rather liked the afterlife. There was always something to do, people to meet, things to learn. This is the first time in a dream that I've actually died, and I must say it wasn't too bad.

But I did wake up a tad disturbed. I ran over this dream again and again in my head to preserve some of the details. I have got to stop smoking crack. In other news, yesterday I went to Wal-Mart with Marshall and purchased a planter, some soil, and wildflower seeds. As of right now it is just a bucket of dirt, but I will keep you all filled in on their progress. I put in a shitload of seeds, I hope it grows like crazy.

My new goal is to buy a fish. I wanted to buy one spur of the moment last night but realized that I knew nothing about how to care for one. I will have to do my research, buy some equipment and get it set up before I buy Nemo. Again, you will all be the first to know when I do so. Hope your week is off to a good start. Be safe, and don't do anybody I wouldn't do.

Ugh, interviewing is so stupid. I drove to Dallas on Monday afternoon, to avoid having to drive in the dark, which you all know I hate to do. I got there in time to help my mom make dinner and then eat with my parents. I was so tired from waking up early to go to class that I fell asleep around 10:00. I was happy I went to class though because we got our midterms back. I set another curve. I am a genius.

I tried to sleep in since my interview was at 11:30 but I was unable to do so. I guess I was nervous even though once I got there I really wasn't. I was interviewing with another guy from my major. The first thing we did was go to lunch with two guys. They took us to Saltgrass and we ate steaks. Yum. They took our resumes with them and asked us questions about projects we'd worked on and stuff, but mostly just shot the shit. After lunch I met with 3 other men who were interviewing me. Although, it seemed like they were more just looking for someone to talk to than actually interviewing. They asked me a few stupid questions, but mostly let me talk about projects I've been involved in, and talked about themselves and projects that they've done.

The company is really cool and I've decided that I want the job. They do automation systems for buildings. They do a lot of school districts, but more glamorous jobs include the Rockerfeller Center in New York, the Sears Tower in Chicago, and some building over in Japan that is supposedly the tallest building in the world. I thought they just automated lights, HVAC and security, but they do so much more. For instance, a guy shows up to work at 5am, scans his card. His office immediately sets to his preferred temperature, the lights turn on, and the elevator is waiting at the lobby already set to take him to his floor. On top of that, if a laptop turns up missing, they can track his progress throughout the building to see if he was a suspect. Also, if the fire alarm goes off, they have a complete record of who got out of the building, and who was left inside ... as well as where they are. It seems like these are really advanced systems. Like you can't just set the temperature to 72 and go with it. They also would set up occupancy sensors to make sure that they aren't wasting money cooling a vacant room. And they would probably include a CO2 sensor to make sure that the room wasn't getting stuffy with recirculated air and mix in some outside air. It seems like a really cool job and I hope I get it. I will know by April 16th. Regardless, they paid me 32 cents a mile to come see them so I'm gonna get a check for about $130 in the mail soon. Yippee.

I still haven't worked on my big project. I stood up Christina Lee on accident this morning to work on it and now I have a presentation to prepare for in my senior design class. We really didn't do much over Spring Break so I dunno what we're gonna talk about. We'll figure it out though, we always do. Hope all is well with you sluts, catch you on the flip side. Laaaaaaate.

Once again, I find myself in the unassuming little town of Humble, Texas. As I was saying before, my brother's wife went into preterm labor the other day and is now stuck on bed rest. I really came to help out but as it turns out, I'm not really going to have to do anything. Not that I thought I was going to be burdened anyway. My brother is going to work here in the morning allowing me to sleep in, and then one of his wife's friends is going to come in to hang out with her.

I might set up the hammock in the backyard if the weather is as nice as it was today and read my new book that Raul gave me, Glamarama by Bret Easton Ellis. You'll all recognize that name as the author of Rules of Attraction starring Dawson. I really liked that book, and I've been told I will like this one even more so I'm excited about that. David27 wants to read it too so I thought I could knock it out during the couple days that I'm here.

My brother's computer is really cool. He has cable internet and he can watch TV on his computer! How cool is that? I am sitting here watching MTV in the upper lefthand corner and updating my page at the same time. He said you can record TV too, so if a good video comes on, I'm going to record it. Oh, maybe that hilarious HEB commercial I've only seen once in my life will come on and I can record it for all of you. That's probably not going to happen, though. I just checked to see if he had Kazaa so I could update my songs but he does not. I wanted to get The Maps "Yeah, yeah, yeah." I think that's the correct name. Anyway, I'm just rambling cause I don't have a lot else to do and no one else to talk to. I guess I'll go whore around on melo or something now. I should be on IMs while I'm here so hit me up if I'm active. Laaaaaaaaaaaate.

The onset of Spring Break is upon us, my dear viewers. Shortay! We fend to go to the club and get krunk with Britney. I started off the break by taking a brief jaunt to Austin with some friends. Raul knew of a couple of birthday parties there that we could attend, so we did just that with Marshall (very much against his will) and David27 in tow. After a late start, we made really good time to Austin ... due in no small part to my superior navigation skills.

We stopped off at Jenny's apartment to get ready. It was her birthday party we would eventually end up at. She was very sweet to let us not only take over her bedroom and bathroom on her birthday evening, but spend the night on her floor. After primping, fighting over the hat, and a couple hearty belts of whiskey, we were on our way to our first destination. It was Tracy's 18th birthday, and it was being held at an apartment with a very large enclosure for around 30 mice/gerbil things. I don't know, but there were rodents in the living room ... and an injured baby squirrel in a box. Charming. Chris was there. And despite having called to make sure I was going to be in attendance, seemed less than enthused that I had come. The keg was Shiner but since Marshall doesn't drink beer, he was becoming increasingly despondent, so we had to act fast. Raul, the responsible driver, decided he wanted to get drunk, so 27 was at the helm.

Jenny's party was at a large house with two kitchens. There were green lights everywhere, and a person blowing fire and spinning large sticks on fire in the backyard. He never once caught the damn thing ... sub-par at best. But there was an ample supply of liquor, and we all partook in it greatly. 27 got drunk. It was the first time I'd ever seen him drink enough to get drunk, and let's just say it was interesting. Leslie is coming into town on Friday and he has promised to give us another show on that night. Brandon was party hopping around town during this time and was able to drop off at our party for a little bit to say hello. I haven't seen that kid in damn near a year. He seemed rather pleased to see me as well.

While Marshall, 27 and I got drunk, Raul sobered up to take us home. He would NOT take us to Whataburger on the way home even though it was totally on the way. If you know me, you know that I simply must have a bacon, egg 'n cheese taquito before bed when I'm drunk or heads roll. So 27 and I took the initiative, remembered where it was, and fucking walked there in the middle of the night. It was too much fun. We got a ride home though from two people who were also staying at Jenny's. When we woke up we ate at Macaroni Grill ... well, actually, Raul and Jenny ate. 27, Marshall and I just sat and drew on the table drinking water. I drew a delightful picture of me throwing up with my head in a toilet. I don't think the waitress liked me. The help never has a sense of humor, I swear!

Tonight we're taking it easy. I just woke up in time to watch Arrested Development, the best TV show every made. I think Marshall, Justin and Thommi are on their way over to 27's to watch some movie called Waking Life. I think its a fucked up movie, but who knows, there's a chance I would enjoy it. I'll keep you all posted. If anybody has something ultra fun to do this week, be sure to invite me (and pay for me). Thanks.

I am so lucky. I'll give you twenty-seven guesses as to why but you'll only need one. These past couple weeks have been some of the best in recent memory. It's nice to have a constant partner in crime who likes to sit and watch home improvement shows and smoke too many cigarettes. I'll rip your face off and chop it in a million pieces.

In other news, Allison made reservations for us to eat at Christopher's on Friday. For those of you from out of town, Christopher's is the only nice restaurant in like a 100 mile radius. I'm really excited cause I've never eaten there before. Her parents said we could go eat there as a birthday present. Get excited! Then she bought tickets for us to see Starsky and Hutch but I already promised Marshall I would go see this band play at the Groove. We're gonna have to remedy that situation. I talked to Marshall and he was cool with it even though he said he wouldn't be if I tried to back out. But whateryagonnado? For my graduation Allisons parents are gonna pay for us to eat at Messina Hof. How fun is that? Maybe I should remind my parents that they didn't get Allison a graduation present and see if we can go to P.F. Changs in Houston or something.

I really want to go shopping before all the boys from Dallas get here on Saturday but I doubt I'm gonna have a chance. Ryan S■■■ had so much fun during his night here out at Halo that he convinced like 10 of his friends from Dallas to come down and stay in a motel and get shitcanned College Station style. We're gonna be sure to show them how we do. Chevy is coming into town on unrelated business so I'm sure she (and hopefully Ms. Sonia as well) will join us in our revelry. If anybody else wants to join in just let me know. I'm planning on drinking on Saturday from about 7pm until about 5am. Which means this one will be on beer all night as to monitor my alcohol intake, since Aaron always tries to kill me and almost always nearly succeeds.

It's like 5am and Im just now starting to get to bed. Shouldn't have taken that nap tonight after waking up at 2pm. Oh well, I had fun doing it ... SO fun. Catch you sluts lata.

A Sidesho-PSA from www.polaroid.com:

Question:
Ever since the song "Hey Ya" by Andre 3000 of Outkast came out, everyone is shaking their Polaroid pictures. I have always been told that you should not shake a Polaroid picture, but I'm having a hard time convincing those around me that this is true. What is the answer?

Answer:
The short answer is no, you don't have to (and shouldn't) "shake it like a Polaroid picture."

Shaking or waving a Polaroid picture to help the development process originated in the early days of peel-apart film. After peeling the negative, the image needed to dry before it could be handled, so waving the photo helped it to dry more quickly.

When using the integral films (600, Spectra, 500, SX-70/Time-Zero, i-Zone) that are used in our most popular current camera models (Polaroid One, OneStep, JoyCam, etc.), the image develops and dries behind a clear plastic window and never touches the air, so shaking or waving has no effect.

In fact, shaking or waving can actually damage the image. Rapid movement during development can cause portions of the film to separate prematurely, or can cause "blobs" in the picture.

The best way to ensure a perfectly developed image is to simply lay the picture on a flat surface immediately after it exits the camera. Shield it from the wind and avoid bending, twisting, or otherwise disturbing it during development. Image development time for Polaroid integral films is 3-5 minutes -- after an additional 5 to 10 minutes, the photo's colors will become richer and fuller.

I'm not sure how it happens, but week after week I manage to find myself in hilarious situations that always involve mass consumption of alcoholic beverages. Last night I found myself shitcanned at Halo once again. Aaron was working downstairs and I guess he was bored or something. He was making my cape cods completely out of vodka. I only had 3 drinks the whole time we were there and I was fall-down drunk. He also made us some shots just to pass the time. I played two games of pool with Surge. I haven't played pool in so long. I scratched on the 8 ball in the first game, and won the second. Not too shabby.

I'm not real clear on the details of leaving the club, but I know that Leslie, Marshall, and I all went to David#27's house. He drove my car with Leslie in the backseat. After a brief stop on the side of the road for yours truly to regurgitate the evening, we arrived at our destination. Now I remember Marshall and Leslie being with us, but when I woke up this morning the apt was empty. I asked David#27 where they were and he said, "Well, Marshall is in my roommate's bed and Leslie slept in your car." WHAT?! It was like 11:00 by this point and Leslie always wakes up earlier. The kicker was that David#27 had brought her purse in so no one would steal it, so she had no keys, no phone, and no idea which apt we were in. Hilarious.

As soon as I figured out what had happened, I rushed downstairs to get her. She was sitting ever so calmly in the backseat. When I tapped on the window her only response was to turn and flick me off. She was freezing even though David#27 (after desperately trying to convince her to come inside, and making a meager attempt to drag her ass out of the car) had given her a pillow and a blanket. Hilarious. I laughed so hard this morning as we rehashed the events leading up to it. That's really the best thing that happened all night, even though a lot else happened.

Happy Valentine's Day, sluts. Take your date to the Olive Garden.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm not sure where to begin this blog. There is much to say about the past 24 hours. The first thing I did was take an ultra long time getting ready. The SideshoGang was all out at Margarita Rocks and wanted me to join them but I opted for a cucumber melon bubble bath instead. After a really long soak and getting my hair delightfully hawked, I stopped off at Allison's for her dessert & wine soiree. I stayed long enough for some strawberry cheesecake and a glass of merlot.

From there, I headed over to David's to get dressed, Tommy's to pick up some clothes I left there, Mosher Circle to pick up Sonia, and back home to get some shoes and wait for the arrival of my dear friend Ryan S■■■. He drove in from Dallas and arrived around 11 o'clock raring to go out on the town. Of course, we dropped by Allison's one more time so she could see Ryan and then headed out to Halo. Ryan came just short of his goal of dropping 100 bucks at the bar, which meant many beers and shots for the two of us, as well as anyone in the immediate vicinity.

After sufficient intoxication and dancing resulting in bruises, we headed back to James's for more of the same. I had a blast last night, and I know Ryan S■■■ did too. We went to Fazoli's today to eat and go to witness a car jump the median, run over a tree, and speed through the parking lot. It was very random.

Oh, and the big news of the hour: The Olive Garden burned down. Information PLEASE.

Update: Now the fucking train derailed over by Tommy's apartment. WTF is going on in College Station today?

Have any of you ever seen anything like this before? I ripped the top off of this beer can with my teeth. I had to dig it out of the trash this morning and bring it home from Tommy's to take a picture and show you all. We were all sitting around drinking when Marshall bit the top off of his damn beer can as though it were nothing. And we were all naturally impressed, so he taught everyone how to do it. If you're interested I can totally show you how to bite the top off a beer can in 3 easy steps.

Chevy was in town with her friend Sonia who goes to A&M. Even though she's a freshman, she has managed to become the front page editor of the Battalion, our school newspaper. It has been a 5 year goal of mine to be on the front page of the newspaper. That and to be on the jumbo-tron at a football game, but I totally achieved that one.

I was totally supposed to go to Dallas last night for Ryan S■■■'s birthday party (HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN) but several factors kept that from happening. It was storming and everyone who was supposed to go with me backed out. And I fear leaving town, especially alone in the rain. So yeah, there was drinking and dancing and all those antics last night, but mostly I just wanted to tell you all how cool Marshall is for being a ninja. I think I'm gonna go work out with Tommy tonight. Neither of us could move our arms yesterday, but I think we're good to go now. Until then...

Since I forgot to go to Whataburger last night on the way home from the bar, I needed some breakfast taquitos this morning after class that I miraculously attended. This cute little old lady was standing next to me, very grandmotherly.

She gets her food and she goes, "I ordered sausage, this better not be bacon." And the girl working says, "Yes ma'am they are sausage." And the grandma says, "Good because if there's bacon in here, I'm going to come back, and I'm going to kill you."

So I busted out laughing, naturally. And after the old lady left the girl said, "We've had quite a morning. Just before you got here, a guy walked in and said, 'I'm the owner of Whataburger, I need something to eat and drink right now.' And my manager said, 'No you're not. Get out.' and the guy replied, 'YOU'RE fired and YOU'RE fired and YOU'RE fired'" to everyone working there while pointing at them.

Eh, i just thought it was pretty damn funny and gave me two great new ideas for how to behave in a fast food restaurant.

Remind me never to go out sober again. God, what a dumb thing to do. It was still fun, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't like riotous fun like usual. And all my friends were drunk, which is fine by me, I'm hardly one to complain, but motivating drunk people to do anything (i.e. leave the bar) is next to impossible. So we didn't end up getting home until like 3am and then we watched Splash. What a good movie.

In other news, I had the most delightful email the other day that truly made me feel special. It was from none other than our good friend Dennis DiClaudio. You might recognize his name from the Grammar Cop section of my website. I don't know how he found me, but he did and he sent me this message:

hi,
just wanted to email you quickly and let you know how honored i am that you've quoted me on your website. when i found that, i went around smiling for three days straight.
thanks a lot,
dennis diclaudio

How cool is that? I would email him back and let him know, but I still don't have outgoing email. I could totally get my outgoing POP server information from the people who do our internet here, but I am far too lazy and they are far too inept to even deal with. I hate email anyway. I think Leslie and I are going to go to the mall and return some shit and then meet up with Justino to chaw on some steaks. You all wish you were me. Ciao suckers.

Well I hope everyone had a wonderful Solstice. I know I did. Now that my holiday season has come to a close, I would like to wish everyone celebrating Kwanzaa this year a wonderful time, as well as all my Jews in da house hittin up Channukah. I can't think of any other celebrations during the holidays, so if I forgot one, it must not count!

I am laying in bed right now. I woke up kinda early in comparison to recent days because I kept having horrible dreams. I had one that I don't remember, but I know I woke myself up by screaming. Then I had one where the Texas A&M Diving team was recruiting me, but they were gonna make me do a fancy dive off the top platform, and for some reason I agreed. Then I had one that I was lost in a school and every room I went into was more fucked up then the next. So I figured fuck it, I'll just stay awake.

As soon as I get off my ass, I am going to get in the car and drive back to Plano. I'll be there for a few days, and then back in CS for a couple days, and then its off to Galveston to get on the boat. Weeee.

I have some wonderful news for all of you. I am so excited I can barely sit still. I was watching the Food Network last night and there was a promo for a new show called Dweezil & Lisa. As if I had to clarify which Dweezil & Lisa they were referring to, its Dweezil Zappa and Lisa Loeb. They've been dating for some time now, and now they're going to host their own show on FoodTV! Holy crap! In case some of you don't know, I have been Lisa Loeb's biggest fan since like the 7th grade. There hasn't been this big of a merger of my interests since I found out John Denver played with the Muppets. It starts in January and you better believe I'll be watching every episode. Its a Solstice miracle. I love you all and I see you soon!

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

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

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

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

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.

I've been having a lot of fun lately. I like having fun. But if I don't stop, there are going to be dire consequences ... dire like I haven't seen since my freshman year. It seems like a lot of the blogs around me have been delineating their goals for the rest of the year, and I realized it was time for me to do the same. If I don't figure out what I want to do with my life, how will I ever know when I fail?

So here goes my list of goals for the remainder of 2003:

• Get whiter teeth
• Tan the hide
• Lose 10lbs of fat
• Gain 15lbs of muscle
• Touch nose to knee
• Do the Scorpion
• Stop spending money
• Stop drinking
• Stop smoking
• Clean car
• Clean house
• Finish schoolwork
• Have a wonderful Thanksgiving

Well I got a little carried away. I didn't realize there were so many unsatisfactory points of my life until I sat down to make a list. I guess I'll go wash some dishes .....

I went out last night. Nothing unexpected. Marshall didn't have anything better to do so he went with me. I decided it was a Jack on the rocks night. Yum. We stayed til almost 3 and then Marshall dropped me off at Raul's for an after party. Oh man, it was fun as always. All the usual suspects were there. Well, pardon me for yadda yadda-ing, but yadda yadda yadda I haven't been to bed yet. But, as I was getting a ride home from Nick this morning around 8, I had a voicemail from Leslie's phone. Her friend was desperately searching for his keys because he had to be in Houston or something. He didn't know what to do because everyone was passed out, he was keyless and upset, so he started goin down the call list. Apparently he had left his keys in a dark brown jacket, the very jacket I had happened to comment on on my way out of Raul's.

I was nice, and I called him back and left a message saying that the coat was there, no worries. And he called back as soon as I got home, got some meat 'n cheese in my belly and took a shower. He was pretty distraught about the whole situation and called his situation 'dire' so I rose to the occasion. Despite the fact that I was about to lay down to a much anticipated slumber, I got in my car and drove over to Leslie's to pick up a perfect stranger and drive him back from whence I'd come. When we got there, his jacket was sitting right where I'd seen it, complete with a set of keys. He was overjoyed; however, Raul was now distraught. Apparently, when I'd left this morning, I hadn't quite closed the door and Terysa's prized cat had escaped and was nowhere to be found. I felt pretty bad since I was the last person to leave so it obviously had to be my fault.

My passenger was not concerned in the least, having developed an unhealthy affinity for yours truly. "Just let him go look for 5 minutes and he'll find him," he boasted about me. I was like, no no no, I am definitely not looking for any cat right now, let's go. So, I opened the door, and out the corner of my eye, downstairs, I saw the fucking cat. I was overjoyed. "There's the cat," I stated matter-of-factly. It took zero effort to coax the cat to run full speed into the apartment, and I had two awestruck compatriots throwing their praise at me. Sometimes it ain't so bad playin' the nice guy. Now, it is WAY past due for me to go to sleep. Ciao bellas.

I made macaroni and cheese to contribute to the Thanksgiving feast yesterday with Ryan, AllieD, and her family. I made it the night before and then stored it in the fridge in the crock pot thinking I would be able to just heat it up before I left. This is the mac 'n cheese from scratch, mind you. Unfortunately, I forgot about that little fact of Velveeta that after any time left to set, it will turn to concrete. I eventually got it remelted, though I had to add like another cup of milk to do so. I got compliments on it. Everything we ate was very good. Ryan made some stellar mashed potatoes, and then AllieD had turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed yams, green bean casserole, stuffing, rolls, and pumpkin, cherry, and pecan pies. I think thats everything. Needless to say it was absolutely delicious.

Martha Moment. The gravy was so watery. It looked like it was nothing but turkey grease. AllieD was pretty upset about it. Luckily, I had seen several shows the prior two weeks on the Food Network that allowed me to solve the problem. I took some of the turkey grease and a few table spoons of flour, and cooked them over high heat to make a quick roux. Then I mixed it back into the rest of the gravy and it came out spectacular, if I do say so myself. And I do .... say so myself. I can't wait for the next Thanksgiving (coming December 10th).

We had some white merlot with the Thanksgiving lunch, and I had my fair share to drink. So, when I got home, I fell asleep for the remainder of the day. Then, I went with Marshall to Wal-Mart because it was the only store in the city that was open. We got new CD's ... I bought Britney and he got Nelly Furtado. Then, I went and drank a bunch of beer over at Raul's. I never want to hear Christina's "Dirrty" ever, ever again.

I'm watching the A&M vs. tu game right now. Since it's already in the 3rd quarter, my prediction for the game is going to be a little bit influenced by the current score. So, I'll say Aggies are going to pull this one off 46 to 28. Gig me Aggies!

I'm watching this interview with Michael Jackson. It's pretty unreal. I don't know, though. I kinda feel bad for the guy because he's obviously out of touch with reality, and you can't really blame him for being insane. Although, as I'm watching how people react to his presence everywhere he goes around the entire world, I can't help but think that he might be jesus. I mean, how many people do you know that can reduce a person to tears just by being 50 feet away? I'm sure most of you won't agree with me, especially based on the recent events. Just don't forget: jesus loved the little children.

I didn't really do anything today. I was out last night drinkin' some beers with Leslie, Josh, Rick and Steve when I got a call from Raul saying that Chris was over at Terysa's (how is that for some name dropping). So I went to chill with Chris since he left town this morning and won't be back until the Christmas break. That was a good time. When I got home, my stomach was kind of queasy, so I took a phenergin. That was a bad idea, since you're not supposed to mix it with alcohol, really. But that's just a suggestion. So, I ended up catching roughly 15 hours of sleep while missing class and work today. Whoopsadaisy. I spent the evening cooking some meat 'n cheese for me and Ryan and then preparing the mac 'n cheese for Thanksgiving at AllieD's tomorrow. Not sure what else I'm gonna do tonight. Thomas might come over and watch a DVD. I should buy a boat.

My life is a perpetual hangover. I would go into more detail on that statement and get philosophical, but you all know that is not what this webpage is about. What is it about?

Well, last night Dustin and Trey came over for an ice cream party. I had a craving the other night for raspberries. I may or may not have revealed this little fact before, but I will do anything for raspberries. If you're ever at the bargaining table with me, money's not very effective ... bring raspberries. I knew they were out of season, so they were a tad expensive, but they were sooo worth it. I brought them home and threw a handfull of sugar on top of them, and they just melt into this raspberry sludge that made me giddy. So, I bought some ice cream and put the berries on top.

Dustin, being Dustin, brought a bottle of wine with him and we sipped on that til it was gone, and then decided to go out. I got drunk and ended up leaving with Raul and Terysa and partying back at Terysa's crib. It was a lot of fun, but I woke up hungover again and my throat is on fire. I hadn't smoked all last week and it is amazing how quickly your throat gets acclimated to not being singed every hour. I met a bunch of people last night. Raul mentioned SideshoViD.com. Anytime people find out that I have a webpage, they immediately want to be on it. Even if they've never seen it and don't know the url. This was the case with Brandon, but I promised him, nonetheless, that I would mention him. Ryan B■■■ showed up at the shindig as well. It's never a party without him. And Josh S■■■■■ seems to think I don't talk about him enough, which is probably true. And naturally, if I mention Josh I don't want Leslie to get jealous. They were both out at the club last night, and its always a pleasure to run into them (don't worry, they're okay).

On another note, the money is still up for grabs. The picture that Sean got was of a guy with a really long braided rat tail. The guy deserves our derision, but he is not Padawan Boy. So keep snapping pictures! I didn't want Sean to feel bad, so I thought I would include his picture anyway. Nice shot, btw, especially considering it was taken with a phone.

Last little note: Thanksgiving is set for December 10th. That is the Wednesday in two weeks, aka the first day of the Dead Days this semester. You are all invited, however, I would appreciate it if you would let me know if you want to come. And in order to get in the door you have to contribute something to the feast. If you don't cook, a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, a case of beer ... all these are appropriate. I might also need another fold-out table or some chairs. That would depend on who is coming. I just can't make as many sides this year because I have a small crappy kitchen, whereas this summer we had a big kitchen and 3 of them right next to each other to use. It will still rule though because my turkeys are the best. Hope to see most of you there!

Let me tell you all why I love my friends. Not to harp on the issue (although, in reality, its the only thing really happening in my life right now) but I've been complaining for a while now fairly consistently that I have no money. If you think the pissing and moaning has been confined to just this webpage, you are sorely mistaken. I bitch day and night ... and apparently its starting to work.

My friend Mark felt sympathetic towards my situation and said that the next time I run into him, he will buy me two beers. Ryan went one step further to say that he would buy a bunch of Keystone and we could sit at his apartment and play 6-cup. Raul took the cake by telling me that Saturday night, drinks are on him. And this is why I love my friends.

As of yet, nobody has offered to buy me any food despite the fact that I've spent both nights starving in bed after trying to assuage my hunger pangs with canned tuna and stale tostitos. And that is why I love my friends. So anybody who wants to help a brotha out, I haven't been to Outback in aaaages. Thanks and gig me.

Oh yeah, and on a side note. Webcam is gone. Sorry kiddos. I have one fucked up PC, one broken camera, and one camera that won't load or work on my laptop. Plus I'm sick of being exposed. The end.

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This morning I hit the ol' snooze button one too many times. Next thing I knew, I was laying in bed at 7:30 when I have class at 8:00. So I did what I had to do. I omitted certain things from my morning ritual. One of these was showering. When you're going to be late again (batting 1000 on being late to the 8) hygeine takes a back seat to speed. Also, grooming is out the window. Fashion is a non-issue. To sum it all up, I woke up, pulled some pants on over my boxers, threw on some flip flops and was pulling a shirt over my geezy, messed up hair as I ran to the bus stop. And since I was running late, everyone around me was running late as well, and looked the part ... or did they ...

As some of you know, I live on or near Sorority Row, the row of worthless houses containing worthless people. Two of these pillars of society got on the bus one stop after me. At first glance, they appeared to have rolled out of bed and gotten onto the bus. The pajamas were a dead give away. But as I continued to look at them, passing in and out of consciousness, I started noticing that they had clearly not rolled out of bed. This was a carefully crafted look.

Her makeup was impeccable, her hair quite styled. The pj's matched the baby T she was wearing and she was bright eyed despite the hour. Anyone who gets up early in order to achieve an unfinished 'look' and spends time trying to look cutesy for an 8:00 class should be hit on the head with a tack hammer.

Ergo, sorority girls are dumb. QED.

Welcome to the last Friday of the summer, dear viewers. Another chapter of our unacademic career has come to a close. I would muse upon the experiences gained this summer, but in reality, that wouldn't take very long. I didn't do a fucking thing this summer. I went to work (fairly regularly) and drank at bars. I didn't take any vacations. I didn't go anywhere fun.

I don't mean to sound like a negative nancy though ... I count this among the best summers of my life. While in retrospect I usually regret it, I am a total home body, and I like staying home and doing nothing. Plus, I spent a LOT of money this summer, even by my standards. After all the extravagant meals, tabs at bars, a new laptop with all the fixin's, a new digital camera, a new cell phone ... christ, despite my healthy salary, I'm going into this next semester several G's in debt. How much does that fucking rawk?

I also should take into account all the friends I met this summer. I don't know what it is about summers in College Station, but people are just nicer. I wasn't even taking summer school this year and I made tons of friends (by my standards, tons is around 5 or 6). And most of them I'll probably stay in contact with throughout the school year. I have an idea, why don't each of you leave me a musings about your summer in a comment.

I decided that I wanted my blog to take on a more Jerry Seinfeld-esque observational approach to the entries. As you all may have noticed, I've become increasingly tired of narrating the goings-on of my life. I mean, if the only things you ever did were eat, sleep and drink, you'd run out of interesting ways to phrase it as well. I'm always inspired by people like Maddox or Alfie, both of whom have web pages better than mine. I've had lots of great ideas, sudden inspiration laying in bed or throughout the day, for really great blogs. Problem is, I forget them all before I sit down. Maybe once school starts and I constantly have a notebook in my possession, I'll start being able to remember things.

Anyway, I'm gonna go pretend to work now. I'm comin in on Saturday to help re-mill a board, so I don't feel like I even need to be here today. Holy shit ... fuck that, I'm leaving. I'm going home. Whoo hoo. I am so nice to myself. I love you all, laaaaaaaaaaaaate.

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

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

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

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

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.

I was really waiting to update this story until I could get some photographic evidence of the athletic prowess involved, but unfortunately that requires a third person to act as photographer. And as it were, nothing of note has happened since my last post to fill the void. Anyway, me and the roomie, Joanna were sittin around the kitchen with nothing to do so I made her a friendly wager that whoever could touch their butt to the ceiling first got $100 from the other person. I really didn't think it was a possibility that either one of us would be able to do it, so I was pretty comfortable making that large of a bet and agreeing to it for her.

Once the deal was sealed, we both set out trying to figure out how on earth to get our asses so high up in the air. I tried bracing myself with the kitchen counter and walking up the wall, but I have no leg muscles. So the next idea was to walk up the wall over by the dryer where it is reasonably spaced for just such a task.

In the end, it was teamwork that was necessary in order to touch one's ass to the ceiling. Joanna got in position, and I propped her up while she got her feet set. Then as she walked up the wall, I got underneath her and lifted her up. Despite her wishes to come down, I lifted her higher and higher. My friend, Chris, happened to walk in just then and I think he was ... um ... lets just say, impressed. Anyway, i eventually had my arms completely extended pressing Joanna's ass against the ceiling of our duplex and only then did she come down.

I was pivotal to her winning so I didn't feel the need to pay her. Not that I was going to anyway.