Friday night, Mark and Addison came over for dinner. After dinner, John, Mark and I were sitting on the couch and Addison kept crawling on the couch and kissing each one of us. First she would kiss Mark, then she would crawl on the couch and kiss me, then kiss John, then she would go back to Mark and start it all over again. It was so damn adorable, and she would have this funny look on her face when she did it.

Tonight we played cards at my cousin Tony’s house. Since Tony lives right near me, Dave actually picked me up for a change. We stopped off at the 7-Eleven where I had a rather embarrassing moment. I bought water that came to $2.01 and since I didn’t have a penny, the clerk put in a penny for me. I said “thank you sir” and she said “Maam.” Now, normally I can tell the difference between a male and a female. But, this lady was completely bald except for hair on the back of her head, kinda like an old man. She also was wearing baggy clothes and didn’t appear to have much of a chest. Also, she had a deep voice. I felt awful about it and Dave made fun of me because of it, but honestly, anybody can make that mistake. I told Tony about it later and he said that he knows who the lady is and she has cancer and is going through chemo, this of course made me feel even worse. But, to be honest, she has to know she looks like a guy and I’m probably not the only person to make that mistake.

As for the card game, we had 13 people with a $30 buy-in. I started off pretty good and made it down to the final table, which sounds impressive, but it isn’t, seeing as a total of 8 people made it to the final table. I eventually finished 6th and out of the money. My cousin Matt actually played and although it was nice to see him, it appears that the drugs he has taken has really started to have an effect on him. For starters, his short term memory is fried. And, he seems to have trouble comprehending things. He also brought a friend with him who was a complete dumb fuck. This guy was out of the game and offered to deal. In fact, he said later on that he was having more fun dealing than playing. He was an awful dealer too, one reason was because he was pretty danm drunk. But, at one point, there were only 3 people left in the game and he just wasn’t paying attention to a damn thing. We were waiting for him to flop the cards (for those of you that don’t know, after everybody gets 2 cards, there is a round of betting before the 3 card flop is thrown up) and people asked him more than once to flip the cards. He wasn’t paying a damn bit of attention when I reached over and turned over the first card, which finally got his attention. He just said something like “whoooaaaa, whoaaaa” and pushed the cards away. He seemed to pitch a bit of a fit about me dealing, I told him that he should be paying attention, people were asking for the flop. He then tried giving me the cards and telling me to deal, but I would have none of it.

So, they hung Saddam. He was pure evil, I’m quite certain he got what he had coming to him. However, it makes me wonder (and you should be wondering the same thing) when is Osama gonna get the same justice? Take note, people, Osama is still free and has not paid at all for his crimes.

You know what really bugs me? Its when tv stations and newspapers (among other media outlets and people) do their end of the year review things the 3rd week of December when there is still time left in the year. Now granted, normally, not much happens the last couple of weeks of the year, but this year, shit, there has been all sorts of things happening, such as the aforementioned execution, Gerald Ford and James Brown dying and Allen Iverson getting traded. These are all big stories (well, Iverson isn’t a big news story, but its a big sports story) that get overlooked because they happen after the year in review. That’s why I always wait until after the year is over to do a year in review.

We have a new security guard that started at work, and he is fucking hot as hell. The only thing that doesn’t look good is his lame ass long sideburns. What the fuck are these guys thinking anyways? They look ridiculous with sideburns. Anywho, he is obviously straight, but just once, I would like to be wrong about a guy being straight, as opposed to my usual being wrong about a guy being gay. Let me explain, normally, when I think a guy is gay he turns out straight. Well, why can’t a guy I assume is straight turn out to be gay?

One thing I forgot about the weekend is that Addison keeps calling everybody and everything mom. I guess that’s the way it goes when your vocabulary is limited to about 10 words. Still, its funny to see her point to Mark and say “mom” or point to a ball and say “mom”. At least, she was like that on Saturday and Sunday. By Monday night, however, she had received so many Elmo things that mom started to be replaced with Elmo.

Saturday morning was Christmas Eve breakfast, this time at a place in Bolingbrook called Escapades. Much to my surprise, I was not the first one to arrive, Scooty was just pulling up and Jt and Amy were already there. If I was forced to say one good thing about Amy its that she seems to have made Jt be on time. Seems like he is not only on time to places now, but actually early. Anyhwho, breakfast could not have gone any smoother, especially since we had a record 26 people. This was the 10th year of Christmas Eve breakfast and it all started back in 1996 when it was just Jt and myself. Not much to talk about the actual breakfast except to say that the waitress was nice enough to spray whipped cream not only in my hot chocolate, but also in my mouth when I jokingly requested it.

Sunday night, we went to my cousin’s house. As usual, I wound up playing Santa for all the kids that were there. Most of them were young and therefore afraid of me. Even though I would have my kids believe in Santa as well, I still can’t understand why parents put there kids through the whole Santa Claus myth. I mean, most kids are frightened of Santa until they are 3 or even 4, and to top it off, Santa aint even real. Still, it was a lot of fun. My cousin’s 4 year old son, who is always very hyper, was bugging the hell out of me for gifts, even after I gave him a gift.

The whole night was pretty cool. I got to see my cousin’s son from Florida for the first time in like 10 years. Honestly, it was over 48 hours ago so I can’t be excpected to remember anymore. Yesterday, however, I woke up and made breakfast for all of my siblings (well, not Carmen, she is in Colorado) along with my niece. Later in the evening, we went to Mark’s in laws house for dinner and playing games. We played a home version of one of those quiz games that they have in bars. Again, I don’t remember if we won. Stupid fucking short term memory. I do, however, remember playing Win, Lose, or Draw and getting our asses kicked (it was guys vs girls). The cool part was that you hook it up to the tv and draw on a pad that allows everybody to see what you are drawing on the tv. Pretty cool.

Really, that’s all I can remember for now. And its not like I had drank anything, I was sober the whole weekend. Stupid short term memory, I should have smoked pot, at least I would have an excuse for not remembering.

James Brown is no longer “Living in America”.

Shit, I almost forgot. Ok, I did forget, I’m posting this like 2 hours after I wrote the rest of this. During Christmas Eve breakfast, I got Dave to wager with me as to who would get their food last, out of everybody in our 26 person group. I said Kelli and Dave said Rene. I figured they would be the last 2 to get their meals because for some reason, they usually get screwed with meals. Sure enough, Rene was the second to last to get her meal and Kelli was the last to get her’s. I just don’t understand it, Kelli always orders something easy like pancakes or oatmeal and it always takes the longest.

Went to Mark’s house this afternoon to hang out. First though, I had to pick up gravy from the Bob Evans in Joliet. Now, I was pretty damn sure I knew exactly where it was, but when I looked up the address on Yahoo, it was a different road than I originally thought. Yahoo gave the dumbest directions ever and it wound up taking me much longer than it should have. Stupid Yahoo, sometimes you are so great, and other times you blow.

Anywho, I got to Mark’s about 2:30ish. Rusty was the only one there (besides Mark, Amy and Addison). Soon, Mark’s kick ass in laws arrived. Rusty left and John arrived and we started to play various games, starting with air hockey. As far as air hockey went throughout the night, we had a crazy Consalvo cycle going on,  I kept losing to Mark, Mark would lose to John, and John would lose to me. It wasn’t until the last game that we played that the cycle was broke when finally, I beat a very drunk Mark. He was funny though, at one point, he took off his baseball cap and put it in front of his goal. Mark and I are always big trash talkers when we compete against each other and during the last 2 minutes of the game, I kept him laughing by saying things like “Can you smell that? It smells like victory” or licking my lips and saying “ohhhh, that tastes good, its starting to taste like winning.” Kinda lame shit, but it made him laugh.

We also played beer pong, AKA keg pong. You have a mini ping pong table and you have to hit a ping pong ball into your opponent’s beer filled cup, and if successful, you then drink. Turns out I really suck at that, even though I was only drinking water. Mark liked to cheat by covering his cup with his paddle. John was actually the best at this game, he couldn’t lose.

We ordered Chinese for dinner and after I ate, I went down stairs and passed out on the couch for a little bit because I had a killer headache. I was woken up by Dave calling me asking to go with him to the casino to pick up a gift card for his mother in law. Of course, we weren’t going to do anything else there. On the way there, we were going down a one way street when Dave decided to turn left onto a one way street while the light was red. This started a debate about if this is a legal turn. I say no, Dave says yes. I’m sure the internet has my answer, because as I like to say, the internet holds the answer to all of life’s questions.

We wound up being involved in a hit and run at the casino courtesy of Dave. For those of you not hip to the Mike/Dave gambling lingo, a hit and run is when you win big and leave. Dave won an undisclosed amount of money and we left. We honestly did go there to buy a gift card for his mother in law, but they were actually all out.

After that we came back to Mark’s where I got my ass kicked at a card game called 99.

Today we had our work Christmas party at the White Eagle golf course club house in Aurora, from 4:30-6:30. Everything was great. Check out this plum deal I got out of it, though. Normally, I work from 9:15AM-6PM. Today, I started at 9:15 and had 2 breaks and a 45 minute lunch. We got off at 4:30 because of the Christmas party. I was happy that they were going to be paying me until 6, but then found out that wasn’t the case. Turns out, they were paying us until 6:30, since that was when the party ended! So, not only did I get a free meal, but I got paid to eat this free meal.

The holidays are always bittersweet for me. When I was a kid and even up into my 20s, I loved Christmas time, it was my favorite time of the year and Christmas was my favorite holiday. But, I have been traumatized by the events of 7 years ago. 7 years ago, my mother was dying of cancer and that has stayed with me ever since. This time of year always reminds me of the living hell that we went through, and because of that, the luster has been taken off of Christmas. Now, in a weird way (and I don’t expect anybody to be able to understand this fucked up logic) but I have a sense of, for lack of a better term, pride in perservering through what was by far the most difficult time of my life. But, as a by product of that time, I am also forever scarred. Sure, I love our annual holiday traditions, like Mark’s Christmas party, Rene’s Christmas party and Christmas Eve breakfast with all my friends. And those are great and wonderful ways to forge new memories. But, I just can’t help but think of my mom. Now, I don’t want to make it seem like its all sad and I sit and ball my eyes out, because as you all know, I’m an emotionless robot. But, every year, there is something missing, there is a hole inside of me that can not possibly be filled. I don’t know if its even as simple as saying I miss her. Its not like I was that close with her. But, its just………….its hard to describe. Its almost like I miss her because of what happened and because I’m not like most other people, I don’t have my parents. I almost feel cheated, how many people were without either parents by the time they were 24 (ok, Mark can relate as well). Sure, there are a lot of people far less fortunate then me. I’m eternally grateful that I had 24 years with my mom and not 23. And I’m fortunate that I had 4 years with my dad and even have at least some memories of him, whereas some people never even know their dads. Still, I feel like its just not right and I feel almost guilty and ashamed of losing my parents at such a young age. Because, when I tell people this, they always feel sorry or sympathy and sometimes treat me different, when I don’t want sympathy or to be treated different, I just want to be normal. I’m way off topic at this point. I should stick to the holidays. I know that my life was forever changed because of those events 7 years ago. And each year, I wait for things to feel normal, but such is the rouse that is life, there is now a new normal and a new reality that has replaced what I used to know. This is life now and I can never have back what I had before. I don’t know if I even want to flush away those horrible memories of 7 years ago, as tough as they were, they are part of me and help to shape what I have become. I really don’t know how to end this post, except to say that I’m thinking of her and I hope that she knew we would forever be changed.

Damn, I swear, Youtube fucking rules. Its cool the shit I find on that website. For example, I decided to do a search for my favorite song, American Pie and this is what somebody put together:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5rPWX7DAe1s

Now keep in mind, this song is over 8 minutes long, in case you decide to watch the video. I can not begin to even say how much I love this song. In fact, its even my ring tone. It is my all time favorite song and I feel one of the greatest songs of all time. Its just so catchy and singable and holds so many memories for me. I have loved that song since I was a kid, but it really went to a whole new level when I got into my 20s. For starters, my friend Dae used to play it at his shows (he would sing and play guitar and take requests), usually as the final song of the night. It used to get the whole bar up and singing and some people would even dance to it. Jt, Dave and I would be singing the song at the top of our lungs, just having a great time. Soon, it became a staple on our road trips. And when we go rafting, we always sing it as we get towards the final stretch on the river. And whenever I hear that song, I always smile and sing along. I know not everybody feels the same way I do about the song, but it holds such a special place in my heart.

I’m trying to come up with a post that would be interesting for everybody, but I just can’t think of any non sports related topics to discuss. What an interesting, soap opera type drama filled weekend. Everybody in Chicago knows about the Tank Johnson situation, Wednesday his house was raided and they found guns and pot, charging he and his bodyguard, who was living with him with crimes. Friday, the bodyguard was murdered at a club. Saturday the NFL’s official biggest pain in the fucking ass, Terrell Owens, spit on another player. Which brings me to this, what the fuck is up with athletes spitting on people? Let just get this right and understand this. We are born, learn to walk, growing drooling on ourselves. As toddlers and children, we resort to spitting on people when they upset us, but as we get older, we outgrow the spitting. Or so I thought. There is a long list of athletes who have spit on people. What fucking gives? I mean, honest-fucking-ly! Spitting? You know what my mother would do to these bitches if she caught them spitting? These are fucking adults, and they spit on people? One would figure that when people get older, they mature to take their anger out in other ways, but apparently, this is not true of athletes. I mean, fighting I can understand, there is a lot of emotion and and sometimes the competitive nature of the sports get the best of them. But spitting? How fucking infantile is that? Of course, look who did it, its King of the Infants, Terrell Owens. And while we are on the topic of fighting how about that fight in the Knicks-Nuggets game? Jeez, Carmelo Anthony is quite the pussy, sucker punch a guy and then run away. Michael Barrett took a lot of heat for sucker punching that loser ass from the Sox, but even Barrett didn’t run away afterwards. I guess I should be too hard on ‘Mello, I mean, I can’t say I wouldn’t necessarily do the same thing. But the person that really pisses me off here is the Knicks head coach, the slimy Isiah Thomas. I have HATED him since his time with the Pistons. I don’t give a shit if he is from Chicago, he is a complete and utter thug. I honestly believe that he told Mardy Collins (the Knicks player that committed the hard foul) and his teammates to foul Denver’s players hard when they went to the hoop, with the intent of hurting them. Sure, Isiah was a great player, but he was also a classless, dirty, piece of shit player. He is a horrible executive and a sub average coach at best. Fuck that piece of shit.

Wow, lots of anger in this post. I’m not this angry, I swear. Wait, I know what we need. And we haven’t done this in a long time. Its time for another edition of “PAT ROBERTSON SAYS THE DUMBEST THINGS!” This isn’t anything too recent, I haven’t heard of anything too stupid he has said of late. Fortunately, though, there is a vault full of stupid shit this cock stain has said over the years, including this:

“Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that’s held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.”- Pat Robertson on the dangers of judicial activism.

Oh Pat, you brainless fuck up, we can only thank your God that you don’t hold an official public office.

I had a date tonight with a guy  I met on yahoo. We decided to go to a Thai place in Oak Brook mall, but I have no idea how to spell it so I will just save myself the embarrassment of trying to spell it. Anywho, the guy’s name is Byron, and in fact, he is the only white guy I know named Byron. The plan was to meet at the restaurant about 7:30. I had some issues finding the place, as its not in the open as I had pictured it in my mind. Anywho, I arrived a few minutes late and called him. He explained to me where it was and I started to head over there. Holy shit, though, the parking lots were packed. Its an outdoor mall in the middle of December, you would think the cold would scare people off. Oh, that’s right, I forgot, it wasn’t cold at all. Stupid weather. Anywho, I parked in the parking garage and walked towards where the restaurant was, or at least where my mind thought it was. Turns out, my mind was right. I saw a tall blond guy standing in front of the restaurant and as it turned out, it was him. He was every bit as cute as his picture looked, with beautiful skin and wonderful lips. Shit, what is this, a fucking romance novel? How fucking lame is that shit.

Anywho, this restaurant was pretty cool inside. They had booths, but without backs to them. And you had to climb over a ledge about knee high just to sit at the table. As it turns out, the food was amazing, and very reasonably priced as well. Ok, now this damn thing is turning into a food review.

After dinner, I walked him to his car and we said good night. He seems like a really nice guy, I think I want to get to know him a little more.

After I walked him back to his car, I wandered around aimlessly through the outdoor mall looking for a place where I could buy something to color my eyebrows white since I will morph into Satan Claus (yes, I know I spelled it Satan, that sounds funnier) tomorrow night. No such luck on the whitening of the eye brows, but I’m going to look more tomorrow.

Every year my work gives away at work massages during the holiday season. Anywho, I won a massage which happened to be today. What it is, is there are a couple of masseuses (spelling please) that come to work and give 10 minute massages. Not every employee wins a massage, but shit, there must have been about 50 people at least that won. I was one of the lucky ones and got a massage today. Fuck, it felt good, but what a damn tease. I mean, 10 minutes is better than nothing, but its like she gets going and then BOOM, its all over and with no happy ending. Still, I’m very grateful to my company for doing such a thing. I wonder if other companies do things like that? Nah, compaines like 3M don’t have things like that but instead make you pay just for thinking about a massage at work. Back in the day, I used to want to be a masseuse, but then I realized that some people are disgusting and you couldn’t pay me to touch them. Anywho, I just remember the greatest massage I ever had which was a $20 massage for an entire hour when I was visiting Mexico. Damn, that was the most relaxing hour of my life.

You know, I was thinking about something today. Gay guys talk a lot about having gaydar, but does the gaydar apply to girls? Not meaning if girls have gaydar, because I know some of them do. But, I mean, does your gaydar go off when you see a gay girl? Because there is this girl at work and for some reason, my malfunctioning gaydar goes off. This is why I ask others, because as is well documented, I don’t have much of a gaydar. My gaydar is so far off that my gaydar doesn’t even go off for myself. Now I don’t mean the obvious, lesbians that look like linebackers, but the subtle ones that look, you know, female. Can you tell they are gay by your gaydar? A lot of people claim to be able to tell gay guys even if they are straight acting (personally, I think they might be full of shit, nobody knows I’m gay unless I tell them) but what about gay girls?

I know its just a crazy fantasy thing, but I’m still in a disappointing shock that I didn’t make the fantasy football playoffs and also lost my lead (hopefully only temporarily) in the football pool. Before you say I’m being crazy, keep in mind that I would have won money. I’m as disappointed as when one of my favorite teams are eliminated from the playoffs, you know like when the Bears and Bulls lost in the playoffs earlier this year. Ok, I was more upset when the Cubs lost in the playoffs in ’03, but that was a whole different situation.

This morning I woke up to find out that this football weekend was a complete and utter bloodbath. First of all, I got my ass totally handed to me in fantasy football, no playoffs for me. Then, the pool I’m in, I started off  the week in first place. I’m going to end the week down to at least 3rd place. And what is really pathetic, is that the guy that is in first place now was more than 60 points behind me when the week started. That’s right, the motherfucker made up over 60 points in one day. Between that and fantasy football, I’m so disappointed. A month a go I all  but had a playoff birth wrapped up but then had a ’69 Cubs like collapse over the past month. In the pool, I had a ’03 Cubs like collapse, although there is still 3 weeks left.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I got to work and as I was walking in the parking lot and this is what I see:

Now, I don’t know if you can tell, but on my left foot is a brown shoe. On my right foot, is a black shoe. That’s right people, I was wearing 2 different color shoes! Instantly, a feeling of dread came over me, do I go home to change. Not really an option since I live a half hour away and I start work in 15 minutes. Do I run to the mall and buy a pair of shoes? Or do I just walk into work as is? Guess what I did?

That’s right, I kept walking right in, laughing the whole way. Sure, I could have played it off and more than likely, nobody would have noticed. But, what fun would have that been. The way I saw it, it was both hilarious and embarrassing. So, I pretty much told everybody. What was even funnier about it was that the girl that sits behind me pretty much did the same thing last week, except she had the same color shoes just 2 different shoes. Now, I know you are thinking “how the fuck could you wear 2 different color shoes?” Now that is a very valid question. First of all, its kinda dark in the part of my room where the shoes are. They are both Skechers, outside of the dark color, look the same. I just grabbed a couple of shoes, didn’t look and went with it.

Now its easy to laugh at it (yes, do laugh, its funny as hell) and call me a dumbass, allow me to put a positive spin on it. First of all, I had a flawless streak of at least 3 weeks of putting on the same color shoes. To be even more honest, I think the streak was a little longer, like closer to 31 years, or whenever I started dressing myself. You have to admit, that’s one hell of a streak. Also, look at all that could have gone wrong. I mean, since I don’t know black from brown, I was able to not only get a right and left shoe, but also put them on the correct feet AND manage to tie them, although I did use the bunny ear method. So, if you are keeping track, that’s 3 out of 4, which is pretty damn good. I mean, if this were baseball, that’s a great day. So see, when you put it that way, it looks pretty damn good.

Damn though, I think this is the last straw. I’m probably going to be kicked out of the gay club for good now. I just don’t know how a gay guy can make such a mistake. Surly I can expect some sort of suspension of my gayness over this.