Mike Robertson: America's Sweetheart

Canoeing/Swimming on a Sunday

2011-09-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

So yesterday, Liz and I agreed to go canoeing with the Harts(and Andrea). We got there and everything was cool, very cheap to rent kayaks and canoes at Paris Mountain. The canoeing area wasn't the biggest but we were scooting around having a nice time enjoying the nice day.

We were half way across the lake making another circle when we see Amanda Hart put her feet in the water off the side of their canoe. I say to Liz "It would be hilarious if the turns over that canoe." and no sooner are the words out of my mouth when the canoe flips on over dumping her and Rich into the lake. They come to the surface sputtering and we gather their belongings into our canoe and try to help them turn their canoe back over. It ends up far too full of water so we keep trying until the "lifeguards" paddle out with another canoe and trade theirs for the overturned one(which even they couldn't empty out without a paddleboat). Amanda can't get into the new canoe and swims over to a log in the middle of the lake. We paddle over and are able to get her into our canoe.

So we paddle back to the docks, everyone seems to be satisfied with the level of excitement for one day and I'm really hot so I was definitely thinking about using the swimming area that they have roped off in the lake. We pull into the dock and I ask Amanda who is sitting in the front of the canoe to grab the tie off chain when we get in. The only problem is, we pull up to the wrong side of the dock and our tie off is on the dock on the other side of the canoe. Before we could push off over to the other side, Amanda reaches out for the chain and......dumps us in the water. So within ten minutes she has capsized two canoes. Four soggy people climb out of the lake and luckily have a change of clothes to replace their sopping wet clothing, I just wonder what the people are going to say when they get the swampy money that was in my pocket.

Forty Seven Days

2011-08-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

As of today, unless theKnot is malfunctioning again, I have 47 days until I will be getting married. In the buildup to the wedding I get one question more than any other question: Are you nervous?

I am not nervous at all to be married, Elizabeth is a perfect match for me and it feels like we're married already so officially being married doesn't seem like a super big step for me. I am nervous for certain things involved with the wedding, but it it more to do with my fear of public speaking more than anything. I think that I will have to give a speech during the rehearsal dinner, in front of a large group of family and friends, and everyone else eating at the same restaurant at prime dinner time on a Friday night. I really hate being the center of attention, but perhaps I may have gotten over this with Elizabeth. I seem to be much different when she's around. I am also nervous about the whole vows thing in front of potentially 120 people. But hopefully I can just tell myself that they're all looking at her and just get through it. Other than that the only thing that I'm nervous about is somehow doing something to mess up her day. It's hard to be nervous about this though because I have no idea what this thing could be so I can't worry and plan for it. So in the end I would say that I'm not nervous to be married at all, very excited, and very excited for the honeymoon the following spring, as long as they aren't right this time with the whole end of the world date, nine days after the wedding.

Angry Badger Reviews

2011-02-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

So its been a while writing a post but I've been pretty busy. Lots of wedding preparations. But I have been playing quite a few movies and games. Here are a review of some of the most recent(with my special DP rating system):

Brutal Legend

A hilariously funny game about a rock and roll roadie(voiced by Jack Black) who gets tranported to a mystical world where the rock is the power. Armed with a battle axe and a lightning spitting electric guitar, he battles through the world to free the people from demonic oppression. The game is an interesting slight twist on the typical hack and slash adventure game, and a fun one at that. The voice acting, although very repetitive, is often hilarious and the various different game missions keep the action pretty fresh. Teamed with a rockin' soundtrack, its definitely a great gaming experience.
That said there are some things that I would like to see fixed in a sequel.
1) The mission marker: Your destination is marked with a column of light, which is good, but its often very difficult to find this light. Bridges, mountains, statues and all manner of insanity are often very tall and often right in the way. A lighted path, like in the Fable series, would make the game much easier to find objectives.
2) Driving controls: Much of the game, your guitar playing allows you to summon a hot rod to drive around in. For as often as you drive this monster, the controls are far less precise as the walking mechanics. This leads to crashing often, comically often. Also the "homing" missile is far from accurate, especially in the escort missions where it seems to fly off up into the air instead of going after enemies.
3) Controlling Your Units: I can't really put my finger on it exactly but the unit control really causes me to pull out my hair often. There's seemingly a way to hit two buttons and select just a certain kind of soldier, but it often doesn't work correctly. Also in the stage battles, you have to keep placing spawn flags with a guitar solo to get the guys to move up from the back of the field. I would much prefer that they just all obey my commands no matter where they are on the battlefield. Also it would be convenient if the units actually obeyed all the commands, instead of just doing so whenever they want.

Overall the shortcomings of the game dont make it much less enjoyable. I'm not sure if I will finish the game, one of the missions involves me driving around in a circle and trapping an animal in that circle, with the noted poor driving controls, its pretty darn terrible.

I give Brutal Legend 3 1/2 Angry Badgers out of 5
The Ghost Writer

In this movie, Ewan McGregor gets hired to write the memoir for the ex-prime minister(Pierce Brosnan). While the cast and concept definitely seem to have the possibility to be entertaining, it really fails to deliver. The Ghost Writer is sorta like showing the audience your poker hand in the first five minutes and then spending two hours to describe why spades are black. It doesn't add to the hand in the slightest and just makes all your friends wonder why you were ever invited to poker night. Also the plot has so many holes that its hard to stick with even the basic plot line of the movie. Why wouldn't they just send the old finished manuscript to the editor to fix? Why doesn't Ewan McGregor just finish up rewrites in a week and get out of there before everything gets funky?
Also Pierce Brosnan's wife is one ugly depressing chick, he could do much better.

I'm gonna give The Ghost Writer a whopping two angry badgers out of 5.

Stop Acting Like a Sixteen Year Old

2010-10-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

So last weekend Liz and I decided to go geocaching on Saturday. We get the first one we go after with little problem and head to the next. Its next to a fruit stand and looks to be another piece of cake, the only problem is theres a little three foot drop off. So while Liz starts walking around, I figure I'll hop down and look around since the geocache is showing as being right there. Then when Liz comes down the hill I can look at her with the shit-eating grin and say "found it". At least thats how it should have happened.

Instead I hit the ground and my right knee totally gives out and I slam to the ground with various terrible popping and cracking noises. My phone and my keys go skittering across the ground. And I'm sadly laying on the ground in a dust pile. Liz comes around the corner and at first thinks that I'm looking for the cache on the ground. Then she realizes that I'm not doing well and helps me up. It feels terrible and its all I can do to get back to the car. Sadly without finding the geocache.

Flash to three days later, the earliest I can get in to see my new orthopedist, my knee, calf and thigh are super swelled. My calf is flexed without any apparent internal off switch. My knee is super painful and I can put barely any weight on my leg. I get x-rayed by a super rough tech, then my new doctor pushes and prods my right leg. Worried about blood clots, he wants my leg ultrasounded. However apparently the tech at the Greer Hospital was out or on vacation or something because it meant that I had to drive over to another hospital to get it done. Then when I went to schedule my MRI, they couldn't schedule me in Greer for at least a week. But they could fit me in at yet another hospital tomorrow.

So I finally hobble out to my car and get over to the next hospital. After waiting for what felt like forever as most of the staff headed for the doors, I finally had a guy lead me back to the ultrasound room. I had thought before that an EKG was the weirdest medical procedure to go through, but the male ultrasound takes the crown by far. I also had the urge at all times to yell "It's a boy!"

But no blood clots, so thats good. I doubt the MRI tomorrow will come back nearly as clean. But at least I get to sleep in a little bit.

Left 4 Dead 3: Family Time

2010-10-09T07:01:00.000-07:00

I just had the best most vivid dream ever last night. Myself, Liz and my parents were the 4 some in a Left 4 Dead esque romp through a post apocalyptic town. It started out with me and Liz hanging out in a hipster style bar with a bunch of people that I assumed were our friends, however I did not know any of them. Everything is normal and very realistic and we're having a good time. Somehow it skips ahead to us going to sleep at my parents place. However it wasn't my parents actual place, it was more of a small town New England town. Morning arrives and disaster strikes. Things are exploding, flooding, falling apart, it was crazy.

So it was Liz and my parents and myself running around trying to survive, but things weren't normal. In one scene that I remember, we were going through a crumbling, flooding stone library. At one point we were walking across the second floor and the floor starts to break and the wall at the end of the hall falls down causing a big rush of water that starts washing Liz and mom down the hall. And at the last minute I reached out and pulled them into a nook in the wall, as the cascade of rubble goes rolling by. I hope this translates to a half decent mental picture, because it was hellishly cinematic.

We get out of the crumbly library and the flooding has gone away and we somehow are in someone's house, sorta recovering after the traumatic library experience. Then stupidly I think to myself, doesn't Left 4 Dead have zombies? I open up the front door and theres zombies everywhere. In one of the funnier parts of the dream, I look down and theres a box full of machetes sitting beside the door. Just as I pick one up, the wall explodes and Liz and mom are pulled outside by a giant monster. Dad and I bust out the front door swinging away at zombies. I turn to dad and ask "Where should we go?" and he turns to me calmly and says "Follow the checkpoint over there." This is the first time that I notice that theres a blue glowing diamond on one of the buildings across the zombie filled plaza. So I'm hacking through the horde like its my job and get to this building that ends up being the hipster bar from the beginning of the dream. So I was hacking trough the zombie hipsters and the window in the back flashes and I woke up.

Very crazy dream. Don't know how great it actually translated.

Selective Bouts of Laziness

2010-10-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't written in forever. I often tell people who ask that it is because it is much harder to write a blog in the good times. But the truth is, looking back, it was always good times. So what else could keep me away? One thing could be the fact that as someone writes more and more of these things, it gets hard to write what you have on your mind. Theres tons of things that I would love to write out, some of which would be pretty darn hilarious. But when you care about the people around you, you don't know how they are going to take their business written on the internet, even if it is written in a joking way. Heck even looking back at the last blog's comments(which I didn't read until today), I somehow offended one of my best friends writing a funny list about things that bug me in weddings. But even that isn't the main reason for me staying away from the blog for so long.

The real reason is selective bouts of laziness.

I am normally a hard worker. I have a very creative job that allows me to flex my artistic side and I love it. But after you are designing designing designing all day long, my brain is fried. Even if I have a great story, I sit down to my computer and then end up in facebook instead. However this doesn't just apply to writing, there are other activities that I avoid just because I'm tired of thinking. I love Moe's (even though my fiancée hates it, something about it all tasting the same, however like Nickelback, if you like that one flavor, this doesnt bother you), yet I avoid going a lot of the time because they ask too many damn questions. Perhaps I have this disillusioned view caused by movies and television, where a person visits a neighborhood restaurant a couple times and they know what you want when you walk in the door. I don't even make it hard for them either, I always order the same thing, the same way, and the people working there I have seen multiple times. Plus, I'M ORDERING SOMETHING ON THE MENU, it lists what's on the burrito on the menu, why can't it just be made that way. But no, instead I need to answer fifty questions to get a burrito. At subway I have developed a way to order my sub in about ten words, but theres no way around going item to item in a never ending Tex Mex quest.

Recently however my laziness has spread to items that I wouldn't expect it to, video games. We have been super busy at work lately, so by the time 4:30 rolls around I am totally burnt out. But then I pop in Borderlands to play the latest expansion. While it is without a doubt an awesome addition to a solid game, I catch myself going "I really wish these bandits would cool it and just let me walk on over to grab this item and get back to Captain So and So." I head shot enemies, not because its awesome(which it still is, especially with a flaming sniper rifle) but because it takes a lot less time to kill them that way. So I guess in an usual way, laziness has made me a better gamer.

But laziness aside, I also got engaged since the last time that I wrote and I find myself wanting to live life with her instead of writing down the play by play. But as she is perhaps a reason I don't write too often anymore, shes also the reason I decided today to come back to it. While getting my computer fixed, she found a link to the blog and apparently read it all. When she told me that she had, my mind instantly started freaking out because I can barely remember what all was written in here. Did I write something that would make her think poorly of me? Will she find it boring? Instead she asked one question:

"If I was in your blog, what would my nickname be?"

So hopefully I will start writing again and perhaps we will see.

PS she also thought the story where Katie punched me in the face was hilarious, shes a keeper.

Wedding Thoughts

2009-09-20T16:40:00.001-07:00

Long long time no blogs, but after finishing up my third wedding of the summer, one in which I was a member of the wedding party, it gave me thoughts about the whole wedding celebration. Thoughts I would like to share with anyone who still checks this blog:

1. Short Wedding, Long Reception: No one in the church wants the priest to try to make jokes at the young couple's expense while going on for twenty minutes in a sermon about compromise. Your groomsmen are wearing three piece suits in the 90 degree church. Get to the point. I dos and out the door.
Reception on the other hand can go on for days. Feed your people a meal, they came a long way and spent far too much for you to run them through some appetizers. If you're planning on getting out of there in a half hour or less, just don't bother. Also OPEN BAR.

2. AC in the church: Like I said above, if you're making your groomsmen wear three piece suits, that church needs to be cold. Unless you want to have your friends be remembered as the guy who passed out at your wedding. Sweating balls during a twenty minute sermon sucks.

3. Kids in the wedding: Flower girls and ring bearers are adorable but really should be stopped. Yes it is cute that they're wearing mini versions of big people clothes. But most of the time they are just running around complaining during the ceremony being a distraction. Also during the reception, when they call for single guys and girls for the tossings, they don't mean your five year old.

4. Did I mention OPEN BAR?: Doesn't have to be a full bar, but lets get real. This is an adult ceremony, and there's probably some single people here. Sober people don't do the electric slide.

5. Bubbles are dumb: Seems to be a new trend sparked by the rumor that pigeons explode from eating wedding rice. Lies. Pelt those suckers with some Uncle Ben's. Old school beats cute anyday.

Also we came up with an correlation between the shiny-ness of rented shoes and their discomfort..... be warned.

It's a Wednesday but if no one told me I would still be thinking it was Tuesday

2009-03-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

True Story.

For half the day I really thought it was Tuesday. Probably due to the fact that I was out of the office all day yesturday and the general awfulness of the installation job that I was roped into "helping" with makes me want to forget that day. The type of day that makes someone go home and drink in the shower. It's sort of scary though seeing as I have one of those day calendar things with movie trivia questions on it (today's answer was Natalie Portman, can't have a bad day on a Natalie Portman day) and so I most likely looked at the calender several times this morning. But no, I figured out it was Wednesday when the office went out to lunch to bid a fond fairwell to Tim and get free Mexican food. They had new lunch special menu's printed out and instead of having the same lunch specials everyday, they change. So I was all set to order some nice Tuesday special when my boss goes "Let's see what they have for Wednesday's" and I had a mini "duh" moment that I quashed with some chips and salsa. Along with the development's running up to my car in the rain this morning to give me breakfast, it was a pretty nice free food day. We were going to have free cake too but that got pushed to tomorrow, even though I rushed back from flawlessly setting up an LED sign to get a piece. The only thing that would top off my free food day better would be if someone showed up at my door with free dinner. Or head. That would be pretty good too.

I decided this afternoon that Jeb really needs to start video blogging and tape a new song each week that he makes up and performs to the internet populous. I may have to run this by him this weekend and maybe even bring my camera to facilitate the epic internet stardom that would be sure to follow.

As I mentioned before, my dad visited last weekend. And between discussions about baseball we had one about movie remakes or rebooting of franchises, which we both agreed was really lazy on a filmmaking standpoint. Sure the new Batman movies and Bond movies were good, but at least with James Bond movies, why not call it a sequal. Theres like 25 of them, and coming up with the plotline to a new Bond movie is about as easy as spelling words with alphabet soup. We did agree however that there are some movies that have always been considered classics but would be ten times better today with a remake. Some of these included Alfred Hitchcock movies (especially the Birds, which looking back is a hokey movie, but if it was redone, it would be scary as all hell) and Jaws. But overall I really think the whole Hollywood "reboot the franchise" thing is dumb as hell. I heard the other week that they were thinking about rebooting The Fantastic Four. Sure the movies were really stupid (I still haven't seen the second one, because the previews made me want to hit Stan Lee with a newspaper), but they came out like two years ago. And redoing them as dark as Batman wont make them somehow cooler, just make my eyes burn when I exit the theater. Come up with something new please.

Ok I'm spent, gotta think of a way to get free dinner.

Greenville FORCE

2009-03-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

So this weekend my dad came to visit from Pennsylvania and so I was looking for things to do when he was here instead of just sitting around or going to bars (my parents don't drink). So I heard that Greenville was getting an arena football team at the Bilo Center and this weekend was going to be their first game. I asked him if he'd be interested and he said he was so we went.

We got there a little early, thinking that it could be packed from the advertising that I had heard. People were waiting but we soon found that plenty of seats were still available and we were given seats five rows from the field (for half price, a special they were running, that should have tipped us off). So we get inside and the game is supposed to start at 7. The Bilo center has been tricked out with a mini football field (only 50 yards) with the goal posts replaced with a hanging PVC apparatus. The field is essentially just a cement floor covered with some outdoor carpet surrounded by the bottoms of the old hockey boards covered with padding. Having little faith or low preparation beforehand, the field proclaims the Austin Wranglers instead of the South Carolina Force, as it should. In addition, the ends of the field are still uncovered cement. We sit there and 7 rolls around and the teams continue practicing on the field and the announcer comes on saying that the game would be delayed at least a half hour for "technical difficulties". They suddenly realize that they only half assed the field and start putting down the one missing end, sticking some outdoor carpet down with double sided tape. 8pm rolls around and they have barely finished the one side but start doing the vast team introductions and reading of pre-written sponsor selling points. That's right, they read sales pitches for all of their sponsors, after delaying the game for over an hour. At the same time they seem to have misplaced the outdoor carpeting from the one side and are just laying down some foam padding. The announcer has already referred to the Force as the Drive (Greenville's baseball team) several times. They lose the music for the National Anthem and the girl has to uncomfortably sing it without, which was a mix of different speeds and pitches. But finally at about 8:30 the 7pm game gets started.

We soon realize that the football is laughably bad. The referees call far too many penalties (especially unsportsmanlike contact, which happens at least ten times in the half). The players seem to have never practiced and its a little more than a sandlot game of football with sponsors. There's also unusual rules where extra points are added for kickoffs going through the uprights, and penalty points given to the other team for kickoffs that went out of the end zone (even though this only happened at certain times and not others). The loudest cheers happened when a poor pass by the Greenville quarterback flew into the stands and an 8 year old kid made a perfect catch to the roar of the crowd. Thankfully we made it to the half.

During halftime several hilariously poorly planned events occurred: the dancers' music was lost and they stood in the center of the field waiting for it to turn on before just running off the field, the cancer survivor's little daughter ran around the group of people on the field as her mother talked, like a little blond haired satellite. Then they sent the teams back out with five minutes left on the clock and they basically just waited around lost on the field until it ran out.

The third quarter was more of the same and by the end we had both had enough and exited the half filled arena.

It was so comically bad that I wasn't even sure if I didn't want to come see another one or not. In one way it was so terribly planned and played but almost to a hilariously entertaining way. I have never laughed so much at a sporting event. I get the feeling that with a group of friends and a couple beers it would be as good as an unintentional Harlem Globetrotters-esque spectacle.

Valentine's Day Sweetheart

2009-02-14T22:54:00.000-08:00

I have already written this blog once, got the whole way through and Opera first wouldn't let you use the spell check feature and then deleted what I wrote before I could copy and save it. Bye bye Opera. Here we go again.

Despite being America's Sweetheart and the lovable peach of a guy that I am, I find myself single again on Valentine's Day. I know its just another day, trumped up by candy and flower companies to be a romantic holiday, it still sorta wears on a guy. Although really its nothing new, I have never been in a relationship on the day. So what's a single guy to do to pass the time on such a romantic day?

Huge Pizza, Horror Movie, Long Nap.

I spent most of the day watching movies (I know, nothing new). I started my day with the romantic classic Saw V. I felt it lived up to its Saw brethren, with lots of gross-out "incredible machine-esque" bloody deaths. There were a few parts that I thought were sort of illogical, such as why they people didn't use the dead body for blood instead of putting their own arms in the machine full of saws, or at least trying to break the glass on the top first. I am still amazed that the original Jigsaw killer is still a large part of the movie, despite having died two movies ago. Perhaps they should move forward in the next movie and start working away from that character and focus more on the new killer. He definitely has a creepy enough look to carry the franchise. I definitely thought though that the girl from Dexter would end up being in on the act, since they had made her up to look like the old assistant and her seeming knowledge of how everything worked in the challenge. Who knows, despite laying in a puddle of blood, her arm is never shown, so she could have faked it and let the other guy take the full blunt of it. He looked pretty not alive by the end. So I guess if you're looking for the gross-out psychological horror movie that the other Saw movies are known for, you wont be disappointed with this one.

I followed it up with a surprising, under-hyped amazing movie. The Lucky Ones follows a group of American soldiers, home for a 30 day medical leave after taking various injuries in Iraq and being thrown together in an impromptu cross country road trip. While Tim Robbins and Michael Pena do a great job in their roles, Rachel McAdams is brilliant as a private returning a guitar to the family of soldier who saved her life. She has such an endearing, filter-free but super sweet quality to her that you can definitely relate to. Her humorous little comments really carry the movie. I know its too late for Oscar consideration, but she definitely should have been included in the supporting actress race. If you get the chance to see this movie, I highly recommend picking it up, you wont be disappointed.

So while you may have thought that I was going to throw a nice "whoa is me" blog up for you, I switched it around with the help of two very different movies. That and eating half a pizza and passing out on my couch for a long nap, allowing me to write this blog twice after 2am. Perhaps something romantic next year, but I wont hold my breathe.

While Barrack Goes On and On....

2009-02-09T17:33:00.000-08:00

I will write for yall. Watching him speak, I find that he doesn't really know the meaning of the words "unanimous" or "bipartisan". I'm sorta wondering why he's so insistent in instructing the American people on why the bail out plan is the way to go. It's not like any of us can do anything to stop him, even if we cared to.

But anyway my weekend was pretty darn fun. After last weekend in Clemson, I had no intention to go anywhere else but back to Clemson this weekend. I always have a blast there. So I rolled into Clemson around 7 and even though I did so because I thought that Jeb or BMS would beat me home, I still beat them to their own house. Definite downsides with having crazy jobs teamed with an hour commute (hopefully not for much longer, crossing fingers and such). So I let the dogs out, taking a moment to relish the 60 degree February night overlooking the lake. Moments like that are why I believe that South Carolina is paradise. Of course my moment of reflection was short lived when Trimmy didn't want anything to do with standing around on the porch. I eventually let both dogs back inside where they attacked me while I tried to read a magazine, until Jeb and BMS finally showed up.

The reason Jeb was so late was that he had a little problem with his tire that morning and BMS had to take him to, and pick him up from work. To say that his tire was flat would be the understatement of the year. I have never seen a tire that flat. It looked like he had found out that he had a flat, went out and did high speed donuts on it and then raced it back to the garage on the rim. It was dead as a doornail. He planned to change it out Saturday (and Sunday, but I doubt it happened then either). So by the time they got there, I was starving. But unlike normally, they had a plan on where to go and we went to TD's where far too much fried food was consumed. I have to say though, that they make the best grilled cheese I have ever had in my life. Absolutely amazing.

So after dinner, BMS's abundance of energy had left her quicker than the air in Jeb's tire, and she bid us adieu and we hopped next door to our home away from home, Griffin's. Tony, the owner of Griffin's is a really cool guy and he loves when Jeb and I show up. I don't know if its the abundance of money that we throw down, or just the sheer awesome-ness that we possess, but every time we go there its a great feeling, and I feel kinda like a VIP. We have our usual seats at the end of the bar. The hot bartender ladies love us. Its just a blast the whole time we're there.

Unfortunately Jeb's ex-wife showed up as well and decided to strike up a conversation with Jeb before joining her group of friends. This seemed to really bother Jeb all night, but we still did our best to get by it and have fun. For once Jeb asked to leave before I did and so at about 1 in the morning, we started walking home. We had gotten about half way down the street and I was walking down a little dirt slope when POW down I went. It happened so fast that I was lying on the ground before I knew it. Jeb started laughing as I scrambled back up and I eventually joined him in chuckling as we continued back down the road. It was a hilarious finish to a great evening.

Monday Monday

2009-02-02T13:49:00.000-08:00

So I noticed that I now have 100 posts with that philosophical one from last time. Wish I would have known and I would have made it something good, but so is life.

What a game last night in the Super Bowl. I was down at Jeb's, watching the game on his big ass TV and it was exactly how the Super Bowl should be watched. I found myself cheering for both teams as they went down the stretch, but I'm definitely happy that the Steelers pulled it out. As a Pennsylvania native, I'm sorta attached to that team to do well. Either that or Philly, but Donavan McNabb is a douche bag so there ya go.

So anyway I got this little questionnaire on Facebook today from two of my friends and while I really don't want to support that foolishness on Facebook I thought I would answer the questions on the blog, so that people that would be subject to them are making a conscious decision to read about me, without being bombarded with "25 QUESTIONS OMG BBQ LOL WELCOME TO THE INTERNETS". So here we go:

1. Were you named after anyone? I was born in the 80's and I believe that my parents have said that in the 80's Michael was very popular pop-culturally with Michael Jackson (before he went all crazy and child molestery) so I think that had something to do with it, but otherwise I think they were happy not to give me the family middle name, Eugene.

2. When was the last time you cried? I almost cried at the end of several movies lately, but I held it together. Before that I was having a really bad allergic reaction to a date's cats when we went back to her place. That was sorta embarrassing.

3. Do you like your handwriting? I print very neatly, but only use the cursive handwriting to sign my name. I think my signature is pretty good, very doctory, somewhat looks like my dad's.

4. What is your favorite lunch meat? Turkey

5. Do you have kids? Nope, probably not anytime soon. I'm still too much of a kid myself.

6. If you were another person, would you be friends with you? I'd like to think I would be, I think I have a good sense of humor and I'm a good loyal friend, but at the same time I don't know which other person I would be, maybe that other person would have dissimilar interests. But I'd like to think that the people that surround me as friends are a lot like me, so I guess I subconsciously do enjoy my company.

7. Do you use sarcasm? Who me? Never.

8. Do you still have your tonsils? Probably, I haven't enquired about their status lately.

9. Would you bungee jump? In a heartbeat, I definitely want to try it someday, I have 75 skydives but I think that bungee jumping would be terrifying. Its so low.

10. What is your favorite cereal? Cocoa Pebbles. Although I currently have three healthy cereals that I haven't touched in months.

11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? No, my shoes are usually pretty loose on my feet, I slip in and out of them sitting at my desk at work.

What happened to 12, I blame Coffey for skipping another number.

13. What is your favorite ice cream? Mint Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter Cup, although the lactose intolerance has really cut down on my ice cream intake.

14. What is the first thing you notice about people? Their personalities. Either that or their boobs.

15. Red or pink? Red.

16. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? I have really bad skin. I've done everything I can to make it better but it never works. I guess I'm cursed.

17. Who do you miss the most? Mikkel Green, I wish he lived out here in the western part of the state, driving 8 hours in a weekend is really not an attractive proposition. But I miss having Mikkel around.

18. Do you want everyone to complete this list? No, like I said before, its really annoying on Facebook.

19. What color pants and shoes are you wearing? Blue jeans, no shoes, white socks. I was wearing brown shoes but I'm home now so there's no need for shoes.

Another missed number.....

21. What are you listening to right now? Its actually really quiet in my apartment right now, too quiet........AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

22. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? This reminds me of "If you were a hot dog would you eat yourself?" or "If the moon was made of spare ribs, would you eat it?", but I think I would be black (just like your mother Jeb :) ) because unlike Coffey's answer, I would like to helpful to a lot of people, until they use me up.

23. Favorite scents? Sheets fresh out of the dryer, jambalaya, that smell that women have that is a mix between flowers and fruit.

24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Ish on the phone. DP on the text messages.

25. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Oh yeah, they're both awesome, wish they both lived closer, and were kid free.

26. Favorite sports to watch? Hockey (in person, it loses a lot on TV). Baseball close second.

27. Hair color? Brown.

28. Eye color? Hazel.

29. Do you wear contacts? No, I tried growing up but could never get them in. Then a couple years ago I had lasik, so I hope that I wont have to worry about that stuff again.

30. Favorite food? My mom's beef stroganoff, or steak.

31. Scary movies or happy endings? Depends on my mood, I watch a bunch of both.

32. Last movie you watched? I saw Step Brothers and Burn After Reading last weekend. Both of which were the type of movie that once they were done, you scratch your head and wonder what to say about it and don't know if they were good or bad.

33. What color shirt are you wearing? Blue. Completing the mental picture of me. Unless there's an underwear/ body type question later.

34. Summer or winter? Summer, I left Pennsylvania to get away from the cold, its paradise for three seasons down here but then there's that pesky cold snap.

35. Hugs or kisses? I'm pretty down with both.

Another missed number....COFFEY!!!

37. Most likely to respond? Well my blog is kinda my show, but Jeb and D.P. might comment, they do the most.

38. Least likely to respond? I don't really know who all frequents my blog, so probably one of my secret fans.

39. What book are you reading now? Quantum of Solace, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, Lord of the Flies. I have a bad habit of starting one before I finish another.

40. What is on your mouse pad? I don't have one, don't really need one with a laser mouse unless you have a clear desk.

41. What did you watch on TV last night? The Super Bowl, it was pretty late by the time I got home after that.

42. Favorite sound? Women's laughter. There's just something therapeutic about it.

43. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Stones over Beatles, but I'd listen to both.

44. What is the farthest you have been from home? Cancun.

45. Do you have a special talent? I'm a world class lover.

46. Where were you born? York, Pennsylvania

47. Whose answers are you looking forward to getting back? I don't think I'm going to get anyone filling this out in my comment box, but I guess I look forward to Jeb's comments.

48. Where did you meet your significant other? N/A. Last one was at a party.

Fun Times kids, time to make dinner. Catch ya'll later.

Wondering...

2009-01-28T17:16:00.000-08:00

I was thinking today, are the people that I think are stupid actually the smart ones and I'm the dumb one? It's sorta a distressing thing to think about.

I hope I'm just right.

You Know You Play Too Much Farcry 2...

2009-01-26T17:31:00.000-08:00

1. You develop a natural fear of Jeep Liberties- When you play for hours and every time you see one of these death wagons roll up and some douche bag with an AK tries to run you over and then hops out and tries to punch holes in your nice soft skin, suddenly the soccer mom following you on the highway seems like America's most wanted.

2. You start looking for helpful flashing objects in every room- So what if someone hasn't hidden briefcases of uncut diamonds in my bathroom, there's gotta be something in here that I can use.

3. You carry around a ratchet set in your car- Just in case the engine starts smoking and you need to tighten that handy bolt on the radiator that fixes everything from bullet holes to smacking into a rock wall.

4. You attach important papers to cardboard- Heck that map in the game suddenly becomes water proof, bullet proof, fire proof, doesn't stain, tear or become misplaced. It also somehow folds up into a tiny pocket sized carry on. Hell my keys are going to be attached to cardboard.

5. You wonder about the everyday businesses around you- Which are ammo strongholds? Which are harboring arms dealers? Which have huge gas tanks just waiting to blow with an arrant sniper shot? Danger is everywhere.

Mieneke

2009-01-23T12:09:00.000-08:00

I found out today that Mieneke (sp?) is the place to go. I'm really terrible about getting my oil changed when I should but today I was like, "Hell why not, get some better gas millage and stuff" (my car is already a frickin beast, it gets like high twenties MPG and I can still blow by shitty hybrids like they're standing still). Now I went to Jiffy Lube before, after telling my coworkers that it had been like 20,000 miles since I got my oil changed and they looked at me like my car should be on fire in the parking lot, and Jiffy Lube has like a million little guys running around and fixing shit and it seems really professional. But they bring you out into the shop and have you look at this computer that says that they reccomend you get all this shit fixed and that they can cut you a deal for like $900 bucks for all this crap that I know my three year old car doesn't need.

So I walk into Mieneke today and they're like "We'll look at 45 different things, change your filters, rotate your tires, and give it a happy ending for $20 and a Bojangles bisquit." They have George "Grillmaster" Forman smiling at me from the counter and I'm like "hell yeah, hell go all supreme on its ass." So I'm reading a couple magazines, finding out that Sports Illustrated really hangs on Peyton Manning's penis and the guy is like "For six bucks a tire, we'll balance those biznatches for you," So I figure that they're already basically jacking off my car in the back for like nothing, why not. So they keep doing their thing and it goes on for a while and the guy comes back to me again. He starts telling me what a good girl my car was and all the systems were all pristine and crap and ends with a little "Your transmission fluid is breaking down a little bit, but thats like the only thing" So I ask how much that would be and start trying to look around like rainman for their big board of prices. He says something like $100, and I was thinking in my head that if it was like $40 I might go all out today and spoil her. But I said no and he didnt give me the "you're gonna die" sigh that they do and I finished reading my magazine and paid my tiny bill and the car runs like a dream.

Way to go Mieneke.

Damn You Mongolians!!!

2009-01-22T15:54:00.000-08:00

I made Mongolian beef tonight for dinner. They may knock down the "shitty" wall, but the beef is frickin delicious. And of course because its me, I had to add hot sauce to it. But peach hot sauce to match the sweetness of the dish. I know I know, stop watching Food Network and go out and get laid. Well to all the single ladies out there, just know that you too can be sharing Mongolian Beef (which I actually made with ground chicken, so its not really beef I guess) with America's Sweetheart.

I feel since this week was the presidential inauguration that I should probably say something on my thoughts. While I was burnt out on Obama-itis in the days and hours of build up to the big event and I felt that they went slightly overboard. Sure first black president and everything, but to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an inauguration in the midst of an economic crisis seems sort of silly. But I do have to say that his speech was very very moving and I almost welled up with American pride at several moments. While I think President Obama will prove to be just another Democrat, he's definitely a strong speaker and its nice to give America a powerful voice in the world.

As far as his cabinet selections, it will never happen but it would be hilarious if they don't approve Hillary. I think her head could explode on national TV. To lose the primaries, get appointed to a cabinet post and then be rejected by the other democrats, it would be priceless. The one that really bothers me however is that the selection for Treasury Secretary has, get this, been skipping out on his taxes. He had $38,000 in owed taxes, that hes apparently taken care of since he was named as the pick for secretary. But in his words, he was "confused" about the tax rules. The guy that will be the head of the entire country's money situation, can't figure out his own tax stuff. Oh yeah I'm optimistic about this one.

It's been a semi-long week and I'm definitely looking forward to a weekend in COLUMBIA, which should be pretty interesting. So blog fans, keep posted, and Cola people, get ready for some fun.

Tucker Max

2009-01-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

Today I got a request from TK "Dr. Thunder" Davis to write a blog about Tucker Max, saying that my blog reminded him of tuckermax.com only I'm less mean,

I read a lot of Tucker Max's site a couple years ago and really thought it was hilarious. Especially the story where he got the breathalyzer and talked about his blood alcohol level in relation to the ungodly things that happened to him (which I believe ended with him with no pants outside a sushi restaurant). But then all of a sudden he got famous, wrote a book and seemed to stop writing about anything except for how awesome everyone else thought he was.

While I can sorta see how my blog is at times a lot like this stories. I think its a little more humble than him and pull in much fewer women. I don't feel very comfortable talking about my sexual escapades in my blog (even though a lot of the time they are pretty darn funny, I'm not sure if that's good or not), at least for now. Truth be told, most of the time I'm not getting wasted and chasing women. I watch a ton of movies (and may start doing more movie reviews) and TV, during the week. I don't like drinking alone or going into work hung over (teamed with also feeling sort of uncomfortable about writing about work, with the fear that someone from work might stumble across it), often my window for doing something hilarious is limited to two or three days a week. But I'll do my best to keep writing stuff y'all enjoy and hopefully someday enough people could read this that I could either be sponsored or get a book deal, which would be pretty sweet. Thanks to Dr. Thunder for his topic suggestion.

Hello Again

2009-01-16T10:19:00.000-08:00

I noticed recently that with the addition of Netflix to X-box live has created a paradox. You can go online and select movies in their "Play Now" section and add them to your Instant Queue and then go and watch them on the big screen using the 360. While this is very convenient, it also causes me to go through much fewer movies a month that they send me. Movies sit on my counter for a week before I pop them in. I used to get it and watch it and turn it around in a day or so and now I'm doing 8 movies a month through the mail. While I'm not sure this is a terrible thing, seeing how the online movies are just as good in quality, with only a slightly worse selection. Maybe I will drop it from two at a time to one at a time.

Another thing it causes me to do is discard bad movies very quickly. If I queue up an instant movie and in the first fifteen minutes it doesn't impress me, I cut it off immediately and move on to the next one. When my only choices were to watch the movies that I got in the mail, I would sit through some really awful movies because it was either that or watch reruns of NCIS. While its sorta nice to not have all my eggs in that little red basket, I also wonder if I cut the movie off too fast and missed the hidden gem that it will become. Then again the blond girl might just make bad decisions for the next hour and a half, to the point where I'm yelling at my TV for her to get some parental supervision.

Last weekend D.P. and L.C. came to visit. Its always a mind boggling experience being around those two. One second they are cuddling on the floor, everyone is peachy, we're playing some Scene It (or not so much playing as I'm kicking ass and they're trying to keep up), and the next: there's an accidental elbow to the balls that starts a shouting match, an angry controller throw, and about a half hour's worth of arguments and apologizing. Of course this is followed by a cutesy make up kiss, and then another argument about the amount of alcohol that is being consumed. It's like hot to cold and back again in zero seconds flat. Can't end up being a good thing.

Also last weekend we bid a fond farewell to Captain Pretentious and The Katie. They moved off to Sweden and left us poor country folks behind. While we all promised to come visit, and the idea of hot easy women (Swedish chicks are the most likely in the world to have a one night stand, over 65% have) and tasty meatballs is very appealing, I doubt I ever will. The simple fact is that I would much rather drop several hundred dollars and my year's vacation days on a nice Caribbean vacation then going over there and freezing my ass off. I'm pretty content over here sending C.P. obscene text messages at ungodly Swedish hours.

OK I think I'm going to go try to find a coffee table or some art to spice up my walls here. If y'all want to get more posts, you should really say "You should update your blog, write about...." and insert your own subjects. I could use the help after coming home brain fried from work.

The Hinder Factor and Other Thoughts

2008-12-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

The other day I was driving back to work at lunch and had a breakthrough thought. If you listen to a Hinder album and can relate to the songs, you are part of a bad relationship. With songs such as Better Than Me, Nothing Good about Goodbye, Lips of an Angel, and How Long (which don't sound very bad with just the titles) the album is a catalogue of relationship woes. Try it out, you could learn things.

Why the heck did they have to cancel Pushing Daisies? For a channel that has such shitty unintelligent shows as Wife Swap and Nanny 911, is it too much to ask that one night a week they put on a show that is actually good. I guess this show shows how stupid the majority of the American television audience are.

Tomorrow, on the 18th of December, its supposed to be 70+degrees in South Carolina. Thank you Jesus for answering my chilly prayers.

I wonder if I made more if I would have more spare money around or if I would just spend more. Sounds like something I wish I could test out.

Speaking of which these commercials that make it look like the thing to do at Christmas is giving away a Lexus or a $3000 ring are pretty unbelievable. While I would love the ability to give away high end automobiles, it sorta seems like bad advertising to believe that you can influence enough of the TV watching public into buying them that you could pay for prime time advertising.

Infused with Goodness

2008-12-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

I was determined this weekend to have a great time. While not a horrible week, I wasn't very successful in the major project I had hoped to accomplish. A birthday party for The Katie on Wednesday did a good job on tiding me over to the weekend with a nice infusion of midweek fun (even though The Katie started crying when she saw me at the bar, not very good to see even if its happy tears). When Friday rolled around I had every reason to believe that it would be a fantastic weekend.

After a long nap I figured that showing up by 6 would be plenty of time for Jeb and BMS to get home and start hanging out. With holidays and being in other parts of the state, it would be the first time I'd hung out with Jeb in three weeks and would be the last time I'd see him before New Years. He had also made it clear that Friday would be the only day this weekend that he would be in town, having already committed to two Christmas parties on Saturday. This was fine with me since the epic friends' Christmas was planned (at the last minute) for Saturday afternoon. Anyway I showed up at Casa de Hunter around 6 and as I was pulling in I received a call from Jeb saying that he was still at work. But he encouraged me to go on in and he would be home in a little bit. So I go in and drop off my stuff and let the dogs out of their little cage as they were freaking out with the introduction of a human to their private party. I let them outside and was just sitting down and getting used to them trying to interrupt me reading a magazine when my phone rang.

C.P. had apparently gotten out of work early and had been drinking since 3 in the afternoon. He wanted me to come over and join him in continuing the hitting the bottle. I was greeted by a miniature pint glass of the current Benjamin's Bastard Brew. We played Mario Cart and sipped booze while the rest of the party got to town. An hour and another argument about shoes later (two weeks in a row) we headed downtown to meet Mr. and Mrs. H at Nick's. We were sure however to drive through the drive through of Rite Aid and taunt C.P.'s brother Ginger through the drive through call system (which may or may not have involved the penis game).

Nick's was packed as usual as we had a beer or two and talked about odds and ends and how amazing and unexpected it was that the polo twins are now engaged. Jeb and BMS finally showed up and we headed out to Griffin's (I know there's a pattern here). On the way we ran into Ginger and all gave him a group hug on the sidewalk. The really hot bartender was there as usual (Nicole or Melissa or something like that) and it was time for liquor. I was starving since I thought that I would be getting food at 6 when I showed up at Jeb's. After some buffalo chicken wrap and Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka (feel free to sponsor me Firefly, your shit is delicious) I was talked into leaving Griffin's for TTT's. I was pretty against it except for the part that the only women that were there were the wait staff and the women that we brought.

The ratio was much better at TTT's as we revolved around the place with two different pitchers that I unceremoniously mooched off of (in a good, "here friend have some liquor" kind of way). We eventually found a table and sang, danced and teased into the early morning hours. I may have threatened C.P. with punching when he wouldn't cut out trying to pinch my nipples (in a good, "here friend id prefer if I didn't have to punch you in the face" kind of way). Eventually both couples decided that they were too tired and left (an apparent plus to having a significant other is being able to have an easy excuse to head out). One thing I learned however was normal Mrs. H is funny, drunken Mrs. H is hilarious and makes deep throating motions in a crowded bar. Jeb and I finished the last of the alcohol and he decided that he might have to get up early tomorrow so we headed out. Even though when we got back Jeb beat the new Prince of Persia again before heading to bed (which is a really stupid ending and makes it a waste of a game). I ended up passing out on the sofa as usual.

The next day I woke up sort of early for a Saturday and watched part of a movie while waiting for a ride to my car to drive home. The party was scheduled for 3 at Mr. and Mrs. H's. Fried turkey was promised and Mrs. H is like Martha Stewart so I definitely expected everything to be absolutely unbelievable. So when 3 rolled around I grabbed my Secret Santa gift (I was designated to buy for The Katie, got her this goofy looking snow hat that she could wear in Sweden, it could have been lame but the other women at the party all asked where to get one for themselves, so I either did a fairly good job or they were being nice) and my fairly unsophisticated bottle of wine and headed over. I expected everyone would be super late, but I showed up at quarter after 3 and was at least an hour ahead of the next guest. Seems sorta like a bad thing but it didn't turn out to be that bad as I got to chat with the H's and hear stories from Mrs. H that I wouldn't expect her to say (that involved watching porn). Amazing appetisers and The Katie, C.P., D.P., L.C., and Keihner followed. There was some football throwing, video game playing and something that involved parking a boat. Frying the turkey only caused a small fire and dinner as I predicted was amazing. We ate until we were all stuffed and sat around telling funny stories afterwords. We did the whole secret Santa thing and the polo twins ducked out fairly early. We sat around on the deck for a while when I definitely felt tired enough that I wanted to go home but was met with a lot of resistance (see this is where the significant other comes in handy, no one questions a woman feeling tired and needing to be driven home). There was a bottle of really alcoholic beer that had a hint of brown sugar (not really tasty to me) broken out and split between all of us and I gave my share away. People started to get cold and I thought it was my perfect time to duck out. Unfortunately I wasn't very secretive and my plan was figured out immediately. I still headed out and passed out upon reaching my home.

So apart from a nice trip to Red Robin today with D.P. and L.C. before they drove back to Columbia, and plenty of laundry, that was the weekend. Hope yall enjoyed it as much as I did.

Christmas Spirit

2008-12-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

I don't know whats wrong this year. Usually I'm pumped for Christmas and as a very positive person, I'm usually really feeling great with the general positiveness of the season. This season however, I just can't get into it.

I turned down my mom's offer to get me a little Christmas tree for the apartment.

I've barely even started Christmas shopping. Last year I was pumped to go out and get thoughtful gifts for friends and family, this year I find other things to do and just put it off.

Today at lunch they were playing Christmas music over the speakers at Quiznos and I really contemplated asking them to change the channel.

I even have Christmas lights up on my balcony (in the shape of lobsters!!! My neighbors are coming up with theories on the hidden meaning between the lobsters and the poorly strung light rope.) and it still doesn't help to put me in the Christmas spirit.

This Christmas break is going to be huge, eight days off, and I get to go home and be with the family this year. And still no enthusiasm.

I don't know what it is this year but it just sorta fills me with apathy. I'm not even really sure if I'm bothered by it. It's just kinda strange.

In case you haven't noticed (or complained to me in person), I haven't wrote on here in a long while. The other day C.P. texted me at work and asked me why. So I thought I would share it with yall. The reason that my writing has cut down (aside from laziness) is that it seems so much harder lately to tell a weekend story without cutting out large interesting, fairly funny parts because they could embarrass someone or tick off someone else. Its not even bad things but leaving them out would really make for a bare bones story without the funny anecdotes that I think that everyone who reads this blog enjoys. I can't write about friends fighting, even if their arguments are at times some of the most hilariously pointless fights I've ever heard. And even if I do well with the ladies, I can't really write about it later. It just has seemed so difficult lately to get a great post worthy story up.

That and I'm lazy.

Insider Trading is Dumb and Stuff

2008-11-25T14:23:00.000-08:00

Last week or so, Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks got busted for insider trading. Sucks for him. Because really the whole idea for busting people for insider trading is dumb. Think of it this way. You and a bunch of your friends put your money in a pot. Then one of your friends tells you that if you don't take your money out of the pot someone will set it all on fire and you won't get anything back. You would take your money out of the pot. Insider trading is like that only on a much larger scale. I'm sorry but punishing these people because they were told that their $750,000 was going to disappear and them thinking that was a bad idea, is really dumb. Investing like life, doesn't need to be fair.

Apparently in the last week two of the characters from Laguna Beach were married. The only way that I would care about this is if the reception hall caught fire and got rid of the cast of Laguna Beach.

Last weekend Jeb and I were playing the new game Little Big Planet for the PS3. While possibly being one of the most beautiful, perfectly textured, fantastically witty games I have ever played. Playing it (especially with a friend) is the most frustrating experience of my life. What looks like a kids game, with characters call sackboys (which you can dress up with mustaches and sombreros, which is hilarious), is anything but kiddish. Jeb and I are not novice gamers but it was like asking five year olds to do Calculus.
Your partner goes and grabs the thing you were going to swing off of as you jump:
You die.
Your partner sets off explosives while you are right beside them:
You die.
You wait too long so your partner can get out of the way before you go:
You die.
One level even had depth charge type explosives that only exploded if you hit them onto some other object, guess how many times we died before I quit:
27.

I am leaving tomorrow for a trip back up to Pennsylvania for the Thanksgiving holiday. Plenty of family and friends that I haven't seen in over a year so we might get a crazy post Sunday but chances are after driving a combined twenty hours in the next five days, I won't be all that conscious Sunday night. Also feel free with your complaints on me not writing to suggest something that you would like to hear my opinion on. I could always use the suggestions.

Gurdy Gurdy and Bartender Infatuation Continued...

2008-11-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

So I awoke (much earlier than I hoped) and got a ride back to Jeb's from Ish's. Immediately upon entering I almost fell back asleep on the couch, but was talked into hitting up some Moe's (that's a lot of apostrophes in two sentences). We got it to go and headed back to Jeb's to crash. And crash I did, falling asleep almost immediately upon finishing some burrito goodness.

I awoke later to the beginning of the Clemson football game and a video that Jeb took of me snoring. Clemson seemed to be doing half decently but as the game went I suggested we head down to Esso to watch the rest of the game and get more of their fairly good food. Sadly everyone and their mother had the same idea and we abandoned Esso for a walk up the street back to Griffin's. Griffin's has a big advantage over the Esso and she was definitely working Saturday night. This woman is a goddess and apparently also plays the guitar and teaches special needs children. She is like how you would describe the perfect woman to someone else. I want to make a move with all my being but can't for the life of me get up the nerve. Part of it could be that I enjoy the fantasy of the perfect girl and don't want that to be ruined by the inevitable rejection, but probably it has to do with my brain turning to mush when she talks to me and me being a big dumb ass around every woman there is. Anyway Jeb and I ate and had a great time sitting there for like six hours. At first I felt great, hanging out and having a good time, just still a little tired. But as the night went on I felt worse and worse. I did my best to hold it together, drinking a lot of water but it was no use. I was exhausted and felt horrible and had to get out of there. Even the silly teasing I was getting (which ranged from me drinking water to the way I was sitting?) was getting on my nerves. So I cashed out and got out of there. I strolled back to the condo in the cold (which surprisingly helped). After chatting with BMS for a little while about things that I don't remember in my deliriously tired state, I was able to get back to the couch to fall asleep.

The rest of the weekend involved staying much longer than I had planned, watching Jeb kick so much ass in Spiderman that he actually made the game skip. Once I got home I hunkered down and trimmed the inserts so they would be ready for Monday and watched three of my favorite movies. All and all it was a great weekend like usual, one I'd be happy to repeat any week.

Gurdy Gurdy and Bartender Infatuation

2008-11-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

After sadly missing writing about last weekend's Halloween extravaganza, where, dressed as a doctor I dominated all challengers in Beer Pong to the point where I tried to handicap myself by holding small dogs at the same time, I decided to do my best to knock this entry out before the wave of Captain Pretentious's bitching hits my cell phone. For some reason, some weeks I just don't feel up to writing when I get home from work and last week was one of those weeks. Especially when I had to bring at least two hours of work home three days out of the week. So making it to the weekend (even with the disappointment that came with my week's work needing to be trimmed down this afternoon) was a welcome relief of the stresses of the work week. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but sometimes its very stressful. Especially those moments where you're trying to insert a piece of plastic into its holder in front of your client and its not fitting.

So after that stressful Friday morning where I was sent over to the hospital to put vinyl hours on their doors and deliver the stack of inserts that I had been working all week on, I was looking forward to getting the weekend started. All week on the radio at work I had been hearing about this sale going on at the one expo center where you could get electronics for much cheaper than normal. I had been wanting a wireless router for weeks, hoping to allow both my x-box and my computer to access some Internet at the same time, with the added bonus of being able to surf the net on the couch or in bed. So after work I headed over there. I was greeted by a sign telling me that I would have to pay four dollars just to park. I never carry cash. It just doesn't seem very logical for me to do so with the ability to use my debit card, so I had to drive around and find an ATM to get some money out. I finally got some cash and headed back to the lot where an old woman was collecting cash. Before handing her the money, I asked if I would be charged again before I was allowed to check out the merchandise in the expo center. She said it would be another seven dollars. So now I'd be up to eleven dollars before even seeing if they have anything I want. I kindly thanked the woman and did a U-turn back out onto the road. Anyway long story short, I ended up going to Walmart and buying one for what it would have cost to get into the expo center and purchase the shady marked down merch. Setting it up was another story as the directions are delightfully vague and the only way I got it to send out Internet was to directly plug to router into my computer, which sort of takes away from the benefit of the Internet being wireless. So hopefully I will figure it out later this week or get some help.

After failing at turning my apartment into a wireless haven, I put my stuff together and drove on down to Clemson, a surreal feeling because this now involves doing so in the dark despite it being only about five in the evening. I arrived at Jeb's place, seconds after a call saying that he had been caught at work and wouldn't be there for another forty five minutes. BMS was also absent and I basically just sat around waiting for someone to get home in a house that isn't mine. Jeb says that this isn't a problem but its still sorta weird to me. I was relieved to finally get a call from the Polo Twins (C.P and the Katie) extending an invitation of pizza. Ten Minutes later Benjamin time (45 minutes real time) we hopped in the car and headed over to Peppinos. Both Jeb and BMS had arrived home in those ten minutes and so the evening began. For some reason I have come to hate Peppinos because it seems like its always 90 degrees in there so I feel uncomfortable sitting in there sweating my ass off, waiting for their overly greasy pizza. Happily we weren't there too long and started our night out at the bars.

As usual we started at Nick's with a couple Dale's Pale Ales. One of the bartenders was told by my party that it would be funny to spank my ass, and did so on a sneak attack when I wasn't paying attention. We bounced from bar to bar and ended up as we often do at Griffin's. This was happily early enough to get a waitress for at least the beginning of the outing and she turned out to be a really cool chick that coincidentally was from twenty minutes away from my house in Pennsylvania. After a while of hanging out, she decided to join us after she got off, and we all had a fun time. Except for one thing. I don't really know how it started or why they do it, but when the Polo twins join us out drinking, everyone pinches my nipples. I am sitting there relaxing with my friends and suddenly one of the three of them will lay into me with some wicked pinching. I kinda don't get it, don't really appreciate it and wish they would just come up with something else to bug me with, but apparently to them it is hilarious. After the twins left, Jeb and I stuck around for another couple hours before heading home, where I somehow was able to get a ride from Ish to spend the night at her place, which is always nice.

To be continued....

Too Late and Zombie Troubles

2008-10-31T12:52:00.001-07:00

After slacking through the entire week and not writing about the previous weekend, I'm not sure if it will get written about in detail. However here are a few things that we learned in the last weekend:

1) BMS should not drive and use the Blackberry at the same time- Holy crap. Emailing and driving on winding back roads and highways don't mix. I think my finger marks are permanently ingrained in the armrests.

2) Jeb's dad's boat is the shizzle- It's so close to the battleships in the harbor that you could stand on the back and peg people with rocks (if you wanted to do that) and once you're inside you can barely tell that you're even on a boat.

3) Charleston is Heaven- There is a five to one hot girl to guy ratio. So so many hot women. One day I will be there.

4) Women doing believable cricket noises is a surprising turn 0n- Yeah I didn't realize it myself.

and the big # 5

A lot of gas stations close by 11:00- Saturday night we had no gas and were crossing our fingers when the Garmin said that the next closest station was another 15 miles away (through the middle of flooded nowhere). Its OK the first time it tells you this, but by the fifth time in a muscle car, you start to worry a little bit.

Now on to zombies. I've been playing Dead Rising and had an incredibly angering time today with it. Here is my story.

I polish off the one boss easily with several shotgun blasts and get a call from Otis that my services are needed. I jump kick and smack my way through the zombies to a boarded up clothing store where two people have barricaded themselves in. I fight off the horde of zombie outside like the pimp I am and move some barricade to get inside. I'm rewarded with one of the two inhabitants running up and smacking me with a bat before I can explain that I'm here to save them. So I wail on him for a little until he finally gives up and he and his buddy decide to allow me to save their lives. I get outside the barricade and call for them to follow me while I restock some weapons at the hardware store. The hardware store is always good for zombie killing. I return to find that they not only got hung up on the environment, they are now fighting through zombies very poorly. I help them out and we go talk to Brad, which basically takes fighting though masses of zombies to have him be pissed off at some old man. So we head back the other way. A couple zombies catch me but overall I'm doing OK, and the two guys I saved are being troopers. I get another call from Otis which causes me to have to run around like a crazy person since the game doesn't allow me to fight and hear about missions at the same time. I'm told that there's a woman in the jewelery store who need my help. So my merry band of shitty fighters follows me to the jewelery store, sort of. As I go inside I look out and the biggest group of zombies ever has surrounded the two morons and they are not knocking down any of them. I head outside and somehow pick off the zombies with a shotgun without hurting the two guys in the middle. I get one of them back inside and the other one decides that he wants to crawl to the store. I'm waiting forever and picking off the zombies that are trying to eat him. I finally get them in the shop and talk to the girl who is hysterical over the loss of her baby. Unfortunately this means that she doesn't want to walk. So I scoop her up and realize that this has caused me to not be able to get over the counter and out the door. So I have to put her down, jump the counter and then stand there like a moron and call for them to follow me. This takes what seems like hours and finally I scoop her up and run through the horde of zombies(since again I can't do shit with her on my back) yelling to tweedle dum and tweedle dee to follow me. I get past two areas of the mall and get to the giant park in the middle. Unfortunately this starts a cut scene with three crazy guys on a Humvee running people down. So I run on up and invite the girl to join me in my trek to safety which is right across the clearing.
So I now have a girl on my back, and a girl and two guys running behind me through a park full of zombies. I think that I have lucked out because the hummer seems to be leaving my party alone for the time being and we cross the park with barely any incidents (besides the two guys getting stuck in a decorative pond until I walked up and continued yelling in their faces for them to follow me). We get to the door and its blocked by tons of zombies. I pull out my shotgun to clear a path when one zombie grabs me. One of the retard twins does his best to get it off me with the gun I had given him and manages to shoot me twice. As I'm picking up the girl again and thinking how awesome it will be when I get four rescues at the same time, out of nowhere the Humvee comes blasting on through smacking me into the wall following it up by blasting me to death with the mounted machine gun on the back.

And that's all she wrote. No rescue. No big bonus and feeling of wicked awesomeness. Just me, starting the game over.

Damn Zombies.

Sorry

2008-10-28T16:29:00.001-07:00

I know I'm taking forever to write like usual, but it probably wont be until tomorrow, tonight is House and Fringe night so my time is taken up.

My Reaction to Tonight's House Episode

By Mike Robertson

Caution Spoilerz!?!?!

Tonight's episode made little to no sense to me. Sure there was the interesting case of the father/daughter combo who had no feelings and would sleep walk for long periods of time, where he would somehow drive his car and do coke, but then there was the underlying mishmash story line.

House continues to be overly dickish to Cutty (who I have a super crush on), and never really explains why he even cares that she's getting a kid. Then the big problem, the fucked up meth-addict mother. What, a meth addict who says shes been clean for a couple months is having health problems? No way. Then after they risk the baby's life to save her, she suddenly has a change of heart about giving the kid away? Now I had a feeling the whole time watching the episode that something would happen and Cutty wouldn't get the baby, but damn it Cutty. If that baby and her tiny underdeveloped lungs could speak, she would be telling you that its time to have a scene where you turn the pain meds up and cause the meth-addict mother (who will probably go back to drugs and unprotected sex even before she gets out the door of the hospital)to bite the big one and give the little tike a future in a nice neutrally painted room. Hell it would be a whole season's worth of drama where she struggles whether to come clean. Or at least fight it a little, how tough could it be to convince a judge that you would be a better parent then a drugged out teen. They could have slipped it in and still had time to include the poorly written ending where no impressive monologue is said about his feelings and House finally kisses her and leaves. Sure it was a sorta predictable episode of House that overall wasn't that bad, but I think the writers got lazy or something.

Let me know what yall think.

Butch, Sundance and Bojangles

2008-10-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

I had a fantastic day today, got a raise (not a huge one, so don't go asking me to buy you dinner) after being told in my yearly review that I was the bomb diggity. I'm sort of uncomfortable when I'm the focus of a conversation, even when its good, but I was pretty stoked to be told by my boss that I was doing a good job and would be getting 8% more money each month. Anyway on with the weekend overview.

The weekend started like the others. Relaxing afternoon off from work. Fast food. Tennis in the Hamptons (no not really). Video games. After all that I drove on down to Clemson, stocking up on a four pack of Red Bull on the way to hopefully ward off the case of the yawns that usually catch up with me unusually early on a Friday night. Also I heard murmurs about having to get up at 8am on Saturday for another 12 hours of tailgating which sounded much better with an infusion of caffiene. I arrived just in time for Jeb to show me a new game he had rented before dinner. This game was called De Blob and consisted of moving your little paintball around this cartoon city and bringing color back to the area. Surprisingly very fun and very addictive. But 8pm rolled around and we decided to go to the Japanese place for dinner. BMS ordered this appatiser that appeared to be sugar snap peas with salt on them. She had some fancy name for them but they certainly weren't jalepeno poppers or anything. She put us to shame with her ability to open them with her mouth (no not in a dirty way) and we all ate up on Japanese for a while (with a mixup which involved a trade of squid for soup and a wasabi eating dare). Afterwords it was BMS late, so we dropped her off and headed downtown. We did the usual Nick's/Griffin's jump, both of which were surprisingly full. Plenty of eye candy but very difficult to fight my way through to get a drink. We had a good time. Sundance and Jeb's bald asian friend Chris showed up and we all but stayed until closing. When we arrived back at Jeb's, he was very interested in going to Walmart to get a straw cowboy hat for some reason and I decided to tag along and maybe get some food to calm down the influx of liquor that was rolling around in my stomache. However like any usual trip to Walmart, things didn't go to plan.

Things we didn't get:
Straw cowboy hat

Things we did get:
2 copies of a zombie video game
2 personal pizzas
1 microwavable gumbo

How these things arose out of a cowboy hat, I will never know. We also played Rock Band "Eye of the Tiger" which was for some reason set up in the men's clothing department. After this randomness we returned to the house and passed out at 3am.

---------

Flash forward 5 hours and arise Michael: King of the Undead. I had the worst hangover ever and seriously contemplated not going to tailgate again (a thought that enters my head every tailgate morning). In addition I was told that it was really cold outside, making me even more likely to spend my day on the couch. But after a shower and the promise of muffins shaped like tiger paws, I was out the door. I was sporting a nice yellow backpack full of liquor and my rock star sunglasses, despite it being a really cloudy day. We tailgated for a while and I was rewarded with lots of bacon (although I didn't ever get to see the elusive bacon-wrapped hot dog). I had pretty much given up on getting a ticket though, so after a trip downtown where Jeb and Butch got matching ridiculous hats, I went back to the house to chill and either watch the game on TV or paint cartoon slums. I was just about to settle into bringing joy to pasty little mediclorians when I got a call saying that some people didn't show up and I suddenly had a ticket. So I hoofed it back to the stadium and got to watch the game in person. Sadly however I apparently missed out on the UPS goody bag distribution. After our offensive line folded like laundry and we eked out a narrow loss (why do people still run onto the field after the game when we lose?), we headed back to the tailgate. Sadly the mythical bacon-wrapped hot dog never appeared, but the food was incredible as usual. After a little rain scare caused us to pack up, the guys still wanted to head downtown.
We start heading down there and its immediately very obvious that Bald Asian Chris is super intoxicated already. He's getting sick in the street, talking with a Boston accent and asking passers by if they have some coffee for him. He wanted to go to a bar that we never usually go to, Loose Change. Loose Change is a cramped little hole in the wall, a grungy little place that frat boys for some reason love. So I pretty much leaned up against a wall to stay out of the way of the drunken frat boys with homosexual tendencies wrestling with each other until it was happily time to leave. While Bald Asian Chris didn't cause a disturbance like I was hoping, there was a comical moment when he started chatting up this girl who had the funniest deer-in-the-headlights look on her face the whole time. After Loose Change we retreated to Griffin's again, where the First Couple of Polo showed up for approximately 20 minutes and then left. Eventually our group dwindled down to Jeb, Sundance, myself and a girl that I was introduced to as "Jen with one 'n'" (I don't think I've ever seen someone throw a double "n" when shortening Jennifer). Jen with one "n" was way too drunk to drive back to Easily, but wanted to go home. So we all left. Sundance and Jeb took her home while I went in and made my pizza that I had bought at Walmart the previous night and then passed out on the couch.

Sunday involved a trip to Bojangles (sorta disappointing side items, decent chicken) and easily getting talked into staying much longer than I was planning with a combination of Blue Ray Indiana Jones and Pizza Hut pasta. I was told that in the upcoming weekend that I "would be going" to Charleston. Not a question or a request. I'll be there. So that could be a good time. But I still always have a great time hanging out in Clemson and this weekend was definitely a good one.

My Own Worst Enemy

2008-10-16T18:33:00.000-07:00

Watching the premier the other night I was troubled. Not because the plot wasn't nearly as tight as it should be. Not because Christian Slater is a fairly poor actor to be undertaking a role that he has to play a guy with multiple personalities when all the characters he plays have the same personality. Not even because a quarter of the episode was an advertisement for Chevy.

No I was worried about Mike O' Malley.

He really appears to be on death's doorstep.

See exhibit A.

Mike O' Malley before, when all he did was shout at kids on Nickelodeon's Guts!

And now just fifteen years later he appears to be 75 and depressed. I think it may be because they don't let him yell as much anymore.

So please NBC, get Mike O' Malley some help. Bruce Campbell isn't even in this bad of shape and you know a guy known for doing B-Movies had to have some pretty dark years. Or at least hire Maura Quirk as a character on the show. If theres anyone that can help him out its Mo.

Weekend Recap and My Thoughts

2008-10-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend I decided to end my long absence in Columbia with a nice little visit. There was a chili cook off planned in Five Points and hanging out with D.P. and L.C. is always a fun time. So on Friday after killing a boat load of Venezuelans on my new 360, I packed up and drove the two hours to Columbia. As instructed I called him up when I got 20 minutes away and discovered that the plans had changed and I missed the exit he wanted me to get off on to drive to L.C.'s apartment. Luckily with the help of some vague directions ("I don't know the name of the road but its gotta be coming up sometime soon on the left") I made it to her place. Being the female version of D.P. her place was sort of a mess and the AC was malfunctioning so bad that it was pumping out two dollars worth of air with a two hundred dollar bill. I "chilled" on the balcony playing tug of war with her beautiful dog until D.P. showed up.

I wasn't too sure what we would do with the newly steadfastly sober D.P. So I just went with the flow. A flow that involved lots and lots of bar-b-que and the new DiCaprio spy movie. I also got to answer 864 questions from L.C. about things ranging from their relationship to sexual positions. L.C. has a gift for asking me questions that I don't want to answer but sticking with them long enough that I have no choice but to answer them.

Saturday we went to the cook off which was more awesome then I even expected. There were over 30 different little tents o' chili. Buffalo chili, venison chili, chili without beans, chili with Jim Beam (the only really horrible one I tasted), and chili that was so hot that I lost all feeling in my mouth. After eating enough chili to assure that my body would hate me terribly later we headed off to watch the rest of the South Carolina and Texas games. Sadly South Carolina won, and we headed out. They wanted to show me the new bar called Wet Willies. Instead of filling the back of the bar with liquor bottles, the place specialized in slushies made of grain alcohol. Give that a second to sink in. They make really tasty fruit slushies and dump a ton of high alcohol liquor in there too. The background of the bar was spinning with a dozen different colors and flavors. These ranged from normal fruit flavors to some named interesting things like Call-a-Cab and Attitude Adjustment. We literally chilled there for a while in nice big leather chairs and had a ball.

(This will be where the picture goes, when blogger stops being gay)

That's basically the whole weekend. It was a ton of fun and aside from a little credit card mix up it was pretty darn fantastic. It was also hilarious because I was told, "This is off the record, this shouldn't appear in your blog" about three dozen times and at the same time heard "We better do something crazy to end up in the blog" at least three or four times. Thus the blog is slightly fragmented but believe me when I say that it was a weekend that definitely made me consider heading back to Cola more often.

BONUS:
Since I like to review things.
(Again gay gay blogger and the malfunctioning picture button)
Body of Lies: Seeing previews for this movie gave me high hopes. It looked basically like The Departed 2 where instead of playing head shots r' us at the end of the movie they sent Leo off to the middle east to fight Al Quida (or however they spell it). Truth be told if I were to describe the movie I would describe it as The Departed meets Syriana. That said, good action scenes meets mind numbing boredom trying to get its fifteen minutes on the soap box scolding the mean dumb USA. The story line held me for the duration of the movie, but L.C. was disappointed because Leo and the hot middle eastern love interest didn't jump from not being able to hold hands to some steamy post-torture sex. I would say that if you are like Steve and want to have Leo's man babies, then this is one that you will love. Others could probably take it or leave it, but it was more or less good. Oh and Russell Crowe has a pretty darn good Southern twang going, which was pretty amusing.

I give this movie 3 out of 5 Goldstons

(My new rating system, and again if there was pictures, this is where goofy D.P. heads would go)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

2008-10-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

Despite C.P.'s dislike of movies, I like them and watched this one yesterday and here's what I thought.

This movie is about a guy (Jason Segal) who gets dumped by his actress girlfriend (Kristen Bell) and then when he tries to get away and forget, ends up going to the same Hawaiian resort as her and her new boyfriend (Russell Brand).

For a comedy, this movie's first hour or so is very depressing to me. We can all relate to Segal's plight of getting dumped, which is made even worse because Kristen Bell is a frickin super hottie. If I somehow bagged a serious hottie like her, and got dumped after dating for five years, I would probably lie on my floor in the fetal position as well. The movie splashes in very funny parts during this hour of depression that make it good enough to keep watching. Segal's step-brother and his aloof wife, as well as the newly-wed couple are absolutely hilarious to me.

The problem comes in that it looks like someone at the production company said, "Let's see how many Superbad and 40-year-old Virgin actors we can fit in for little parts." Jonah Hill from Superbad does his patented fat and annoying character. Paul Rudd is very forgettable as a surf instructor. The movie wouldn't have lost anything just cutting every scene with them.

The other problem comes with Kristen Bell, who is far too likable to actually feel that she's the bad guy in this story. Her character has plenty of problems and I almost felt worse for her then for Segal's main character that gets dumped by her. She's hot, seemingly very funny and caring while Segal's character is a lazy oaf who barely cares about anyone but himself. Also the "That 70's show" chick that is the replacement love interest isn't nearly hot enough for me to think, "Well he got the better end of the stick in the end." While the story would have strayed from the usual, find new girl and end up in a better happy place story, I would have been fine with them just getting back together in the end. It probably would be more of a realistic end to the story.

The vampire musical saved this movie for me. Just as I was about to write it off as a mediocre 40-year-old Virgin knockoff, this part slid in and saved the whole thing. I would watch this movie again just to watch that scene.

Overall for all the hype that I heard about this movie, I was less then impressed. It's worth a rental, but that's about it. I give Forgetting Sarah Marshall a 2.5 out of 5.

Funniest Post-blog Text Ever

2008-10-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

"I don't care about movies, go f*&% a fat girl and tell us about it....movies are boooooring"

Sadly they don't deliver those to my door in nice little red envelopes.

Run Fat Boy Run

2008-09-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

I was greeted when I came home today after a day of work where I had to talk myself into sniffling on through, with a nice little red Netflix envelope containing this movie, Run Fat Boy Run. Starring Simon Pegg as a deadbeat dad who tells the woman that he left at the alter pregnant that he can change and will run in the upcoming marathon to show her he can finish something.

I found this movie very funny at times, especially the scenes with his obese Indian trainer swatting him with the spatula to get him to run faster. Of course it was a predictable good hearted family film, of course there's training montages, and of course there's male British ass (apparently an ingredient in all British comedies these days). But there's also Thandie Newton. I swear this movie had an underlying theme of worship to Thandie Newton. No matter if she's pregnant, angry, scared or depressed, she looks absolutely gorgeous and its actually written into the script for the actors to tell her so at almost a ridiculous rate.

This movie isn't the deepest puddle in the road, but it makes you feel good watching it and really makes you want to get out and exercise afterwords in hope that someday you too will impress a Thandie Newton. Or at least work off those fig newtons.

I give Run Fat Boy Run a 3.5 out of 5.

Other Blogs Suck

2008-09-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

Now I'm sure it can't just be the bias that I have that my blog is a funny witty piece of Americana that all others should strive to copy. I've tried reading the featured blogs on the Blogger main page and they honestly and bluntly, suck terribly. I'm not sure how they get to become featured blogs when they are so unremarkably boring. One of them was actually about professional table setting. Another was about people who enjoy Pippi Longstocking. I am not fucking with you on this, these are the featured blogs. Am I missing something here? Do I need to dumb down my posts and gush about the precocious exploits of a book character to get the Blogger head people to take notice? It's really baffling to me.

Other things bugging me at the moment:

Ragdoll physics: It's not realistic at all game developers. It takes away from the game and you would think by now that someone at one of the game companies would have noticed that when you fall down, you don't suddenly have your leg flop up near your head. By adding this to the game it also causes problems with the body sliding and continuing to move for far longer then it should. Video game budgets are getting to be comparable to some movies. They do motion capture for everything else, can someone drop some cash and show people fall down like people.

Economic Bailouts: It's dumb, it really is. Where are the good old days when companies that failed and did semi-shifty things that finally caught up with them, just allowed to go out of business. If you are going to fork over 700 billion dollars to companies so that the rules don't have to apply to them and their CEO's get to retire on multi-million dollar golden parachutes, I'd just assume take my $2500 piece and spend it on rent or something fun like that.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to make apartments with white-everything: The carpet always looks dirty. The linoleum in the kitchen and the bathroom always looks dusty. The cabinets and counter tops show stains from things that don't exist. Cut me some slack landlords, throw down some color, we both know I'm not getting my deposit back, least you could do is make it so I don't feel like I need to clean up after I just cleaned up.

Q & A - 9.27.08

2008-09-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple days I've asked people who visit my facebook to submit questions that I would do my best to answer for them. In any hope this will spawn more follow up Q & A sessions and who knows, I may help you with your life's mysteries.

What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

While this is a not a surprising joke question, one that I appreciate for the Monte Python reference, the easy answer would be "African or European?". However with a little research I have found that while there are over 200 species of swallow, the average speed is has been shown to be around 24 miles per hour.

Which prime, below one-million, can be written as the sum of the most consecutive primes?

I am sadly not an engineer or feel like taking the time to think this out. But according to the Internet there is a computer program-esque way of figuring this out that you probably know and are just testing to see if I can find it, so try Google.

Ha, whats the first mersenne prime over 1mln? I'll split the the GIMPS pot with you ;)

I sadly never heard of mersenne primes before this question and since there is a $100,000 prize for the answer, I think it might be a little over my head.

Ass, legs or boobs?

It actually makes it a tough question when you throw legs into the mix. I'd say I'm a boob guy, but having nice legs is really important as well.

Top or bottom?

Bottom. Nice to have a good confident girl on top than one that lays under you like a dead fish.

What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?

Yet another famous movie/book question, however like in the story, it really depends on the question. Life is full of questions and I doubt there's an answer that applies to all questions. Whether its what you should be doing with your life (whatever makes you happy), to what the name of the random girl is that you wake up next to (chances are its probably Jessica or Jennifer) or even whether Clemson can play well for an entire football game (No), it really depends on the question. Good thing I'm here to give you my two cents whenever you ask.

Now Featuring: CAPTAIN PRETENTIOUS

2008-09-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

In our second America's Sweetheart interview I talked to your favorite character and mine, Captain Pretentious. The Captain put in the request last weekend to be the next to be interviewed and who's to say no to him. So last night I asked him a few questions which he answered pretentiously, using his iPhone.

MR: How often do you check the blog?

CP: Twice a day. But its usually boring Tuesday through Sunday.

MR: Do you feel you are portrayed accurately?

CP: No, I'm quite a lovable, non-pretentious chap in reality.

MR: Do I really portray you as non-lovable?

CP: I'm CP! Always late, beat you up, compare iWang sizes, doesn't sound very lovable!

MR: You are also linked to the hot female lead, i think that makes you loveable.

CP: Just because she's got nice cans doesn't make me lovable, just lucky.

MR: haha I'm quoting that word for word.

CP: Her tracts of land are well known throughout these parts my friend.

MR: hahaha

MR: Whats your favorite post?

CP: One of the first few.

MR: Have they been getting worse?

CP: I like the old school ones better.

MR: Whats different about the new ones?

CP: Too much of the same: starting at Jebs and going to Nicks... Though the commentary is always quite good.

MR:Hmm we might have to mix it up.

MR: How many Swedish supermodels work at Sandvik?

CP: Actually, quite a few in Sverige, which is why you should come visit.

MR: Always good for morale to have eye candy at work.

MR: Do you ever wear things that you know you'll be picked on for looking overly pretentious?

CP: I dress for Mike Robertson from time to time, as does the Katie.

MR: Haha, like when?

CP: Usually if it involves pink or a sweater.

MR: What's your favorite and least favorite foods that Katie cooks for you?

CP: Favorite ribs

(Conversation briefly interrupted by Katie typing "Ask him what his screen name stands for, I already know it has something to do with Abercrombie and how when he was a freshman all of his clothes were from there, so we continue.)

CP: Least favorite: She recently learned how to make really good mac & cheese... Previously it was not so good as it is now.

MR: Do you often think to yourself, "I wish I was more like America's Sweetheart"?

CP: No I like getting laid.

MR: Ohhhhhh snap.

CP: Ooooooooo

MR: What are things that you do that bug the crap out of Katie? You can ask her if you want.

CP: I don't do as many chores as I should. She says "Still breathe."

MR: Haha It bugs her that you're still breathing?

CP: She's a smart ass.

MR: Good for her.

MR: Deep down are you really part ginger?

CP: Yes, I'm afflicted with red beard like the other Benjamin brothers.

MR: and stage 4 C.P., I've seen the ginger anger.

CP: And apparently I somehow anger minorities.

MR: Night elf mohawk.

MR: Whats your next ridiculous purchase? You've got the gun and the snow cone machine, what's next?

CP: I'm saving for something right now, so no silly purchases for a while sadly.

MR: OK last question, what is a surprising fact about C.P. that would shock even me?

CP: I've never dated a blond....ever.

MR: Well I think I can make a post out of this, do you have any closing remarks?

CP: Even though I may be CP in the mind of Mike Robertson, I'm just a normal guy who is really good looking and only likes nice things in reality.

MR: hahahahaha perfect.

Cripples Galore

2008-09-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

After the planning heavy weekend last weekend, this one was shaping up to be so extremely plan free that even I wondered what would go on. All I knew was that my buddy D.P. would be returning to Clemson with his girlfriend L.C. They had planned to come the weekend before but had to cancel because L.C. was in a nasty car wreck that left her with a broken wrist, foot, and a collarbone that was cracked and then subsequently broke when I'm told she was startled by a spider. But despite all the craziness of that week, she was apparently a "hardcore" trooper and was down for another trip to Clemson with D.P.

I was getting my stuff together around 4:30 Friday when I got a call from the Jebster asking if I could pick up BMS at her work and bring her down to Clemson with me when I came down. I figured her car (a Saturn, we've nicknamed The Clemson Lambo) was in the shop and since it was easily on my way I agreed to go get her. So I kicked my getting ready into high gear and drove on down to her work. I was greeted by a fairly attractive woman who acted like they didn't get many visitors to the company, which I believe makes polymers, and after walking back to check with BMS that I wasn't some psycho that was trying to pick up polymer chicks by throwing out fairly specific names, I was allowed to walk back to her cubicle. When I got there I found her chillin with her foot/ankle all wrapped up.

"You tripped over one of those dogs," I said, causing her coworker to start giggling. She went on to tell me about how, that morning, she had gone to step over the dog gate that keeps their dogs from leaving the bedroom area during the night and had caught her foot on the top of it. This apparently caused her to tumble down a flight of stairs into the wall on the landing between the second and third floors of their condo. This also apparently caused her to let out a scream that was loud enough to wake Jeb from a deep sleep (which is not an easy thing to do, I've kicked him trying to wake him up before with little success). After wrapping her ankle which was apparently pretty swollen she had driven to work with far more difficulty then she was accustomed to and felt it would be a good idea not to have a repeat performance on the drive home.

So I picked her up and we drove to Clemson, stopping first at C.P. and the Katie's place to drop off a birthday present for C.P. that had come in two days after his birthday last week. They were of course even late to meeting me at their own house and C.P. came blazing in with the Jag and almost took my driver's side door off if he hadn't swerved at the last minute. He seemed to really enjoy the Swedish book that I got him (which came with audio CD's to allow even Benjamin's who can't read to get something out of it) and we continued on to the condo to meet Jeb. When we got there BMS wanted crutches before she would go anywhere else and Jeb fished a pair out of the basement for her. After several semi-comical lessons on going up and down stairs with them and the usual warning about making them so that arm pits don't rest on the top of them (which everyone who has ever had crutches is apparently obligated to be told at least five times) we decided to hit up the new Mexican place that had just opened up for dinner.

This Mexican place had opened in the old Explorer's bar, which had claimed to have wings so hot that if you finished six of them you got your picture on the wall. From the outside it looked almost exactly the same as it always had, but inside it was totally different. It gave up the typical Mexican restaurant atmosphere for one that was more along the lines of if you would picture someones basement that they remodeled into a living room with a bar. Complete with bland carpet and wall colors and packed with seemingly half the Greek underclassmen, we should have been tipped off already on what was to come. But we happily waited anyway for a table to open up. When one did we were escorted over to it by a Mexican guy who's English was so bad that he couldn't even take drink orders and was soon replaced by a sorority girl, who I referred to as Pierced Juno. Sporting a chili pepper apron and studs through each of her cheeks, she looked exactly like Ellen Page if Juno had decided to go slightly goth instead of getting knocked up for kicks and giggles. Soon we had our drinks and the usual chips and salsa to munch on while we waited for our food. And wait we did. We arrived at the restaurant around 7:30 and after several confused looks from Pierced Juno later (seemingly saying "Oh are you still here") we received our food around 9. Never in my life had I threatened to leave a restaurant as much as I did with this one. At one point it was all but decided that if Juno showed up again asking if everything was alright without our food we would just leave. Even after we got our food, we contemplated skipping out on the check to teach the retarded staff a lesson, but with BMS's heavy limp, we figured a speedy get away was out of the question. Hell I even thought about breaking things to get someones attention to get our bills. After leaving a sizable zero as my tip, we skedaddled on out of there and back to Jeb's to drop BMS off before heading downtown.

We started at Nick's as usual and put down a couple beers hoping to dull the memory of the horrendous meal we just had. Sundance (who was in town again for the game and tailgating, but without Butch who apparently had to work) met us there and we were called over to TTT's to meet C.P., the Katie, D.P. and L.C. (way too many initials, its starting to get comical) for more drinks. We talked and joked around for a while. C.P. and D.P. compared iPhone features to see which one had the bigger iWang while L.C. talked about hooking me up with her friend, which I encouraged her to do so as often as she liked. For the horrendous accident she had been a part of, L.C. actually didn't look that beat up, but sported a huge slash across her collarbone where they had gone in and bolted her back together with more stitches then I had ever seen in my life. She also had her one hand heavily bandaged up and sported a boot on her one foot that she complained had a thicker sole then her normal shoe which caused her walk to be uneven. I barely drank anything there, hoping to move on to Griffin's and get off the smokey patio of TTT's (which curiously had the Jose Cuervo girls and a girl that was having guys give her spankings for her birthday, which I passed because I figured that ass had been places that I didn't want my hand to be infected by). We headed out and up the street.

Entering Griffin's we found it Meggles-less again (finding out that the goddess had asked for Fridays off to handle the school work). But we started knockin them back and a ton of pictures were taken in just about every combination we could think of. One of the funny things about writing this blog is that all my friends read it and will talk about it regularly while we're out, since us being out is a normal topic for the blog. D.P. was apologizing profusely for being so spazzed out the last time and said that he had been working on it with L.C., which actually showed, because he was back to being the fun D.P. that I remembered. Him and L.C. seem like a very good match as she is crazy enough to appeal to that side of him but at the same time, messes with him enough to keep him from taking things too seriously.

Close to last call we decided to head out back to Jeb's and was almost at my car which he was going to drive when we got a call from our friend Shewhocantbenamedbutnomatterwhatiwouldcallhereveryoneknowswhosheis (or SWCBNMWIWCHEKWSI for short). Apparently her boyfriend had been an uber douche like usual and had actually left her in Anderson, which is 15 minutes away from Clemson. So without thinking about it, we told her to stay put and we would come to pick her up. We hopped in the car and drove on down to Anderson. Just as we were driving across the bridge to get her, we get a call saying that the uber douche had come back to take her home and we were no longer needed. A little disappointed in our friend, we turned around and headed back to the condo. Everyone had made it back in one piece and were gathered in the kitchen waiting for us. After a little bit I was tired and headed back to the couch where I passed out on the couch for the night, apparently missing a pizza delivery.

------------------------------------------------------

The next morning I awoke early. In my head I was really seriously thinking about skipping tailgating and football festivities to crash on the couch but didn't really voice my idea to anyone and soon got over it and got ready to go to the tailgate. We were supposed to get there by 8:30 and Sundance was up and raring to go. Unfortunately everyone else in the house was moving at a snail's pace to get ready so he left. By 10:30 we were all ready to go. BMS had originally said she was going to pass on the festivities because of the bum ankle but had apparently changed her mind and while we were waiting for D.P. and L.C. to get ready she had started crutching down the street. Despite leaving fifteen minutes later, we caught up with her a block and a half later and joined in the slowest fifteen minute walk ever. Anyone that knows me, knows that I usually walk at a fairly casual Southern pace, and even at this pace I found myself waiting for my friends to catch up. Jeb was just getting over a sinus infection and was speaking like the Godfather the whole weekend and was hacking up a lung while he walked. Together the three of us must have been a sad sight making our way to the tailgate.

We finally made it and were greeted with some of the best tailgate breakfast food ever. There were little muffins in the shape of tiger paws, and egg sandwiches with bacon. Apparently Louis's wife is quite the cook. Soon D.P. and L.C. showed up and joined us along with Steve and Christine, who had driven down from a trip to Jersey to be there. C.P. and the Katie showed up right as we had packed up and started walking toward the game, which I had graciously been given a ticket to. Tim was forced to stow a six pack of beer in a bush for safe keeping as we all walked to the game. The seats were upper deck but were awesome as we could easily see the whole field. Clemson decimated South Carolina Community College but we stayed til the end. I had been getting several text messages during the game telling me that most of the group had headed out early and were sitting downtown. So after walking back to the tailgate for a little I decided to go down there and join them. The whole group of C.P., the Katie, D.P., L.C., and the Harclerodes were heavily invested in many pitchers of Long Island Ice Tea and were fairly intoxicated. The Katie tried to say that, despite having six cups of tea, was not drunk at all, but mumbled part of it, causing me to joke around and make fun of her a little. Out of the blue, she tries to knock my hat off my head and instead backhands me in the face. The blow is so surprising that I'm dazed for a couple seconds as she starts apologizing and everyone else at the table is shocked that the Katie just punched me in the face. I laugh it off and after finishing up their drinks, we headed back to the tailgate which was still going strong.

We lounged around, blocking off the fairly busy sidewalk. D.P. and BMS got into a quantum physics discussion while everyone else poked fun in Mystery Science Theater fashion of goofy comments to what was being said. With a strong 90's soundtrack pumping in the background we chilled there the rest of the day. People were even sent to resupply the tailgate with food and booze and we soon found ourselves as the only tailgate left in the whole parking lot. People would walk by or through the tailgate, sort of shocked that people were still there. Finally people started to leave and it was soon down to a dedicated half dozen who ate a fourth meal of the day at the tailgate and packed up to head home. It was a near perfect Saturday and we passed on downtown in favor of crashing out after what ended up being a very long day.

Crackmosa's and Dehydration continued...

2008-09-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

So I was awakened Saturday morning really really early. Early enough that people should have been killed, but I let it slide this time. Apparently Butch, Sundance and Jeb were putting a tailgate together and had to be out there ungodly early. I had hoped to sleep until at least noon and then stroll on over to C.P.'s tailgate for a little fun, but now I was up and figured I should probably go there when they said to be there instead. In their attempt to be extremely organized (I think this is Christine's doing) they had assigned each person into a team earlier in the week, which told you what to bring. I was placed in classy team R, which meant that I had to bring cheap wine, chips or dip. I decided on the delectable Cold Duck, an alcoholic beverage so treacherous and at the same time delicious that they named it after a woodland creature. We had a history with the Cold Duck (which involved purple vomit on the Holtzendorf building) and due to its cheaper then cheap price tag I figured it would make a good addition to the tailgate.

So I headed over, strolling across campus with the bottle of Duck in one hand and my wallet and cell phone in the other since the damn basketball shorts I was wearing somehow didn't have pockets. Clemson on game days is pretty much a free-for-all as far as laws go, as the cops are more likely to stop you for not understanding their convoluted traffic flows they have set up then for openly drinking in the streets. I traipsed past plenty a cop with my prized bottle clutched in my hand. Its not exactly the manliest thing to be walking down the street with to a tailgate but I managed (and was only stopped by one crackhead scalping tickets to be asked what I had).
The tailgate proved to be a lot farther then I thought, probably close to two miles away. Combined with the early morning Carolina heat I was dying by the time I made it there. I was greeted with a Mimosa and a sausage wrapped in a pancake (wrapped in bacon, wrapped in a pizza, in a commemorative bag full of vegetarian chili). C.P. and the Katie were of course really late so we just hung out and baked in the sun until they arrived with the tent. From then on, since only two of us had tickets to the game, we boozed it up and played some games of cornhole and the ill fated tackle football version of 500, where C.P. spent most of the time just brutalizing me to the point where I didn't catch a ball the whole time. After that we were sitting around and Kristin decided that she wanted more Mimosa but we had polished off the champagne hours ago, so I had the idea to make it with Cold Duck instead. It was surprisingly a big hit and was deemed the Crackmosa.

I was sorta tired by this point of sitting out and sweating in the heat and after a "hold on one minute and we'll give you a ride" turned into a "yeah I don't see that happening" I decided to walk back to Jeb's and catch the rest of the game. Unfortunately it was still several miles away and now just around midday, so it was hotter then liquid hot magma walking back to the house. By the time I got there I felt like I was on the verge of death in which only a cold shower and a drink could save me. Eventually Butch and Sundance came back over with Louis and his wife/girlfriend who I have no idea what her name was. We decided to hit up some always delicious Mexican food where I learned that Jeb apparently speaks fluent Spanish. He and our server sounded like the best of friends which surprisingly didn't warrant us getting refills on chips and salsa. It was still good and short of the rest of the weekend packed with Bourne Identity, that was the weekend.

Crackmosa's and Dehydration

2008-09-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

I find it hilarious that if I make it to Tuesday without writing I get angry text messages and calls wondering if I'm still alive and why my lazy ass hasn't gotten to updating. Truth is my hectic 50 hour week at work last week transitioned seamlessly into another two long days, with the possibility of another three being highly likely. While its nice to be busy, I feel less then energized when I get home, so sorry for the delay and here we go....

I rarely plan going into a weekend. I find that its much less stressful and often times it doesn't really matter what I do as long as I'm chillin with my friends. But this weekend there were a definite two main plans. However my plans still involved getting out of work (late) and taking a nap all afternoon.

This is where the plans were different then usual. We had a surprise birthday party planned for Captain Pretentious at the Harclerodes' house in Greenville. It was originally planned as a Swedish themed wine and cheese party, perfectly pretentious for the Captain who is leaving for Sweden at the beginning of next year. At the last minute however, The Katie decided we would switch it up a little. Instead of a Swedish party, we would break out the pink streamers and have a Sweet Sixteen party. The Katie and the Harclerodes spent Thursday night transforming their entrance hallway into a wonderland of pink and glittering sixteens. We were told to arrive by 7 and the Katie would do her best to get C.P. there by 7:15 under the false pretense that they would be having a nice dinner out with the Harclerodes after stopping for a birthday shot. Unfortunately C.P. was in hurry as always and the growing number of guests waited around until nearly 8pm. Everyone had parked well up the street so he pulled into the driveway with no idea of what awaited him inside. Everyone bustled around the door, half rehearsing what was about to happen. As the door came open, the lights came on and everyone yelled "Happy Sweet Sixteen!!!!" A fuzzy tiara was placed on his head and a blinking 16 and a sash proclaiming "Happy Birthday Princess" was placed around his neck. He was ushered into the dining room with the pink frosted cupcakes and twelve different kinds of cheese. Still in shock, he was given a key and told to go look in the garage, just like on the silly MTV reality show. Parked right in the middle of the spot was......a matchbox Porshe. The Sweet Sixteen party was a huge success and everyone had a great time, but I had places to go and people to see.

I knew that it would be much easier to get to Clemson the night before then trying to fight my way down there with the game traffic in the morning. Also Jeb and BMS couldn't make it up to the party and I figured why not make it an even better evening and get to hang out down there with them also. I had drank next to nothing at the party despite the abundance of wine that had showed up with everyone. I made it down to Clemson in seemingly record speed and met Jeb downtown. BMS had already gone to bed but I was introduced to his two ex-roommates Butch and Sundance (I think I remember their names but I like those nicknames better). Butch and Sundance had apparently not been in Clemson in a while, so when I showed up they had just finished up eating and we headed up to Griffin's. Sadly we apparently hit it on an off night because it was half empty and mostly filled with guys which was disappointing. Even Meggles was MIA again. To top it off, 2o minutes after we walked in, the grand douchebag that slept with Jeb's ex walked in. Since he was one of the group of friends, Butch and Sundance went to talk to him which I could tell somewhat bothered Jeb. I played defense while, keeping an increasingly intoxicated Jeb from pounding him and getting us all kicked out. After a while we made it out without bloodshed and hit up Nick's which was fairly full of cute indie chicks. We had a pretty good time, even though Nick's still doesn't seem to have any AC. We had planned to play some poker when we got home, which turned into everyone passing out, and after playing some demos on the PS3 , I passed out as well.

So Anyways....

2008-09-10T18:16:00.000-07:00

I think I'm good with the weekend before last catch up. There was a pool party the next day before we watched our beloved Tigers get the ever loving tar kicked out of them by Alabama. The notable quote of the day was "Dude chill out, the game doesn't start until 8" when D.P. was about to have an aneurysm because we weren't leaving to go to the party at 11am. It was apparently funny at the time.

So Anyways last weekend started with me dropping my computer off at Best Buy to have the Geek Squad either fix it, or what I like to call "Asking them how much money they want me to burn in front of them". The magic number turned out to be $130, although they really really wanted to do a fun little $80 diagnostic on my three year old computer which I sadly declined. Afterwards I stopped at Barnes and Nobel, because I am terrible with time estimation and while it took a little time for me to tell the Best Buy guy my contact information four times, it didn't take the amount of time to make it logical to head to Clemson already.

Barnes and Nobel sorta sucks. Things are not laid out in a logical way (I had several, oh wow I found this section moments) and the books cost at least 15 to 25% more than they should. However this can be ratified by purchasing their book club card for twenty five frickin dollars a year. I decided to indulge the check out woman and listen to her whole spiel about the program but found myself by the end wondering why I was even buying the Quantum of Solace James Bond book in the first place.

Sadly I still didn't burn enough time but drove to Clemson anyway. Jeb has no problem with me chillin at his place, even though I still feel sorta weird about the idea of chillin there while he isnt there. I let the dogs out, who are all over me the whole time, losing their minds (or whatever is between their ears) and thinking that hanging out with me is the best thing since probably a dog bark they heard through the wall four hours before. I try to read my new book which I find out is not so much the story line of the new movie coming out as it is a collection of short stories, I also find that its impossible to read it with two dogs doing their ever-loving best to be ever-loved. Jeb comes home and we set to work setting up his new baby. Something I forgot to mention about the weekend before.

Jeb got a really frickin big TV.

It got delivered Friday and if it weren't an absolutely beautiful piece of electronics, it would be big enough to make a fairly comfortable twin sized bed. It made my new TV seem like the screen of a portable DVD player. By the time we plug in all the surround sound speakers and video game equipment, the set up is giving off enough heat to cook pizzas on his mantle. The TV is so amazing that there really aren't words for it. It even makes a little sound when turning on that sounds like you are summoning it down from the heavens. We instantly do what any group of guys would do with a new giant Hi-Def TV: we put in Bio Shock to see a life size zombie get shot with a shotgun (what did you think I was going to say?).

The night turned from movie watching and pizza to more downtown madness. We ran into the douchebag that slept with Jeb's ex wife and somehow kept the peace. And after getting far too drunk, we stumbled home. I also remember it being very very hot inside Nick's, I swear that I'm sick or something, no one should sweat that much.

The next day we were supposed to go to C.P.'s tailgate before the Clemson game and ended up so late that I actually got phone calls from the always late C.P., asking where I was. For the majority of the time I was just nursing a hangover and sitting there while the couples made out and talked about where they got their Tupperware. By game time we decided to not search for tickets but just go home instead. Sadly the game was not on TV so I played Mercenaries 2 for a couple hours. I love that game, nothing is really less satisfying then killing off an entire faction base by myself, and then calling in an air strike on their buildings to rub it in.

We ended up going out again because The Katie was super psyched to hit downtown and told us so all day long, over and over and over again. I can't really remember many crazy antics, although apparently Guinness now comes saturated with Nitrogen and is placed on a little launch pad that causes it to get head.

Oh the dreams of a button that causes you to get head. Hell with the Easy button, that's what I want. Although a button that makes women easy...............

Hello Again

2008-09-09T19:34:00.001-07:00

As many of my readers know, my computer was on the fritz for a little over a week after I restarted it and it decided it would just not start up again. But happily (or at least fairly happily after the financial thrashing the Geek Squad gave me) I am pretty much up and running again. Which leaves me with a huge void in the coverage of the last two weekends' schenanigans.

So two weeks ago (this maybe a little rough because my memory is horrible sometimes) I was very excited going into the weekend. Of course there was the usual reasons such as the amazing group of people that allow me to call them my friends and the unquestionable good time we would have, but there was also another reason. D.P. was coming to town. Sadly I hadn't been to Cola to visit him in quite some time, so the news that he was coming to town to show his girlfriend what a college town can be was exciting. Now if Jeb and I have the same sense of humor, D.P. would be our triplet, so I expected nothing less of a good time in which I at some point shoot beer out my nose in a fit of laughter. So I arrived in Clemson around the normal time and Jeb, BMS and I had dinner and headed downtown early. I knew that D.P. and L.C. would be in town around 9, but we figured we would get started with the festivities. A couple beers later its finally 9 and they tell us to meet them at Peppino's where they are eating a pizza that can only be described as the last meal to anyone that attempts it. After a little chit chat and not very much progress on the deadly Italian creation, we decide to head out, but first D.P. wants to move his car. So I go along with them to show them where to park. Upon getting into his car I accidentally tap the door into the truck next to his and he flips out, which I sort of expected, but in an overly mean way that I don't remember my old friend ever doing to anyone. I shrug it off and we go off to park and go to Nick's. It's about half full, but is a fairly good crowd for Nick's which is usually not too crowded (remember Mike bar gripe #1, crowded bars). We hang around for a little and enjoy ourselves. BMS heads home, it being far past her bed time already, and we hit TTT's. I have a feeling that D.P. was talking it up beforehand to L.C., which was a shame because it was vacant. The usual Clemson hot spot was a ghost town. I hit the bathroom before leaving Nick's and told the group I would meet up with them at TTT's. The Katie and C.P. called to inform us that they had a table outside and we were to come join them. But as I was walking up to the bouncer at the door I suddenly get pelted in the nuts with a lime, hurled by C.P. through the gate. I crumple over a little bit and the bouncer is asking me if I want him to go in there and kick some ass. Unfortunately despite my confirmation that he should pummel C.P. into a pulp, he doesn't do anything and I go in and join the group and we continue to have a good time. D.P. continued to have a surprisingly short temper which was usually held in check by one of the people at the table messing with him over it. We bounce over to Griffin's after TTT's and lounge around for a little while. The Katie has taken to sitting on my lap when she gets intoxicated and kept telling me how great I was and how I should definitely hit on the Goddess Megan who was sitting beside me. I help her with the bar game shes playing but don't get the guts to say anything of real "Wow, do me now" impressive value. But by the time we leave there I am very intoxicated. The group wants to go to 356, which in my opinion is a shitty bar normally, but on top of my usual disdain for it was a candy covered shell of general nausea. So they go in and I go around the corner back to Nick's to hopefully sober up a little bit more before meeting them for the walk back. A couple glasses of water later and I my condition wasn't any better, so I decided I would start walking and they would catch up because I would be stumbly on top of my usual casual canter. I get half way up the dark road when I see a sports car fly by me going at least twice the speed that it should be on the frat apartment lined street and knew that D.P. had just blown by me. I finally stumble in the door, feeling like a box of shit, when I'm greeted by L.C. who runs up and yells,

"WE'RE GOING SKINNY DIPPING IN THE HOT TUB!!!!"

Jeb's hot tub hasn't been functional since I met him and he and D.P. are actively trying to figure out how to get it to work while filling it up with a garden hose. I walk right past everyone and collapse onto the couch. Only to later be woken up by D.P. who was complaining about me snoring. Unfortunately this woke me up to be kept awake by his snoring. The Snoring Vicious Circle.

Contingency Plan

2008-08-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

Apparently there is a drought of men in Australia. There's so many knock off British women there that they don't have enough guys to meet the demand. I swear, if I don't find a wife by the time I hit 30 I'm going to head down there and beat the hot accented chicks off with a stick. This blows my mind. Like this Today article is saying "Come to Australia, we have tons of desperate women." I mean is my degree good down there? I'm sure that I can throw the words "Shrimp on the Barbie" onto my sign designs if they wanted. I'll definitely have to look into this, especially if the socialists beat the war-mongers this election.

Weekend Warrior

2008-08-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

When I leave my house on a Friday afternoon for a great weekend in Clemson, I think I look good (or at least as good as I get). I'm showered, wearing a clean button down shirt, my hair is civilized, I'm clean shaven (or close to it) and i have a spritz of cologne.

But two days later on Sunday this is not the case.

I got home today and was alarmed at what I saw in the mirror. It was 6pm and I hadn't showered all day. I had an alarmingly dense growth of facial hair. My skin was broken out. My eyes were red. My tshirt (which I had worn the night before) had four different stains of different colors, several of which I don't know what they could be from. I even had the names of three music groups scribbled on my wrist, which I'm amazed I wrote clearly enough to be able to read them while out drinking on Friday. However I can't remember what the songs were that caused me to want to write their name on my arm. I can only imagine what my breathe smells like. My hair was so askew that it actually went past looking bad and began looking good again. My stomach feels like I've been eating nothing but rat poison for the last week. I basically look like I've been thrown in a Vietnamese prison camp and somehow was able to drive home today.

But it was a great weekend. Always is a fun time with friends like mine. And there was laser tag and steak, so it was even better then usual. But damn, I felt so grimy today driving home that I didn't want to stop at Walmart because I thought I would get stared at.

I should probably tone it down a little.

Character Interviews: The Katie

2008-08-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

I had this idea to add a feature where I interview one of the recurring characters from my blog. While not always in the forefront in the weekend action, The Katie is often ends up being the voice of reason to our weekend shenanigans and was my first choice for the first interview and obliged me with an impromptu interview

M.R.: So Katie, how often do you check the blog?
The Katie: Probably twice a week, because I know you blog after the weekends. Your "epic" weekends.

M.R.: Do you think you are portrayed accurately?
The Katie: Well its hard to say since "The Katie" hasn't had too many appearances, but I'd say yes.

M.R.: Are you disappointed if you don't make a big appearance in the weekend story for the week?
The Katie: I'd say the fault would be mine own if i don't. But no. I think your blogs are fantastically entertaining and one would be so fortunate to be a part of your epic-ness

M.R.: When hanging out with us, do you think sometimes "man this will end up in the blog"?
The Katie: I don't think I've ever really thought about it like that. Between good times and giggles downtown it's just all fun. And really, it's not even so much what happens that's funny, it's the way in which you present it that makes it so entertaining. (she goes on to compliment my looks, fashion sense and my second grade English scores, but I don't want to bore you with the details)

M.R.: What's your favorite post?
The Katie: Okay, totally taking the wussy answer here and going for the, "I really don't have a favorite." I think for the most part I've laughed aloud at all of them at some point in the blog.

M.R.: Were there any that you disliked?
The Katie: The only one was maybe "Eh..." like it was good, but there were definite better ones.

M.R.: Do you ever refer to Tim as Captain Pretentious when the two of you are hanging out?
The Katie: Only in jest. but when we were in NY a few weeks ago, his dad was getting ready to take our picture and he said "Smile Captain Pretentious"

M.R.: How many times a day do you think to yourself "damn i wish i was hanging out with America's Sweetheart"?
The Katie: Hahaha at least twice, i mean, at least.

M.R.: Could you do something off the wall crazy this weekend? I think the "The Katie" fans would like to read more of your antics?
The Katie: How would you define "off the wall crazy"? lol
M.R.: I don't know but I'm sure stage 4 would be involved
The Katie: Lol probably. I'm not an off the wall kinda crazy gal, but who knows. When the night is young and stage four is the aim, anything is possible =)
M.R.: Better yet can you do your best to help us get C.P. to stage 4?
The Katie: Everyone has a different stage 4. I giggle, C.P. almost gets beat up by a group of Indians, i mean, it's all relative.

M.R.: OK last question, how honored are you that you were the first "character" interviewed? What will you do to celebrate?
The Katie: It's quite the honor and a thrill... almost like walking the dog ;)

The Joys of Underplanning

2008-08-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

So the only thing I had planned was that it would be mine. I had scouted out the lovely 42" plasma flat screen for months. Finally I had enough money to take her home and went to Walmart and went straight to the electronics section, scoped out the TVs one more time and informed the semi-stoned Walmart employee that I wanted the TV. Nothing would be stopping me this time. I had no doubts in my head until he brought out the box. Now I drive a Hyundai Elantra with a fairly large amount of room in the back seat, so I figured that a 42" TV would easily fit in there and at the most fit in the gap between the front seat and the back seat.

But the box was gigantic.

It was at least a foot larger then the TV and was at least a foot and a half wide. As he was ringing it up, I was questioning out loud to myself whether it would slide into the back seat like I planned. Semi-stoned Walmart employee voiced his doubts, but as always I was still optimistic. Beaming I wheeled my brand new TV through the store, catching the admiration of every guy I passed. I even ran into my friend Nathan "Buddy" Davenport who informed me that I could drop his TV off later and I would be able to watch it whenever I wanted. I wheeled it out the door and did my best to make it across the parking lot to make sure that a car wouldn't turn my precious into a bad youtube video.

I made it to my car safely and opened up the back door. I picked up the box, which was about twice as heavy as I thought it would be and started pushing it into the back seat. The 60 inch box went in a foot and stopped. I tried moving the front seats up as far as they could go and went back to pushing on the box. It went in another six inches and stopped. Great. I thought about So I did the only thing I could do, I tugged it out of the car and took it out of the box. Being as careful as I could I easily placed it in my back seat, it fitting perfectly. After that I looked at the box. I couldn't just leave it in the parking lot. They probably don't sell that many big screens at Walmart in a day so when some poor sap would have to pick it up (which would be hilarious if it was the semi-stoned electronics guy but still sorta mean). Also I figured I could use the box as a protective buffer for the plastic wrapped TV. So I commenced with tearing the box apart to fit it into my car. In the 90 degree heat it was like a war ripping the heavy duty staples out of the sides. Finally fifteen minutes later I had everything stuffed inside.

I slowly drove home, picturing the ironic situation in my head where I somehow get in an accident which wrecks my new toy. I pull up to my place and the only spot left is right next to the tree. But seeing how I didn't really want to lug the TV down the road I figured that spot would be good enough. Now planning it out I go up to my apartment and prop the door open so I wouldn't have to worry about working the door with my hands full. I went back down and pulled the TV out gently and my first couple steps were in the pine straw that southern landscapers seem to like so much. Even watching my step, I almost lost it on the first step with my baby in my arms. I lugged it up three stories and happily made it safely inside. But that was definitely a much more difficult endeavor then I ever imagined.

"You Actually Look Good Today"

2008-08-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

I didn't think I would be in Clemson this weekend. I had planned weeks in advance to head to Columbia this weekend since I haven't seen D.P. and the hot (unavailable) ladies in a good two months and D.P. was planning to take a break from his state hopping to be in Columbia for a weekend. However as the hellish week rolled on, working through the hospital full of signs, the two hour drive to Columbia looked less and less appealing. There seemed to be lots of enthusiasm for me to head to Clemson to hang out with Jebster, BMS, C.P. and The Katie. Also in talking to Jeb on Thursday he hinted of a big possibility for an epic weekend. Since usually I'm the optimistic one for weekend epic-ness, I figured the epic-ness would be at an all time high (and i should probably write a last-will and testament or something before heading there).

So Friday afternoon, after a little nap, I headed to Clemson. When I got there I was starving and did my best to get things rolling on the plan to remedy this problem. We pretty much sat around and played video games and asked each other "Well where do you want to go?" for about an hour before deciding to hit up TD's for better then average bar food and cheap liquor drinks. Three vodka crans and a buffalo chicken sandwich later they decided to stop waiting on tables. So we decided to go elsewhere and begin the more food-free part of the evening. Being after 8, BMS bid Jeb and I adieu to call it a night.

We started the usual bar crawl at Nick's, drinkin' some good beers waiting for C.P. and The Katie to show up. They soon joined us with Keihner, Katie looking very nice in a red dress that made just about everyone in the bar take notice (go go team Benj). We hung around for a little while, still couldn't remember where I knew the bartender from, but he knew Tim, so I guess that's where I know him from. But after coming up with a hand signal for "Katie G Stage 4", the funniest of the stages of Katie G drunkenness. We decide to head to TTT's to see if we could see the giggly stage 4 by the end of the night. Standing outside at the new Red Bull tables that they positioned out there we had a couple pitchers and joked around. As usual the topic drifted to them wanting me to chat up a girl. I pretty much laugh it off and we keep chillin until it gets to around midnight. I want to get to Griffin's before it closes at 2 so I suggest we head over there. C.P. comes up with a plan before we do though, that all the other guys will pick a girl and one after another tell her "It's not too late to sleep with Mike Robertson" and then I would have to introduce myself. It doesn't bother me to get a little embarrassed, so I agree to this plan. Surprisingly though, two of the guys decide to back out on the chance to inflict some embarrassment on me and we start walking out anyway. Before we leave C.P. sees a pretty blond he knows and goes over to say hi before we head out. I wait around for him because I don't want to leave him behind, when he and the girl start looking over at me as they're talking. Out of nowhere she walks over unbuttons my one of the buttons on my shirt and says something like "definitely not too late". I get a big smile on my face and we head to Griffin's (figuring C.P. put her up to it).

Arriving at Griffin's we're greeted like regulars (probably should cut down on the drinking) and we head to the back of the bar which is surprisingly full. I head over to the bar to get a drink and out of nowhere this sexy brunette starts talking me up. We chat for a while, I'm expecting her to ask for a drink and then split with her friends. But she never does and we chat for a good long while. I finally buy her a drink and for some reason decide to go back to hanging out with my friends, without getting her number or anything. I'm my own worst enemy. I head over and kinda shrug when they ask whats going on. I tell them about it and my amazement that I didn't have to even try, to which C.P. replies "You actually look good today, not as much of a bum."

Thanks C.P., Thanks a ton.

Around the Horn Reviews

2008-08-05T16:52:00.000-07:00

Not I'm not reviewing that awful show on ESPN. But I thought maybe I would tell you all my thoughts on a couple things so that you could be well informed.

INTERRUPTION: THEY JUST HAD A TIE ON JEOPARDY!! A FRICKIN TIE......

OK back to the reviews

Movies:

Deathproof: I'd seen Deathproof before when it was teamed with the laughably bad zombie movie in the Grindhouse duel movie. However Tarentino thought he would get rid of a little bit of the mind fucking that the theater version of Deathproof had, with an added lap dance scene, which if you saw Deathproof in the first place is more then enough reason to watch it again. Other then that its pretty much the same fairly unimpressive, hot chick filled, overly gory at parts, but moderately entertaining flick that it was. All of the girls (except for the one stunt driver black chick that tries to act like a female version of Samuel L. Jackson) were very appealing but really didn't make me care about them enough to feel bad about anything that happened to them. But its one those movies that I'll probably watch several times in the future, so I would recommend stealing it, black-bearding it, renting it, or buying it from a bargain bin.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets: Another movie I saw in the theater but just saw it again on DVD last week. If you saw the first of the National Treasure movies, you will have a fairly good time with the second one. That should be the catch phrase for ads. I like it because there's lots of nice history trivia and several Indiana Jones/James Bond moments to link those little bits of informative gold together. While the second one basically does the same thing as the first movie, only slightly less creatively, but still no less entertaining. The only thing that really bothers me is the same thing that bothered me with Die Hard 4, the annoying sidekick who bitches the whole time and gets more credit then he deserves at the end. While hoping that he would somehow catch a bullet or large stone thing in his head (an empty hope in a Disney Movie) I liked the movie a lot, even if it wasn't as polished as the first.

Video Games:

Tomb Raider Legend: I got a little bored last weekend and picked up this game for less than 20 bucks. While it is fairly entertaining and occupied me for several hours on Saturday, there was a good deal of it that left me in a combination of swearing loudly and almost pissing my pants. While Lara has moved up from just running around with two pistols and has a few more toys that allow me to throw a bat-cable and hook shiny metal things and either pull them or swing over spiky pits with them, and USE BINOCULARS and A FLASHLIGHT. OK its not the most deep additions ever but the game itself is batshit crazy. It's like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the stipulation that you cant touch your kitchen floor and have to open the fridge with a rope that activates a cut scene. Lara has all sorts of crazy acrobatic mountain climbing techniques where you flip leap off of ledges into a parallel bar routine and then somehow catch a swinging rope to get to the giant stone button. Sounds great doesn't it. Hot girl character, in various skimpy wardrobe choices, doing crazy acrobats with gunfights thrown in around the puzzles. Sadly it should be, but is glitchy as all hell. Lara's stunts often go awry time after time when your angle is slightly off or the ledge you're supposed to grab next is placed out of the explorable camera view while blending into the background. The gunfights are laughably easy, even though you can't aim for shit, even with auto aim, and the bad guys take a good thirty shots to go down. The puzzles are often VERY difficult to figure out without help, heck not getting turned around even with textbook linear game play is overly difficult. The motorcycle riding levels are a cool (also sometime frustrating) change to the game play although going off ramps does little other than to get the guy on your radio to flip his shit. Its a nice view of what could be to come in the franchise, but this flawed game is one to borrow from the fan boy friend who picked it up and probably finished it already.

Toothpaste:

Colgate Max Fresh: awful, really really awful. Tastes horrible, gives a bad aftertaste, even worse in the morning, and makes a hellish mess all over itself and anything in a five foot area. Sad thing is I bought it in a three pack, which I will be throwing away as soon as I possibly can.

Thats all for now.

When Facebook Buddy List Gets a Good Cleaning

2008-08-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

Before we get started of my gleeful thinning of the herd, yes I did find the convenient "Try new Facebook" bar at the top of the screen approximately sixteen seconds after writing about not being swift enough to find it. While I can see how its new, I don't find the changes very innovative or helpful and caused me to have a miniature panic attack before finding the "Return to Normal" button conveniently in the same place as the "Try new Facebook" button. The new Facebook just appears that someone at facebook said "4 out of 5 people agree that people like drop down menus, and adding slightly more customization options for my profile then I ever care to use. Personally I think it looks lazy and basically like the perfectly functional current Facebook with a healthy helping more useless crap then is already shoveled on there.

SO back to the list of Facebook "friends". Like the satisfying pleasure of getting a new cell phone and being able to "forget" to put people back in your contacts list, going through your friends list is a satisfying experience. There were people that I couldn't remember who they were or why I friended them in the first place. Others were friends of friends or friends of ex's that I really didn't like having to hang out with them before let alone seeing several photo albums of them looking drunk and hanging all over guys that look like they have the combined IQ of a bag of trail mix with little bits of rotten trout included. Then there was the deletion of people in my major that I added just because they were in my major but really could be considered less than an acquaintance. Throw in a helping of removing several women who use every chance they can get (including the birth of family member's kids) to take an album's worth of pictures of themselves from different angles. When all was said and done I dropped my friends list from over 200 people to about 140, with people left between my good friends and people I left because I get a kick out of looking at their constant flow of vacation pictures from their parents allowing them to piss money away without much of any consequence such as getting a job. So if you get a moment that you're bored and wish you could see less pictures of that girl from your math class's cats, I highly recommend it. Just don't delete mine because its much easier to click on the link in there then to type in the epically long web address to get to this blog that you are obviously a fan of if you took the time to read this post.

Science Experiment I have in my Head

2008-08-02T21:06:00.001-07:00

Do you ever come across someone and think to yourself, I wonder what they're like in bed? Sure we've all done it at some point thinking of that sexy chick at the end of the bar who moves her hips to the music in such a hypnotising manner that if she walked up to you and ask you to stab your friend, you would seriously consider it. But what I'm talking about is other people.

Lately I've been wondering more and more about women I come across that I'm really not attracted to the person but I have a burning desire to know if their personality quirks carry over to the bedroom. Do they talk constantly about mundane topics while getting railed? Or do they shut up and become a serene shell of their former self. Does their absolute laziness cause them to lay there like a corpse or are they so low key because they blew it all on wild hip bustin' sex? It's thoughts like this that make me sit back and go, damn if all of a sudden this person would ask for some lovin', I know its a horrible idea but damn this could be entertaining as all hell. Is the cock-blocker friend just looking for her time to shine? Is the quiet girl in the corner scream like a banshee when you hit that right spot? These are the type of things you have to think about. I mean sure, that irritating chick that just spent the last half hour telling you about how magical the Bolivian people are might turn out to be as mind numbing in the sack, but she could also be a dynamo in the rough.

Random Thoughts 7-30-08

2008-07-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Is a vegetarian omelet really vegetarian?

Shia LaBouffe recently got hit again with a DUI when his truck was in an accident on the way home. He says "I don't know how to have one drink". Fine Shia, you're young you can go out with fine Hollywood actresses and have a good time. But you're rich as hell, why do you need to drive? If I was rich, I would never drive. But come on man. You can be the drunkest little guy in all of California if you drop some cash on someone to drive you around. Being rich means that none of your friends need to be conned into being the D.D.

I learned that the song America, has the same music as God Save the Queen. Nothing witty there, just thought it was interesting.

Do professional wrestlers have business cards?

A lot of people talk about checking out new facebook, I've written in the address and it goes back to the same page. I'm not sure if the future is that great or perhaps I just don't make the grade in getting into the next level of Internet stalking.

Its tax free weekend coming up, is everything tax free or just certain things? Its a shame I'm fairly money free as well.

I've had Atonement sitting on my TV for two months and I've never been able to make myself put it in. I even try to tell myself that it's a war movie and Keira Knightly is probably naked at some point, but no dice.

Is a Hogan's Heroes remake on the way? I really love the old episodes on TV and hell they did a Get Smart movie.

Oh and the Burger King steakhouse burger commercials bother me. "What did you do to earn a steakhouse burger?"
"I went there and gave them money asshole, because I was hungry"

Internal Issues Hamper a Weekend of Epic Pimpness

2008-07-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

My weekend started with being helpful. I had promised Molly over a week in advance that I would help her move her stuff into her new apartment. This would however be two weeks in a row in which I get drafted into service to carry furniture. This weekend however I only had to do the unloading of a very organized woman, with the help of her parents and several friends. After waiting around a lot later then I thought we were going to get started, the move took no time what so ever and we were done moving a U-haul and a pickup in less than an hour. Again I sweated like I had run a marathon but it was nice to help another one of my friends.

From there (after rinsing off of course) I went to Clemson for probably the fourth week in a row. Now I'm sporting a new shirt and new pair of shorts and I'm not going to lie, I felt like an epic pimp. Jeb laughed at my claim but I was feeling good, ready to go out and kick ass. So we scooped up BMS and were off to Mellow Mushroom. Not for the food mind you, which is alright but probably fairly overpriced if you'd sit and think about it, but for the abundance of hot waitresses. One in particular with surprisingly nice dreadlocked hair and freckles which i love (girls never cover up your freckles). But of course she wasn't there, not only that, we actually got a guy as our waiter. Looking over the beer list I thought to myself that I hadn't had a Michelob in a while and ordered an Ultra. Big mistake, I didn't hear the end of it from Jeb and C.P. who showed up and was pleased that he wasn't the one getting teased. Mic Ultra isn't that bad but I felt like I could drink a case and wouldn't even have been buzzed. But craving a little more flavor I went back to my usual the second round, but without any sign of my food. My uncooked turkey and cheese sub. When three pizzas had been brought out. No hot waitress, no food, I was about to cut my losses and steal a slice from C.P.'s pizza. I got a free beer out of the deal and the sandwich eventually came out but the tip ended up less then sizable.

From there we headed to Nick's. The Benjamins heading off to some mystery date they had, it was down to Jeb, BMS, and me. However being as it was after 8pm, BMS didn't last long and soon split for home. After a couple drinks, with nothing that I can remember out of the ordinary, I thought I would give this girl Melissa, who I had been on one date with, a call to see if she would like to come out and join us. I didn't really expect her to but figured, why the hell not. In fact she responds first with a text message saying how sorry she is but she sadly can't come join, which I quickly talk her out of this foolishness and do a little happy dance sitting at the bar. So she says she'll give a call when she gets close, Jeb and I finish up and go to Griffins.

We're chillin out and having our usual good time there, when she shows up with a friend. Everything seems good when all of a sudden the weirdest thing happened.

I got the hiccups. And they didn't stop.

I did everything I could think of but nothing worked. Hours went by, and I was struggling. I couldn't concentrate on anything and I'm very frustrated. I'm just really trying to be myself and hopefully be impressive to this girl. But I'm just super embarrassed and thinking of ways to slip out. Finally after switching bars again and getting surprisingly drunk, still hiccuping the whole time, its time to go. Mellissa offers to drive us back to Jeb's and the second she leaves, the hiccuping stops.

Just my luck.

Disappointment

2008-07-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

Not to sound like an emo blog poster, but I got dumped again today (don't worry I'll make up for this with a funny post about the weekend). The weird thing is I've gotten to the point where I expect it. When Tracey gave me the "You're super but I want to be your friend" talk, she was amazed that I wasn't angry or broken up about it all. Don't get me wrong, Tracey is amazing, really unbelievable in fact, I could be myself around her and she was nice and goofy. But I expected it. She didn't hint about it or anything, short of being non-confrontable about it, but I knew it was coming because its just the way things go.

I don't know how I've come to expect quick and sudden failure in my relationships and it doesn't seem like I'm doing anything wrong, in fact the usual step before getting tossed aside is the woman is really happy to have me around and tell me how great it is to have me around. But then in a week or less, its like I turned into the plague. Women are really confusing and I don't know if these women secretly were bothered by something I did and they're just being nice but it baffles the mind.

I don't know, hopefully I'll find someone that helps me get over this mindset or can explain to me whats going on. I have a feeling I'll get an informational message from D.P. telling me that I need to be more of a dick or something (something I can't do, I've tried, it makes me feel like shit). But feel free to voice your ideas of whats going on.

Continued....

2008-07-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

So we finish up unloading all of BMS's stuff. I look like someone shot me with a supersoaker. Damn sweat. I swear I somehow sweat more liquid then humanly possible. It sucks. We get ready for downtown and I'm sporting my tuxedo t-shirt (I'm formal but I'm here to party) so of course its going to be a good night. We get a message that "the Benjamin's" will meet us downtown at Nick's at 9:30, but we don't feel like waiting so we head down there earlier and put down a few beers and some bar food (all bar food is not created equal, especially somewhat international food at a tiny bar with their menu written on one of the walls). The bartender looks familiar and recognizes me but for the life of me I can't remember which set of friends I know him from. I really feel bad because he's a friendly guy but I guess it happens. 9:45 rolls around and I get a call from C.P. saying that they are just now headed down and stopping for dinner. I tell him to meet us at another bar because I know that they will take forever to get there and while Nick's has quite the nice atmosphere and selection of tasty hoppy beers, it lacks heavily in the eye candy department, so I figured we'd move on before they got there. We finish the food and beers and head up to Griffin's.

The attractive bartender is still not there, we figure this weekend she's at Hooters (not a joke, its her other job) but Griffin's is good as usual. C.P., Katie and Keihner show up finally and we have a great time hanging out and taking pictures with Jeb's new camera. One of the people at the bar sees my shirt and quotes Talladega Nights which makes me super happy. But the first couple of Polo wants to go to TTT's so we head over there.

We continue having a great time, drinking long island pitchers and stay there until the usual closing time on a Saturday, midnight. Then I decide that we should really head to Overtime since Tim has a membership and everyone left agrees.

Now I have somehow lost my new driver's licence. I remember having it and dropping it in between my car seat and the middle console but an exhaustive search earlier in the weekend with Jeb and BMS's help turns up nothing. For the most part in Clemson we don't get carded because they know us, but Overtime is apparently not like that. I approach the gate and the 350lb bouncer asks to see the ID. I tell him I don't have it, hoping that he's not a total douche and actually opens his eyes and sees that I don't look like an 18 year old trying to sneak in, but he brushes me off and I can't come in. I move farther down the patio fence and run into two guys that apparently know me but I don't believe I had ever met before. My friends who made it in join the three of us talking and give me a suggestion.

"Why don't you just hop the fence, they aren't looking"

I glance down at the two huge bastards checking ID's and also notice that there's a huge brick post in between me and them that would obscure my entrance. I weigh my options with the chance of getting pounded on and tossed out by the giants at the gate compared to being stuck outside and make a semi graceful vault of the fence to join my friends. Everything is good, no one seemed to notice, why not get a drink now that I'm in. I head to the bar with my friends and order a drink.

The bartender who I have seen at least a dozen times before at this bar actually asks for my ID again.

Getting in wasn't enough, now I needed to prove it again to get a drink? What the hell man. I tell him I don't have it and he gets a douchebag look on his face and hands my credit card which I had just handed him to the other bartender who starts walking toward the exit. I know I'm screwed and honestly hope I just don't end up having one of the fat ID checking bastards screaming in my face before I leave. We get to the gate and the bartender is holding out my ID in front of him like a torch or something so I grab it out of his hand and just walk out the gate into the crowd of people trying to get in. I contemplate turning around and flicking him off but figure the get away without much hassle is good enough. I walk up the sidewalk and stand in front of the Wachovia to wait for my friends to finish up and come out.

Amazingly I run into one of my old roommates, who despite being fairly underage when I roomed with him a year ago is now definitely 21. We chat for a while and him and his friend start smoking. All of a sudden out of nowhere comes this super hot chick asking for a cigarette. She looks like a younger Danica Patrick. I tell her this and while shes sorta flattered, she also doesn't seem to know who Danica Patrick is. She says her name is Harmony, which I feel is just as goofy so I decide to call her Danica anyway. She seems not to mind and actually smiles a little when I do it. Shes with some exchange student that she seems to be in town to sleep with. In our conversation he talks about his girlfriend back in Columbia or Argentina or South Africa or where ever it was in front of this girl hes sleeping with and she amazingly doesn't blink or seem to care at all. Girl's are funny like that. He looks like an ugly version of Jim Morrison. Danica seems to really be eyeing me and I contemplate asking for her number despite her obvious lack of availability. Looking back I probably could have pulled it off, oh well. Jeb finally shows up and does his best to wing man it up for me but it's a lost cause. We walk on back to Jeb's and crash for the night.

The next day I'm up surprisingly early, woken up by BMS and her little flat faced dog. I sit around for a while and finally we decide that Jeb needs to wake up so we can go get some always tasty Waffle House. We go and laugh about the night before and when we get back we watch a David Decovney movie I hadn't seen, which turned out to be really good. But I was worn out and decided it was time to head home, where I ended my crazy weekend passed out in a heap at the bottom of my bed.

Let's Just Get Cocky and Back the Trailer Down the Hill

2008-07-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

So long time and no post but after a good weekend I felt that my faithful readers would like an update on my hijinks's. So here we go:

I didn't even know I was going to Clemson until the last minute. I haven't been anywhere but Clemson in like a month, so it didn't come as much of a surprise that I ended up there again. Like usual I waited around all Friday afternoon, chilling out and watching movies and coming in 7th place in an online poker tourney waiting for the Jebster to get out of work. The only problem with getting out of work at 11:30 on a Friday is that no one else does. Except for unemployed people and for the most part they are in a junk food coma leaching off their parents. So eventually I headed down the highway to Jeb's and was informed that the plan was to hit up the movies to see the new Batman movie after some dinner.

So we head to the movies first to pick up the tickets because we're sure the movie will sell out. I roll out of the Charger and up to the window to buy our tickets. Behind the window is a very attractive woman who basically blinks her eyes and before I know it I'm signed up for the Regal Crown Club, have student tickets and the last seats in the particular showing of the movie and probably a goofy look on my face. We head from there to Fuddrucker's where I plan to try to use the Regal Crown Card to pay from dinner despite its lack of monetary value. After a tasty buffalo filled dinner and some futile attempts at the crane game, we head back to the movie theater. Jeb can't park and needs to do a 14 point turn to get the Charger's child-bearing hips into the spot. We make fun of him relentlessly the rest of the weekend over this.

The Dark Knight is an unbelievably good movie. Almost too good. With the performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker, I can't think of any Batman villains that would be able to follow and not go back to the hokey Batman themes of the old movies or wouldn't be believable that they would give Batman any problems what-so-ever after he handled the Joker. However being too good isn't much of a problem. It was an awesome movie and if you haven't see it, you should get to the movies immediately.

Afterwords Jeb and I stop off at Griffin's for an hour to have a drink and maybe ogle the bartender. She isn't there, not many people are. But we still are able to sit and drink and watch TV. About quarter to closing a group walks in with very loud, very unattractive women. One of which noticed that we were sitting by ourselves having a good time and we apparently looked like we needed to buy her a drink. Jeb obliged her with a drink that she chugged in two seconds flat and left. We were sorta amazed at this show of drinking prowess and were about to forget all about the giant woman in her shirt that was far too small for her when she had the audacity to come back after not being able to find her friends and asking for another drink. Surprisingly Jeb not only gives her another drink but gets the bartender to give us a round of shots for free. I give mine to our hefty friend because I feel that redbull and mint shots don't mix and maybe enough free alcohol will make her leave. Sadly this only makes her lean over and do her best to try to impress us by showing off her ample everything. It only makes me head for the door with Jeb following right behind. We walk back to Jeb's (something I'm going to miss being able to do when he moves to Greenville) and shoot the shit and watch Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (if you haven't seen it I highly recommend it, hilarious). I pass out around 4am.

I wake up at the crack of noon and hear murmurs of the moving that I had promised to help with the day before. BritneyMichelleSomebody is moving her stuff out of the apartment that I didn't know she even had because shes always at Jeb's. This also makes me think that she might not have that much over there since I'm also told that a lot of the stuff she has there she hasn't used in months. I had even thought that I might be able to talk Jeb and I out of sticking around to pack and coming back when the lifting was required. Boy was I wrong. While BMS had obviously not planned much more then throwing most of it in garbage bags and making lots of trips using the Charger to get her stuff out, she set us to work immediately in various parts of the little house. Her roommates are two gay guys, no problem with that, but they are two of the dirtiest guys I've ever seen. The kitchen is piled with dirty dishes, the house reeks of animal shit and the one guy is so ADD that he has started to paint the living room walls but has stopped after only trimming around objects. We pack up bunches of trash bags full of BMS's stuff and load them into the Charger several times, dropping them off at Jeb's. 4 hours later, one of her roommates comes home with the SUV that we need to pull Jeb's father's trailer over so that the fun of furniture moving can begin. They get back, her roommate stops helping, and Jeb and I start moving things with BMS managing the situation. Seeing the end in sight we start shooting texts off to our friends to join us in the later removal of this memory from our brains by alcoholic means. We finally get the remainder of the stuff ready for transfer and BMS drives the SUV with the trailer at a snails pace over to Jeb's. We get to the last turn and I get the idea that maybe we should back it down the hill so that it will be easy to unload the trailer and get it out. Cocky I offer to try to do this if she stands back and gives me some directions so i don't hit anything since some jackass has his trailer taking up half the road. I instantly find out that this is a really stupid idea because the trailer not only turns upside down and backwards from what you would expect, BMS is just shouting gibberish, and I can't see anything behind me. Finally I get it back to the point where i can drive it straight in and do so, flicking off the owner of the poorly parked SUV as I went.

Too be continued....

Another Weird Dream

2008-07-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

It was a short one that was so realistic that I woke up almost immediately. Like a jolt of electricity ran through my body. I closed my eyes and this face of a girl with shoulder length hair and a fairly shaded face leans over me and in for a kiss. But the way that everything was and how I was laying on the bed it was like the ideal angle and everything for it to be actually happening. It was so weird and realistic that I woke up gasping.

Really odd.
I should lay off the crack.

In Case You Hadn't Seen.......

2008-07-07T18:54:00.000-07:00

im a good friend

The Lingerie Buying Time of the Relationship

2008-07-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

The other weekend I was hanging out with Jeb and BMS and for some reason Jeb was shopping for lingerie for one of his female friends for her wedding. This started me thinking. At what time in a relationship do you reach a point where you can buy your loved one some sexy lingerie?
My last relationship was off and on for almost a year and hell I didn't even have a clue what size she wore. Not that it would have mattered. I have a feeling me shopping for lingerie would be something you could video and show after a chimp figuring out how to use a cell phone on the animal channel.

"Here he is, and no he's not going to do it, no he actually held it up on himself...."

But I still would have liked the option. I mean I'm not sure if I missed the boat, like there was a memo around month four saying "I know you're diggin whats going on but if you want to buy me things with lace I wouldn't complain and probably would do a little dance for you" Honestly how would I misplace an email like that? But this would mean that a year in, I had not reached the lingerie buy and show portion of the relationship, which seems like far too long to have not reached that point. It brings a whole new disappointment to that relationship not working out. So ladies please inform me when this magical time of the relationship occurs so I don't miss out the next time around. Does it very from person to person? I doubt its appropriate to ask on the first date whether I can buy some lingerie for them. And ladies out there, I know you could be insecure with your bodies, but if you tell your guy that he can buy you nice lingerie in return for a little happy dance, men will be packed into Victoria's Secret trying to decipher the numbers that none of us understand.

Weird Dreams

2008-07-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been having a lot of weird dreams. Weird dreams that I somehow still remember. The real strange part was that the dreams aren't about odd things like getting attacked by a psycho or going golfing with a celebrity. My dreams are about everyday activities, but activities that I wouldn't normally participate in.

The other day I had a dream that I had a role in a play, that was being performed at a rodeo. I had one line to remember, and was having a terrible time remembering it. The dream was me freaking out about this line while going to the rodeo arena. Then once I got there it was 30 minutes until the show and I had to find the dressing room. I was fighting through the crowds of raucous rodeo fans and couldn't find it anywhere. So on top of saying my line over and over and over again, I was freaking out even more because I couldn't find where I was supposed to go. Then just as I'm about to find the place, I wake up.

I had another dream where my friend Tracey got back together with my friend D.P., who apparently traded his normal job for a job as a travel agent. And for some reason Tracey was his secretary. For some reason them getting together really bugged me in the dream, but instead of doing a normal angry jealous thing, I decided I would just prank them a lot to be an overall pest. I did everything from throwing things to stealing office furniture from their travel agency (that I rode down the sloped parking lot with a look of glee on my face). However my dream cut off sort of suddenly and I didn't really see what my dream self was hoping to accomplish, but it was funny and kinda had a 1920's feel to it.

And my latest dream from last night was that I was in the shop class to end all shop classes and it was right before the final. We had to pick something to build, like anything in the world (apparently there was unlimited supplies in the warehouse shop). First I was freaking out that I didn't know what to make. Then the first group I had kept getting bigger and bigger so I freaked out that there was way too many people for me to have any role. And then I got another group and went back to freaking out about about what we were going to do. And before I could find out what we were going to make, I woke up. Tough to wake up all frustrated about not getting to find out what my dream self ended up doing.

Now I don't know what any of this means, but I definitely wish my dreams went back to being about hot women and going on Indiana Jones-like adventures. If I'm going to a rode0/theater, I want it to be because I'm going to slide down a zip line, shoot four bad guys in the face and have sex with the pretty blond against the rodeo clown barrel. Is that so much to ask?

Women Baffle Me

2008-06-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, I love women. Absolutely beautiful and amazing. But that doesn't explain one common trait that I have found.

For some reason they really aren't logical sometimes.

This goes from little things like believing that there are such a thing as makeup with color changing micro beads that magically change to the ideal color to accentuate your skin. They throw away relationships with nice guys that possess all the traits that they say they are looking for and stick with guys that say and do things that I wouldn't say or do to my worst enemy. Its the strangest delusional mindset that defies all logic. The funny thing is they think that guys are an absolute mystery. Any guy that opens a women's magazine can tell you that these authors have absolutely no idea what guys are thinking. Its like explaining common phenomenon in totally ridiculous ways. They stick with douchebags because they have been brainwashed into thinking that they actually have something to do with why they are being treated like crap, when the only thing they did was stick around and put up with it. You sticking round is not going to cause them to change. Thinking with a logical mind, if the douchebag is able to continue using you without repercussion, what reason could he possibly have for changing. I know as well as anyone how terrible it can be to be alone, but a miserable relationship is no trade off. I'm no expert in any sense of the word but I'm also not an idiot. If someone can explain to me the totally illogical way that women think I would be very grateful.

Note to readers: I am not speaking of anyone in particular, its a general post on the illogical nature of women. So no angry messages.

Monday Monday

2008-06-16T20:02:00.001-07:00

Damn it I just got jealous of a commercial. I am terrible with having advertisements influence me into buying things. This one is for Gillette's new body wash. I wasn't jealous however that the guy had hydrated skin, on the contrary, he walked out of getting hydrated into an office meeting which was filled with super hot women. Where are the board meetings of hot women at my work?

I was making lunch for tomorrow and I have these little applesauce things like the ones that your mom would put in your lunch as a kid. I figure I need to get fruits and vegetables into my diet and I like apple sauce. I pick up the package and try to fish one out. Ooops, SPLAT! My clumsiness drops it out of the pack and it smacks against the fridge and then the floor spilling applesauce everywhere. I throw it away and reach for the other one. Ooops, SPLAT! It bounces off the bottom shelf of the fridge shooting apple sauce everywhere. Holding the empty package in my hand I curse at my sudden lack of fruit. I almost give up on having a healthy lunch when I find the last apple sauce hiding in my fridge. At least its not a total loss.

I saw this series of called Lovebites on Youtube today. It's absolutely hilarious. Especially the shower episode. Check it out, there's like 78 episodes, definitely worth checking out.

Damn there's another commercial I'm jealous of, an office with a hot chick that sucks face with me just to get my gum. A guy can dream.

Profound Thoughts from a Baseball Fan

2008-06-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend I did a lot of thinking. Apparently when I think I make a face that looks somewhere between pain and depression that I don't realize I'm making, but that's another story. This weekend I was reading a lot of this baseball book that I brought along and also doing my darndest to make Tracey smile and feel good, when I came upon a revelation.

Dating is exactly like managing a Major League Baseball minor league farm system. There's always a lot of prospects but very few will ever turn out to be worth anything. And even some of the ones you give a shot in the major's will never work out the way you wanted them to.

But it was another great weekend. However most of what I would want to talk about I probably shouldn't. So I'm gonna leave it at that. Lots of fun out on the town, love my new seersucker pants, a relaxing Saturday at the pool, and Sunday at the zoo.

"Hell I don't know what's going on, but my life definitely does not suck"

At least for now.

Lesson of the Day: If it sounds too good to be true it probably is

2008-06-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

I was bored tonight. A dangerous thing for me to be sitting in front of a computer. When I saw this link on the side of facebook for getting a free plasma, PS3 and gta4. Now I figure nothing is free but heck most of their little offers that I'd have to complete would be 5 bucks for the trial of some product that i could cancel as soon as I ordered it. So I get through two rounds of offers, I get 6 DVDs for $16 bucks, I get some posters for practically nothing, and some products that I plan to return when I get them. No big deal, probably blew like 20-30 bucks, if it gets me a TV I'm good with that. Then I get to page three where it says I have to complete two more deals and I'm done.

Good fucking Lord.

To complete 2 deals on this page I would have to have like 2 grand of disposable money. One of the deals is a loan for a car, one is vacation plans, one is a $1800 bean bag. I instantly close the site and start canceling my other deals. Good Game Ripoff Site, Good Game. An interesting experiment where I get hosed a little bit and y'all learn from my mistake. Note to self, no credit card when I'm bored. I should have probably just put dish soap in the dishwasher again and filled the kitchen with bubbles.

Eh.......

2008-06-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

I kinda don't want to write about the rest of the weekend. Don't get me wrong, Saturday and Sunday were fantastic but I felt like writing about something else. So to please the people that I know if I left it at that they would be calling me a bastard on facebook while I'm at work, here is a little summary of Saturday and Sunday.

Woke up late, joked around with Tracey(she apparently talks about random gibberish when shes tired, also liked to do this thing where she doesn't quite rhyme but she uses a bunch of words with the same letter in them that is absolutely hilarious because for some reason I can't do it because apparently alphabet is hard), Got taunted to finally get out of bed and go to Clemson, Got there and Katie said that they needed my help carrying things, Was bombarded with water balloons instead, Did some grillin and drinkin, Went down to the boat (A full cooler on a downhill slope is a recipe for running over the tiny attractive chick you're with), Went to try to get the new tube blown up professionally (because that's how Benjamin's roll), The blow up shack was apparently taking the day off (but i got to walk on sharp rocks and a dock that was both hot and splintery at the same time), Went to hang out and swim for a while, Drank about as much Hartwell as beer (my pee will glow, just you watch), Had a giant dog jump on me when I'm trying to swim, Relaxed in the boat and poured cold water on the pretty lady, Rode over to the old island camping place (where Mr. H collected a bottle full of sand for no apparent reason other then to stash it somewhere in Captain Prententiousness's belongings), C.P. floored the boat on the way out and the 120 lb dog flies off the seat and onto my leg (niiiiice), We went back and went out to this Mexican place in Seneca (tucked magically behind Fat's Cafe), The ladies drank their weight in Margarita, Decided to head downtown Clemson, Hit several bars with the intention to play pool (but the group looked like the sun burnt walking dead because everyone was tired but everyone thought the other people wanted to keep going, until I was like, "This is fun, but I kinda want to go to bed", Went home to C.P.'s (who I'm thinking about changing his call sign to Timmy, because its equally funny with less periods), Fell asleep in Keihner's bed, Didn't wake up alone, Went to Target to find a tasteful woman's swimsuit (that's a first for "Thing's Michael has gone to Target for"), Drove Trace back to Columbia (where it was like 109 degrees), Went on a walk along the river with her and her miniature dog, Looked as sweaty and horrible as I thought I would (Woo guess who's never gonna get the goodbye hug), Hung out watching a chickish flick (Drinkin a Sundrop), Thought about laying my head on her lap, Realized I was a sweaty beast, Thought better of the plan and had her stretch out instead, And drove on back to Greer.

And that's pretty much the other two days rolled into one ongoing sentence where I throw out the rules of punctuation and capitalization, the spell checker program is going to flip its shit later. Pretty frickin awesome, hope y'all like it.

What I really wanted to talk about was Woot.com. I had visited Woot.com a couple times in the past but stopped after a while because the things weren't as much of a deal as they were pieces of crap sold for low low prices. But over the weekend Tracey was wearing these really funny T-shirts, and anyone who knows me knows that I love the witty t-shirt. So she says that she gets them on Woot.com on their shirt site. So I'm thinking in my head how this could work, perhaps you send them your $10 and they send you a random t-shirt and sometimes its cool and other times its a greasy Burger King employee shirt. But no, they have a different shirt each day for $10 and you can check them out and buy them. Woot didn't stop there however. In addition to regular shittastic stuff woot and shirt woot, they have wine woot. I don't really drink wine and to me two bottles for like sixty bucks seems like a ton, but I'm sure that theres someone out there who digs that thing. They should have called it Alcoholic Woot though where the slogan could be "Feeding your alcoholic needs from the comfort of the Internet". I'm really wondering what they are going to branch into next. Panties Woot? (Sometimes its cute but other times its a train wreck) Bread Woot? (8000 different kinds of bread, guaranteed to get to you smashed and stale) Or Random Cleaning Product Woot? (Easy off Bam or Lye, you be the judge). One can only dream.

The Little Things In Life....

2008-06-09T17:32:00.000-07:00

Its a strange habit I'm forming. This is the second Monday in a row that I've gone to work limping. Last week I stepped on a rock retrieving a $1.50 floatie and cut my foot. This week a Labrador fell on my leg. But we'll get back to that later.

This weekend began with a ton of excitement. Out of nowhere a girl likes me and is coming to visit me. It was really like being the leader in a game that you didn't know you were playing. By Friday I had to admit though I was still worried. Tracey's car was in the shop and the mechanic seemed clueless, the time that it was going to be ready was moved farther and farther back. What started as a problem with the transmission had suddenly turned into a search for mythical creatures. I was to the point that I was willing to drive 2 hours out to Columbia to pick her up, but we waited while the time moved back from 1 to 3:30 to 5:30. When I was about to leave, she says that shes gotten a guy to drive her out to see me. Honestly this girl likes me enough that she has convinced a guy to drive her two hours to see me. What she didn't realize was that the guy she picked was an idiot. By the time she got here he had driven her crazy with his lack of knowledge on everything from the difference of organic and non organic fabrics to topics that a five year old could write a dissertation on. She cooled off with me on the balcony while she told her story, sipped a beer and sat upside down on the futon. Finally we decided to head to dinner. First date. We decided to go to the Great Bay Oyster House. I had a slight panic attack when we walked in the door and the place was pretty full and a book of reservations with my name no where at all in them. It turned out to be not that big of a deal as we just had to hang out at the bar a little before our table was ready.

The whole time was fantastic. Never have I laughed and had as good of a time on a first date. Everything from the fact that one of the oysters we ordered apparently looked like a certain part of the female anatomy, to different seating positions she made her students sit in when she was a teacher. It was fantastic and topped off with her "model walk" and wave on the way out. Finally a girl that is as goofy as I am. We hop in my car and start heading back to my apartment when we come across an accident that blocked the road and caused me to go another way. Now I know a good number of roads around here but I found myself in the middle of the Greer ghetto with date in tow. Surprisingly though she was a really good sport about it and we eventually we made it back to my place. We popped in a movie and relaxed and eventually fell asleep. One really amazing day I couldn't wait for more Saturday down at the lake.

To be continued....

Jelly and Long Distance Pranking Continued

2008-06-03T15:07:00.000-07:00

So I woke up in a strange bed, Saturday morning. Not with a beautiful woman mind you. Not with an ugly woman either. Just by myself in Keihner's bed. He is away for the summer so I decided that his bed beat the overpriced uncomfortable sofa that C.P. has in his living room. It's noon, I'm still wearing what I wore the night before and I'm sorta hungry so I get up at the crack of noon. I figured Katie will be up already but she emerges at about the same time I do and we go get some food, although i can't remember what it was. Katie doesn't make decisions but shes quick to shape my decisions into where she wants to go. We return and go to the lake. I love the lake, I would really go there everyday if I could. We decided to chill on the dock for a while, where I actually used some sunscreen this week. Katie took a while to lather up so I jumped in and started paddling around with one of our new $1.50 floaties. Katie finishes and jumps in, probably washing most of the last fifteen minutes off in a single second. We paddle around and chat like we always do, and she laughed at me several times for not being able to pull myself up on the dock. I don't know if I have bad form or really skinny arms, but I can't do it. It's a goal for the end of the summer. After a while we get out and like clockwork Jeb, his girl (who for some reason I can't remember if shes a Michelle or a Britney or something totally different) and Steve come on out and join us. They bring beer, which is always nice, and we celebrate their arrival by picking up Katie and throwing her back in the lake. Its a fairly effortless process and I have the presence of mind to take her sunglasses off her face as we're picking her up. We soon all join her in the lake, except for BritneyMichelleSomebody who is content in chilling on the dock.

After a while I decide that I am going to swim across the lake. I swim like a fish and the task doesn't seem as daunting as you'd think. But I bring the one floaty and an inflatable bed thing that we found with be. Half way across I realize that these two items are really causing me to swim slow and are more of a hindrance then a help. So I stop on the little island in the middle and lay them down and continue to the other shore. I get about half way there when I turn around and see that the inflatable mattress thing blew off the island in a gust of wind and is floating away. I think about going for the shore and just letting it go since its not really mine anyway, but quickly reconsider and catch up with it. I drag it to the other shore like a lifeguard and lay back on the surprisingly sandy beach for a little. I quickly grow bored and head back to the other side. I have the inflatable bed thing under me like wings and I'm making good headway just using my legs. I have to stop at the center island however to pick up the $1.50 floaty, going by the lake swimmers motto of never leaving a good float behind. For as sandy as the side beaches are, the center island is the absolute opposite and covered in rocks. I exit quickly and I'm just pushing off when I step on a jagged rock. It hurts like crazy but I keep going back to my friends at the dock. I get up there and see that I cut the bottom of my foot but it doesn't seem that serious. I grab a beer and chill with them. Katie decides to head back a little earlier, pointing to her boobs and saying "Look I'm peeling".

Out of nowhere, a group of 18 year old freshmen show up, all sporting 22oz cans of Miller Lite. How could this not be suspicious to the person they bought them from? I mean seriously, if you came up and looked like you were 18 and had a bunch of 22oz'ers in hand, I don't care if your ID says you're 45, you're definitely underage. We hang out for a while more with the kids and then decide to hit the liquor store before it closes. Jeb stocks up on some Jack Daniels and me and Steven wander around looking like a bunch of 12 year olds on a field trip. We pile back into the car, me cuddling up to a large box of candles in the backseat (now in Midsummer's Night) and grab some grilling stuff at the grocery store. We go back to C.P.'s and chill for a while. We pop in a movie and I help Katie start grilling on C.P.'s huge illegal grill. Steve joins us on the balcony and starts handling knives and I decide it would be a good time to head back inside before I get stabbed by this crazy guy for calling him Steve (which I haven't stopped doing all day). I feel bad for Katie who stands her post but figure shes a big girl and can take care of herself.

We eat, the movie finishes and everyone is looking like they're about to nod off at 9pm. I am semi enthusiastic to go back downtown since I figure the alternative involves me chilling on on a couch while everyone else falls asleep. Everyone tries to wuss out and I have to use the "you're old" card several times, but finally I get all of them to agree except for BritneyMichelleSomebody who decides to go home. To do so however I have to agree that if we go I will have to get some chick's number of walk home from downtown. This isn't the first time that they have pulled something like this on me trying to make me branch out and impress drunk chicks with my ability to buy them drinks and provide a means to write. By forcing me into the situation, chances are I talk to less women then if you would have just agreed to go. Katie and I get to Tiger Town Tavern and the place is deserted. There are seriously two women in the entire place and both of them are extremely unattractive. I think about getting a quick number off of one of them anyway just to get the group off my back but ultimately decide not to and start playing Katie in some pool. I suck terribly but almost win both times, blowing it at the end of the game. Jeb and Steve join us and we play a couple more team games where Katie and I lose terribly. I suggest we head across the street to Nick's, remembering several times when they were full when the other bars were empty. Sadly it wasn't much better. Just a couple tables of fairly unattractive women. I enjoy my beers while getting dogged by the other three that my time was running out to get the number. On the second beer, when the bartender comes Jeb and I hold up a five dollar bill on my chest to match the Abe Lincoln shirt shes wearing and she gets a good laugh out of it. Time is ticking by and the other three are getting more and more adamant that I need to get a number. I tell the bartender the story and half think she wanted me to ask for hers but felt it wouldn't be worth it with her being fairly unattractive also. Resigned to my fate of walking home with a hurt foot and a bad knee I continue downing beers until closing time rolls around. Steve is asking if I want to go to Overtime, and figure that it would probably be better then just walking home. This however gets Katie to break her threat and agree to give me a ride home. It usually happens this way (the alternative usually being that I walk up to a table full of girls and tell them that my friend is being a douche and if I could please buy one of them a drink so I could get back to relaxing, I would be appreciative), but I appreciate the ride (and fast food) and soon I'm passed out where I woke up in the morning.

Long Distance Taunting and an Abundance of Jelly

2008-06-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

I knew this weekend was going to be fun.I could have bet money on it. I was going to make sure it happened. Heck it started on Thursday.

I get a message late Wednesday or early Thursday with Katie asking if I wanted to hit up Downtown Live in Greenville that night. What she really was asking was for help in picking up Captain Pretentious's Jag from the dealer, and if I was good I would be rewarded with some fun times in Greenville. The Jag dealer had found that the only way to fix burnt out circuits in the door was to replace basically the whole thing and charge C.P. far more than they needed to. Seeing how I doubt C.P. knows much about his car (as shown by the time where he took 45 minutes to find the battery to jump his boat) they could have told him that the windows were out of magic Jag dust and he would have happily paid the bill. Oh and now that he's back I can finally put up the pictures of the little surprise I made for him.

An inside joke between our group of friends. But it should definitely warrant an angry phone call vowing my imminent death. But its the little things that make me smile, especially taking a Jag to the dealer with that sticker on it.

So anyway we get it back to my place and Katie decides that she has far too much work to spend time downtown laughing her ass off with us. You see I had called Jeb and his girlfriend and invited them along to the Blue Ridge Brewery for some fairly good food and drinks. Jeb and I have the exact same sense of humor and practically spend the whole time when we hang out trying to get the other to spit their drink out through their nose. With his pint sized girlfriend along for the ride, nursing broken fingers in a cup of ice water, we discussed tons of hilarious topics, from the logistics of filling C.P.'s trunk with dildos to reason's why I should if at all possible get married out of the state of South Carolina. It was so humorous that the two Blue Ridge employees selling beer to the Downtown Live crowds were cracking up standing beside us. After we finished up there, Jeb and I went to the Irish pub down the street for "one more drink" with his rather attractive paralegal-lawn maintenance-bartender friend. We also started a trend that would carry over the entire weekend of sending vulgar text messages to C.P. at 4:30am Swedish time.

After getting out of work Friday I was tasked by Katie to go to this bar and get C.P. another pony keg for his amateur beer operation. So I head into Blue Ridge which is where I thought she said to go. After several minutes with the owner looking at me like I was crazy and insisting that he didn't sell his kegs empty, I headed out. Apparently Katie had told me another place to go which explained the confusion. I head down to Clemson and wait outside C.P.'s for Katie to get out of a meeting and pick up a magazine to read. I have to say that Details magazine is a horrible piece of garbage, which shows the filthy rich which accessories they need to show that they are better and apparently more homophobic than their peers. I swear that if I am thrust into extreme wealth I will never dress like the people in that magazine, where dressing in extremely tight, ugly clothing is the fad. But anyway back to Friday. Katie got back and while she was very hungry, refused to make a decision on where to eat. So I chose Super Taco, which she had amazingly never been to. Flash forward to going downtown later. Katie and I head downtown with a friend Susan. Susan has a problem that while she says that shes having a good time, she looks like we're taking her to a funeral. But she asked if she could come along, so we were happy to invite her along. Also Jeb has said that after he finishes packing for a camping trip he has planned for Saturday he'll join us downtown. Katie gets a hold of my cell phone and changes her name to "I Don't Even Like Jelly!" which she uses to fake call me several times during the night. We start the night at Nick's, a bar known for a good beer selection but non-existent liquor. They are actually playing Ace of Base, which warrants the first text of the evening to C.P. in Sweden. Katie and Susan are talking about who knows what and I'm relieved when Jeb finally shows up with his friend Kyle. We have a good time joking around and head across the street to Tiger Town Tavern. When we get there we decide to mess with Kyle and call him Steve for the rest of the evening. The first round of the name change goes less then well with him shooting it down fairly quickly. But I stick with it. We bounce to a couple more bars and finally call it a night, dropping Susan off and getting some Taco Bell on the way back to Hart's Cove. Good night with a good day planned for the next day.

To be continued.......

Thank You For Fucking Me Big Time

2008-05-28T14:10:00.001-07:00

So I get this call from a robot yesterday saying that I should check my phone bill balance. Now I signed up for this phone in April so I was sort of expecting to actually receive a bill sometime before the due date so I don't have to use ESP to write them a check. So instead of calling them I figure I'll go in so I can maybe look at a bill instead of hearing a number. The guy that I talked to when I started my plan was fairly knowledgeable and had won the employee of the month like two months in a row.

Apparently it really falls off after him.

I was helped by seriously two of the least intelligent people I've ever met before.
The conversation went somewhat like this:

Me: Hey I got a phone call that there was a problem with my bill, which is strange because I haven't gotten one yet
Dumb: Let me have fifty seven pieces of information to verify your identity.
(Like I'm going to steal someone's phone and then go enquire about my billing status)
Dumb: It says here that it was due on the 16th of May, did you not get a bill?
Me: No I haven't received anything yet
Dumb: So you didn't pay because you haven't received a bill?
Me: I thought it was a better plan then coming up with a number in my head.
Dumb: Well do you live.....(my address)
Me: Yeah apartment 932
Dumb: Oh it doesn't say that here, that could be the problem
Me: Yeahhhhhhh
Dumb: Well it says that you owe $147.
Me: That seems fairly high.
Dumb: Well you owe this for the phone plan, this for texting, this for activation fees...
Me: I was told they were dropping those when I signed up
Dumb: Oh really, you also owe pro-rates for the rest of April
Me: What exactly is that?
Dumb: Well since you didn't sign up on this certain day of the month, we decided you needed to pay $1-$2 a day in April until you got to that day.
Dumb: But it says here that you owe the same amount next month....
Me: Yeah I don't think so
(By this time I am getting woozy from the abundance of stupidity, and the other employee joins her behind the counter)
Dumber: Yeah it says here that you owe $147, did you want to pay that today?
Me: I wasn't planning to pay that much
(He starts breaking down the $147 again, exactly as his counterpart just had)
Me: Philip said that he was dropping the activation fee
Dumber: When did you sign up for this?
Me: April
Dumber: Well it became company policy in May not to do that
Me: Well you have Phil call me tomorrow
(I start walking toward the door)
Dumber: You know you can check your balance on your phone.
Dumber: Have a nice day.

SLAM

On the way home I get a cell phone call saying that Dumber had called Customer Service and they thought they could drop the activation fee for me. I say "good" and hang up the phone. They call me back a minute later and say that they need the last four digits of my social security number to put that through. I have to tell him twice for him to type it correctly and finally I say "Are we done?", hes halfway through yes and I slap my phone closed immediately. Never before have I felt so much that I was just getting screwed terribly. I wont pay the bill without seeing a hard copy of the fees. Hopefully I can be persistent enough tomorrow to have them drop any late fees also. But god this is a pain in the ass.

Obama Bowling

2008-05-25T20:07:00.001-07:00

I wasn't going to write about this weekend after last weekend's took so long to post but I have a funny story to tell.

Katie comes up today to drop C.P.'s car off at the Jag dealer to get the window fixed so I agree to go along and then drive her back to Clemson. But we get over there and the blue laws apparently clearly state that Jesus will not service Jaguars on Sunday so they were closed. So my dad, who came down this weekend to hang out with his favorite (only) son, talked about going bowling when I got back so I invite her back to come along with us. So we go to this place and it is seriously the smallest bowling alley I've ever seen, next to Clemson's. Twelve lanes and they are real wood and barely have automatic scoring. So we're bowling and really bowling terrible. The ball breaks all over the place and my usual strategy of using the heaviest ball I can and throwing it at the middle of the pins is working terribly. We get to the second game and we're talking about how Obama bowled a 38 when he was trying to look like the common man. Katie is really struggling, but we're joking around and having a fun time, but she ends up throwing a 27. She's super frustrated but we're doing our best to give her some tips on what she could try. My dad is a fairly good bowler, and apparently his tips were really helping as we started the third game. Katie is on fire and I am trailing early. I don't have a problem with a girl beating me but it would sorta be embarrassing a little to have someone who just threw a 27, come back and kick your ass the next game. So we get through 9 frames and I'm losing by 2 pins. 10th frame for all the marbles. I'm up first. As I get up to bowl, Katie leans in and whispers, "Just so you know, I don't even like jelly" I get my usual smirk on my face and step up to take my turn.

Strike!

I walk back to the chairs and Katie is yelling "Where did that come from?", to which I respond "GET THE JELLY"(leaving out twat, because Katie is not a twat and this was a family bowling establishment). I follow it up with a spare and Katie is laughing too hard to really concentrate on bowling and I end up beating her by a dozen pins. Fun times.

Irish People and the Sun: Chapter 3

2008-05-23T14:47:00.000-07:00

I awake to whispers (apparently I'm a cute sleeper) at a time far too early for a Sunday. D.P. and Mystery Girl have awoken slightly to the emergence of Attractive Girl from her room. They soon fall back to sleep on the couch and Attractive Girl plops down in front of me, looking no less fantastic than the night before, but slightly shivering despite having long pajama pants and a long sleeved tshirt on. She has her computer out and shes cruising through the usual time wasting sites and British news sites. I find out that she is super intelligent and well informed with the going ons of the world and I chat with her over a cup of some fruit juice. I ask if she wants to get some breakfast but remember that neither of us have a car there, and stealing D.P.'s to drive stick poorly seemed like a recipe for death. So we wait for everyone to wake up.

Noon rolls around and we all get ready and head to California Pizza for lunch. We stop to get Attractive Girl's car and D.P. starts giving me verbal and non verbal cues to ride along with her, like I'm going to charm her riding in the car. It didn't bother me because like I said above, she was a really cool chick and nice to talk to. Anyway the weather seems really bad so I suggest some mini golf afterwords. However after emerging from the pizza place, we realize that the weather prediction didn't hold up and we change our mind again for the beach. So D.P., Mystery, Attractive Girl and myself hop in the car and head down to the beach. I was already fairly red from Saturday afternoon's pool adventure and nobody seemed to have remembered any sunscreen. As a person who a majority of his heritage comes from Great Britain's various nations, I don't tan. I go from white to red, then red to white. If I use sunscreen I don't change color at all, and if I don't.......

We get to the beach and put our stuff down and head to the water. Attractive Girl was razzing me on the way up that I couldn't say that the water was cold because she is always cold and didn't think the water was cold the last time she was there. But the water was damn cold. The long trudge through the surf to deeper water was fairly terrible. But once you got to deeper water and got numb you were golden. The four of us were having a fun time splashing around when D.P. suggests that we chicken fight in the water. Apparently another attempt at increasing my chances with Attractive Girl. What he didn't realize however was that I have bad knees and balancing with a girl that is maybe 5'9, 5'10 sitting on my shoulders in shifting sand wasn't exactly super easy. I get her up and her and Mystery go at it and I'm sorta hoping that Attractive's advantage in upper body strength can make it a quick battle and push Mystery off of D.P.'s shoulders fairly quickly so I don't look lame. However D.P. works out much more than I do and had the vice grip on Mystery's legs so they weren't going anywhere. Slowly I feel myself fading into the surf until we finally lose horribly. Oh well. After that we all headed into the beach to bake. I could feel the sun roasting my flesh as I sat there. But it was also incredibly relaxing to just look into the ocean. So I did until everyone was ready to go. We stop by Attractive's place to clean up and head home, where I then noticed my laughably bad sunburn, which got me teased relentlessly all week by my coworkers. But here it is a week later and I'm practically all white again. But at least it was a darn good weekend, I had a blast.

Irish People and the Sun- Chapter 2

2008-05-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

The next day I awoke fairly early for a Saturday and played some more Wii until D.P. rolled out of bed and was able to semi function. He had told me that his plan was to go to the beach for some party and it was my intention to change his mind into staying in Cola for the night, since Saturday's in Cola always seem to end up being the crazier of the two nights. He felt like crap but got a kick out of the stories I had of the night before, many of which he didn't remember occurring. I put my plan into action, suggesting we get lunch at Tokyo Grill and chill at the pool all day until it was time to go back downtown. He seemed to agree to the idea and we set off for lunch while he started texting seemingly everyone he knew to see what they were up to.

Tokyo Grill in Columbia is the most emo Chinese restaurant I've ever been too. They seem to only hire high school age emo kids who look like they're a chicken bowl away from ending it. I joked to D.P that they saved money this way by making it so emo that the meat and vegetables cut themselves. By the end of the meal it seemed to be all but decided that we were going to stay in Columbia so we headed back to go to the pool.

The pool in D.P.'s development was surrounded by hot women sunning themselves. With the exception of a few kids in the shallow end, the modest sized pool was vacant. This didn't stop me from bounding on in before realizing that the water temperature was cold enough to shoot my balls up to my my throat. I quickly exited the pool voicing how bad an idea it was. So I went to sunning with the ladies on a lounge chair. As I was laying there D.P. got more and more texts but didn't say anything. After an hour or so, without sunscreen, we decided it was time to go. Then out of nowhere D.P. asks if I would go along to the beach. Not just asks if I would be down for the idea, but basically telling me that he's going with or without me. I like the beach just fine, I wish I could live there, but its a long way to drive for one night, then I would be getting back to my place super late on Sunday. This made me really apprehensive to say yes. But after a shower and some texting I figure, what he hell, nothing great would happen if I went home. So we get ready and head out, stopping to get Mystery Girl, who informs us that she has told her boyfriend that she wants to take a break and see other people, which is good news, but she still seemed really torn up over it. What exactly does "taking a break" mean? I mean its not like people who say that have a set time table that they're going to be semi-single and then things go back to normal, and also "see other people" basically means "I'm seeing someone else already, it would be cool if I could see less of you". But anyway it seemed like a good step in the right direction for my buddy D.P.

So we drive forever and make it just in time for the Pelican's baseball game. Apparently at the Pelican's stadium, which has appeared out of no where since the last time I've been to the beach, they have a special section called the beach. In this section down the third base line they have made this sandy area with lines of really nice beach chairs. So for eight bucks or so you can sit in the lounge chair section (private bar) and watch the game. After the sun went behind the stadium it was a fairly good interesting game, even though I think I was the only one of the group that was paying attention. The attractive blond sitting beside me started chatting me up half way through the game, and while she didn't have a clue what was going on in the game, it was still nice to chat with her.

After the game the group headed across the street to Broadway and went to (be still my beating heart) Liberty Tap Room. Happily this Liberty was huge and the bar area was empty so we got to hang out there and drink a beer in relative comfort. One of my best friends Mikkel, happened to show up there also and I got to catch up with him a little and find out that our old friend who had never drunk before in his life was actually quite the bad drunk. He has apparently abandoned his newly acquired Mormon ways and has now given alcohol a try. This definitely makes me want to return to the beach sometime and see this anomaly in action. After the slowpoke drinkers were finished, we decided to head somewhere else.

Everyone seemed to really want to go to this martini bar in Broadway. I was less than pleased because I don't drink martini's, don't like olives, and would probably be overcharged for anything else I ordered, but followed faithfully along. On weekends I'm a huge follower, it makes things much easier and usually more fun if you go with the flow. So we're walking along and all of a sudden the person leading us ducks into this Irish Pub. I have Attractive Blond in front of me and we both give questioning looks at each other with our doubts that this bar would even know what a martini was, let alone have a bar dedicated to them. We pass by a rock concert going on with bikers surrounding it (it was bike week at Myrtle Beach) and I'm just about to ask our fearless leader if he knows where we're going when all of a sudden we duck around a corner and are staring directly at a set of stairs with a neon "Martini Bar" sign over them.

The Martini Bar reminded me of what I would picture a club in hell looking like. The walls were all an interesting red color, the lights were strange colors from displays on the walls of unusually shaped statues with the glow of colored light bathing their abstractness. But did they ever have martini's. Books of them, from dirty to martinis with half and half and chocolate syrup in them. So what did I choose? A Bud Light. I was made fun of by my peers but informed them that I had ordered the famous Bud-tini, which everyone got a kick out of. Sometimes I'm witty like that. I stood drinking my beer while I tried to check out Attractive Girl while at the same time ignoring D.P. and Mystery Girl's latest make out session. Finally we found room on a couch in the corner of the bar and all sat down and chit chatted and drank for a while. I switched from beer to mixed drinks after a little, which seemed to please the martini sipping group. I even tried some of a dirty martini which surprisingly was like drinking sea water. After a while we decided it was time to bounce to another bar.

So we headed to Senior Frogs. Senior Frogs seems like the bar in Myrtle Beach that they said "Let's gear a bar towards underage people, and act like we didn't try it" They have cartoon frogs on the walls, a huge dance floor, multiple bars and even hand signals for some of the drinks. Of course D.P and Mystery Girl wanted to go there to "dance" and apparently Attractive Girl and Bono were down with that idea as well, only in the more traditional definition of dancing. For a while I sorta danced then lost my nerve and retreated to the bar. On one trip I had a semi-hilarious run in with a random girl who asked for a shot of Tejuilla. I think to myself, why the heck not, so I start to order her the shot. In the middle of me trying to get the bartender's attention D.P. comes up and smashes me and Random Girl together and starts us sorta dancing. He leaves and we stop almost immediately and go back to ordering drinks. I get a couple beers and her shot, which she now somehow thinks is Vodka, and basically hand her the shot and leave. I hand out beers and go back to admiring the unbelievable hip action on Attractive Girl. I get almost done with my beer when Mystery Girl comes up to me and gets me to start dancing with her where she whispers that Attractive Girl really wonders what shes doing wrong that I'm not dancing with her. With suddenly renewed confidence I make a B-line across the dance floor and dance like I've never danced before. Bono on one side of Attractive Girl and me on the other. We dance like crazy for a couple hours, in which at one point Bono for some reason kept touching my shoulder while I was dancing and actually challenged a group of black kids to a dancing contest, which they declined. 2:00 rolled around and we all piled out to go home.

We had originally planned to go to someone's house to crash, but him and his girlfriend got far too drunk at the martini bar and headed home a while ago, so we figured we needed somewhere else to crash. Attractive Girl volunteered her place and we headed off toward the apartment. When we arrived she realized that she didn't have her keys and several knocks on the door weren't rousing her roommate from 2:30am sleep. So I get the idea to climb on the railing to the first floor apartment and try to pull myself up to their second floor balcony, because honestly who locks the balcony door. I don't really have the arm strength or coordination to make my way up there and was about to give up when Attractive Girl climbed up with me and I boosted her up onto the balcony.

Re-Written to Please the Blog Reading Gods: Of course the balcony door was securely locked, but Attractive Girl's new found proximity to her roommate finds success and shock from her roommate when she opens the door. Upon entering I get the short straw and miss out on cuddling on up to Attractive Girl and spend an uncomfortable night fitting my six foot, arthritic kneed frame onto a love seat. A long and interesting day.

To be continued....day 3

Irish People and the Sun: A Cautionary Tale

2008-05-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I anti-planned my way to Columbia on Friday with the intent to make it an epic weekend. I always intend for every weekend I have, no matter where I am or who I'm with, for it to be an awesome time for everyone. So I head over Friday afternoon and call D.P. as I'm getting close and he says to give him another call when I'm even closer. I think that its sorta strange since I just said that I'm only ten to fifteen minutes away and drive on into Lexington to his apartment and knock once and then let myself in the unlocked door when no one answers. I don't see anyone around but hear murmurs from D.P.'s room. So I knock on his door and I get a friendly "Make yourself at home," and hear a feminine giggle. Oh great, interrupted business time for D.P. and his new girl. I switch on the Wii and start playing some Mario Cart, I win my first race (the game is somewhat easy) and out of D.P.'s room comes D.P and Mystery Girl. Mystery Girl looks very familiar but insists that she has never met me (it turned out she had back around St. Patrick's Day). Her and D.P. are fairly intoxicated and are all over each other on the couch next to me. D.P. senses the awkwardness of the situation and has Mystery Girl straddle my lap, which is somewhat hilarious because she sat there for the next fifteen minutes while we all chatted, like nothing was out of the ordinary. Finally they decide to shower and we head out to drop Mystery Girl off at her car and then go downtown. Apparently she has a long time boyfriend and so her and D.P. are trying to keep it secret until she makes the move to get out of the house and find a place of her own. The funny part however is that they are incredibly bad at coming up with stories to explain where she's been and why she has hickey's and wet hair from the shower. Mystery Girl claims that the hickey, on her nipple, was explained away as being caused by playing with her dog topless. And her boyfriend actually bought it. Now she is going home with wet hair and comes up with a story that both her and D.P. agree is a good plan:

"I had a shower and then went to get a donut"

When she said this I must have had a look on my face that was absolutely priceless. I responded that it was perhaps the dumbest thing I've ever heard and suggested she skip going home now and call her boyfriend that she went downtown to hang out with her friends, or anything else that any person with half a brain would believe. Now I am very against cheating and lying to a significant other, even if you are unhappy and your partner is dumb as a brick. But they insisted this plan would work and off she went and we headed down to surprise surprise, the Saucer. We meet up with Paul and get a table outside by the door. Two guys join us and I am informed they are a gay couple. I have no problem with gay guys as long as they don't try anything, which they don't, so they're generally nice guys to hang out with. Mystery Girl, after successfully duping her boyfriend and slipping out again, joins us at the table along with another guy, who I'm informed is also at least bi, if not full on gay. Would have never known, met him before, funny guy, no problem. So I'm sitting there with four gay guys and D.P. and Mystery girl, who are doing about as close to openly making out as you can. Finally Jennifer shows up, which was good because I had really been hoping to see her again during my visit and everyone is chatting and drinking and having a good time. Jennifer shows off her back tattoos that I had seen the last time I was there but she doesn't seem to remember. D.P. and Mystery Girl disappear from the table for a little while and finally return a little later informing us that they just got a small ovation after emerging from the Men's bathroom together. Mystery Girl is somewhat embarrassed about the whole ordeal but we continue drinking and talking and having a good time. Then they disappear again and this time return saying that the owner of the bar reprimanded them for being in the Men's bathroom again, which D.P. claims was to clean spilled beer off Mystery Girl's pants. He also informs us that its probably time to go to another bar. So we pay and head across the street to Liberty.

I really don't like Liberty, I don't know if I mentioned it before but they build Liberty Tap Room's in such a way that there is no room to sit or stand or do anything, and they have a dance floor taking up a quarter of the inside area. It is an ordeal to get any drinks and I end up spilling a little on the two girls at the bar that I reach across to grab the glasses from the bartender. D.P. and Mystery Girl wanted to go to this bar because they wanted to dance, or more accurately, walk to the middle of the dance floor and start making out. So I sit down with my table full of gay guys and scope the place out for women. Jennifer had to leave to go to some concert which she tells us will probably not be good, but her friends are playing so she has to go. I eventually get drug to the dance floor by Mystery Girl who for some reason really wanted to dance with me. By this time I am semi-sober and really not feeling like dancing. but I kinda fake it for a couple minutes doing my usual grab the hips and move around a little bit dance method that seems to work alright. Finally D.P wandered onto the dance floor and I was able to switch out by replacing myself with him. After we all got back to the table I entertained myself by putting as many sugar packets as i could into Mystery Girl's purse while she wasn't looking. D.P. ends up spilling his almost full Guinness on us and the three of us are pretty much covered in Guinness and we decide its time to go.

After a white knuckle drive back to D.P.'s (I can't drive his car), we get there in one piece. Mystery Girl is drunk and complaining that she wants to go home. Bryan is informing her that he won't drive her home. I say that I could, but the argument continues and I decide to step outside and text Jennifer and let them sort it out. Everything settled down by the time I got back and while I was getting myself some water I decided it would be nice to get my drunk friends a couple glasses as well. They seemed to appreciate it up until the point when Mystery Girl tried to drink and poured the entire glass of water on her face, drenching both of them and the couch I had planned to sleep on. Everyone goes to bed, I stretch out on the floor and drift off into a back wrenching night's sleep.

And this is just the beginning..... to be continued......

Epic Weekend

2008-05-18T19:10:00.001-07:00

I will definitely have to write all about it tomorrow, another Columbia weekend with a spill over into Myrtle Beach. But I just got home at 10pm on Sunday so I don't have the time at the moment, but to wet your whistle a few key words if you will:

Shower and a Donut
Bud-tini
Hickey Causing Dogs
Co-ed Bathroom Issues
Oceanic Chicken Fighting

Check back tomorrow afternoon and I should have a big ass write up

Clumsy People Shouldn't Be On Ladders

2008-05-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

So today I went out to put up some signs and decided I was going to climb up on this concrete block about six feet off the ground to get a more solid platform while I drilled into the bricks with Rambo's drill (this thing is massive, like a jackhammer with a grip that comes out of the one side, scary stuff). So I get done drilling, and start looking around for my coworker that came along with me to hand me the sign so I could fit it in the holes to make sure they're placed well. But I don't see him anywhere so I lean down and put the drill on the cement and stand back up and back up to get ready to get down and get the sign, when I overestimate the length of the platform. I get this weird feeling through my body, the total lack of control and the loss of balance as I become air born. I fly backwards and into the large bush behind me, somehow managing to land on my feet. I hear my coworker yell "What the hell did you just do?" and I just start laughing. Not hurt at all except for a couple scratches on my arms that I'm not even sure are from that particular incident. But a bunch of people got a good laugh including myself over my clumsiness.

Secrets to Hamburger Helper

2008-05-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

While in itself, Hamburger, Chicken or Tuna Helper is a tasty easy dish to prepare for that special evening when you're at home, alone, without any plans of any kind. While I'm a big supporter of making this delicious product as instructed (in addition to butchering comma usage) I have come up with a few tips to improving this delicacy to turn that special dinner into a downright magical evening.

1) Always use hot sauce: It doesn't matter if you're cooking the chicken and noodles Alfredo or the "Stroganoff", a little hot sauce really goes a long long way to bringing out the dormant flavors of the packet of spices. Also if you have McCormick seasonings I recommend picking one at random and hitting it until you say to yourself "Damn that could be too much seasoning". It never is and it takes your meal from the conservative crowd pleaser that they package to something to write home about and claim that you made from scratch.

2) Use ground turkey: While for some reason it smells like eggs when you're browning it, ground turkey is definitely the way to go in Hamburger Helper. With it being much leaner than beef hamburger, using the turkey doesn't change the taste of the finished product (especially if its properly seasoned as instructed in step one). It's also usually much cheaper in the grocery store, which is always nice. Also soy milk works fine for all you lactose free hellions out there.

3) Can and a plan: You can also increase the nutritional value of the dish by choosing a can of vegetables and adding it to the dish right before simmering. Often kidney beans, peas, corn or Lima beans compliment the dish well. You just have to do a little soul searching to decide which can will kick your variety of Helper to the next level. Not only are you increasing the nutritional value at least by 10, you do so without dirtying a separate pot to cook the side.

4) The box lies: In my experience, if you make the dish to the specifications on the box, you will end up with some really soupy shit. So with each of the wet ingredients, bump the amount of liquid down a quarter to half a cup. Its still plenty to properly cook the ingredients but without the pool of sauce. You will need to experiment with different varieties to decide which need more de-moistification. The one that apparently comes with Fritos is still a soupy thorn in my side.

5) Always better later: The good thing about making a Helper by yourself is that there is plenty for another meal. I usually have the leftovers for lunch the next day and they are 9 out of 10 times even better than they were the night before. When a Helper is left to its own devices, it thickens up, so the next day even the soupiest Helper has become a hearty Tupperware dish of deliciousness. I don't have all the scientific evidence in yet, but I'm pretty sure that if left in the fridge, it never goes bad. So don't throw out those leftovers, save them for another day.

I hope you have all enjoyed this little cooking show. Feel free to put in requests for other dinner dilemmas you may be having, and know that if you aren't spilling when stirring, you're probably not stirring well.

Don't Fear the Reaper

2008-05-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

So I've been watching the back episodes of this show called Reaper and I have to say that I'm hooked. Its like a mix of Chuck, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and this awesome Brimstone show they had on a couple years back. The main character Sam's parents sold his soul to the devil which goes into effect on his 21st birthday, so now he has to capture escaped souls for the devil and return them to hell. The only problem is that he and his friends (who think that its awesome and help him out) are total morons. Its painful when they come up with these ridiculous unbelievable lies to explain to people where they went. Especially the smoking hot love interest of the main character, who he has told some zingers such as "I'm donating blood to the homeless" and "I took up jogging" to explain why he ditched her fine ass. Seriously if I had a fine lady who was obviously digging me like she is on that show, I would tell the devil to fuck off and deal with the escaped demons after I got my swerve on. Another funny thing that happens is that when there's an escaped demon on the loose, he gains a demon power to clue him in on what to look for, like everything he eats turns to bugs for a bug demon or he loses all friction for a demon that makes his victims look like they fell and killed themselves. Also to transport them back to hell he has these "vessels" to use to trap them, however they're random everyday objects and the devil doesn't tell him how they work so he has to figure them out and make red lightning come out of them and suck the demon in, where he then returns the object to hell on earth, the DMV. Its a really clever show, I wish the characters were slightly less dumb, but its definitely worth watching if you get the chance.

Robertson's Reviews 5/04/08

2008-05-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when rain hit on yet another Saturday we did something that I wouldn't normally do if I weren't hanging out with Captain Pretentious: we looked at luxury automobiles. After stopping by the different dealers, here are my thoughts:

BMW: I was a huge fan of BMW and have wanted one for a long time in the little fantasy world in my mind. But after sitting down in one I was less than impressed. In all honesty, despite a potentially more powerful engine that we didn't get to experience because we didn't test drive it, it wasn't any better than my Elantra. The back seat had less room then my car and except for the push button ignition it really didn't have any bells and whistles you'd expect in a $30k+ car. C.P. called it an understated elegance, but paying an additional $15k just for the logo on the front seems like a horrible waste of money.

Jaguar: C.P. already has a Jag, its a little older but its still in pretty good shape. The new jags didn't look much different than his. They still had the certain classiness to them but nothing has really changed. You could probably save your money and get a ten year old one and get the same thing for a fifth of the price.

Porshe: They look badass if you stand back from them. A true sports car. But you get closer and you realize that its a super tiny car. You would have to be a really good driver because if you got in any type of wreck you would be done for sure.

Mercedes: These cars are soul-less overpriced wastes of money. They have no character at all and I honestly felt depressed just looking at them. The only cool car they had in the whole lot was a Pontiac Solstice that they were selling for a fraction of the price of any of the Mercedes on the lot.

Personally if it were me I would put the money into getting a new Charger or Mustang, lots more character and for the price of those luxury cars you could get the super high end models of those cars. I dunno I guess not having large amounts of money to blow on those cars I just don't get it but to each their own.

Skydiver with a Fear of Heights

2008-05-02T08:53:00.000-07:00

Today something happened that baffled me to no end. I go along out into the field to do a survey on this one sign with one of the installers and we take the big bucket truck along to survey this sign that's about 20 feet up in the air. We hop in and get up to the sign and I am holding on for dear life. Mr. Skydiver, 75 jumps in the book from over 3000 feet, is afraid of being 20 feet off the ground. Of course the basket is not level, swaying in the wind and the controls only respond about half of the time. But its only 20 feet above concrete and a barb wire fence. It really made me wonder how I could have no problem jumping from planes and when it comes to something little like this I could be so fixated on the potential to fall to my death. I guess its my fear of ironic death. I can only imagine at my funeral how many times two people would whisper to each other, "Fell twenty feet and died after jumping from planes without any problems, that's just ironic" That would be far worse than just plain old sympathy.

Things That Bother Me (at Midnight)

2008-05-02T01:07:00.000-07:00

The last time I couldn't sleep it really helped to write, so here I am again, I also thought of things I wanted to write about earlier when I wrote about my day instead so here goes some rapid fire thoughts:

Recently I heard there was a story coming up on tonight's news about how a 4oo+ pound guy's insurance company is refusing to pay for "life saving surgery". Now I can't find what surgery it is but I when I hear about this on the radio I get angry. Not at the insurance company though. Honestly if I were with the insurance company I would be doing the same thing. Its such a bad investment on their part to cover anything like that, especially if its an organ donation. It would be like ponying up the cash to give a smoker new lungs. What a waste. I wish I had more on this story but it really does make me angry.

Barrack Obama needs to stop whining like a little girl. In the last month he has gone from the confident front runner to a complaining unelectable elitist. At the beginning of this democratic two step Hilary was crying every three days and saying stupid things like "If he wasn't black...". But now Obama is making a huge issue about some attention whore racist disgrace of a preacher and getting all bitter about some stupid gas holiday thing that will never happen either way. Even if it does, you're just taking from the road maintenance budget to allow for a couple cents a gallon cheaper. But the sad thing is that he doesn't come out and say something intelligent like that. He says that instead he wants the government to improve fuel economy this summer. That's all. That's the entirety of his plan. Now I'm not sure what they can do to make the gas itself cause better fuel economy but the alternative is that they make the engines of new cars more fuel efficient. But honestly how many people are gonna buy new cars? That kills me with the whole "Make the minimum miles per gallon this by so and so" bill going through congress now. Do they have some magic switch they're holding out on that turns existing cars suddenly into lean mean gas sipping machines?

These are some of the absolutely stupid things that almost make me jump up out of my chair listening to NPR in the mornings at work. They say things in such a way that I honestly will talk back to the radio. Things so stupid that I can't believe they can get away with saying them.

Another thing I heard today is that in a recent study 60% of killings in the world, are happening in terrorist attacks in Iraq. First off I have no idea who came up with this statistic, but I almost had to laugh at the person who told it to me. It was also said in a way that it was a slam on George W Bush. How about some positive spin on the war for once. The type of positive spin that says how much chemical genocide is going on in Iraq anymore. The type of positive spin on how many terrorist attacks that we actually stopped for those televised few that we can't get to in time. When people have the sure ignorance to tell me that those people would be better off if we hadn't done anything, its all I can do to not look them in their face and call them stupid. Sure we haven't turned Iraq into a Club Med. People are dying everyday over there, but those soldiers over there don't need the media at home making them out to be a waste. Back in the World Wars, they would make Army progress movies that they would play before movies at the movie theater about the great strides that our troops were making in battle. Where has that gone? And to be ignorant enough to call our president stupid, just because in your own little fantasy world we should have rolled in there, given a few slaps on the wrist and magically changed the climate of the region to a democratic utopia is just dumb. Stuff doesn't go smoothly all the time. If Iraq would have turned around sooner, no one would be calling our president dumb. They would be falling over each other to pat him on the back. Its that kind of apathetic uninformed bandwagon mentality that is the real problem.

And after that little tirade, Middleweight ultimate fighting sucks. Its all flash and no substance. The fight I saw tonight had one guy wailing on the other guy for three rounds and then he lost the fight and his coaches were beside themselves with the outcome, saying that their guy did all the damage. But then you looked at the other guy and it looked like he had just gotten back from a brisk walk or something. Not a scratch on him. Nine minutes of getting hit and he doesn't have a mark. It's boring to watch. All submission attempts and bad fighting. I also have to mute the TV when they're fighting so I don't hear the repetitive shouts from the coaches, over and over again. If I was a fighter I would be so distracted from that crap that I would tell them to just stop. At least lightweights are fast. Middleweights are like watching two slow terrible fighters grabbing each other for 10 minutes. Mad about the outcome? You should have actually finished the fight. Also why don't the people go home anymore on the Ultimate Fighter? I'm watching it and saying "Didn't that guy just get his ass kicked, why is he still there?" You earned a spot to compete on the show, not get free housing for three months after you get your ass kicked.

When Things Go Wrong, It's Surprisingly Not That Bad

2008-05-01T15:05:00.000-07:00

What a day.

First off last night I came home made dinner and promptly passed out for 11 or so hours of sleep. Not only did I not work out like I was planning, I didn't feel overly refreshed when I woke up this morning like I thought I would after normally only getting about 6-7 hours of sleep. So I roll into work half asleep like normal and I am told that I will be going to help at Furman today with the installers. No biggie, I was told the day before that I would probably be headed there, just have to put my other stuff at the office on hold. The other stuff that is on rush because it was due yesterday but probably won't be painted until sometime next week. But I'm covered its cool. I also get my paycheck, and with simple addition in my head calculate that with it and the money in my bank account, I would probably be about $20 short on my rent, which is due today. So I email my dad asking for help. But immediately am whisked away to Furman. I was told that I would only need to be there for part of it so I could bring my car and drive separately so I can return to the office earlier. So we go off to the hospital and fix something quick and then off to Furman to put up some stuff. Of course it doesn't go as smoothly as anyone would expect it to go with bent studs and such (not a sexual reference), but we get it done. As my fellow installer is putting the other part together I head off and do some color matching on a door frame of another building which didn't seem to be right when I measured them the day before. I get done and head back to help the installer finish the job, everything looks great, we get a compliment on the awesomeness from a passing car on the way out, everything is great. I continue walking to my car which I have parked in a random lot beside the stadium and see a piece of paper in my door handle. Two things run through my head. Either the extremely hot chicks that just passed, figured out that this was my car with the Clemson paw on the back and left me their numbers, or I have a parking ticket on yet another university property that as shown above, I really can't pay for right now. So I pick it out and its definitely a female-handwritten note that says:

"Check your back left tire, "Charlie" :)"

I look at the tire and it is super flat and i notice a large screw sticking out of the top of it. Fantastic, pay for a tire. I have the idea that Furman isn't that far away from Greer and that I could probably drive it back there with a flat instead of taking the time to fix it. So I get driving after the van and I get maybe a half a block away when I hear the clickity clacking of the nail on the pavement. So I finally pull over and call the installer and tell him whats up. Like the nice guy he is, he turns around and helps me change my tire. The first time that I've done this on my newish car. The whole time we're cracking jokes about how my car is a chick magnet, with several attractive girls seemingly coming out of nowhere to pass by or overlook the situation from balconies. We finally get it changed out and go to lunch at Stax.

I had been trying to not spend money this week, but it was already 1:30 and my packed lunch was still back at the shop, so restaurant food sounded good. We get through our meal, everything is decent, wouldn't go out of my way to come back, but it was good enough that I might if I was in the area. So we're about to leave and we're paying at the counter when the manager or owner's son starts asking about a graphic designer. Saying he needs one to design a shirt for him. So I say that I'm a designer and I have a couple minutes to discuss it with him. So he goes on and on about how their current shirts are ugly (they are) and how he wants the new ones to look kinda like this stoner picture but not quite as stonerish. He goes on and on for a while and finally I tell him I will put something together for him this weekend and get his business card and head out with a free sweet tea. Cool stuff, get to design something that might get used by a restaurant and sold to people who buy their shirts, and might get some money out of the deal too, awesome.

So we finally get back to the shop and the rest of the day is a blur with trying to apply vinyl to a couple of the finished backlogged signs. 4:30 rolls around and I think about staying late but I remember I need to deal with my tire. So I go to the place that is conveniently across the street from the shop, which everyone in the shop recommends (apparently nails in the tires is a common affliction to the sign business). I tell the guy I need my tire fixed. He says no problem, I sit down and read a magazine. About a half hour later he says they're done, I look out and my car is amazingly good as new and he says "Five bucks". Five dollars to fix my tire, when I thought I was going to have to buy a new one. I speed off, enjoying my returned ability to go over 50 miles an hour. I go to the bank and deposit my check and head home. I stop to get my mail since I got an email saying my two new Netflix should be there. To my surprise is a note from my parents with a check for exactly the amount that I said I needed in the email this morning, which they had sent to cover my gas expenses for next weeks venture to the north. Money problem solved. I turn around and go back to the bank to deposit the money and my bad day turns out to be perfectly fine. Sometimes I don't know why I worry.

About Puppies and Bunnies or Stuff

2008-04-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

First off this is my new bed, picked it up last week and got nice white sheets for it, definitely going for the "sleeping on a cloud look. Heard light colors were good fung swei today also, didn't try that but good for me. Hopefully it will fung swei some ladies into it. Still need to get some more art for the wall tho.

The only downside of the new bed, if you look in the corner of the picture you can see the corner of my desk. My desk is frickin huge. Its a beat up old army desk with this cool pop out shelf thing on the side, but between it and my new bed, I have literally a foot and a half of space between the two in which to put my chair for my desk. Which means if I want to get to my closet I either have to climb over my bed or my chair to get there. Not really anything I can do about it though, I can't think of another way to arrange my room.

So this weekend was a super phun thyme again. I was a little worried since I was sick going into it that I would feel terrible the whole time and not enjoy myself, but it was super sweet. I went to Clemson this weekend to hang out with Captain Pretentious. As soon as I got there we went out on the boat. It was definitely nice to get out on the water again. C.P. has all of a sudden decided that he will abandon his over cautious boat driving for a different method where he puts the hammer down and then stands on the chair, making corrections to steering only when he needs to. Mr. and Mrs. H joined us after an hour and we hung out on the lake drinking some Pabst Blue Ribbon (which has to be the best since it got the blue ribbon) and relaxing until it got dark and we headed back where C.P. parked his boat in the slip that he hasn't paid for since he got the boat and probably owes about a grand on back fees on. But its nice and close to his apartment, so it works out. We all went up to his place and got ready to go downtown.

We hit Peppinos first to get some pizza with our first round of dt beers. Peppinos however was about 900 degrees. I was dying the whole time we were there and mentally urging the slow eaters to finish up so we could get out of there. Jeb and his girlfriend joined us, everyone made fun of me sweating and we bounced to the next bar. Now Jeb and I have exactly the same sense of humor so we were basically feeding off each other the entire night and both cracking up like crazy. By the end of the third bar, Nick's we were both fairly intoxicated and everything seemed to be hilarious. I no longer cared about picking up chicks and mostly was just having a blast joking around. By the fourth bar we had focused our attention on making fun of Captain Pretentious, and I got Jeb to spit out his drink twice by referring to C.P. as a small part of a woman's anatomy, complete with sign language for when he was on his phone. He actually made the mistake at one point in telling us that his first album he bought was Ace of Base, which as a guy you can never say out loud even if its true. But he was a good sport and after several more drinks (with me buying one for a rather attractive girl sitting at our table who looked bored out of her mind, but I didn't talk to her or get a number or anything, whatever it seemed nice) we headed home.

The next day I was planning on heading out to do my slacking by myself since I figured C.P. needed to study. But as I was about to go he suggested we go get some food. So we went to the Tiki Hut and had overpriced sandwiches served to us by a waitress with some badass gold shoes, where he talked me into staying and going out on the boat again instead of going home. He claimed that he could print out his notes and study on the boat while we hung out and relaxed. So he prints them out and we go out on the boat. We drive it about two hundred yards off the dock and are about to anchor it when Pete, C.P.'s roommate realizes that he forgot the cooler on the dock. I figure, I wanted to go for a swim anyway, I'll swim back and get it. As I was about to jump off C.P. is telling me to go so he can throw the anchor in, which I knew he was up to something since it didn't make any sense, but I figured he would drive away when I jumped off and it didn't bother me much because I would be waiting back on the dock with a full cooler and hot chicks. So I start swimming back (almost losing the suit in the dive, since I had borrowed it from C.P. and it didn't have the tie anymore at the top) and the swim is a lot longer then I thought but I made it. But half way back I see the boat driving right back toward the dock. So by the time I got there, all I needed to do was hop on and we headed back out again. The rest of the day was spent drinking ice tea and beer and reading a magazine while C.P. studied. A nice relaxing fun weekend that I hope to repeat several times this summer.

Political Thoughts at 12:30 in the Morning

2008-04-22T21:20:00.000-07:00

After taking a nap when I got home I'm wide awake and thought I'd write. With the big Pennsylvania primary today which for the first time ever "actually means something"(even though it really doesn't, except for the fact that Obama couldn't put Hilary away so we now have to still hear from her for another couple months) I felt that I would talk about my views. I like how whenever you hear a Obama ad you hear the youthful voice of one of his supporters going "Barack opposed the war from the beginning". That's easy to say 5 years and 2000 or so deaths later that you weren't in favor of something. Thank you Junior Senator that five years ago when you were getting the the real Senator a cup of coffee you voiced your opinion that you didn't really think it was a good idea. If we would have rolled up in Iraq and put this thing away in six months I really doubt he would be going "see i told you". But the problem with the US military today is that we've lost the guts to just be bastards in a place, wreck shit, bring all their leaders up on the same war crimes we were doing, and then ten years later say "That was our bad, here's some cash to rebuild". We haven't had this mentality since World War 2, where we would napalm entire city blocks in Japan. But suddenly something changed when we got to Vietnam where we forgot that the last time we fought an Asian nation we had to blow two of their cities off the map to get them to stop. Instead we're walking through the jungles in lines. We turned into the British during the Revolutionary War. Oh yeah lets go marching in nice little slow moving lines while the enemy uses gorilla tactics to totally decimate our forces. How long do you think we would have been in Vietnam if we started it out by dropping a bomb on their major city. We would have mopped that up in a month and a half and the world would have known that the US does not mess around. War is about doing horrible things, its just the way it is, until people remember this we will not find success in any military action. We prosecute our own Generals and soldiers for doing their job and we wonder why we're not seeing the results that we hoped for. Bringing up our intelligence people for torture? Do you think the people that we need information from are going to sit down with a cup of coffee and say, "ya know, if you go down the street and take a left, the guy you're looking for is right there", of course not, let them do their job, heck don't tell us about it, the average American is dumb as a brick, especially if you say "We tortured these guys to get information" without the part that because they did these thousand people were saved. And how haven't we found Osama Bin Laden. He releases video tapes people. UPS can track where my packages are at any point and time and you're telling me we can't send a couple CIA guys over there and ask people where they got the video tape?

So now the democrats are starting their campaign with how they will end the war in Iraq immediately and send everyone home. I mean I want them to finish up and come home as much as anyone, but only John McCane is actually realistic about it. This is why he sadly will probably never win. He actually is realistic. As democrats, lets promise national health care without any plans to pay for it, lets promise that we'll end the war in Iraq immediately with the only exit strategy being that we just pull them out and send them home, and somehow the economy will be all better if we start making everyone buy marked up American made products. Heck I've even seen ads where Hilary has a goal to bring back the middle class. A woman that has never been middle class her entire life says she'll bring it back and charge more taxes to the wealthy. Didn't she make multi-millions last year? There's going to be no rich congressman who's going to say, "Well I'd really like some more taxes, especially if it gives the poor more money to keep having kids they can't afford to have" And there's actually a law trying to be passed that levels the playing field for candidates for political office, where if a candidate has a ton of money, we have to make it fair for everyone else running and limit the money that they invest. Who's going to actually pass this law? Is there a secret 51% of Congress that are poor and somehow scraped up enough cash to run for their seat?

Sorry for babbling on, but America needs to get realistic, and it really bothers me to hear day after day about the stupid things that people are getting away with saying these days.

Dating

2008-04-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

After a friend on facebook voiced her concern that she didnt know the definition of dating I figured it would make a good blog post for me to explain my view on the subject in the only way I can: with lots of crude sarcastic puns.

So here are the levels of relationships and what they mean to a guy:

Seeing: We hang out a lot but she still pays for her share of stuff and there's no romantic things going on

Dating: I feel good enough about the level of romantic things we're doing that I don't have a problem footing the bill for the activities that we do. However theres something about you that still makes me unsure about signing up for the "You only" club.

Relationship: I'm good with you exclusively, unless I'm calling this an open relationship in which I like having sex with you but I have someone on the side and calling this a relationship cuts down on the amount I have to spend taking you out on dates.

Friends with Benefits: I don't mind having the sex but its probably not worth me taking you out to fancy dinners when it cuts into our sex time.

One Night Stand: Chances are I don't remember your name, but unless you gave off a super weird vibe I'd probably be interested if you called in turning this into at least Friends with Benefits, whatever your name is.

Hope that was helpful
This was a Mike Robertson public service announcement

Cola Cola Cola Chemeleon

2008-04-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

After a comment free hot chick article, which had the added bonus of me getting to see Natalie Portman whenever I opened my blog to check on the lack of comments, I figured I'd talk about last weekends trip to Columbia. This sequel stars myself, one of my best friends who I will call DP, and two of his roommate's friends who joined us for the trip, TJ and Jerry. Also starring are Jennifer and the king of the Saucer Paul.

OK so I get there on Friday afternoon at about 6:30 to find DP washing his overly expensive car. Without a woman in his life, DP's woman has become this car. He loves this car more then he loves anyone who rides in it, walks near it, touches it or any other variation. If you're thinking about it right now, he probably would like you to stop because it might cause water droplets on the paint. So when he washes his car, its really something incredibly amusing to watch. So I'm standing there drinking one of the beers I brought along, shootin the shit with him while he washes his baby with various sizes of the car wash mitten. He's finally satisfied after accidentally shooting both me and himself with the hose. I go in and shower while he runs three miles. DP has an incredible workout habit despite drinking his weight in Lager each week at various pint night, mystery pint night, and trivia night drinking specials. He gets back and showers and we head out to THE SAUCER. The start of every night barhopping in Columbia starts with the Saucer. They have over 200 beers and part of DP's new found alcoholism has him racing through them three at a time to get the next color of backing on his plate hanging on the wall. As usual we crash with Paul who has drank enough in there that he has authority to influence hiring and firings. This is a huge plus since besides being a nice guy, we usually get a table and an overattentive "Beer Goddess" to help us out with our every need. I'm excited that ours just happens to be the hottest woman I've ever seen and stutter through ordering pretty much whatever she recommends. I'm easy like that. Eventually TJ and Jennifer show up and join the three of us in cramming into the booth. After a couple hours of messing with phones, eating, drinking, taking blood sugar readings and various other tomfoolery and shenanigans we decide to head to 5 points.

5 points is the other side of Columbia where the bars are slightly cheaper and all of them are packed full of fairly awful USC people. Girls that are wasted and flailing around in their unapproachable circle of impenetrability, most of which chain smoking as well. And Guys that are mostly very frattastic and waiting for the drunken circles to break slightly so they can refill the alcohol reserves for an easy score later. We go to several bars, most of which are stuffed full to the point that it takes you a good fifteen minutes to get a drink at the bar. I hate crowded bars more then anything. I would rather a bar have no one in it and allow me to talk to my friends and drink to my little heart's content. A shining bonus of getting to talk to Jennifer, who is an unbelievably chill and fun chick, keeps me rolling along. By the end of the night we've hit at least a half dozen bars (including one that had really good cheap pizza and buzztime trivia) and I'm smiling like there's no tomorrow. Fun night, no worries, we go home and play the majority of a game of beer pong and I get to pass out on DP's roommate's bed since he isn't there.

The next day, after several unsuccessful attempts to get up, I finally make it out at 12:30ish still feeling surprisingly drunk despite the 9 hours of sleep that I got. Fast forward through a day of eating and playing video games to another trip to the Saucer. DP needs his three beers of the day, informing me that he's only $400+ dollars away from his next color of decorative flatware. Jerry joins us this time, trading out for Jennifer(not exactly a good trade) and informs us that he's already had more alcohol during the day then I planned to have in the course of a weekend. We leave Saucer and head to this "party" at a bar that I've been told is on the shady side of Columbia. So shady in fact that no one thinks its a good idea to leave their car there. It does however have a RFID gadget on the door to only allow members to enter (until they enter and prop the door open) because they felt that making it a member's bar would cut down on the fighting. This place is unlike any place I've been to. Side by side in this establishment are college students(probably underage) and some of the shadiest characters in Columbia. After an hour we decide to slip out and go back to 5 points. We bounce from bar to bar, all of them fairly unimpressive. For some reason I'm not feeling drunk but an increasing ache throughout my entire body which is fairly unpleasant. After closing time we head back to the shady bar which I'm told really picks up after closing because of everyone wanting to continue their drinking in the only place left open. I'm about to buy the four of us some beers when I notice that the other three guys are not in the bar at all anymore. I leave the bar to find them surrounding Jerry who is very sick and painting the wall of the bar a slightly better color. He finishes up and we go into the bar where he looks worse and worse and I suggest we leave. DP gives Jerry a plastic bag so big that he could have probably fit his entire body in it and off we go back to his place, the entire time DP is saying variations of "If you're going to puke, puke in the bag" and "If you puke in my car I'm going to force you to buy me an entire new car" We're about five minutes from his place when all of a sudden Jerry sticks his entire head into the bag and starts throwing up. While hes throwing up TJ is trying to explain to him that he doesn't have to have his whole head in the bag, and Bryan is still yelling away about not letting a drop of throw up out of that bag and into his precious baby. I can't help but smile at the spectacle. We get home and Jerry does a combination of throwing up and passing out while I decide to crash on the couch and watch a movie instead of going back out to the shady bar with the other two.

I awoke the next day to a crescendo for bathroom vomiting and headed home from yet another crazy adventure to Columbia.

Top 5: Hottest Actresses

2008-04-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

After questions over the weekend about my favorite things, I figured I could do a post on some of them. So without further ado, here are my top five hottest actresses:

1) Natalie Portman: Unbelievably sexy and also very intelligent (Harvard grad, knows about 6 languages) Natalie Portman could be the perfect woman. Aside from her being an avid vegan (unamerican), I would sell my soul to be with this chick. If you're a fan also, I recommend checking out a very clothing free Natalie in the Darjeeling Limited. So if anyone knows her, you know where to send her.

2) Angelina Jolie: Perfect body, wild personality and all those sexy tattoos. Aside from her recent goal to adopt a child from every third world nation she is unbelievably sexy and I can't wait to see her next movie where she plays a sexy hitman...or hitwoman. I really doubt I could steal her away from Brad Pitt but if she showed up at my door for a weekend of wild sex, I could die a happy man.

3) Jodie Foster: Another smart sexy woman who without a doubt is a perfect woman. She may be a little older but I would still love to share a panic room with her.

4) Rachel Leigh Cooke: Underrated actress who's smart and spunky and I would love to see her in more films. She has this cute littleness to her that I find super appealing. I'm trying to think of a Josie and the Pussycats innuendo but nothing is coming to me.

5) Shannyn Sossamon: There's something very exotic and appealing about her that I can't get enough of her. See also looks slightly like a young Angelina Jolie. There is also this thing she does with biting her lip that is incredibly sexy. What I would do for 40 days and 40 nights with this chick.

Honorable Mentions: Always could use some more Mandy Moore and Giada Delaurentis could broil me with a nice Alfredo sauce

I know its not the usual Hollywood top five but that's who I like, and now that I've exhausted my supply of puns for today, let me know what else you want my opinion on and I'd be happy to let you know.

Morning Glory

2008-04-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

When my alarm goes off at 6:30 in the morning I go through about the same thought process everyday, instead of an inner monologue, it turns into an inner dialogue between a part of myself that wants to go to work and a part of myself that doesn't. The funny thing is that while my "evil" part does most of the talking, my good part controls my body without the consent of my brain. Every morning I think to myself that I could sleep some more, then I remind myself that I already moved the wake-up time as late as I possibly can to still make it to work on time with a shower. Then I think that I might not need a shower. Then I scope out the Wolverine hairstyle that I'm sporting and reconsider. Then I think to myself that I haven't taken a day off yet, they wouldn't mind if I took today off. Then I think that it would be more trouble faking an illness and then having to answer a list of medical questions from my coworkers the next day. By this time I have somehow collected a set of clothes from my closet, checked my computer for messages that may have been left overnight (there barely ever is any), and gotten into the shower. At which point the thoughts of skipping work slowly dissolve into the warm water, not hot mind you, since I crank it to the H and its still not super hot. So everyday I think about taking a day off, but everyday I never do. Could be saying something about my character or how much I like my job. I also often think that weekend plans are a poor idea in the morning, believing that if I blew them off I could make up for not getting to be in bed during the week. This changes back as the day goes on until I forget about sleeping again. Its a repeating cycle that doesn't change if I go to bed at 8 or 12, a revolving cycle of morning hate.

My Hair

2008-04-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

For the majority of my life I've had really short hair. Out of laziness mostly. I don't even own a hairdryer or for that matter a comb or a brush or anything. Usually I jump out of the shower (OK ladies start your mental picturing) and dry off and run my hand through my hair three times and I'm done. Easy as hell. But lately I've let it grow longer. Also out of laziness mostly, and the fact that the last two times i got it cut the woman doesn't listen at all when I tell her what I want and when I say "No that's not good" so when I'm walking out the door I wonder why I paid for a haircut I could have given myself with a pair of fisher price safety scissors. So anyway its much longer then usual now. Not to say that if you saw me you would say, damn Michael you're a frickin hippie, but its long for me. So now instead of the "run my fingers through it and go" I end up looking like a mix between Elvis, a mohawk and an electrocution patient. And most of the time I leave it because I don't really care. Sometimes though I strike gold. The other day, I rush on through my morning routine and head to work. A couple hours into work I catch my reflection in a mirror and somehow I look like I should be captaining a yacht with my lovely wife Bunny, everything parted perfectly to the side. Captain Pretentious would be proud. But by the end of the day I've gotten stressed out about one thing or another and run my hands through my hair so by the time i get home I look like I've been rolling around my padded cell a little too briskly at the funny farm. But I still want to see what happens if I really let it go.

But chances are I'll get tired of it and cut it all off in a week.

OK this post is sorta lame but hopefully y'all will get some laughs out of it

Clint Eastwood and Teddy Ruxpin

2008-04-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I bought The Good The Bad and The Ugly. If you are a guy (or a kickass girl) you should definitely own this movie. Watching it I was thinking to myself who could play the roles if the movie was redone in Hollywood today. For the Ugly, I kept seeing Bruce Campbell, the actor who plays this character in the movie looks a lot like him. As for the Bad, Angel Eyes, it could really be almost anyone known for playing a villain and it wouldn't effect the movie, maybe Gary Oldman. Then I got to Clint Eastwood's character The Man With No Name and thats when it struck me, there's no Clint Eastwood's anymore. Sure Clint is still kickin ass playing the raspy old guy in several award winning movies, but there are no young Clint Eastwood characters anymore. None that could capture the character like he did. He was the perfect western character. The half smile with the cigar tucked in the side that gave off a hint of emotion but still kept the tough cool that resonated through the character. Sure the latest movies like 3:10 to Yuma were alright, but they pail in comparison to any Eastwood western.

Also I caught the Return of the Jedi on Spike. It's been a long time since I've seen Return of the Jedi but even so I swear they changed the hell out of that movie. I caught myself thinking "where the hell did this come from? I remember this totally different" Especially the death of the emperor and Vator. In my head I remember that taking place on the planet, I don't remember Luke taking Vartor's hand off and I really don't remember the very end where they were celebrating with Teddy Ruxpin on Endor. It was cool how they inserted the younger Annakin from the first three movies in at the end standing next to Yoda and Obi Wan but I really couldn't remember a lot of the movie being the way it was. Still loved it, still a great movie, but I guess my memory is failing me on Star Wars details.

Sunday Afternoons with Mikie

2008-04-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

Other people may have their own opinions but the best part of being in the real world to me is Sunday afternoons. Back in college, Sunday afternoons were packed with getting assignments done that I had put off all weekend for their Monday morning due dates. The real world says "To hell with that bullshit", as I relax on the couch (fourth time since I bought it months ago that I've sat on it) reading a magazine and listening to music on the iPod. Hell the only responsibilities that I have for today is watering the plants and maybe cleaning something if I don't take a nap instead. The added bonus of living by myself allows me to dance around my apartment with ear buds secured firmly in my ears and contemplation of whether I could climb on top of my hallway ceiling with the little nook left by the vaulted ceilings of my living room. I resist the urge (for now) believing that the only way to do so would involve scaling my kitchen cabinets or the pointless shelves next to the fireplace that are too deep for books but too narrow to fit my TV in (OK it could probably fit but the off center-ness of it would set off OCD sensors all over and reduce me to a shell of myself, lying in the fetal position on my living room floor). Anyway getting back to what I was saying, Sunday afternoons are fantastic in the real world. So just remember when you silly grad students are toiling away writing papers and reading over 200 pages, I'll be watching the collapse of the four "semi" pros that are in Tiger's path to another major championship and probably having another bowl of Coco Pebbles.

Random Rumblings

2008-04-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

Thank you xkcd, i chuckled profusely on this one.

Ok recent reports say that Brett Farve has said that if the Packers want him back, it would "be tempting". Raise your hand if you thought this whole tearful retirement would last. The coach should have come up to him in the middle of it and told him to cut the crap and show up early to training camp. Here will be the progression of the Brett Farve retirement:

Month One: Happy to be doing nothing but hunting and fishing.

Month Two: Get quoted saying a return would be tempting

Month Three: Get quoted saying he would like to come to training camp to help out the younger players

Month Four: Get caught "just throwing around" in Lambo

Month Five: Get quoted saying he would like to return in a minor role next season

Month Six: Be the first player to ever sign the "Until they kill me on the field" contract

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Today I listened to Stairway to Heaven on the way to the gym and Whisky Bar by the Doors on the way home. I felt that accurately summed up my thoughts about working out. I really need to get a regular sex partner, copious amounts of sex beats running any day for working off the lbs.

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Got the check back from the Clemson Police department saying that I didn't pay the right amount instead of putting the three dollars change in the envelope and telling me "thanks for your business, we appreciate that you drive like a dumbass on campus"

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There's a guy in my development who's real first name is Clemson. I don't know who he is but I'm betting he drives the flashiest Camero in here and is probably the biggest douche in the world from years of being picked on, if I were him I would have to go to USC just to mess with my parents.

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NPR, get some damn sponsors, your weeks of pledge drives with rewards of lame gifts are really irritating, much more so than a few commercial breaks. Also to the people that have $1000 to donate to a public radio station, you deserve to be robbed.

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And finally, people always talk about the girl of their dreams, I actually have a girl of my dreams, I couldn't describe her to you, but I had another dream with her in it last night. The funny thing is we never do anything romantic in the dreams and yet it seems absolutely perfect. I think she may be blond with freckles but I don't know. Sappy I know, but figured I'd throw it in there and see if anyone else has recurring dream characters.

Comment away kids

In Which Michael Almost Smacks the Crap Out of an Alltel Salesman

2008-04-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

I really don't like stupid people. Stupid people who try to make me feel stupid when I'm correct make me even angrier.

So I went into Alltel today to get a new cell phone. Mine runs out on Thursday and I had talked to the sales people from Alltel, AT&T and Verizon on Friday and from what I was told by the salesman at Alltel on Friday, he said I could get this monthly plan for $39.99 a month with 500 minutes and unlimited texting. The same plan at the other two places cost $20.00 a month more, so I was all but ready to sign up for Alltel especially if I could get the phone price that it shows online. So here's my conversation with the salesman in the store, semi-paraphrased:

Me: I'm here to get a phone, I like this one and online it goes for $79.99. I just wondered because I couldn't find the plan that we talked about on Friday with the unlimited texting.

Salesman: Plan with unlimited texting?

Me: Yeah do you have a brochure, I'll show you.
(Open Brochure, read closer, no texting listed at all, guy on Friday was talking out of his ass)

Me: So what would it cost with unlimited texting

Salesman:(does a lot of rounded calculations on a calculator) around $64 a month.

Salesman: are you sure that you found that phone for $79.99 online? that's much less then what we are charging(yes he actually said this)

Me: Yeah pull up your website
(Salesman takes five minutes to pull up the site on his crappy Blackberry device that he had tried to sell me on earlier, with the $90 a month fee for apparently shitty Internet. He verifies what I had told him)

Salesman: Well here it says its $179.00 with a $100 mail in rebate

Me: Well if I buy in the store its $129.00 with no rebate correct?

Salesman: Yeah.........

Me: So its still $50 cheaper

Salesman: Yeah........but I know you have to pay shipping
(We check, you don't)

Me: (Remembering) You're probably going to want to charge an activation fee too right?

Salesman: Yeah..........
(AT&T told me they would drop theirs, but I'm ready to go as long as.........)

Me: So can we do the online thing here? or can you give me the phone for that price?

Salesman: No you would have to do that online at home to get that price (he goes on to say something about them being a retail location compared to an authorized dealer or some bullshit that basically means that giving me the online price would be too much work for him)

Me: So is there any retail locations around here for me to talk to?

Salesman: Well yeah..........but they might not have the same prices.
(Yeah they might actually sell me the phone for what the Alltel company says to sell it for instead of marking it up)

Me: Well I'm not going to pay you $50 extra for the same phone, but thanks for the help.

I walk out, swearing under my breath, wishing I could throw a couple of their overpriced phones in my wake, especially the nice pretty iPhone knockoff that I could probably get to shatter. So now I am fairly torn about who to go with because now they all cost about the same per month and if I go online I can get the phones for all about the same price.

So which is it going to be: MOTOROKRTM Z6m vs. LG Chocolate™ vs. W580i Walkman®
Your vote could help me decide.

The Feminine Mood Swings of South Carolina Spring Weather

2008-04-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

After a weekend of downpours that had us stranded in bars trying to stay dry and intoxicated, it appears to be another fantastic Sunday afternoon in the south. I went out to my mini-greenhouse thing that I bought (could be nerdy and unmanly but I have a vision of making a garden on my balcony) and the seeds that I planted have started to come up. No change yet on the avacado pit though. In case you don't know, you start an avacado pit growing by putting a toothpick in the four sides so you can balance it on top of a glass of water so that half of it is in the water and half is not. Supposedly in a couple weeks its supposed to split and sprout and then you plant it in dirt. When I heard this I figured it was worth a try. I also wanted to try out my new camera so this post should have a little bit for everyone, even the people that don't want to read what I write.

Anyway this weekend was fun as we hit several bars while I tried unsuccessfully to keep my friend from passing out on another bathroom floor. However for some reason I didn't have two nights of full on bar hopping in me and called it a night early last night. This allowed for a hangover free drive home today and also the chance to watch the comedic masterpiece which is Blade 3. I'm sure that they didn't intend for it to be the laugh riot that it is, but with the beyond terrible script (made even funnier by the network cable editing) and the over seriousness of all characters involved, it turns out to be a hilarious car wreck that you can't look away from.

On Friday when we were at the bar, my friend had told me to keep him from smoking while we were there. Of course this was a lot harder with our server being this cock tease of a girl that he had recently been "dumped" by. So the one time when he was about to smoke this cigerette that she had left on the table for him, I tried to grab them out of his hand. What insued was me accidentally ripping both cigerettes in half and punching him in the eye. Now with his level of intoxication, I honestly expected to have my friend start a knock down drag out fight with me in the middle of the bar but the crisis was somehow averted. Made for a good funny story to tell later. He also tried to pick up this table of three women. I was sort of oblivious to the whole thing because they appeared to be at least two levels hotter than we could possibly pull off and I am honestly terrible with picking up women, especially at bars. Most of the time I wouldn't mind if one or two women took a liking to me while I'm hanging out with my friends, but I really dont care most of the time enough to make much of an effort. But he tapped me on the shoulder and had me turn around and join them, where I soon learned that he had accidentally spilled one of the girl's martini's on them while buying them a shot. I believe I cracked some smart alleck joke about this and caught the vibe that they were probably about two levels dumber then needed to pick up on sarcasm. So I turned back around, told my friend it seemed like a lost cause and went back to watching basketball. By the end of the night we were sufficiently sloshed and had managed to tick of before mentioned cock-tease so we called it a night and headed home, where he managed to fall asleep sitting on the couch with his phone in his hand, waiting for a response to his drunk texting.

Fun Times.

Reasons That USC is Stupid and Other Thoughts

2008-04-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

Reason That USC is stupid: USC String Project. Its bad enough to call yourself a project, but then to have the singular "string" in the title and you sound like a group of retards. Of course I may be bitter because I had to change forty different signs today to reflect this. It still sounds stupid to me.

Also what is the deal with the 3:00AM political commercials? Did something leak out that Obama was a sound sleeper and would have a hard time answering a phone in the early morning hours? Also this whole Hilary "Obama won't win" thing shows how pathetic she is. Apparently shes not seeing the poles where over half of people in her own party think shes lame. It's funny, as the two person democratic race continues, I lose more and more respect for both of them. By voting time I will probably be back to voting Republican again. Hopefully I will get off my ass and change my voter registration to down here before that happens, absentee ballots feel like such a waste.

Moe's disappointed me today with their meat choices. I look in the little tubs and the chicken looks all burnt, the ground beef looked charred and like it had been sitting there for days and the steak looked semi normal, which made the decision easier but still made the food seem slightly less appetizing.

Yesterday I was sent out on the road crew with the installers. The installers in my opinion have the hardest job in the company. If they screw up the client bitches and then the boss will be pissed off and really a lot of it is one shot and done. Except when it came to the monument sign face yesterday that was supposed to be 84" across to fit in the space between the brick columns and it ended up being 85" across which was at least a quarter of an inch larger than the space provided. This caused us to have to beat on the brick column for three hours in the hot sun to get this sign face to fit. Tough work. Nothing but respect for the installers. It made me see a funny trend though with the business. Everyone has a problem with the group that comes before them. Designers have a problem with sales for not giving them enough information or bad pictures to make accurate drawings. Production have a problem with designers because their drawings don't have enough information to build the product. Installers have a problem with production because they don't build things the way that would make for good installation. And then the boss has a problem with production because he always wants the signs up faster then is possible with unforeseen delays. Its like a revolving pyramid of blame. Its hard to get too stressed out about it though, as a designer I'm only a small cog in the possibilities of things that can go wrong, all I can do is do my best.

Happy April Fools Day!!!

2008-04-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting link to the origins of April Fools Day.

Enjoy.

Seriously I've blanked on what to write so hopefully I will come up with something soon.