Stop Acting Like a Sixteen Year Old

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.