Happy Holidays to all. I will be away from computers until next year, but hopefully my first post back will be an exciting retelling of New Year's Eve. Out.

How do I get flames to shoot out of my exhaust?

I got together with Kevin last night to watch Rice Boy, the Movie, part II (a.k.a. 2 Fast 2 Furious). For those of you who don't remember, the last time I tried to see this movie, I ended up walking out of the theater because I was sick of being subjected to ads and previews. I should have taken that as a sign that I was never meant to see this movie and just left it at that.

Kevin and I sit down to watch the film, and the first problem we encounter is that we're forced to watch all the previews on the disk. I almost had to walk out of my own house. We finally got the movie underway, however, and wow, what a crappy film. Bad acting, bad plot line, lame cars, etc, etc. I couldn't help but laugh my way through the ridiculousness that comprised the majority of the movie. Rating: Two GReddy-sponsored thumbs down.

Tis the season to be remembered

It's that time of year again, time for someone to make an ass of themselves at the company holiday party. There is much potential for it this year. For starters, we will have an open bar. Yesterday, I went with the über boss to pick up the booze for the party. I seriously hope we have some closet alcoholics amongst us, because the bar will be overstocked, to say the least. We came back with 25 bottles of wine and 3 cases of beer for 70 people; a third of which probably won't drink. On top of the alcohol, we've also arranged for a karaoke stage. Should make for a good time. The only thing we're missing is a copier for people to make explicit Xerox's of themselves.

Ode to my jock

Alas good buddy, it's time we part. You were always good to me. Whether we were winning or losing, you always supported me for the duration of the game. You never flinched when faced with errant pucks or sticks wrought with mal-intent. My trust in you was great enough to allow you to feel and coddle things that I hold very dear to myself; things that very few are privileged enough to see, let alone touch. But, like many things in this fragile thing called life, our time together cannot last forever. When I saw the seam on your underside start to split, I tried to suppress my feelings of fear and sadness. I pretended not to notice that you had lost some of the spring in your elastic. When I put you on and felt the cool locker room breeze across my boys, I knew our days together were numbered. The saddest day of all, however, came when I sat on the bench and felt my junk fall through your gaping wound. It was then I knew that we would have to part ways and could no longer play together. As I lay you to rest, I want you to know that you will be missed, old friend. While there can be no true replacement for you, your successor is destined to show up at my doorstep any day now. I can only hope that it will be half the supporter you were.

Today's thoughts:

FedEx. Every time FedEx tries to ship something to my residence, the delivery gets F-d up. The process to receive a package usually works like this: I come home from work ot find a note on my door informing me that FedEx came by but couldn't leave whatever they were trying to deliver because I wasn't there. The next day, I leave for work and put a note on the door specifying that I am willing to give up all my god-given rights and absolve FedEx of all their responsibility if they would just grant me the small favor of leaving the stupid package on my doorstep in my absence. At the end of day two, I invariably come home to find a second note from the delivery driver saying it is against their policy to leave my package in exchange for my soul unless I am there in person to physically authorize the transfer. My options at this point are to either continue my lovely paper exchange with the unknown delivery man, or to drive across town to the storehouse and pick the package up myself between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 PM; a time of day that will ensure the 15 minute journey takes at least 3-4 times that long.

I performed the above ritual yesterday, thinking that I would be able to duck out of work for no more than 30 minutes if I timed everything correctly. My timing was spot on, however, I didn't account for the fact that it would take them 45 minutes to find my package while I waited in the lobby. Of course, that put me right in the middle of rush hour trying to get back to the office.

Women's jeans that don't have pockets in the back. I don't know what it is, but I really don't like this look. It's like fried eggs without yolks, breasts without nipples, a black Michael Jackson—something just isn't right. You would think that without those added obstructions, it would make for a perfectly displayed backside, but that's just not the case. It just does a bad job of showcasing one's ass.

People who don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. Really, how hard is this? It's because of these people that I have to mastermind some way of escaping from the bathroom without making direct contact with the door handle or anything else, post hand wash. Sometimes I'll get lucky and the trash will be close enough to the door that I can open the door with a paper towel and then throw it into the trash as I try to exit the room Indiana Jones style, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the rapidly closing door. Other times, I can only hope that I'm fortunate enough to be wearing a long sleeve shirt that can provide the protection I need. Best case, though, is to find some unsuspecting victim that happens to be leaving the bathroom at the same time and use him to take the bacterial hit and hold the door open for me.

Chicks with hairy arms. C'mon ladies, it's the 21st century here. You're willing to have body hair ripped out with hot wax, put toxic chemicals in your hair, apply parts of dead animals to your face in the form of makeup, give up breathing for one night to squeeze yourself into pants that are 2 sizes too small, spend your life savings on shoes, and buy 200 purses just so you have one that goes with every outfit, but you don't seem to be able to take account of your fur-covered man arms? This one's a pretty serious deal-breaker for me. Just use some of the extra bleach from your hair or wax from your legs/upper lip to alleviate the problem. We'd all be quite thankful.

The whore tattoo*. I'm indifferent on the actual tattoo, but, really, is there any reason to get one of these other than to advertise that you're a tramp and like to give your man something to read as he gives it to you from behind? Thumbs up/down depends if I'm going to date you seriously. (*The mark of the whore is an ornate tattoo applied to the small of the lower back and is usually tribal in nature)

Low-rise jeans on women. Let's all applaud the genius who integrated these into women's closets. All I know is that there are a lot more women getting Brazilians these days. However, as with everything, you have to draw the line somewhere. Low-rise jeans lose their attractiveness when all you see is two big hip bones blooming out over the top of Miss Anorexia Nervosa's waistband.

'Tis the season. Holiday music makes me want to wretch; especially when [good] radio stations are taken off the air and replaced by stations that play nothing but the season's hits, 24hr a day. Notice I didn't say, "Christmas music?" How dare I call it what it is? After all, I might offend too many people. At our holiday party this year, there can be no music played that makes any sort of reference to Christmas or any other holiday celebration.

People who wRitE liKe ThIS. You need to be kicked off the internet.

Real Breasts. What can I say, I'd rather have small and natural than large, fake, saltwater sacks. Besides, I think the number of boob jobs that actually come out looking decent when a woman is naked is probably under 10%. Sure, they look great clothed, but somehow that translates to horribly grotesque when fully exposed.


Today's question of the day: Do you think your mom ever blew your dad right before coming into your room to kiss you goodnight?

Uprooted

It's been a very bittersweet month since my last update. The biggest news is that I've moved into my new place. A couple weekends ago, I assembled an extremely efficient moving group (a big thanks to Kevin, Mike, Randy, Eric, Sarah, and Austin) to help transfer the majority of my belongings from Kevin's place to the new place.

To make things move as quickly as possible, I decided to rent a U-Haul truck for the day; I also had everything packed up ahead of time. These two factors helped us complete the move in about two hours—a record by anyone's standards. After getting everything in the new place, we all went out for some hard-earned pizza and beer.

The excitement and elation from the move was short lived, however. Monday morning (the day after the move), I came back to the house to pick up a couple more things. Imagine my surprise when I found the garage door wide open, my car door open (I was using a second car at the time to help with the move), and things obviously out of place around the garage. My heart dropped to the floor as soon as I realized what had happened. Kevin and I had been robbed.

I hadn't moved anything from the garage, because I figured I would dedicate a weekend exclusively to do so, namely since I had so many things in there that didn't have a place yet in the new place. And, since we live in a pretty safe part of town, I never considered the possibility that my things would be in jeopardy. Even though I had taken Monday off from work to try to get settled, the day became a total write-off. I spent the morning going through the garage trying to figure out what was stolen. All-in-all, they got away with about $3-4000 worth of stuff. The biggest loss was my mountain bike. Although, the thieves obviously didn't know what to steal, since my road bike was sitting about 5 feet away from the mountain bike and is probably worth about twice as much. Other than the bike, they also stole a bunch of tools, and then went through my car and stole all of CD's in the car and my radar detector. Unfortunately, Kevin was in Winnipeg on business during all of this and wouldn't be back until Thursday; very bad timing, indeed. The rest of the day was spent waiting for the police to come by and then another hour or two was lost while they were collecting fingerprints.

Of course, through all of this, I kept telling myself that everything was replaceable and that things could have always been worse (at least they didn't break into the new place and no one was physically harmed), and through insurance, I would probably be able to get compensated for the losses. Alas, there was still worse news on the horizon. I got a call from Kevin on Thanksgiving to update me on the status of our potential insurance claim. Turns out that because his parents own the condo, but do not live there, it's treated strictly as a rental property and their insurance only covers the structure itself. On top of that, neither Kevin nor I had renters insurance at the time. In short, we were both shit out of luck.

I've been staying in the new place exclusively for the past week and a half. Having always lived with someone, it's been somewhat eerie living on my own in a new home. Additionally, having my sense of security upset by the break-in makes me a little nervous being there by myself. I share a couple common walls, so I'm acclimating to new noises, especially at night. Even though Kevin and I kept completely different hours, there was still something reassuring about knowing that someone else would be in the house at some point during the day/night.

All that aside, however, I'm extremely excited to be in my own place. Admittedly, most of my things are still in boxes and I've been making more trips to Home Depot than I'd care to. But, when everything is settled in, I think the place will come out really nice.