Metcalf on the sofa, I know, I know, it's serious.

Last night my friend T spun his bi-monthly Morrissey Smiths night at Delilah's. For the first time in a long time, I attended. I used to, back in the day, before the E2 nightclub tragedy caused all Chicago bars to scale back on events, work the door for him upstairs. My job was to charge everyone who entered three American dollars to come in for the show. This was a great job for me (read: another great way to meet girls) and I had permission to buy myself beers out of the till. I also spent that time talking with the bartender, a beautiful, tattoo-laden woman with a very, very good sense of humor and a frighteningly good taste in music. We would make fun of all the mod kids who came in, too, as neither of us are particularly big fans of Morrissey or the Smiths.

Anyways, that was then, this is now. I showed up last night knowing I was supposed to meet a friend of mine there. What I didn't know is she brought out another friend that I hadn't seen in more than 6 months- I hadn't seen her since before she got married, and she hadn't seen me since I was with Red, so she didn't know about my newest dating screening process question. More and more of my friends showed up, and the bar was packed to the gills with the usual crowd of hipsters and the slightly out-of-place Morrissey fans. We caught up, and finally, I had reached my limit. I had a headache, and I just can't stand to listen to that man's music for that long, so we opted to head north, back to my neighborhood.

A quick cab ride later, and I was in my own stomping grounds. My buddy and I headed straight to the pinball machine at Goldie's. Much beer was consumed. There was a lot of pinball played. Finally, that dreaded moment: closing time.

My old roommate and I were hungry. We headed home and ordered a pizza. Not the wisest of choices for me, but we were in a pinch. We ate. I put in his favorite movie and hauled my tired ass into bed.

I woke up this morning, and thought to myself "hm. I should be feeling like shit right now, but I'm not. What gives?" I got out of bed, walked into my living room and was rather surprised to find my old roommate passed out on my couch. This used to happen a lot, even when he had his own bed here. That couch may not look like much, but it is damn nice to sleep on.

So that's how I got my day off and running- and because it is so damn nice out, I'm thinking about hitting the bike trail.

A Dave Longs

After seeing this post over on Joey's blog, I was inspired. Inspired to waste time in a most hilarious manner, by searching for anagrams for all the stations in Chicago's el system. This is a rather insane undertaking, as there are something close to 200 stations on 7 lines. Fortunately for me, a lot have stations in common (thank you loop), and Chicago streets are in a grid system, so there's some overlap on station names. For the numbered street stations, I spelled out the numbers to get proper anagrams, and sometimes, but not often, I had to add the word avenue or street to a station name to get anything practical.

A Dave Longs, by the way, is an anagram for Logan's Dave- in case you're scoring at home.

I have not yet, however, contacted anyone with photoshop skills to put these anagrams on a map, I'm sure a beer bribe might help me get that project finished. I hope. But because I cannot sit on such a hot little joke, here's some of my favorites:
47th Street- Nutty Ho Fevers
Loyola- Loo Lay
Roosevelt- Toes Lover
Wellington- Lentil Gown
Halsted- The Lads
Irving Park (my stop)- Virgin Park

There's lots, and I tried to make them as humorous as possible. Let me see what I can do about getting these in a nice picture format for all the world to see.

Feel my heat.

I have been hosting pub quizzes at the Globe since September of 2004. Tuesday night's quiz was the 69th in that glorious series of trivia, and one of the more fun crowds we've had in that year and change since we started. When the crowd is fun, I think that I have to be extra fun, too, so I try to be Mr. Game Show Host. I think that is why this job appeals to me so much. It is really a cross between being a teacher and being a game show host, both of which are jobs that I believe I am well-suited for. I'm not talking about hosting the Newlywed Game or even Wheel of Fortune. Those jobs are lame. I'm talking Weakest Link or Beat the Geeks or even Jeopardy!. That's the kind of job for me. Trivia. Money. Fun. My kinda gig.

So, in the course of being Mr. Game Show Host, being that I play that role in a bar, there tends to be a fair amount of alcohol consumption done. This is not surprising to anyone, nor is it anything to be ashamed of, after all it is a pub quiz. After my usual hosting duties had ended on Tuesday night, I spent some time chatting up some of the teams, as they were new, or at least, new to my quiz, and well, there were some seriously attractive women there. Rob Gordon was a DJ to meet girls who like music, I host a pub quiz, amongst other reasons, to meet smart women.

Again, this is a very good gig for me.

After all my chatting, I checked the time. We ran a little late during the quiz, and by the time I check my watch again, it was almost 12. This is basically the two-minute warning for me as far as getting to work on time in the morning- I can make it here by 7 with 4.5 hours of sleep and be able to do my job. I won't be the most pleasant person in the world, but I will be here. This is when the waitress showed up and asked us if we needed anything. I was having a nice talk with a public defender and his friend, a non-traditional law student about my age. The public defender jokingly asked for shots- which were brought. These weren't my first shots of the night, either.

Needless to say, my judgment went south from there. Once those folks left, it was pretty much me and the waitress in the back, so I picked up my stuff and started to head home. I got to the front bar and saw a buddy of mine, a nice Scotsman, and asked him what he was drinking. "Jack, I'm afraid," he said, "I'm a bit on the broke side this week, and that's all I can afford."

"J, two Glenlivets and whatever you want," I ordered as I took my jacket off and put my bag of prizes down and slapped my wallet on the bar. "I'd like to buy this man a proper whiskey." I wasn't charged for that round, as, well, I'm not usually charged for anything when I run the quiz.

Yet again, this is a very good gig.

We talked and drank our scotch, our sketch. We finished up one, and J asked us if we wanted another. I, obviously employing absolutely no logic, answered yes for both of us. We talked more, and drank those down relatively quickly. "Can I get you gentlemen two more?"

Again, no logic was employed in my response of "hell yeah!" My buddy M mentioned that it was a school night, but that didn't stop us. What almost stopped us was that J had poured out only 1.5 shots before the bottle was empty.

"I can go get another one from downstairs." I started to waiver in my determination to continue drinking. It was, after all, fast approaching the time where I should definitely have gone to bed. M figured to go with the flow, and the flow was retrieved from the basement and another round was consumed. Finally, the waitress joined us, if not for a scotch, for a drink and some conversation. I found myself swept up in conversation with her, so much so that M had left without me noticing. I am, after all, a man, and sometimes a weak man. She was playing songs for me on the jukebox, Johnny Cash, Pixies, and all kinds of 80's New Wave. I was in heaven.

It was closing time- well, actually past it, so I locked the front door. I still had some drink to finish, and I was far from done with flirting, but I knew it was high time I went to bed. That's about when I decided that it was going to have to call in sick to work yesterday. We finished our drinks and headed out the back door, and there was that moment of drunken confusion where you wonder if you're actually going home with someone. Before any decisions were made, I said good night and headed home. Temptation and a lifetime of watching cheesy movies made me want to look behind me and see if she was still there, but the realization that it was 2:30 in the morning was a little too much for me.

I stumbled home and got some food out of the fridge. There was absolutely no way I would make it to work, much less through the day if I didn't eat something to stave off a hangover. I ate. I checked e-mail, another incredibly stupid thing to do, and went to bed. I set every alarm I could get my hand on, but I set each of them improperly, so when I finally woke up at 8:30, with my head pounding and my mind reeling, the first thing I did was call my boss. "You don't sound too good."

"I don't feel too good, either."

"Grab some breakfast and come on in, and we'll forget that you're 90 minutes late." I mysteriously agreed to this, and headed towards the bathroom. I was brushing my teeth and staring into my very bloodshot eyes when I realized that I was not only hungover like a dog, but that I was probably still drunk. I finished brushing my teeth, popped a couple painkillers an a vitamin and went back to my bed. I called my boss again.

"There's just no fucking way I'm going to do this."

"That's ok. Take the day off and recover."

"Thanks. I could use a bottle flu day."

I went back to sleep for a couple hours. When finally I awoke, I was sober, but was not feeling well. I went to the couch and laid back down. I needed the only kind of cure I could find- daytime TV. This didn't last long, as daytime TV has a habit of making me want to vomit when I'm not hungover, so I went to my computer and started wishing I was still in bed. Basically, for the next few hours, I spent the entire time going back and forth from my computer to my bed. By about 2:30 I was starting to feel human again, probably due to the fact that I had leftover tacos. Tacos. I love tacos. Perhaps I should learn of Maria's methods for evaluating chicken wings and start reviewing taco joints. I have more than a few favorites, after all.

Back to the story, although there's really nothing left to tell- except that I really must start listening to Scotsmen when they remind me, ever so gently in that wonderful brogue, "tis a skule night, ye ken?"

Life through lyrics

I have been following a rather strange philosophy lately: I've been allowing rock lyrics to guide my decision making. Scratch that. It isn't just lately. Pretty much my entire life has been decided by citing song lyrics. Perhaps that's why I'm frequently wondering how I get into various situations.

For instance, some lyrics that influenced my weekend:
Some people say bowling alleys got big lanes.
There's a girl right next to you, and she's just waiting for something you do.
Every dern morning I get up it's a buzzing down at me.
All you gotta do is knock and I'll let you in.

Now, if you sit down and read though all those lyrics, you'll get a slightly more skewed version than actually happened. While I am not actually a skinhead, I do shave my head, and I did go bowling. I also threw a turkey, something I haven't done in years, but then again, I haven't gone bowling in ages. But Friday was prime time for me to bowl a couple frames, and I have to admit that after doing so, I felt 150% better than I did Friday afternoon, when I was so stressed my shoulders were seizing up so badly I almost cancelled my bowling excursion.

Saturday afternoon I went with Jen to see Brokeback Mountain. This decision wasn't made using song lyrics. We hadn't had a chance to hang out in a while, so I suggested we do so while her beloved was out of town. Most folks would think that going with your ex of a gazillion years to see a movie about cowboys who can't stop boinking each other is a little weird, well, nothing is a little weird for us, so that's all good. She liked the movie a whole lot more than I did. While I didn't dislike it, the hype got to my head, and I was expecting to be blown away (no pun intended) and I wasn't. I did like the character development, though. Quite good. There was a scene, however, where suddenly, the characters relive a moment from their past, and it seemed rather disjointed within the plotline. I'm not sure what Ang Lee was thinking right there. I thought it was too abrupt.

After the movie we made the rather long walk back towards my house, which is about a mile from the theatre. Along the way we made stops at various places including the library, the Wild Goose and Osco so I could replace smoke alarm batteries.

We parted ways after that, and I settled down into the idea that I wouldn't go out for my friend's birthday after all, as it was getting rather cold out, even for me. My companion for the evening called to ask if there were still plans. She was just as willing to stay on her couch and watch movies, which was something I was seriously considering myself. A few phone calls later, and I informed her that yes, the plans were still on.

Many drinks and songs later, and it was a late night cab ride home when I really felt how cold it was. I got back to my place very late and decided to eat before I went to bed, a move that probably saved me from a hangover Sunday morning. I spent yesterday in and did nothing. I mean nothing. I wasted the whole day. Eventually, I was falling asleep on the couch, so I got up and went to bed. There I was, with a free evening to do whatever questionable things I wanted, and I stayed in.

I should have gone out and met my friends, but I was too busy pining for people and places north, where I knew Kick Ass Karaoke was happening.

So, today on my glorious day off, I am catching up on the things that I didn't do this weekend. Groceries, laundry, all will be done today before I go get my glasses repaired (no story worth telling there, don't worry) and meet with my MS team captains this evening.

Impressions.

Here's a quick impression of how my day went:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

Here's a quick impression of me:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

For my next trick, I am going to dinner with a friend I haven't seen in ages, then I'm going bowling. That's right. Bowling. Lincoln Square Lanes- the best damn bowling alley on the northside of Chicago!

Now is the part where I ask you for money.

Spring is here, well, almost here, well, today sure seems like Spring is far off in Chicago, but the season that is most important to me is upon us.

My MS training season.

As you all know, I participate in the Illinois MS Society's Tour de Farms ride every June, as my best friend was diagnosed with this disease back in November of 2003.

If I haven't already sent you an e-mail asking for a donation, please click here to go to my event page. This is a cause that I am rather vested in, and if you have questions, you can always shoot me an e-mail.

Thanks for helping!

From the what the hell was I thinking files...

I got home late last night, as I had the inspiration to spend some of my overtime pay on myself, so I hopped the bus to the old stomping grounds of Tower Records Lincoln Park. The Clark 22 bus, by the way, is about as quick a method of transportation as strapping a saddle to an iceberg. When I finally arrived, I did some requisite greetings with my former co-workers, and did some shopping. My goal was to pick up a copy of The Aristocrats, a movie I just had from Netflix that I laughed so hard at, I hurt myself. Admittedly, it is a gross movie, but still hilarious. My search turned out to be fruitless in that department, but I did find a couple other things that I don't need, but that I definitely wanted.

Fast forward to 6pm, I get home, and I see that my mail is abundant, and includes two Netflix shipments. At the time I wasn't really in the mood, but I checked them out anyways. One was a strange, boring documentary called Little Dieter Needs to Fly, about a son of a Nazi soldier who moved to the US to become a pilot only to be shot down on one of his first missions in Viet Nam. I guess at some point, this sounded cool, but I have to tell you that the whole movie seemed like I was being whined at.

The second was the 2005 remake of a classic, War of the Worlds. Let me tell you about this movie: it had more mistakes, plot errors and just general impossible scenarios than any movie I had ever seen. Not to mention that Mr. I-know-psychology's acting was just plain horrible, the kids were just plain boring, and the seemingly tacked-on role of his ex-wife was so one-dimensional I had a hard time believing that I wasn't watching cave drawings. The only part I really liked was the foghorn sound made by the alien tripods, which, I have just learned is a digitally remastered digiredoo.

I, my friends and readers, own a digiredoo. I'm not very good at it, but it is very fun to play.

Back to the point: This weekend, after I watched Aristocrats, I discovered that I had Timeline as well. I can't help it, I guess. My penchant for bad science fiction combined with my fascination with time travel cannot be conquered. This movie was just plain dumb, predictable, and a waste of my time.

So, after 3 bad movies in a row, my Netflix queue is definitely going underneath the magnifying glass, and I'm certain there'll be some deletions.

If I had a million dollars

I don't, but my office lottery pool managed to win $5 in yesterday's Mega Millions. My pants pockets, however, seem to be cash cows.

This morning, with my hangover and general sleep deprivation that follows every Tuesday pub quiz, I put on a pair of pants and reached in the pocket. Lo and behold, there was a dollar. I was rather pleased with this, as I've been running low on cash lately. Too many bills, too little time.

I decided moments later not to wear that pair of pants and put on another. I reached in the pocket. Lo and behold, there was $12. I smiled, chuckled, and thanked my lucky stars- all this and today is payday, too!

Only $999,987 to go!

If I had a million roses

I'm not even going to touch the whole Valentine's thing. I'm not a fan at all, and haven't been for years. This does not mean that I do not like romance, far from it. This just means I don't like a particular day in February being the day that I'm supposed to pull out all the stops. I save that gameplan for birthdays. I am very good at making birthdays fun.

Not to mention that I like to inform myself about where things came from. Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would want to celebrate Valentine's day, once they knew where it came from. But I could be wrong. I am rather fallible, after all.

Not to mention that the women I currently have designs on (I love that phrase) are either too far away or too young or just not working out. As I am rather fond of saying, shit happens.

But I'm not here today to talk about my romantic life, or my history of romance or about the backrub I gave last night. I'm here to talk about a little toy my very dear friend and soon to be Canadian Citizen Wendy got me started on. When last I visited Canada, she introduced me to We Love Katamari on Playstation 2. I've played video games for a long time, friends and neighbors, ever since my dad brought home our Texas Instruments computer back when I was 8, I have had a computer in my home, for both work and play. I have not, however, ever owned a Nintendo, Playstation, even Atari 2600 until now. Mostly because I think the games are too complex, and when I'm trying to relax, I'd rather not have to rack my brain trying to do so. I'm also not one of those hyper-competitive, always playing the damn thing kind of guys. When I relax and enjoy a diversion, I'm doing just that. When summer finally arrives, I'll spend a lot less time on the PS2 and a lot more time on my bike. Anyways.

Enter the world of Katamari- possibly the silliest game I have ever seen. I bought the game, along with my first ever Playstation, back in December and started playing around with it, primarily just to pass time. The game is simple enough. You roll up objects. That's basically it, but check out this post on Joey's blog for a cool little comic about Katamari.

Eventually, I learned that there are goals and the like associated with the game, leading up to the ultimate challenge, rolling up 1,000,000 roses. Friday, after finally getting out of bed with the remnants of my hangover still fighting for attention (I have found Katamari to be an excellent way to kill off a hangover), I finally started the insane quest to roll up one million roses.

Yesterday, after a particularly unhappy day at work (I seem to be stringing those together lately), I got home, finished up pub quiz, and sat down to burn off some steam. When I saved my game last night, I had made it up to 78,076 roses. Only 921,924 to go.

What I like about this project of mine is it reminds me that I have other goals in life, and that I might want to get cracking on them. Time, after all, keeps on tickin'.

I just never learn.

For once, I'm not writing about how I only do what the pretty girls tell me to do. Even though that is the truth.

No. See, what I just haven't managed to get through my thick, unforgivingly stubborn head is that although I always think that a 3 day weekend away from my job will make me more relaxed and happier to do my job, that I am grossly wrong. Wait. Scratch that. Grossly just isn't strong enough of a word. I am abso-fucking-lutely wrong.

I mean, c'mon Dave, get with the damn program.

I'm considering, well, I'm planning on a week's vacation sometime this year. I was thinking, and have discussed with a friend, a possible bike tour on the Appian Way. Just throw a mini tent and sleeping bag over my shoulder, pack a few extra pairs of bike shorts, and I'm all set.

Of course, I'm one of the few people I know of who thinks this sounds relaxing, or even interesting. I remember reading sometime last year, or the year before, about these two British cops to take a month and bike to all of the sketch distilleries in Scotland. That would be dangerously fun. I bet I could probably convince Sass to drive a SAG wagon for us on that trip, provided she got to same the scotch with us. I'll bet I could get Henry to do that ride, too. Hell, I should get Henry to join my MS team this year, and see how he likes that.

Whaddya say, buddy?

Fish Tales

I was rather sedentary yesterday. I think I deserved it.

When I finally decided to go out, at 10:30, I headed down to a bar in my neighborhood that I've never been to, Goldie's. I was meeting a couple friends. One of them just got fired from his bartending job, and he was trying new places in the neighborhood to see what kind of job he could find. I walked in, and he said "they have pinball."

I scanned the room, patrons, rather nicely dressed, a mix of neighborhood and yuppie-types. Other than the bartender and some artsy looking guy, I was the only other person in a t-shirt and jeans. There in the corner, was a Fish Tales game. Back in the mid 90's I played this game at a bar in St. Paul, and I always hated it. It is, as far as I know, one of two pinball machines I know of in walking distance of my house.

We're both big pinball fans though, so I sucked it up, and we played.

Next thing I know, it's 2, and I'm not at the party I was supposed to go to. Oops. Pinball does that to me.

Back to that selling my soul bit...

I finally got around to picking up the photos from the Hawks game I went to in January. They're pretty good- well, some of them are, at least. Ok, they're marginally good, but I was working with a crappy disposable camera. One of these days, I'm going to get around to having a nice, working camera again.

One of these days.

Anyways, I thought I'd whet your wistle with a picture or the tallest linesman in the world, then direct you here for the full album. Enjoy!

Mental Health Day

On Tuesday, I suggested to my boss that I should have today off. He initially shook his head no, until he realized that having been Mr. Go-To for the month of January, and so far, for February, that I probably did need a day off to rest my poor, unhappy self and maybe get some serious drinking done. I was, as I mentioned yesterday, having friends come in, but I didn't expect a huge night out, because they had their 4-year-old, my super-good buddy G with them.

I didn't know that her parents were coming through town as well. I also didn't know that we were going to drop off said 4-year-old with his grandparents and head back to the city for more and more drinking.

Basically, my old excuse of doing what the pretty girls tell me to do, got me out late, and kept me out late. We did karaoke, and another attempt was made at getting Take Me Home Country Roads sung for Ceerock was made, but thanks to some superbly bad timing, I was talking with the bartender when my name was called, and my friends sang in my place. The bartender and I were discussing the Goliath incident, and we were deep in conversation before I heard the chorus being sung by my friends.

Some other folks suggested that we head to the Oakwood, a 4am bar about 4 blocks from my house, a plan which I nixed rather quickly, as I knew that more drinks would make me feel even worse in the morning, and I was already anticipating a rather nasty hangover for myself.

This hangover, which I knew I was going to have, wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. Of course, I slept through it. I slept through a lot of things. I, my friends and dearest readers, actually managed to sleep past 4. Hell, I slept past 8. Ok, let's just settle it. I slept past noon.

I haven't slept that late in eons. Probably not since my last knee surgery, where I spent several days in a drug induced stupor.

So my day today has been nice, relaxing, and well-deserved. My cat, as she is apt to be, is thrilled that I'm at home, and hasn't really left my side all day. She is currently laying on my chest as I type this. Sometime soon, however, I'm going to have to get ready for the party I'm going to tonight.

Sooner or later.

Must share!

I'm finally catching up on my regularly scheduled internet browsing. Just came across this picture from a fark photoshop contest: What would happen if religons settled their differences like street gangs?

Hilarious.

An interesting couple of days.

I thought last week was busy, but this week is even busier. Work is killing me and pub quiz was a monster on Tuesday, not to mention the horrible Logan's Dave vs Goliath episode I suffered through.

More on that bit in a bit.

Our company, as you know, was recently purchased by another company. This is leading to the headache that is conversion from one system to another, repeated and repeated again. This is tiring, especially when we have two days of non-stop calls because somewhere along the line, said conversion was screwed up. This made for a very, very bad Monday morning, a rather terrible Tuesday, and Wednesday wasn't exactly waning in suckiness.

Fortunately for me, I have tomorrow off. I deserve the day off, too. After last week's experiment in sleep deprivation, I could really use an extra day of just nothingness. Of course, this isn't entirely work-related time off. My friend L, her husband, and her son G (pictured) will be visiting me tonight, and possibly returning on Sunday, as they are traveling to Ohio for a wedding this weekend. I'm just happy to see my friends and get a chance to catch up.

Back to the Logan's Dave vs Goliath bit- Tuesday, at pub quiz, I was flying solo as J was playing in her pool league that night. This is typically not a problem, as she usually plays first, and then gets over to pub quiz for her co-host duties. We had a big crowd the other night, forcing me to pull tables from the front of the bar to the back. This happens quite often, especially as of late, and I've even developed a newer, easier way to carrying those rather heavy bar tables to the back. I had to pull two tables to the back that night, and on the way back with one of them, there was a guy I know, a regular of the bar, who said "hey mate, you should be a little more respectful of the other patrons up here." Having spoken to him several times before, and knowing that he liked to make jokes, I thought he was joking with me.

I patted him on the shoulder, laughed, and said "I'm trying, man" and continued on my way to the back of the bar.

Little did I know that not only was he not joking, but that he had been at the bar since it opened, watching whatever soccer or rugby match that was on that day, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol for several hours. I have heard that he has a tendency to get very, very drunk and try to pick fights with people, up to and including one of the former owners, who, honestly, tends to rub people the wrong way and encourage them to respond in a less than favorable way.

I have been known to get into a tussle or two, but now that I've grown up a bit, I try to keep the ol' nasty temper under wraps, and release that energy in a more healthy method. I do not, however, back away very well. This can be extremely hazardous, say when the person who, when I returned to pull some bar stools to the back, shoved me into a corner. The person in question is easily 10 inches taller than me, and definitely outweighs me by 150 pounds. The belief that he was in fact just making a joke with me had completely left my mind when he bellowed "don't you fucking laugh at me!"

I may not be the world's strongest, fastest, angriest, or smartest man, but I know when I'm in over my head, and I know when I'm in a situation that needs defusing. "C'mon man, stop messing around. Let me buy you a pint, ok?"

"Fuck you."

"What do you want here, an apology? Ok. I apologize, I thought you were joking with me, as you tend to do."

"Why don't we take this outside?" He pushed me in front of him and started to try for the front door. Realizing that he was rather drunk and his reactions were slow, I slowed ever so slightly, and spun around, lightly touching his left arm as he walked by me. I signaled the bartender, who wasn't sure what was going on, and didn't know why I was signaling him. I tried to get to the bar, when I was cut off by you-know-who.

"Don't you fucking walk away from me" he spat and slurred. Again, I was stuck the same corner. I guess I misread his slow reactions by bit. A drinking buddy of his tried to intervene, got between us as I told him to calm down. "You don't tell me to calm down. I want to have a go."

Having been sufficiently corralled by his friend, I saw that I had an exit, and I took it. I had a pub quiz to run, and it was supposed to start in less than 5 minutes, and I knew it. I heard "don't you fucking walk away from me, mate" behind me as I was walking back. This is when the idiot gear finally clicked in. I had been pushed more than enough, and it was time for an actual response.

"What do you want me to do? I've already apologized. If you want, I'll move another table over, but I'm done having this conversation. If you can calm down, we can discuss it rationally, but I'm through having you try to bully me. I am not afraid of you, nor am I intimidated by your actions." My barely under control anger was seething, and I felt my body get ready for a fight.

He easily overpowered his friend and ran up to me. I made no move to avoid him, nor did I flinch when he grabbed my shirt, and tried to pick me up. Either he's not as strong as he looks, or he grossly underestimated my weight. Either way, he was making an ass out of himself, and finally the bartender realized what was going on, and he and the guy's drinking buddy finally got him away from me. The bartender said "don't' worry, he's out of here."

Sadly, it was well past me being able to control my emotions, but the other bartender came up to me. "Are you OK, Dave?" I responded that I was fine, but I was ready to kill him. I was lit up angry, and she could tell. Unfortunately, I had a quiz that needed to start as well, so I got no time to cool off, and a fair number of my quizzers saw the last part of the exchange, and they were wondering what was going on. I was not in the mood to discuss the exchange, so I started quiz.

During the first round, the other bartender came to me and told me she had called both of the owners, and that she saw what happened and knew that I was not at fault. As the night wore on, I saw another of the owners watching, waiting for an opportunity to talk to me. He came over, apologized for the incident, and told me it was going to be handled appropriately. He repeated over and over that there was no place for his behavior. I thanked him, as I had calmed down into the routine of running pub quiz (read: I had downed a couple pints), and told him that I had no beef with the bar at all. A couple rounds later, my hockey and scotch-drinking buddy S, the owner, showed up. I had J finish grading that round so we could talk about the incident.

I recanted the whole thing for him and G, who had showed up before to apologize to me about it. They looked at each other, and S said "that's it- he's banned." I wasn't surprised- he had caused problems before, but I think an unprovoked attack on the quizmaster was just too far. Personally, I would have probably accepted an apology. I say probably, but I have the feeling that this would have happened again if he was let off with that light a slap on the wrist.

While I feel like I did back away from the fight, I am comfortable with having taken the path of the sensei. I tried to diffuse the situation instead of going straight to a fight, which I would have lost badly, unless I managed to jump on his back and get a sleeper hold on him. Anyways, I wouldn't want to screw up my sexy eyebrows, right?

How to succeed at football without even trying.

This was the most lucrative Superbowl I've ever had. Not only did I win my football picks league championship for the second time (but I've known this for 2 weeks), but I made a killing off of bets I made with co-workers and friends.

Bet #1- office squares pool, paying out by quarters $20, $40, $60, $80. I bought 10 squares at $2 each, and won the second quarter.

Bet #2- I bet the owner of the Globe that the Rolling Stones would start their set with Start Me Up. Because it was such a lock, I wound up only convincing him to bet $1, which I won.

Bet #3- A friend of mine was running a strip game- you get a number, and win if the last two numbers of each score added together equals your number. I lost in the first and second quarters, but only lost a total of $10. I won the third quarter- fifty bucks, then I won the fourth quarter, which we upped to a $10 entry, winning $100.

So, all in all, not a bad day for good ol' Dave- $191 in bets won, which, of course, led to drinks bought by yours truly, and at some point I finally went home.

I'm certainly feeling those drinks today. Each and every one of them. Top it off with a SNAFU conversion at work, and I'm Mr. Superpissy today.

Bye bye, Miss American Pie

Today is the 37th Anniversary of the Day the Music Died. Tonight I plan on avoiding any possible situations allowing a coin toss to determine my fate, and I plan on raising a glass to some of my favorite musicians.

Does life imitate Logan's Dave?

I went out to the Globe for a couple pints yesterday, for a friend's birthday. As I was 3/4 asleep, I didn't stay long, but I spoke with the owner, S, and he told me he was in the mood for a silly movie. We talked about this for a bit, and it was decided that we would head over to my place to watch a movie and drink some sketch.

My roommate had mentioned Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, so we sat down and watched it. After the movie ended, we still had a glass of sketch each, so I put in Disc 1, Season one of the Muppet Show. What comes up?

None other than the Manamana sketch. The exact same one I mentioned in my blog earlier in the day.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Just three weeks earlier, I mentioned the Young Ones in my blog, then wound up watching said show with S later on.

So, my new plan is to buy a lottery ticket, blog about it, then stop by the Globe, and get the owner to come to my house again to drink sketch and buy lottery tickets. I figure that way, I might just win, right? Third time's a charm?

Sports Illustrated Covers of Yore

One of our traders who sits in our office to do his day trading asked me to look up the last month's worth of Sports Illustrated covers, you know, because of the curse. I noticed that you could look up covers by date, so I thought to myself, I wonder who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated when I was born?

Answer:

My co-worker saw this, and asked about it. Naturally, he wanted to know who was on when he was born, and I started laughing when I told him it was a jockey:

This caused another one of my co-workers to make fun of the first, so I looked up his. I believe the line was "At least mine doesn't have a horse jockey on it."
Well, he was right about one thing, there wasn't a jockey on the cover. There were four.

Check out your own here.

Peeing my pantaloons

I found a copy of the Manamana video online on YouTube.

I laughed so hard. I am laughing so hard. I will continue to laugh hard.

Photoblog for a day.

I was brushing my teeth last night when I looked in the mirror and saw my eyes. Sass says I have sexy eyebrows. She is one of two people I've ever met who have told me that. Me, I think my eyes are much sexier. I hear tell that the eyes are the window to the soul- something I believe is true. My eyes have a peculiar feature, one I really, really like. See, in certain moods or light they're not really brown eyes. They're golden with brown in the middle, with little flecks of brown shooting out from the pupil. A certain ex and I would spend weekend mornings in bed staring in each other's eyes and being all schmoopy and shit. She used to always say "what are you so happy about? I can see it in your eyes."

Back to the point- I know that somewhere, I have a digital picture of my eye in just such a state. This morning I made a note to go looking for it. I haven't found it, which is a shame, as it is a really cool thing. I have, however, found a cache of pictures that I've downloaded, taken, or had taken of me that I've been meaning to post on here, so I'm putting up these random photos, starting with the Darwin fish humping the Jesus fish. I wish I remember where I got that from, I'd love to give credit to that person.

Next up, a picture from a party I attended some time ago, where some friends and I were joking about having our picture taken while giving the finger. This, is the same party where one of my favorite pictures of me was taken, where I am wearing a cowboy hat and a hockey sweater. Personally, I think I look pretty damn good in a hockey sweater. I also think I look pretty damn good in a cowboy hat, too. Put 'em together? Why not? Throw a beer or F and V in there, too! Yummy!


For a while I was playing around with those cool little toys- Tombstone Generator and Church Sign Generator. I liked playing with them, and made more than enough of each, and saved my favorites for posterity. Of course, there are too many to post them all. I should make another photo gallery and put them all on there. Sounds like I'd have to do work, though, and I can't see that happening this week.

I know that there's more than enough Fark photoshop contest pictures that I've downloaded and displayed, but I really love the Hymn-Do-Ku someone posted for some reason at some time, it ranks up amongst my favorites. Seeing stuff like this makes me wish I had photoshop skills, so that I could share with the world my ideas. Lucky for everyone involved, though, that I can't even draw that well, so I'm not likely to start doing a lot of photo manipulation. Art class was never my strong point. Ask any of my teachers- I was much better at science and math and languages. Although I did have some art displayed in a mall somewhere at some time. One of those "you're a good kid doing art, so we're going to put you in a display with other talented kids" type deals. Funny, I can't for the life of me remember what the hell I had in there.

Speaking of olden, golden times, here's a shot of me and some friends in high school. See if you can guess which one I am- I look quite a bit different now. Those, however, were the days. Way back when. When I was young and knew everything, you know, before I got old and stupid.

anyways. I know I'm no Photojunkie (by the way, his pictures of Maria and Jay are two of my favorites in his collection), but back in the day, I was quite the photog myself. I think, somewhere in my messy, cluttered apartment, I might still have some of those shots I took way back when I thought I might make a career out of taking pictures.

Sounds like another project I'm not likely to get to without suddenly discovering that I've won the lottery and having lots and lots of spare time. Anyone know of a sugarmama who needs a pet?