Saturday, January 08, 2005
Oh yeah, in case you want to see what happen after a touchdown...
Get used to seeing this, Pack Fans!!! 37-34 Vikings Tomorrow.
Chromosomally Challenged
I still have this list of 21 Things waiting for me to finish... so let's knock a few off today.
#12) Roman Polanski - Director of movies such as Chinatown and The Pianist. His story is an interesting one... his mother died in a concentration camp during WWII. His second wife was murdered by the Charles Manson family in 1969. In 1978 he left the United States for good, has not been back since, after he was convicted of the staturtory rape of a 13 year old girl. He has received two Oscar nominations since fleeing the states, including a win for The Pianist in 2003, but of course he was not there because he is a toucher. I also heard he is Mitch King's favorite director.
#13) Great actors giving first rate performances in small or second-rate roles... examples follow:
Holly Hunter playing the DA in Moonlight Mile...John Turturro as Joey Knish in Rounders and in many others...Giovanni Ribisi in Basic...Philip Seymour Hoffman in about a dozen films, such as Cold Mountain and The Big Lebowksi...Burt Lancaster in Field of Dreams...etc...
The acting in these kinds of roles plays a part in separating great movies from good movies. Bad acting in even just one or two scenes can be quite distracting.
Thursday Night TV Report
The OC
This was pretty much what I expected from this episode. They needed to get the ball rolling on their 12 straight new episodes, as well as continue things from the first half of the season. This episode had its highlights, but it was also a bit like the first two episodes of the season. I expect the remainder of the episodes to all be better than this one.
Lines of the night:
The scene where Sandy and Seth were talking to Ryan about him and Lindsay maybe or maybe not being related to each other was loaded with them. Here are a few:
"...chromosomally challenged children..." "...well, unless you move to the south..."
How about the Dr. Pepper commercial with the Meatloaf song in it? That was funny.
Summer: "Holy 80's Teen Comedy Plot!"
Seth played a drunk better than anyone else I have seen on TV or in a movie lately, well, except for Will Ferrel in Old School, and Philip Seymour Hoffman did a pretty good in the 25th Hour, and let us not forget the guy sitting bitch in the Merthmobile in Wayne's World during the Bohemian Rhapsody scene - one problem when people play a drunk is that they sober up way too soon(i.e. Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You). One thing I hate about me is being able to recall that scene. Seth played this well in The OC and we didn't see him until the next day when he said to Ryan, "I just came by to tell you I'm dieing adn to thank you for your friendship."
Seth's drinking brought about the line of the night.
Summer: "Your breath smells like Marissa!"
And Seth puked on the Merch table, does that mean he would have to buy everything he hurled on?
I guess the John, er Jack, really got to him.
And, on a final note, I was really nervous for Mischa Barton all episode, but on this I have to give her a passing grade for her acting. She has some tough scenes and didn't even fall completely on her face or make anyone in this house burst into laughter.
Basketball game at 5:00 tonight.
Keg at The 213 afterward.
Until The Next Time.
#12) Roman Polanski - Director of movies such as Chinatown and The Pianist. His story is an interesting one... his mother died in a concentration camp during WWII. His second wife was murdered by the Charles Manson family in 1969. In 1978 he left the United States for good, has not been back since, after he was convicted of the staturtory rape of a 13 year old girl. He has received two Oscar nominations since fleeing the states, including a win for The Pianist in 2003, but of course he was not there because he is a toucher. I also heard he is Mitch King's favorite director.
#13) Great actors giving first rate performances in small or second-rate roles... examples follow:
Holly Hunter playing the DA in Moonlight Mile...John Turturro as Joey Knish in Rounders and in many others...Giovanni Ribisi in Basic...Philip Seymour Hoffman in about a dozen films, such as Cold Mountain and The Big Lebowksi...Burt Lancaster in Field of Dreams...etc...
The acting in these kinds of roles plays a part in separating great movies from good movies. Bad acting in even just one or two scenes can be quite distracting.
Thursday Night TV Report
The OC
This was pretty much what I expected from this episode. They needed to get the ball rolling on their 12 straight new episodes, as well as continue things from the first half of the season. This episode had its highlights, but it was also a bit like the first two episodes of the season. I expect the remainder of the episodes to all be better than this one.
Lines of the night:
The scene where Sandy and Seth were talking to Ryan about him and Lindsay maybe or maybe not being related to each other was loaded with them. Here are a few:
"...chromosomally challenged children..." "...well, unless you move to the south..."
How about the Dr. Pepper commercial with the Meatloaf song in it? That was funny.
Summer: "Holy 80's Teen Comedy Plot!"
Seth played a drunk better than anyone else I have seen on TV or in a movie lately, well, except for Will Ferrel in Old School, and Philip Seymour Hoffman did a pretty good in the 25th Hour, and let us not forget the guy sitting bitch in the Merthmobile in Wayne's World during the Bohemian Rhapsody scene - one problem when people play a drunk is that they sober up way too soon(i.e. Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You). One thing I hate about me is being able to recall that scene. Seth played this well in The OC and we didn't see him until the next day when he said to Ryan, "I just came by to tell you I'm dieing adn to thank you for your friendship."
Seth's drinking brought about the line of the night.
Summer: "Your breath smells like Marissa!"
And Seth puked on the Merch table, does that mean he would have to buy everything he hurled on?
I guess the John, er Jack, really got to him.
And, on a final note, I was really nervous for Mischa Barton all episode, but on this I have to give her a passing grade for her acting. She has some tough scenes and didn't even fall completely on her face or make anyone in this house burst into laughter.
Basketball game at 5:00 tonight.
Keg at The 213 afterward.
Until The Next Time.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Pics Up
Below you will find 10 pictures to get you started with matching names and faces. More pictures are coming, as well as an account of our New Years Eve Party and some shit about The O.C.
This is from C-Bass's 21st, he is the pissed off looking fellow who I am sure does not remember this being taken. I believe we were at Johnny-O's in Madison, maybe. Behind, left to right, are Bethel, Will, Me, and Jered.
This is from Bethel's 21st, he would be the guy having his nipple pinched, Will and Ida are trying to get a lick, all I can do is watch.
Left to Right: Sher, C-Bass, and some random girl I told to kiss Bass.
On the left we have Schulz, on his 21st birthday, with Will and me.
The dude in the hat is Mike, great friend who goes to school in Fargo. The dude in the beard is my brother, Brian, 20 years old.
Me and Adam, aka The Geoff, saluting Greg Graffin, Punk Rock Legend and singer in Bad Religion.
Ah, yes, my good buddy and former roommate Perverted Tom on the left, Jesse in the middle, and current roommate Shane on the right, daring kids to keep off drugs!
This picture is from my 21st birthday. I think this is the last shot I remember taking. From left to right: Jesse, Me, Casey, Will
Look at poor me, stuck between two beautiful girls who are both great friends, Sara on the left and Jesse on the right.
Two Roommates: Will, aka Heed, on the left, and on the right, Jesse, aka The Rizz, the fellow to whom I owe thanks for showing me how to post pics on here. Note: Nicknames are no more.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Finally
So it was back home for a few days over break. This was actually my longest stay in the hometown in probably three years. I made it eight days. And it was even a good time.
On the night of the 22nd, after watching Heed's basketball game, he and I went out with Schulz. We arrived at our first stop around 10, a bar called Pro Players, where we met a few other friends, Seth, Koehler, Tracy, and Emily. It was really nice to see these folks because it has been a long time since we've been able to relax and share some laughs with each other.
Seth is nearly a part of my family. He and I were best friends for 3-4 years before drifting apart sometime in the middle of high school. My brother then began hanging out with him quite a bit. His is one of those genuine personalities where you know what you are seeing is what you are getting. Conversations with him are always refreshing. He's one of the best people I know.
So we had a few beers there, played some pool, put Talib Kweli, Bad Religion, and Green Day on via the Juke Box. Then we, Heed, Schulz, and I, headed to a local "gentlemen's club" for some late night entertainment. This fine Northern Wisconsin establishment is called Grand Daddy's. After paying the 10 dollar cover upon entry and getting our two drink tickets, we spot a few girls we know from high school seated at a table not 20 feet from the door. Immediately after seeing us they burst into a chorus of "Oh My God!" that was barely audible through the laughter and shrieks. I had no idea what to make of this scene. My first instinct was that they were laughing at Schulz, but that turned out to be false. After talking with them, we learned that just 5 minutes before we walked in they had finished a cameo performance on stage with one of the regular dancers. They had agreed to receive half the stripper's take from that session in exchange for gettin' nekked with her. Shock and awe washed over me as I realize that we were five minutes from seeing two pretty hot girls who we know from high school butt ass naked on stage dancing, working the pole and the customers alike. With my mind on pause and my body on auto pilot, I went to the bar, got a Jack and Coke with my first drink ticket and sat down. I started going over all the different things that kept us at Pro Players, trying to figure out who to blame for us not getting there 10 minutes sooner. Because someone had to be blamed, these scenarios don't happen every night. We should have seen them. I still cling to that.
Possible ways we could have left Pro Players sooner:
1) It was 2 for 1 bottles night, so I went to the bar to get four beers, 1 for each of us and then another cause it was free and I like beer. While I was waiting at the bar, Heed and Schulz got my attention and said "Don't get any more beers," through some animated hand motions. They were both working on beers and I was out, so I just got two. Had I not bought these, we would have been there sooner.
2) If Heed wouldn't have sipped his beer like it was his first one ever, we would have gotten their sooner.
3) Had we not played that last pool game.
So who do we blame? I blame fate, for some reason that I have not yet figured out, missing those girls on stage was beneficial to us in the end. I can't fathom a reason why, but it must be true. Sometimes, not always, there is reason to things, beyond coincidence.
Money Spent on Booze: $39.00
The next morning my family and I took off for Minnesota to see the extended fam for the Execution of Christmas Traditions.
Christmas Tradition Number 1 was moved from Christmas Day to the 23rd for some reason, which makes it something different from the annual tradition I guess...but it was all the same, just on a different day. We headed to the Maternal Grandparents' place for a dinner and some gift exchanging. The dinner was good, turkey, ham, corn, couple different potato dishes, lefsa (more on lefsa in a later post). I am always a bit leery eating over at that house because Grandma N. tends to ignore things like expiration dates and mold and whatnot, but being that this was a large meal, which makes valid the assumption that the food was purchased recently, and with preparation aid coming from a few of my aunts, I felt pretty secure about stuffing my face.
Speaking of stuffing faces, I read that the average American gains one pound between Thanksgiving and New Years. Knowing that statistic, I think I can humbly boast that my family is above average.
The words humbly and boast are kind of funny when juxtaposed, don't you think?
Juxtaposition - that word appears on the screen in Clerks.
Back to Christmas
After dinner, we retired to the basement where the only two people under 10 who can walk passed out some presents. I got some shit I will never use, which is to be expected from this house, actually, I think I left my take from that night all in the hometown. I got a Red Sox DVD made by a company I had never heard of, a thin blanket with a nature scene on it, and a jar of peaches. I did eat half the jar of peaches though.
The present opening scene on this side of the family is always comical for me because of the "Who has the biggest jack knife in their pocket and who can open the most presents with it contest." All it took was the first gift for my grandpa to reach into his pocket and pull out his knife. It took my cousin all the way until present three. I just make eye contact with the very few others in the room who find this to be hilarious. They make opening these gifts seem like disarming a nuclear warhead. Great, and sad, stuff.
After all the family time was done, I decided to give my buddy Mike a call. Mike is my longest friend, and also one of my closest. We became friends in second grade I think and were close until I moved away in sixth grade. I headed to Fargo to visit him last spring for one of the wildest weekends of my life. Mike is a social animal; he can talk to anyone about anything and sell them on whatever he is saying. He's just good people. So Mike is out with another guy I know from my days living in Minnesota, Andy, and the two of them tell me they are at Taco Bell and will come by and pick me up. Talking to Mike on the phone, I can already tell he's been drinking for a while. So he shows up while I'm standing outside with my dad, who loves Mike. Mike bought my dad's expedition from him, the vehicle Andy was driving for Mike that night. According to Andy, at Taco Bell Mike ordered the whole right side of the menu, literally. This is the kind of thing I love about Mike. He'll go over the top on things and be very generous about it. When I was in Fargo, he was hosting a "Spring Break in Fargo" fiesta at the house he bought. So one morning we all went to a Perkinsesque diner and Mike attempted to put everyone's bill on his credit card. All the bills did go on his card, but we told him to fuck off and made a big pile of cash on a table, which he very reluctantly collected. So anyway, Mike gets there, offers my dad a hard-shell taco, which gets declined, so Mike fires back with "Well maybe you want a soft-shell..." My dad is laughing pretty hard by now, so we leave him, empty handed, and head to Mike's brothers place. I walk in and it was like Norm on Cheers. It's always fun to see a lot of people that I only get to see once or twice a year, if that. We all sat around and told some good stories about girls, college, drinking, and poker. Those times need to happen more often.
Christmas Tradition Number Two takes place at the Paternal Grandparents' house. Grandma and Grandpa W., two excellent people. We watched the Vikings-Packers game, which made nobody in the house very happy, as we are all Viking Fans.
I was just old by The Rizz that I am the only person he knows who punctuates when having an instant message conversation. I am going to go off something now - just thought a warning to you all before I did would be fair. Instant messaging has no positive impacts on the literacy of anyone, especially teens and twenty-somethings still in school. I am sure it has a negative impact on my spelling. I used to be a good speller, but in recent years my spelling abilities have regressed. I attribute this to AIM. Along with spelling, punctuation has gone the way of the dinosaurs. And it is not even worth my time to get into the egregious grammatical errors that have become too common. These types of transgressions against the English language are allowed to make their way into people's academic and job-related writings. AIM, AOL, and MSN are heavy players in the corporate dumbing down of Americans. That is a whole other topic. Right now I need to get into acronyms. LMAO, WTF, TTYL, BRB, LOL, THX, etc... I fucking hate these things. I can't even begin to express my distaste for these linguistic short cuts. Can you really not type out "be right back" (which isn’t even a sentence)??? Also, how about getting creative? Writing something original? And when you write "lol," are you really laughing out loud? I'm going to guess no. These acronyms are not only a travesty, but they also skew meaning. I'm done.
So the Vikings lost a game to the Packers that they had at least two situations arise where they could have ended the fucking thing. This was a while ago and I can't remember the specifics now; I'm just glad they managed to back their way into the playoffs. I'm looking forward to Sunday. Propose me some bets. Can the Packers really beat the Vikings three times in one season? I doubt it.
The Rizz's away message has the word "Hellmuthian" in it. I never want to read/hear/write/say Hellmuthian again, unless it refers to a Hellmuthian break down after a beat.
After the game, I had to talk my dad into going to church. That probably reads funny to some of you, why would I talk anyone into going to church? Well, I go to make Grandma happy, if one of us didn't go to church on Christmas she wouldn't be able to get it off her mind until the next Christmas. She asked me about my "Bad Religion" sweatshirt about six times in that one day for Christ’s sake. Yes, for Christ’s sake. My dad's objection to going was that he would rather have continued his nap. He probably would have gone anyway, but a little nudge in the right direction doesn't hurt.
Church. As much as I hate it, I usually walk out having learned, or at least realized, something.
This is the second year in a row where a thought that I felt was pretty great stuck me mid-sermon. I will leave last year's alone for now, you may see it later, not sure yet, but this year's was very interesting to me.
The Pastor, Pastor John, who is about 6' 4" 260 and played football at Nebraska and wears cowboy boots during the service, yes, it is an ELCA church, and who nobody in my family really cares for, was in the pulpit discussing the story of Jesus' birth, the book of Luke and all that shit. He kept going on and on about how it was such a small event at that time and how the story articulates not the details of what transpired, but more the feelings and the atmosphere of that night, which to my skeptical, analytical way of thinking about this type of thing seemed to me to be the way I would write about something that didn't happen if I wanted people to believe it. Or at least the way I would exaggerate an actual event. I guess The Bible appeals so much to people's emotions and spirituality they tend to neglect fact and history. Humans will do anything to fill a part of them that is empty. We are animals. People forget this.
Christianity is lucky that God didn't choose me as their Christ. In Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ, I would have been the Jesus making it happen with Mary Magdalen. That was facetious, of course, because in order for me to be the Christ, there would need to be a god.
So after church, and making awkward small talk with a bunch of people I see once a year, the family reconvened at Christmas Headquarters. The three youngest of the cousins passed out a bunch of gifts. We sat down and Grandma charged me with the task of The Number Drawing. I made sure I had the last one. And my 20 year old brother traded down with my 9 year old brother. This is a house where I do get useful and appreciated gifts. Cash, a box of food, Chappelle's Show Season One, gift cards - good stuff.
After the present opening, I was drawn into a marathon ping-pong session. I faced four opponents in a row whose ages, combined, don't add up to be 40. The two best were my nine year old brother and my five year old cousin Kortney. I think the other two have depth perception problems. One is just borderline institutionalizable (is that a word?).
After passing my patience test for the day, I laid down to watch The Terminal with a few other cousins. It's a pretty good movie, a feel good type flick, predictable, but entertaining.
In the morning, we woke to find that Santa came. It was weird though because I could have sworn that all the presents Santa brought for me and my siblings were in my car not one week prior. Mysterious. So the kids went ape-shit over a bunch of crap that will break soon, but it's fun watching them being so happy. I think I put about 50 pairs of batteries into various gadgets.
On our way out of town, we stopped off at the cemetery to visit my mom's gravesite. Three years later, it still looks like staging in a play to me. Then we all climbed back in the van and headed for home. Per usual, I slept for 5 of the 6 hours we drove.
When we got home, my brother and I headed out to a bar. I guessed I missed the memo, but there was a reunion for about the last 7 classes from my high school there. This place was fucking packed. My brother had no problem getting in; the bouncer said, "Yeah, I've seen you here before, go in." So that was that. I had a few, then called it a night.
Money Spent on Booze: $10.00
The next night was the 26th. Heed, Schulz, Bethel, Shane, and I headed to over to Coach Blunk's house. Except for Shane, he was our high school hoops coach. This was our annual card game at his place. We drank beer and played all sorts of variations on poker, trips to win low chicago, no peek, chase the lady, etc... It was a ton of fun and sucked really bad all at the same time. Coach is one of the best guys around. But that night at his house I won the Rizz award for losing your ass there. I dropped $61.25 playing cards. I think I won two pots in six hours. Oh well. Add 5 bucks for beer and I lost my ass that night.
The next night out in the hometown turned out to provide a story or two that will live on in local legend until we're at least 24. We started out at Pro Players again; it was Guys Night, which means you get a free pizza with a pitcher a beer, pretty good deal. We slammed some of those, I bought a round of shots, and then we split for a return trip Grand Daddy's. We sat back by the bar for a bit and just watched, and waited, for a really hot performer to take the stage. Schulz picked one out and we headed to sniffer's row. Even the ladies joined the three guys down there. She was doing her thing on stage and Schulz, Bass, and I each had a few ones in front of us, waiting to get the treatment from this lovely vixen. Then a bolt of brilliance struck Schulz and he put 5-6 ones out in front of one our female friends, who, in case she'd rather remain anonymous, I will refer to as Alexa, for reasons that are funny to those of us who have seen Pablo Francisco's DVD. So Alexa has a pile of ones in front of her, the nympho on stage sees this and grabs her, pulls her on stage, lays her on her back, and starts strategically placing singles all over her body. Then she begins to lift the Alexa's shirt and bra, while Bass, Schulz, and I are howling in our chairs. Alexa's hesitance is finally too much for the dancer to ignore and she lets Alexa return to her chair. After she was done, we had all finished our drinks and Schulz went to find the dancer to thank her and shit. So we started talking to her and she says she makes 3 grand a week, works another job at a telemarketing firm, and has a boyfriend in jail who doesn't know she's a stripper. Perfect. And her clit was pierced.
After Grand Daddy's we made two more stops. At the final one, we saw one of our other former coaches out, who was quite bombed. He bought us our first round, then proceeded to throw terrible darts. Another varsity coach from the school, a female coach, slapped my ass quite hard on her way past. I was confused, but just kept drinking. Later she did a little dance between my legs while I sat on my bar stool. I wasn't sure what to do, so I just drank my beer. This night was a bit hard on the wallet, but it was well spent. Total:$69.00
I spent my last night in the hometown sober and checked out Meet the Fockers. Pretty funny movie. It was one of those movies, like Ocean's 12, where you can tell the actors were just coasting through it, but they are so good that it doesn't matter, and the script was pretty funny. Without Dustin Hoffman, though, it would have sucked.
Back home, at school, I spent the next two nights drinking after basketball games, spending 7 dollars each night on Beasts.
Then came New Years Eve, which will be covered in my next post, this one is long enough.
I will also get to the basketball team I keep mentioning.
Money Spent on Booze from 12/16/04 through 12/30/04: $169
On the night of the 22nd, after watching Heed's basketball game, he and I went out with Schulz. We arrived at our first stop around 10, a bar called Pro Players, where we met a few other friends, Seth, Koehler, Tracy, and Emily. It was really nice to see these folks because it has been a long time since we've been able to relax and share some laughs with each other.
Seth is nearly a part of my family. He and I were best friends for 3-4 years before drifting apart sometime in the middle of high school. My brother then began hanging out with him quite a bit. His is one of those genuine personalities where you know what you are seeing is what you are getting. Conversations with him are always refreshing. He's one of the best people I know.
So we had a few beers there, played some pool, put Talib Kweli, Bad Religion, and Green Day on via the Juke Box. Then we, Heed, Schulz, and I, headed to a local "gentlemen's club" for some late night entertainment. This fine Northern Wisconsin establishment is called Grand Daddy's. After paying the 10 dollar cover upon entry and getting our two drink tickets, we spot a few girls we know from high school seated at a table not 20 feet from the door. Immediately after seeing us they burst into a chorus of "Oh My God!" that was barely audible through the laughter and shrieks. I had no idea what to make of this scene. My first instinct was that they were laughing at Schulz, but that turned out to be false. After talking with them, we learned that just 5 minutes before we walked in they had finished a cameo performance on stage with one of the regular dancers. They had agreed to receive half the stripper's take from that session in exchange for gettin' nekked with her. Shock and awe washed over me as I realize that we were five minutes from seeing two pretty hot girls who we know from high school butt ass naked on stage dancing, working the pole and the customers alike. With my mind on pause and my body on auto pilot, I went to the bar, got a Jack and Coke with my first drink ticket and sat down. I started going over all the different things that kept us at Pro Players, trying to figure out who to blame for us not getting there 10 minutes sooner. Because someone had to be blamed, these scenarios don't happen every night. We should have seen them. I still cling to that.
Possible ways we could have left Pro Players sooner:
1) It was 2 for 1 bottles night, so I went to the bar to get four beers, 1 for each of us and then another cause it was free and I like beer. While I was waiting at the bar, Heed and Schulz got my attention and said "Don't get any more beers," through some animated hand motions. They were both working on beers and I was out, so I just got two. Had I not bought these, we would have been there sooner.
2) If Heed wouldn't have sipped his beer like it was his first one ever, we would have gotten their sooner.
3) Had we not played that last pool game.
So who do we blame? I blame fate, for some reason that I have not yet figured out, missing those girls on stage was beneficial to us in the end. I can't fathom a reason why, but it must be true. Sometimes, not always, there is reason to things, beyond coincidence.
Money Spent on Booze: $39.00
The next morning my family and I took off for Minnesota to see the extended fam for the Execution of Christmas Traditions.
Christmas Tradition Number 1 was moved from Christmas Day to the 23rd for some reason, which makes it something different from the annual tradition I guess...but it was all the same, just on a different day. We headed to the Maternal Grandparents' place for a dinner and some gift exchanging. The dinner was good, turkey, ham, corn, couple different potato dishes, lefsa (more on lefsa in a later post). I am always a bit leery eating over at that house because Grandma N. tends to ignore things like expiration dates and mold and whatnot, but being that this was a large meal, which makes valid the assumption that the food was purchased recently, and with preparation aid coming from a few of my aunts, I felt pretty secure about stuffing my face.
Speaking of stuffing faces, I read that the average American gains one pound between Thanksgiving and New Years. Knowing that statistic, I think I can humbly boast that my family is above average.
The words humbly and boast are kind of funny when juxtaposed, don't you think?
Juxtaposition - that word appears on the screen in Clerks.
Back to Christmas
After dinner, we retired to the basement where the only two people under 10 who can walk passed out some presents. I got some shit I will never use, which is to be expected from this house, actually, I think I left my take from that night all in the hometown. I got a Red Sox DVD made by a company I had never heard of, a thin blanket with a nature scene on it, and a jar of peaches. I did eat half the jar of peaches though.
The present opening scene on this side of the family is always comical for me because of the "Who has the biggest jack knife in their pocket and who can open the most presents with it contest." All it took was the first gift for my grandpa to reach into his pocket and pull out his knife. It took my cousin all the way until present three. I just make eye contact with the very few others in the room who find this to be hilarious. They make opening these gifts seem like disarming a nuclear warhead. Great, and sad, stuff.
After all the family time was done, I decided to give my buddy Mike a call. Mike is my longest friend, and also one of my closest. We became friends in second grade I think and were close until I moved away in sixth grade. I headed to Fargo to visit him last spring for one of the wildest weekends of my life. Mike is a social animal; he can talk to anyone about anything and sell them on whatever he is saying. He's just good people. So Mike is out with another guy I know from my days living in Minnesota, Andy, and the two of them tell me they are at Taco Bell and will come by and pick me up. Talking to Mike on the phone, I can already tell he's been drinking for a while. So he shows up while I'm standing outside with my dad, who loves Mike. Mike bought my dad's expedition from him, the vehicle Andy was driving for Mike that night. According to Andy, at Taco Bell Mike ordered the whole right side of the menu, literally. This is the kind of thing I love about Mike. He'll go over the top on things and be very generous about it. When I was in Fargo, he was hosting a "Spring Break in Fargo" fiesta at the house he bought. So one morning we all went to a Perkinsesque diner and Mike attempted to put everyone's bill on his credit card. All the bills did go on his card, but we told him to fuck off and made a big pile of cash on a table, which he very reluctantly collected. So anyway, Mike gets there, offers my dad a hard-shell taco, which gets declined, so Mike fires back with "Well maybe you want a soft-shell..." My dad is laughing pretty hard by now, so we leave him, empty handed, and head to Mike's brothers place. I walk in and it was like Norm on Cheers. It's always fun to see a lot of people that I only get to see once or twice a year, if that. We all sat around and told some good stories about girls, college, drinking, and poker. Those times need to happen more often.
Christmas Tradition Number Two takes place at the Paternal Grandparents' house. Grandma and Grandpa W., two excellent people. We watched the Vikings-Packers game, which made nobody in the house very happy, as we are all Viking Fans.
I was just old by The Rizz that I am the only person he knows who punctuates when having an instant message conversation. I am going to go off something now - just thought a warning to you all before I did would be fair. Instant messaging has no positive impacts on the literacy of anyone, especially teens and twenty-somethings still in school. I am sure it has a negative impact on my spelling. I used to be a good speller, but in recent years my spelling abilities have regressed. I attribute this to AIM. Along with spelling, punctuation has gone the way of the dinosaurs. And it is not even worth my time to get into the egregious grammatical errors that have become too common. These types of transgressions against the English language are allowed to make their way into people's academic and job-related writings. AIM, AOL, and MSN are heavy players in the corporate dumbing down of Americans. That is a whole other topic. Right now I need to get into acronyms. LMAO, WTF, TTYL, BRB, LOL, THX, etc... I fucking hate these things. I can't even begin to express my distaste for these linguistic short cuts. Can you really not type out "be right back" (which isn’t even a sentence)??? Also, how about getting creative? Writing something original? And when you write "lol," are you really laughing out loud? I'm going to guess no. These acronyms are not only a travesty, but they also skew meaning. I'm done.
So the Vikings lost a game to the Packers that they had at least two situations arise where they could have ended the fucking thing. This was a while ago and I can't remember the specifics now; I'm just glad they managed to back their way into the playoffs. I'm looking forward to Sunday. Propose me some bets. Can the Packers really beat the Vikings three times in one season? I doubt it.
The Rizz's away message has the word "Hellmuthian" in it. I never want to read/hear/write/say Hellmuthian again, unless it refers to a Hellmuthian break down after a beat.
After the game, I had to talk my dad into going to church. That probably reads funny to some of you, why would I talk anyone into going to church? Well, I go to make Grandma happy, if one of us didn't go to church on Christmas she wouldn't be able to get it off her mind until the next Christmas. She asked me about my "Bad Religion" sweatshirt about six times in that one day for Christ’s sake. Yes, for Christ’s sake. My dad's objection to going was that he would rather have continued his nap. He probably would have gone anyway, but a little nudge in the right direction doesn't hurt.
Church. As much as I hate it, I usually walk out having learned, or at least realized, something.
This is the second year in a row where a thought that I felt was pretty great stuck me mid-sermon. I will leave last year's alone for now, you may see it later, not sure yet, but this year's was very interesting to me.
The Pastor, Pastor John, who is about 6' 4" 260 and played football at Nebraska and wears cowboy boots during the service, yes, it is an ELCA church, and who nobody in my family really cares for, was in the pulpit discussing the story of Jesus' birth, the book of Luke and all that shit. He kept going on and on about how it was such a small event at that time and how the story articulates not the details of what transpired, but more the feelings and the atmosphere of that night, which to my skeptical, analytical way of thinking about this type of thing seemed to me to be the way I would write about something that didn't happen if I wanted people to believe it. Or at least the way I would exaggerate an actual event. I guess The Bible appeals so much to people's emotions and spirituality they tend to neglect fact and history. Humans will do anything to fill a part of them that is empty. We are animals. People forget this.
Christianity is lucky that God didn't choose me as their Christ. In Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ, I would have been the Jesus making it happen with Mary Magdalen. That was facetious, of course, because in order for me to be the Christ, there would need to be a god.
So after church, and making awkward small talk with a bunch of people I see once a year, the family reconvened at Christmas Headquarters. The three youngest of the cousins passed out a bunch of gifts. We sat down and Grandma charged me with the task of The Number Drawing. I made sure I had the last one. And my 20 year old brother traded down with my 9 year old brother. This is a house where I do get useful and appreciated gifts. Cash, a box of food, Chappelle's Show Season One, gift cards - good stuff.
After the present opening, I was drawn into a marathon ping-pong session. I faced four opponents in a row whose ages, combined, don't add up to be 40. The two best were my nine year old brother and my five year old cousin Kortney. I think the other two have depth perception problems. One is just borderline institutionalizable (is that a word?).
After passing my patience test for the day, I laid down to watch The Terminal with a few other cousins. It's a pretty good movie, a feel good type flick, predictable, but entertaining.
In the morning, we woke to find that Santa came. It was weird though because I could have sworn that all the presents Santa brought for me and my siblings were in my car not one week prior. Mysterious. So the kids went ape-shit over a bunch of crap that will break soon, but it's fun watching them being so happy. I think I put about 50 pairs of batteries into various gadgets.
On our way out of town, we stopped off at the cemetery to visit my mom's gravesite. Three years later, it still looks like staging in a play to me. Then we all climbed back in the van and headed for home. Per usual, I slept for 5 of the 6 hours we drove.
When we got home, my brother and I headed out to a bar. I guessed I missed the memo, but there was a reunion for about the last 7 classes from my high school there. This place was fucking packed. My brother had no problem getting in; the bouncer said, "Yeah, I've seen you here before, go in." So that was that. I had a few, then called it a night.
Money Spent on Booze: $10.00
The next night was the 26th. Heed, Schulz, Bethel, Shane, and I headed to over to Coach Blunk's house. Except for Shane, he was our high school hoops coach. This was our annual card game at his place. We drank beer and played all sorts of variations on poker, trips to win low chicago, no peek, chase the lady, etc... It was a ton of fun and sucked really bad all at the same time. Coach is one of the best guys around. But that night at his house I won the Rizz award for losing your ass there. I dropped $61.25 playing cards. I think I won two pots in six hours. Oh well. Add 5 bucks for beer and I lost my ass that night.
The next night out in the hometown turned out to provide a story or two that will live on in local legend until we're at least 24. We started out at Pro Players again; it was Guys Night, which means you get a free pizza with a pitcher a beer, pretty good deal. We slammed some of those, I bought a round of shots, and then we split for a return trip Grand Daddy's. We sat back by the bar for a bit and just watched, and waited, for a really hot performer to take the stage. Schulz picked one out and we headed to sniffer's row. Even the ladies joined the three guys down there. She was doing her thing on stage and Schulz, Bass, and I each had a few ones in front of us, waiting to get the treatment from this lovely vixen. Then a bolt of brilliance struck Schulz and he put 5-6 ones out in front of one our female friends, who, in case she'd rather remain anonymous, I will refer to as Alexa, for reasons that are funny to those of us who have seen Pablo Francisco's DVD. So Alexa has a pile of ones in front of her, the nympho on stage sees this and grabs her, pulls her on stage, lays her on her back, and starts strategically placing singles all over her body. Then she begins to lift the Alexa's shirt and bra, while Bass, Schulz, and I are howling in our chairs. Alexa's hesitance is finally too much for the dancer to ignore and she lets Alexa return to her chair. After she was done, we had all finished our drinks and Schulz went to find the dancer to thank her and shit. So we started talking to her and she says she makes 3 grand a week, works another job at a telemarketing firm, and has a boyfriend in jail who doesn't know she's a stripper. Perfect. And her clit was pierced.
After Grand Daddy's we made two more stops. At the final one, we saw one of our other former coaches out, who was quite bombed. He bought us our first round, then proceeded to throw terrible darts. Another varsity coach from the school, a female coach, slapped my ass quite hard on her way past. I was confused, but just kept drinking. Later she did a little dance between my legs while I sat on my bar stool. I wasn't sure what to do, so I just drank my beer. This night was a bit hard on the wallet, but it was well spent. Total:$69.00
I spent my last night in the hometown sober and checked out Meet the Fockers. Pretty funny movie. It was one of those movies, like Ocean's 12, where you can tell the actors were just coasting through it, but they are so good that it doesn't matter, and the script was pretty funny. Without Dustin Hoffman, though, it would have sucked.
Back home, at school, I spent the next two nights drinking after basketball games, spending 7 dollars each night on Beasts.
Then came New Years Eve, which will be covered in my next post, this one is long enough.
I will also get to the basketball team I keep mentioning.
Money Spent on Booze from 12/16/04 through 12/30/04: $169
