Thursday, September 25, 2008

you can always return...

i have had a myspace account for a while...i surprisingly hopped on board pretty early in its popularity. as i had alluded to in a earlier post, i really did not use it much. something about social networking doesn't appeal to me or else feels awkward/unnecessary. again, i think it more has to do with the fact that i am just not naturally a very social person. on the other hand i have lots of free time at work that is generally devoted to fantasy football and basketball that could be put to better use.

lately phil has been unsuccessfully trying to get me to get a facebook account. he says stuff like "it's sooooo much better!" or "everyone else has an account....i think you're the lone weirdo", etc. i have noticed that often times the more someone tries to persuade me to do something, the more resistant i become and the funnier the situation becomes to me as well.

also, i am lazy and do not need yet another thing to sign up for that i will rarely use...

therefore i am now campaigning, with tom's blessing, that everyone delete their facebook accounts and come back to myspace. look, i'll be honest, myspace has made a lot of improvements and are much better than facebook now, the problem is all the kids still "think" that facebook is much cooler when they really have no idea what they are talking about...they're just going along with the crowd...that same crowd that thinks i'm lovin' mcdonalds just cause the jingle says so. also i heard facebook is secretly distributing confidential information about it's users...i have no physical proof of this, but i have some sources that i would refer to as very reliable that have told me so. remember all the good times you had on myspace? there were so many laughs, tears of joy. don't you want to feel that again? facebook is so cold and heartless...


boo! it's no good! nobody wants you! go home!


can you feel that? i believe there was a momentum shift...everyone come back to myspace. i think it's a reasonable request and i have clearly made my case as to why. show me proof that you have deleted your facebook account and i will not only add you as a friend, i will post a hilarious message on your awesome myspace account.

it is a place for friends...hurray!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

the end is nigh for dan


this past weekend was dan's bachelor party, which took place in tenessee. assuming dan's mom does not read this blog i will mention that we camped in the smokey mountains and drove (well, i was a passenger) fast cars and motorcycles on deal's gap and or the dragon's tail...i'm not really sure what was what. the weather was perfect for being outside and everyone seemed to have a really good time.

starting with the departure, the morning group left in the morning, although eskay was running late and dave was antsy waiting for him. i laugh at the irony of the situation. the afternoon group also gets off to a late start due to my parents' gps not working correctly. i ride with nam and he endures my music choices. we stop at burger king so i can eat a veggie burger, fries and slushee, thus starting the weekend of extremely poor diet. we arrive at the campsite around 2am, greeted by drunk everyone from the morning group as well as the pleasant surprise of all of the tents already set up. dave said dan got destroyed from drinking half a 40...i find this lame. everyone apparently fears my snoring and poor sean is the odd man out and shares my tent.

the next morning sean and i awake to the sound of assy jerk dave throwing rocks at our tent. dan seems anxious to get to deal's gap. everyone grabs a walkie-talkie and jumps into a vehicle. chris runs into some issues on his motorcycle right when we begin to get to the serious turns and he decides to play it safe and wait for us to return. dan and anders rode their motorcycles while everyone else jumped from car to car. i rode in the z, supra and miata and had fun in all 3.






anders and chris appear ready to go












curvy roads










there's the z, being driven by steve i believe













sean zipped around in his miata






around lunchtime we ate at the deal's gap restaurant which i kept referring to as the biker place. we were all starving, except for maybe anders who thought he was the outdoor gourmet and cooked his own breakfast. i went with the only option i could find, grilled cheese, along with fries and rings, which was way too much food. esaky went a little crazy and ordered a bbq sandwich with a side of fries and additional burger. i tried to convice phil to go for the mysterious gap wrap, but he punked out and ordered something lame instead. i also wore a white undershirt during this trip that was the target of ridicule and many jokes due to the fact that it was a little tight...people are haters, what can you do? we drove around more curvy roads after lunch and then drove back to the campsite.





here is one of the many places where we ate too much food







i felt a little left out of the riding motorcycle thing, so i made phil take this picture of me...disregard the kickstand being down


some people chose to take naps, dan and anders went to go retrieve chris' bike and phil and i got destroyed by sean and chris in acorn drink ball. the whole time, i was trying to convince the remaining awake people that we should go out and get pizza. this idea was met with a lot of no response and i grew hungrier and slightly frustrated. a while later dan returned to the camp site and like an angel of mercy came bearing a giant stack of pizza hut pizzas. to say i was overjoyed may be an understatement. i proceeded to eat at least half of a pizza. following the pizza, the drinking really started to get going. i was pouring out shots and doling out peer pressure like nobodies business. everyone got pretty intoxicated. i even got nam and anders to drink, which i considered a victory. after about 4 or 5 shots, my memory of events became pretty hazy, but according to steve i was jumping into every single picture taken that night. as far as i can tell there may have been some ralphing going on, but everyone had fun.

nam had some better pictures, but i was unable to steal them from his flicker account












scott rubs dan's head for good luck






the next morning was a little rough. anders pointed out how this was a pretty family-oriented campsite and that we were pretty loud and obnoxious both nights. oh well. that's just the way it's gotta be sometimes. we packed everything up and hit the road as dave and chris made full use of the walkie-talkies the entire trip back home, often discussing girls they spot on the road. we stopped off at sonic for lunch, which louise had been hyping up to all of us for years. it was kind of fun ordering food from a machine. i got an egg and cheese sandwich with tater tots and a cherry slushee. it was pretty good, although not as awesome as i had expected. we continued to drive for a long time, and passed through this weird town in tenessee that was kind of a busted, family-friendly vegas.





chris ponders the extensive menu












there was a lot of stuff like this











dave propositions dan on the way home








then steve made the call to go to the waffle house for dinner. sean was very apprehensive about this choice and explained that he avoided the waffle house in college since the employees were often toothless with weird limps or something like that. i was pretty happy with my food options as well as the prices. i ordered a cheese and egg sandwhich, cheese and egg biscuit and hashbrowns smothered, covered, peppered and something else. it was again way too much food and i along with everyone else felt ill after eating. the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful as we all were just ready to get home and take a shower. it was a fun trip and a good way for dan to go out before his impending marriage.





finally i will end on this picture, which was not staged at all...i noticed he was standing like this and quickly took a picture

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

chinese and mexican, together at last

i have made it a goal of mine to not eat out for lunch at work more than once per week. it not only saves me a little money, but i tend to eat healthier than if i were to get something from a restaurant. this plan has worked out pretty well so far, although i do occasionally crave some restaurant fare.

just now as i walked to the mailbox down the street to return my netflix movie, starring gavin rossdale and terry crews, i noticed a menu for a new local restaurant. now that i only buy lunch once a week, eating out becomes that much more exciting, and thusly i like to look for new eating establishments. well here was a menu for king bao and taco tortillas. from what i can tell, this is one restaurant that serves both chinese and mexican food.




no and then!!!





why do chinese restaurants do this? i have listened to louise and dave discuss how these places can't cook good chinese food, so they offer more choices that are also poorly cooked in an effort to mask the quality of their food. more options apparently equals better. i have been to a few of these retaurants and for the most part that last statement does not hold up. i have seen chinese and "american" food places before (danny's, lenny's, wenny's, new garden, etc.), but this is the first collaboration with mexican food i have seen. i don't mean to be mean, as i am sure the people that own these restaurants are very nice, hard-working people, and while i think their plans seem misguided, they tend to do decent business and know what they are doing. i wonder...what combination could be next?

while this new restaurant, as well as the other establishments, have some vegetarian options that might taste ok enough to warrant my $5, i know the quality of the ingredients may not be up to par...also, i know i can count on ingesting a lot of grease as that is chinese/other type of food tip #2 to covering up the food's quality.

while i am on the subject of not so great chinese restaurants, another thing i have noted for years is how poorly proofread the menus tend to be. i realize english is usually not the first language of these restaurantuers, but the spelling and grammar in these menus would make 6 year old me laugh out loud. why has nobody done anything about this? i should start a business where i offer my proofreading services to all chinese restaurants and get rich in the process. (note: i'm sure i have made many spelling and gramatical errors in this post, as well as all of the others, but you don't need to point them out to me...kiss my ass so what?) my favorite questionable wording from a quick scan of the kb & tt menu is in reference to their flour tortillas:

"our flour tortillas are made fresh throughout the day to maintain freshness not"

now either they did not complete their thought, or they were psyching me out at the end and those flour tortillas are in fact not made fresh throughout the day, in which case they should have used a comma or succession of periods to denote a pause and then added the "not" in all caps with a bunch of exclamation points.

anyways, back to the food. let's look at my options. i could order:
  • vegetable lo-mein and monterey jack cheese and black bean quesadilla
  • broccoli with garlic sauce and a guacamole taco
  • vegetable burrito and mixed vegetable szechuan style
  • dozens of other equally appetizing combinations
the bottom line: the food there will not be very good and i will probably eat some of it. i like to eat.

Friday, September 12, 2008

you be the judge

last week, dave discovered that jessie has an interesting reaction to the beautiful sounds of a harmonica. the root of this reaction became a hotly debated topic in our household as louise insists that jessie does not like the sounds coming from dave's mouth harp and does not like us doing it. dave and i disagree, thinking that she loves it and is trying to sing along or harmonize. i have no basis for this theory, but i believe that dogs are musical creatures. nicky on the other hand is on the fence and while she finds it as hilarious and cute as dave and i, she is unsure if the reaction is actually a positive one.



what do you think? you will notice that her tail is wagging the whole time, possibly displaying her enjoyment. the sounds coming out of her mouth are a little questionable, but her vocal training is limited at best. the expression on her face shows a look of concern, but i like to believe that is just her getting into it. i also remember nick's dog, buck, who often enjoyed following us to where we played music and howled along, often appearing in many of the song we recorded. you can also hear nicky giggling in the background as dave and jessie perform their duet. louise theorizes that something about the sound of the harmonica possibly disorients jessie. i obviously would not want to torture my dog, so if you think she is showing her disapproval or she is upset by the music, let me know.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

i'm not quite sure how i feel about this

most of my friends have become aware of my intense interest in spaghetti cat and all spaghetti cat-related news. well i have come across some new information. spaghetti cat has become quite the internet superstar and the show it originally appeared on could not not cash in on this sudden popularity.

hmm...while informative, there was so much unfunny going on that it almost makes spaghetti cat not cool. i hate talk show hosts like this. will ferrell and cheri oteri did a spot-on impression called morning latte on snl. so i guess i learned more about spaghetti cat, who, like the terminator, appears to have become self-aware and i don't think i like it. the image still makes me laugh though. who am i kidding? i can't stay mad at you, spaghetti cat. you are still awesome even if the people who surround you are lame. you know what does not make me laugh, but actually horrifies me?

Monday, September 8, 2008

i personally think it suits me well

this past weekend dave mentioned that he was going to take his suit to the dry cleaners. knowing that we will have to be dressing up for dan and laura's wedding, i immediately jumped at this chance and told him he should take my suit in as well. now i am not one that usually dresses up. i had to wear a suit for my brother's wife's sister's wedding in august, and with the kichak-robinson event, i will have to suit it up again, thus going over the normal 1 time dress up per year limit i have set for myself.

i would rather wear a tuxedo t-shirt to these types of functions, but apparently that look is frowned upon. i just don't feel comfortable in a suit. i don't think i look particularly good in them. in fact, even though i am now 30, i always feel like a kid whose parent's forced them to wear a suit, like they are pretending to be an adult...except i am an adult...it's confusing and nobody wins.

basically suits and i disagree. the suit that i own is now over 10 years old. i specifically remember having to go and buy it at age 19 to go to my girlfriend's sorority formal. i hated suits even back then, but bit the bullet and allowed my mom to buy one for me. even though it has not been worn very often, i have not really taken the best care of this suit. apparently you are supposed to get these things dry-cleaned after you wear them...i did not know this. the result being that at the wedding this past august, i noticed like 10 little holes in various places on my suit that were a result of small food particles that moths decided to eat. the holes were only noticeable if you were looking for them. from any normal distance i was good.

so i figured i would just use this suit again and hope that nobody notices/cares. that is until dave picked up my suit, examined it and began busting on it. he mentioned that this looks like a suit that louis would own. louise and chris also chimed in about it looking old fashioned and not in style. i didn't really think basic suites went in and out of style, but apparently what i owned did not keep up with the current trends.

well i guess if my suit is old fashioned and has holes in it, i have to stop being cheap and go look for another suit. after work, louise is going to take me to men's warehouse so i can pick something out...actually i already know how this will play out. louise will pick something up and say this looks good. i will shrug my shoulders. i will get the suit fitted and then be unhappy about how much money i am spending on something i wear once a year.

how will i look at the wedding? here are some ideas...what do you think?

week 1 - it's all downhill from here

a perfect storm may have converged on my team this weekend. michael turner lit up the lions defense for 220 and 2 td's. that's just silly. the rest of my starters all did as well as i had hoped. the only stinker was my kicker, netting me 3 points. i almost made the ideal lineup, but should have played kevin smith over nate burleson and surprisingly kevin walter over larry fitzgerald, but we are talking a difference of like 3 points. even my bench performed well with most of them getting around 10 points.

i still have greg jennings to play tonight, which should secure my top score for week 1, and thus a $5 bonus.


the thing is, my team will not play this well again...probably for the entire season. i have peaked way to early, and thus, i would like to capitalize on the increase in perceived value of many of my players through trades. this would work except, nobody ever wants to trade in this league, so i will probably not be making any blockbuster moves...at least not this early in the season.

everyone else's teams played about as well as i expected. interesting things i noted:
  • phil got a huge boost from mcnabb.
  • l.t. did not come up big for sean.
  • hines ward caught 2 tds?
  • willie parker had almost as big of a day as the burner.
  • nam's team got screwed in the draft, but with tom brady being out for the season, it might have worked out with espn autopicking a backup qb early for him.
  • chris johnson may be more of a beast than i originally thought
i will enjoy the quick start my team has gotten off to, with the understanding that i am probably looking at a very big letdown in week 2. luckily, this week i play phil's roommate, eileen, who drafted deshaun foster...so i should enjoy at least one more week of winning.



hold on...you're telling me i still play football? in the nfl?...cause let me tell you, i am pretty awful at football....ok, just checking.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

...and we're off!!!

as i sit here at my stupid job waiting for the nfl season to begin, i ponder many things. with the imminent poor play of both my fantasy teams as well as the redskins, this may in fact be the happiest and most optimistic i will be all season long. is it too much to ask that the redskins return to the playoffs? is it too much to expect that all of my fantasy teams perform to the level i had hoped and expected? probably.

i'm sure this season will be filled with a lot of trash talk with eskay. there will be a whole lot of stressing over which players to start. i know there will be a lot of nagging phil about league specifics where he bitches about me not being the commissioner. there will be a lot of eye rolling going on when the redskins break the record for most consecutive three-and-outs. there will be a lot of cursing myself for once again being seduced by lady potential. basically, this will be a season of regret.
my best bet is to become more heavily invested in fantasy basketball. anyone in? anyone? oh well. good luck to everyone, except when you play me. good luck redskins, try not to embarrass yourselves too badly tonight.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

9021(clever pun)

i had been excited about the rebirth of beverly hills 90210 since i remember it as an amusing show 15 years ago. many of these memories might be slightly whitewashed, but it was more or less a guilty pleasure/so bad it's ironically appealing. the act of remaking this show alone might not have been enough for me to intentionally watch it. once they announced lori loughlin was on board, i was as well.

i did not have high hopes in that this show would be of good quality, but the piece of shit i watched last night was more or less unwatchable. i have pretty low television standards, but this was pushing it. the only redeaming aspects of the show are lori (obviously) and lucille bluth. after about 10 minutes, i stopped paying attention and only looked up at the tv occassionally when lori was making the screen glow with her smile. the problem is, the show is using her all wrong and has her more or less covered up when she is a lot hotter than any of the 25 year old high school girls on the show.

this makes me think even more fondly back to the days of steve sanders. if they start putting lori in a bikini, i will return. overall, this show was 9021no good.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

i turned 30 gracefully

i had my 30th birthday party on saturday and had a really good time. it was pretty similar to dave's birthday party 2 weeks ago, a few different people, more drinking games, and a lot less liquor and puking. this time around i managed to remember to charge my camera's battery, which led to a lot of pictures being taken, and thus leading to this post, the most photo saturated post ever on t.i.t.s.

so here is how things went down, more or less, via photo essay (click on any of these pictures for closer inspection):




people showed up earlier since i didn't want to keep my neighbor up all night and jessie got herself ready.








laura was surprised by how much alcohol we had available.







nam and jess showed up and drank water.








phil introduced us to drink ball, which was a lot of fun, until the ball got real dented. then some geniuses thought to boil the ball.







way to go einsteins








dave quite simply did not give a fu**








we did some male bonding








jessie found this offensive and decided to pee on the carpet









simon took my camera and took some "interesting" photos








louise and i take a picture and dave thinks he's invited








we had to take a few shots at least...it was my birthday...







phil took pictures too while dan sat on the couch









tamarack in the house







with the ping pong ball nonfunctional, we switched to flip cup (i think laura wants our attention)







jill, michele and louise ponder their flip cup loss








people played rockband









phil snuck his way into pictures







glenmont apartments...represent!









sean and brigitte cute it up







brody and i tell sean and brigitte to "bring it on", they aren't the only ones who can be cute







chris and i thought it would be appropriate to do some birthday snuggling







bub finds this showing of affection to be applause-worthy









michele becomes my hero by eating the scorpion







phil got a little jealous of me and chris snuggling, so we decide to hold hands







nicky (nikki?) showed up late





finally, one picture from my birthday party stood out from the rest. this image is now my desktop image and makes me laugh every time i see it. much like spaghetti cat, your life may not be the same after you see this. i present, the pic of the night:
thanks to everyone who came out. i had a great time and i hope everyone else did too.