Yesterday was Mark’s Christmas party. I decided to make churros (spelling please) that I bought from Addison’s day care. Actually, there wasn’t much making at all, I just put it in the oven for 4 minutes and then put cinnamon on each of the churros. Turns out, they kinda sucked. Well, I don’t know about sucking, but they didn’t taste all that good. And, they did not have any filling. I always thought they were supposed to have something inside, such as chocolate, cream cheese or fruit of some kind, but everybody was saying that normally, they have nothing inside. Then what the fuck, what makes them so popular?

Anywho, I was one of the first ones there, arriving about 3:30ish. Mark told me that Rusty’s brother Wesley had been in a car accident Friday night. His wife was driving and they got hit head on by a drunk driver. Although his wife only wound up with a broken foot, Wes is in the hospital in intensive care with a broken sternum, a possible punctured lung and blood on his liver. They don’t know if his liver was actually bleeding, but Rusty said that his condition did improve as the day went on. Throughout the party, everybody was talking about the evils of drunk driving, and yes, this will have an effect on people, but my only question is will this have a lasting effect? I’m afraid that this will only effect Mark friends and my friends for a couple of months and then they will be right back to driving drunk or at least with a very good buzz. As for myself, it has no effect on me at all, I have never driven drunk and don’t ever plan to start driving drunk.

One of Mark’s friends made an appetizer which was pretty damn different and good. It was grapes rolled in cream cheese and pistachios (again, spelling……..I swear, I fucking suck at spelling, so much that half the time spell checker doesn’t even have a suggestion). Actually, most of the appetizers that people brought had cream cheese. Not that it was a problem, I’m a cheese freak especially when it comes to the cream cheese.

About 8 in the PM, Mark got a phone call from my neighbor. He said that he had heard some loud beeping coming from my house, he said it sounded like a fire alarm or carbon monoxide detector, although he did not see smoke or flames coming from the house. So, John and I came right home. As soon as I opened my car door, I could hear beeping. What was really odd was that I went into the house and could no longer hear the beeping. Although, as I got towards the back of the house, I could faintly hear it. I walked into the backyard where John was. I could really hear it back there, but just assumed that it was coming from another house. But still, the sound was too loud to be coming from another house. I walked bast the garbage can and could really hear it. I opened the lid and pulled out the garbage bag and there were no doubts now, it was coming from the damn garbage. I was wondering what the hell could be in the damn bag. John opened the bag and started looking around. Buried towards the bottom of the bag was a carbon monoxide detector. This damn thing stopped working last year and we bought a new one and John threw the old away the other day. It was still beeping, so he threw it on the ground, but not hard enough to break it. I took it from him and slammed it onto the ground about as hard as I could, and that shut the damn thing up. Now what worried me was what the hell was in our garbage that was so toxic as to cause this damn thing to go off. I mean, if this piece of shit had worked while it was in the house, maybe it wouldn’t have found itself at the bottom of a bag full of garbage. My neigbor came outside and said that he got Mark’s number by calling information. He said that he had walked around the house banging on the door hoping we weren’t inside a burning house. He thought about calling the fire department, but fortunately he didn’t, as they would have broken the damn door down. Anywho, I not a science person myself, but when we got back to Marks, several people told us that when we closed the bag off and put it into the garbage can, this cut off the flow of oxygen into the bag and allowed carbon monoxide to build up in the bag.

My cousin Ann was at the party too. She found out that I’m EXTREMELY ticklish and started to chase me around trying to tickle me. This was kinda funny, creepy and annoying all rolled into one. What the fuck is wrong with people sometimes.

The rest of the party, although fun, was pretty uneventful. We wound up with Mark, John, Dave and I playing a card game at the end of the night called 99. It was all sorts of fun, but I got my ass kicked.

Today, I went to play basketball with a guy from work. For those of you that are longtime, faithful readers, the guy I played with was the Christian from work, Ken. Anywho, he is a big fella, in fact, he is about 2 1/2 times my weight. Now I’m not the best basketball player around, but I’m in WAY better shape then him. We played 3 games of one on one, I beat him 2 out of 3. I really should have one each game, but I gave him a few open 2 pointers that he nailed in the 2nd game. After a while, though, I found that as long as I hustled just a little bit, I could get more rebounds and move around him, especially since he could not jump. I probably should have dominated these games, what with his weight and many health problems, but I didn’t. We also played 2 on 2 against a couple of teens that, if I don’t mind saying were pretty cute. Oh, and they were very good at basketball, they kicked our ass. In the second game, though, we mixed up teams and I was on a team with one of them and we won. Yay us.

Right now, I’m in the fight of my fantasy football life. If I win this week, I’m in the playoffs. If I lose, I’m done. Its looking pretty close right now.

Damn, what a busy day. I had a dentist appointment at 8:30 in the AM so that they could replace my temporary crowns and put in a tooth. It went a lot quicker than I thought, I was out of there within an hour. My mouth feels weird now though, I can feel the fake tooth in there and its all sorts of different. I wonder if anybody from the dentist office wants to have sex with me?

I came home, exercised, showered and headed to the mall. The plan was to do a little bit of Christmas shopping before work. Even though I spent a half hour there, I only wound up buying one thing.

I was at work by 1PM. Originally, I was supposed to start at 2, but turns out today was the day that we were supposed to take all of the gifts we bought for our adopt a family angel tree dealy thing and bring them to the Salvation Army. Our department alone had 57 bags of toys, clothes and shit that was going to be delivered. First we had to load up this lady’s van with all this crap. Ok, so it wasn’t crap, but I really don’t want to keep typing out clothes and toys, so crap it is. Or maybe shit. Anywho, we also helped out some of the other departments load their shit. In total, our company had 185 bags (or was it 187?) of stuff! And this didn’t include the 8 boxes of food that our company had too. WOOOOOHOOOO!!!! My company rocks!!! I wound up riding with this one girl over to the Salvation Army building in Aurora not too far from the Hollywood Casino. Yes, that’s right, I measure distance with how far things are from casinos. Anywho, we had a certain number of vehicles to unload. We formed an assembly line from the cars to the door to drop everything off just inside the building. After we were done, we still had to bring everything upstairs. Being the Salvation Army, I was expecting a full army inside the building, complete with army fatigues, bazookas, and other things the army would have. I guess they must all be out fighting the war in Iraq, because the only people that were there were old people (I’m only kidding about the army thing, I knew the army wouldn’t actually be there). I walked upstairs into this rather large room and was pleasantly stunned at what I saw. I guess the only way to describe the size of this room is to say it was about the size of a banquet hall. And it was fucking filled with bags and bags of toys, clothes and all sorts of gifts. I was blown away by this and it reconfirmed my faith in the greatness of people. I’m not an emotional person that cries often, but as soon as I saw this room, I started sobbing like a little baby. So much, that I started shaking, pissed my pants and passed out. Ok, so none of the crying, shaking or pissing actually happened. But, I did feel really good seeing the room filled, you might even say that my heart grew 2 sizes too big when I saw everything. Anywho, once again we formed an assembly line to bring the stuff up stairs.

After the Salvation Army, we drove over and dropped the food off at a food bank which was part of a church. The area where we put the food was kinda like a big garage and it too had a lot of food. So, I stole me a can of prunes and have been on the toilet ever since.

We decided to play basketball after work. Once again, we played at the X-port gym. There were even more people there this time then the last time we played. I got into a game with some guy from work. We played full court and I did not play nearly as good as I would have liked. In fact at one point, I accidently played defense against one of my team mates. I almost forced him into a turn over, but he managed to get it away just as I realized that he was on my team. The game went pretty quickly, primarily because we got our asses kicked. By this time, there were probably another 10-15 people waiting on the side lines to play. The way the gym is set up, they have one big full court going in one direction and 2 smaller courts in another direction. The best way to describe it is that there is not way to play a game on the big court and at the same time on the small courts, since the smaller courts are part of the big court. We had more than enough people for both small courts, but for some reason, these assholes that kicked our asses insisted on playing on the full big court, even though we had a million people waiting to play. After their game, though, we pretty much forced our way into 2 games on the small courts. I felt I played much better from this point on. I wound up playing more point guard and therefore had a chance to handle the ball more. Shit, why am I even writing about this, nobody that reads this has any interest in basketball. Just go back to whatever the fuck it is you were doing before you started reading this.

Damn, it has turned motherfucking, ball shrinking cold outside. Not that I’m complaining, I don’t mind it too much. But, what cracks me up is these guys at football games (or Cubs games in early April) who go shirtless in cold weather. You see it at every cold weather sporting event. Not that I’m complaining too much, because a lot of these guys are hot and have great bodies, for example, the dude on the front of today’s Chicago Tribune. Sure, some of them are fat and gross, but most are young, thin and smooth…………..just my type. They just don’t look nearly as miserable as you think they would be. And, they don’t seem to get frostbite either. I mean, shouldn’t their nipples become frozen and crusty and just break right the fuck off? They can’t be warm at all, not only do they have their shirts off, but they also have no chest hair or body fat to keep them warm. What I want to know is, do they normally walk around outside without a coat or shirt? Shit, if they are willing to sit in the same place for 3 1/2 hours, then walking from the car to the house or other building shouldn’t be a problem at all. The way I see it, if they sit outside shirtless during a football game, they have lost all rights to ever complaining about being cold. Granted, I’m sure they probably don’t ever complain about being cold, but now they no longer can complain. If anything, once the temp gets above freezing, they should start bitching about it being too hot. What I find really funny is that my brother John is ALWAYS BOILING hot, so much that he is like a fucking walking furnace. He is the type of guy that is about 10 degrees from being cremated. Anywho, he has never been one to remove a shirt during a cold sporting event. Hell, he doesn’t even do it during a hot sporting event.

Well, I got an email back from Scott trying to justify his racism and how he believes that he isn’t racist. He said it was the way he was raised. I know enough about racism to know that this is probably true, but also I know that this is a complete bullshit excuse. Still, I have discovered something. Much like a homosexual that is in denial, Scott is a racist that is in denial. In fact, I have realized that this is how most racist people are, they don’t believe what they do or say is racist. I wanted to make this whole topic a funny post comparing racists to gays, but its just not coming to me. The sad part is that its kinda true. I mean, with some gays, they are the last ones to realize or accept their homosexuality. They are embarrassed to be gay. Some parts of society don’t accept gays and they try to shun gays. The same is all true of racists. Of course, the big difference is that there is no racist pride parade. See, a lot of people have no tolerance for gays, just like others have no tolerance for racism. I, of course, am gay and also have no tolerance for racism. But, I learned something from this Scott thing. I realize now that although people are completely and utterly responsible for what they say, sometimes, they find ways to justify what they say as being ok and acceptable when in reality, its not acceptable at all.

This was a very………….different weekend. For starters, I was supposed to play cards Friday night with people from work, but that got canceled because of the snow storm. So, I stood in and watch the Bulls game followed by Clerks 2. Although Dave hated it (which is surprising because he is a big Kevin Smith fan), I loved the movie, I thought it was wonderful. Not only was it funny, but it also found a way to allude to the first Clerks without being just like it. What cracks me up about Dave is that he loves Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but hated Clerks 2.

Yesterday was a long day. I have recently suspected that I might need new tires, based on the fact that they have well over 69,000 miles on them, but also because I was having issues stopping in the snow and they were also cracking. So, I went to Discount Tire Co and the guy there looked at my tires and said they should be replaced. He also told me that I could get a ticket for driving on bad tires. Well I’m quite certain that he might have been full of shit about this, I know that if I get in an accident due to my tires, I would get a ticket. And since I’ve gotten 2 tickets since February and another ticket means my license gets suspended, this made it a no brainer. The only problem was that the place was packed and I was looked at a 4-5 hour wait. But, they told me I could pay for it to hold my spot, go home and come back. Once again, this was a no brainer. I came back about 4 in the PM and was told that they would probably have me “rolling and out of here” by about 5 or 5:15.

With more then an hour to kill, I decided to explore the area. So, I walked to the new Brunswick Zone and American Sales. For those of you not familiar with the area, its not a really far walk, but far enough when its cold (probably single digits with the windchill) but I was dressed warm. This was my first time at either place, and I have to say, I was very impressed with both. Brunswick Zone even had a 21 and older bar which was, as you might expect, nearly empty at 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon. As for American Sales, it had all sorts of cool shit there.

I got back to Discount Tire Co about 4:45. As it turns out, they were still very backed up, so much that I wound up not getting out of there until almost 6. I headed over to Scott’s in Oswego for our monthly card game. We had a very small game, in fact, the first game we only had 6 people. Paul and I were the first two out and afterwards, we played a game of chess. Paul has been teaching me chess when we have time at these monthly card games. I have to say, I can see how addicting this game can eventually be. Its also very challenging.

The second card game, we had only 4 people. Just when I think I have done the dumbest thing I have ever done playing cards (see the post about a card game a few months ago………..and actually, read just about any of my posts on cards going back to when I started this Xanga) I manage to do something that is really stupid. In fact, I’m still kicking myself. With all four of us still left in the game, I was chip leader. In a hand that had just Paul and I left, he decided to go all in. In my hand, I had an ace and a 3. During the flop, a 3 game up. I decided to call him and he had an ace and a 10. He  said that he needed to get another spade to beat me. I was dealing and as I flipped up the last card, I looked at it first, it was an ace. I then said “or you can beat me with an ace” and threw it down. He started to clear the board and take all the chips as I cleaned up the cards before I remembered that I had an ace. I said to everybody at the table “wait, didn’t I have an ace?” The 2 people that weren’t in the hand weren’t even paying attention, so they didn’t know at all. Paul claimed that he couldn’t remember. I don’t know if he really couldn’t remember, but he does smoke a lot of pot, so maybe he was being honest. I told him to just take the damn pot because if I can’t remember what I had just a few seconds ago, than this was just a stupidity tax. What really made me laugh was the very next hand, I was once again dealt an ace and a 3. I just started laughing as soon as I got the cards and didn’t stop until the hand was over. Anywho, for rest of the game, though, I was pissed at myself for fucking up that other hand. And after I took Jeff and Scott out, it was just me and Paul left. This wouldn’t even be a game if I had not fucked up earlier, as he would have been out of the game. Still, it didn’t matter and he actually wound up fucking winning.

Because we only had 4 of us there for the second game, it gave us more of an intimate setting to talk about things. And soon, the conversation turned to race. Scott has ALWAYS been the most racist person I know, which, to be honest, stops me from actually considering him a friend. Or at least, a closer friend. A part of me is embarrassed to even associate with him because of how much of a bigot he is. He also has a big issue with gays, but that is probably because he is a closeted homosexual. I mean, his thoughts and opinions (he is also a HUGE Republican) go against everything I stand for. Anywho, in addition to the COUNTLESS racial jokes and comments he said, he also said that “slavery wasn’t as bad as they make it out to be. In fact, blacks were better off being slaves than staying in Africa. They had security, a place to live, food and good jobs. Slavery was not that bad.” Wow. If that isn’t racist, than I don’t know what is. Paul and I both tried to tell him how wrong this was, that being a slave was worse than being in prison or being homeless. It was shortly after his statement that I told him that he was the most racist person I know. This really bothered him. He kept insisting throughout the night that he wasn’t a racist, but also would continue to defend slavery. The sad part is that he really truly believes that he is not racist. And he doesn’t seem to understand why I think he is racist. He even went as far as to send me an email today saying that he is not racist. I replied back and said that based on everything that I have read and everything that I know, what he says and what he believes is racist. I let him know that I’m offended by his bigoted views. And this is where my arrogance comes in, because even though I am disgusted by his views, I still play cards with him every month because I think I can have an influence. I think I can open his mind. That is why I continue to associate with him, because I want to help him overcome his bigotry.

Today we went to watch the Bears game at Scooty’s house. I won’t get into too many details except to say that with the exception of the Bears win, it was a tough football week.