In this day and age of text messages, fast food contacting and quick hit answers, people like to be able to send brief and simple messages to the masses. Now I was on vacation all last week, including on Thanksgiving. I was woken up by text messages twice wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving to “me and my family.’ I dunno, maybe I’m missing the whole point of the giving thanks meaning of Thanksgiving, but why is it that people feel the need to act like they are the media when it comes to wishing people a happy whatever the holiday is at the moment. I mean, wishing you and your family  a “Happy Thanksgiving” is exactly what the newspeople do, whatever happened to a “Happy Thanksgiving, Fucko!” its so much more personal. I dunno, maybe I’m being a dick in this whole thing. I mean after all I wouldn’t have minded it so much if it wasn’t so early that I got the first one. Oh sure, 8:30am might not seem early to some people, but it is really early when the previous night is the biggest bar night of the year and you are a single guy who didn’t get to bed until almost 4:30 in the morning.

So Tuesday December 1 is World AIDS Day. On or around December 1, I usually write a post about AIDS and all that shit. Well, this year I’m doing far more than just writing a post that maybe 3 people might read, I’m also going to a charity event to benefit the AIDS foundation of Chicago. You may or may not know that I am one of the world’s foremost chocoholics. Well what makes this event so cool, is that it is a chocolate lover’s wet fucking dream. In fact, it is called the World of Chocolate. So myself and 3 friends have plucked down $200 a ticket to go to this event. Relax, they did have cheaper tickets, should you find yourself in the Chicagoland area on December 3. The good news though is that even though you might not be able to make it to the actual event itself, of course you can still donate. Here is a link to the website along with all the fun you will be missing out on should you decide to skip it:

http://www.aidschicago.org/events/world_of_chocolate.php

And now, the exciting conclusion of my trip to Sprungfeld……….I mean Seinfeld…………..I mean, Springfield, yeah that’s it, Springfield! We got up about 7:30 and headed downstairs for breakfast. The restaurant was nearly empty. Nearly empty………..remember that annoying fucker from the hotel bar? Well he was there for breakfast, although not sitting near us. As I’ve learned over the years, an empty restaurant usually equals slow service for some reason. And this place was no exception to that rule. We seemed to wait a while for our waitress to take our order. And after my first cup of coffee, I couldn’t get her to come over to give me a refill. I had waited so long that I got up and walked over to the booth in front of the annoying fucker and poured a cup of coffee from a coffee pot on the table. And she saw me do this and said or did nothing. I think she got the hint though, because about 10 minutes later she offered me more coffee.

After breakfast I showered and we checked out and headed to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Just about as soon as we got there, an older man came up to us and tried to sell us a membership. He mentioned something about time traveling and I asked him if the membership could allow us to travel through time. Although Don caught the joke, the guy was clueless as to what I was talking about. In fact, he questioned me about what I was talking about. He was a nice man, just probably not the sharpest tool in the shed. Don did buy a membership though, as he wants to take his son there sometime.

As for the museum itself, check out their website:

http://www.alplm.com/home.html

This really was amazing, there was a lot of cool stuff in there. If you live anywhere within a reasonable driving distance of Springfield, I would highly recommend it. Let me show you a few pics:

This is the Lincoln family. They have been forced to stand there without moving or breathing since the museum opened. And I don’t even think they get paid for it! Behind them is a replica of the White House

After the museum, we walked outside to discover that it was fucking pouring out! We waited the rain out for about 20 minutes or so, long enough for it to turn into a heavy drizzle. We walked over to the old state capital building which was very old and very cool.

Inside this room right here underneath the giant portrait of George Washington is where Lincoln’s body lay in its coffin for a 24 hour viewing before he was buried.

After grabbing lunch at a place called the Feed Store, we went to Lincoln’s tomb. This was the second time I had been there, it is a very humbling experience to say the least. I’ve heard a lot of people debate why the civil war was fought and if Lincoln was truly anti-slavery. But, the fact remains that he did free the slaves and in my opinion, he is the greatest American who ever lived. I can’t help but be a little somber when I’m in his tomb.

We came home after the tomb. Before I forget, let me post a couple of pics of me sitting at the governor’s desk.

This first pic is me in the real office of the governor. When Blago was in office he had a sperate room for his hair.

Here is the ceremonial desk. Personally, I think it might be nicer than the real one. Then again if this is the one that everybody sees, well then maybe it should be nicer.

On the way home, I got a chance to use Don’s GPS. Have you ever used one of these things? They are amazing, we ran into some heavy traffic on the way home and were able to use it to find a detour around the traffic, it probably saved us 20 minutes! I think I’m gonna have to buy one……………..if only it could detect cops so I could avoid tickets!

So  yesterday was our big trip to our state’s capital, Springfield. Since I’ve got a lot to write about, I’m going to separate the trip into 2 posts, hopefully tonight and tomorrow, but maybe not until later in the week. I also will include pictures, some in this post and some in the next post, but not necessarily in order of when they were taken.

My friend Don and I got on the road about 1 in the pm. We were cruising at an altitude of 0 feet but at 80+ miles an  hour. We were driving down I55 near Bloomington, IL when I saw a cop car on an overpass and said “geez, I hope he doesn’t get me.” Upon making it past the overpass, I saw 2 other cop cars had already pulled over 2 other speeders. One of the cops raced back into his car and I had a feeling that he was going to be coming after somebody else on the road and that it was a very good chance that it was me. I slowed down but I think that only gave him a chance to catch up to me because his sirens were on behind me. I said to Don that I thought it was going to be a big ticket because I was doing 85 in a 65. The cop came to the passenger side window and got right to the point telling me that he was going to write me a citation for speeding. Fortunately for me, they only caught me doing 79, which amounted to a ticket of $75. What sucks is that I’m going to have to be really careful driving for the next 3 months because I don’t want to get another ticket within that 90 days.

After that brief delay, we were back on the road, this time not going over 65 miles per hour. We rolled into Springfield about 3:45 and parked in the parking garage for the Abraham Lincoln Library and Presidential Museum. It was too late to go to the museum, so we walked over the the capital building. I had been at the capital building one other time before, about 11 or 12 years ago. Being the week of a holiday, congress was not in session. In fact, we walked in and the place was not busy at all. We made it to the second floor where we saw the governor’s office. On the left hand side there is an office that you can look into with a desk that had a sign that said governor. Straight ahead was a reception area with a secretary and a security guard who asked us what we were doing there. I said we were just curious and looking around and just wanted to see the gov’s office. He said that the governor had 2 offices, a real office and a ceremonial office, which we passed on the way in. He asked us if we wanted to go into either one. I said sure and with that, he brought us back into the real office. I asked him if I could sit behind the desk and with that he pushed out the chair for me to sit. Meanwhile, Don got out his phone and took a picture of me sitting behind the desk, I hope to post that picture tomorrow or when Don emails it to me. Nevertheless, I was sitting in the very seat that the words “This is a fucking valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing” were uttered by our former governor Rod Blagojevich a year ago this month. I wanted to bring up Blago to the security guard, but didn’t want to push my luck. I was just thrilled to be sitting at the desk of Governor Pat Quinn. After that, we went to the ceremonial office where I got to sit behind the desk again and hold up the rather heavy sign that read “Governor”. The security guard told me that it was made by prison inmates. I responded that I hope I never have to make something like that!

Next we wandered around the capital building. We damn nearly had the run of the place, as there were not many people there at all. There was a lady in her 50s who was sweeping up around the area who we talked to briefly before I went into a room that used to house the Illinois Supreme Court and is now used for Senate hearings. There were a bunch of seats with microphones in front of every seat, so of course, naturally, I walked up to one and spoke into the mic. Much to my surprise, the damn thing was actually on! This caught the attention of the lady sweeping who came in there to talk to us a little bit. I walked over to one of the other seats and asked what this little red button was for. I didn’t exactly wait for a response before pressing the button and talking into the mic. She told me that I probably shouldn’t do that as it wasn’t “kosher.” She was actually very nice about it though; here we were a couple of jackasses distracting her from her job and she could have been mean about it, but instead just told me not to do it and gave me some facts about the room.

After wandering around for a while longer, we left the capital building and went to check into our hotel, which was across town. Here are a few pictures of our hotel. 

We were on the 9th floor. The Crowne Plazza is one of the bigger buildings in Springfield. At the top where you see those ledges that jut out is an outdoor area that you can walk out on and look out. Its scary for those of us afraid of heights.

This is the view from our room. In the distance on your left is the aforementioned capital building.

A local staple in Springfield is a horseshoe sandwich. What is a horseshoe you ask? Its an open faced sandwich (usually a burger or something along those lines) on a bun or a slice of Texas toast. Piled on top of the meat are tons of French fries along with some sort of cheesy sauce. Its good stuff and I was told that the best place to eat one is a place in Springfield called Darcy’s Pint. Since we both wanted to drink, we decided to take a cab there. Shortly after getting into our room, we called the front desk and asked them to call a cab for us. They said it would be 15-20 minutes, so we watched a little bit of tv before heading downstairs. The cab was already there and we got in and I asked the cabbie, who looked kinda like Michael McDonald from the Doobie Bros. if he was waiting long and he said that he had been there for about 15 minutes. He was a very friendly guy though. In fact, I would say he was a little too friendly. He saw I was wearing my JFK shirt and remarked that yesterday (November 22nd) was the anniversary of his death. He told us the story of where he was and how he was in school when Kennedy was killed. This got us into a big discussion on JFK’s death and September 11th. If you think this is an odd conversation to be having with your cab driver than you are probably right. I didn’t mind it so much though, except for the fact that for some reason, he found the need to constantly turn around while talking to us. Don and I both  noticed that several times when he did this, he had a tendency to drift over the damn yellow line. Also, he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going because he passed up his turn and it took us an extra 5 minutes to get there. Sure, he might have done the whole thing to get extra money, but we also kept him waiting for us when he first got there. And I know that he might have been lying about waiting 15 minutes for us, but I still felt bad.

For some reason, there was about a 20 minute wait for a table, which I found odd being a Monday and all. I was starving though and we really had no way to go to another place even if we wanted to. While waiting we ordered a beer. Outside of a few pretzel rods, I had not eaten since about 10:30am and it was going on 7pm. Being a tiny guy who had no food in him, I was damn near drunk on that one beer! Dinner was pretty damn good though and it wasn’t just because I was so hungry.

After eating we watched almost half of Monday Night Football before deciding to go back to the hotel and watch the rest at the bar there. We called the same cab company and this time another driver showed up. He too was very friendly, he asked us how our night was going. I told him the food was good, the beer was fine and the football game was going my way. He asked who was playing and I said Tennessee and the Texans to which he responded “Oh. College huh?” We corrected him and told him it was the NFL. I shouldn’t be so hard on the guy, but honestly, how could he not know who the teams were, especially since it was Monday Night Football, and after all, all guys know that MNF is the NFL. If that wasn’t bad enough, he proceeded to demonstrate to us just how much he didn’t know about football. He said that he was more of a Steelers fan and how he thinks the Steelers and Broncos would make for a good Super Bowl. Again, I don’t mean to be a dick, but the Steelers and Broncos both play in the AFC and therefore could not meet in the Super Bowl. Next he went on about how Terry Bradshaw had played for the Steelers from 1970-1974 and how they won the Super Bowl 4 straight years. Well, I KNEW that wasn’t true, as no team has even won 3 Super Bowls in a row. And furthermore Bradshaw played from 1970-1983 and didn’t win their first one until 1975. Later he made a comment about the Dallas Cowboys and how Emmitt Smith had played great defense. For the record, Smith was a running back! In trying to make casual conversation he was making a football fool of himself and I couldn’t wait for the conversation to end. On the other hand, he was not looking at us at all and was not driving over the yellow line. And he wasn’t lost. Finally it got quiet. I decided I would play it safe and make a comment about the weather. Normally I don’t comment on the weather with strangers, but thought this would be a nice way to break from football. Instead, he went on about riding motorcycles and how he was in California and blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda yadda, I dunno, I stopped paying attention after the word cycle. All I know is that cab drivers in Springfield are nothing like the cab drivers in Chicago or New York. And worse yet, I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Sure, its nice to have a driver who is friendly and social, but on the other hand would you want it to come with the cost of a driver who isn’t paying attention or who makes bad conversation?

Speaking of bad conversation, we went to the hotel bar to watch the rest of the game and drink a $4 bottle of Miller fucking Lite. Not that I’m complaining about Miller Lite, but seriously, $4? Anywho, there was this super annoying guy at the bar who seemed to never shut the fuck up. We weren’t talking to him, we sat at a table near the tv, but the bar was nearly empty and he was impossible not to hear. And he seemed to not only have an opinion about everything, but he also seemed to think he was so fucking amazing, bragging about how funny he was. He said that this was the 13th or 14th time that he had stood at this hotel this year. He kept talking to the bartender who was very familiar with him. At one point, she came over to us to ask us if we wanted anything else and after we told her no, she remarked “I know…………..he is kinda loud isn’t he?” Hell, he even annoyed the workers!

So that is the end of a jam packed day one. Tune in later for the conclusion, although the mere fact that I’ve written this means that I survived the trip.

Ok, I’m going to describe a scenario to you and you tell me your impression of it, I mean besides me being just a tad bit…………..er…………….socially retarded! Friday night I met my friends Jt and Dave at an Irish pub in Naperville.  Jt ran into some of his co-workers there. Now Jt and Dave both got there before I did and Jt’s co-workers invited him to sit with them. Well I got there after their meal had come. I sat down next to this girl that Jt works with whom I had never met before. She had just finished eating half of a corned beef sandwich, leaving the other half virtually untouched. She asked me if I wanted it and being starving, I ate it. I don’t know if she was serious and didn’t think I would actually eat it, but I am nothing if not a human vacuum cleaner when it comes to food sometimes. I still ordered my own meal and at it. A little while later, she was asking Jt when he was going to introduce her to a guy. After we left, Dave insisted that the girl wanted me and that I could have slept with her if I wanted to. Jt said that was not the case that she did not like me. We debated the whole thing for a while, trying to determine if she wanted me or not, honestly, I don’t know, all I can say is that Jt knows this lady far better than Dave since this was also the first time he met her, so I would say she probably wasn’t into me. That being said, if she was, its nice to see that it appears that the contacts are making me look better!

Every year the Saturday before Thanksgiving, my friends and I always have a huge Thanksgiving dinner. Dave and I usually go shopping for it together, so after dinner, we went shopping. Shopping with Dave is ALWAYS an adventure and this time was no exception. One of the things he always does that drives me nuts but also makes me laugh is that he will push his cart around with stuff in it, then leave it in the middle of the aisle while walking further down the aisle or to the the next aisle to get something. Even after we were done shopping and he paid for the tons of groceries he bought, he still walked away from the cart!

We dropped all the stuff off at Dave’s house and went to the casino, as the 3 of us often do when we hang out. Now I’m never one to judge people based on their gambling habits, after all, just because I can’t afford to do something doesn’t mean other people can’t. But, I still found this one guy at the casino nuts. I walked into the high limit $5 slot machines just to drop a sawbuck in one of the machines. I saw this middle aged guy standing in front of 2 machines. He was playing both machines at once, which isn’t unheard of. He was also playing the max bet $15 ,each spin on each machine. He was like a robot in a way, totally emotionless. Judging by the way he was dressed, I don’t think he had tons of money, but I really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I walked away and came back an hour later and Dave was standing there watching the guy who was still there playing the same 2 machines! Dave said he had watched the guy lose probably about $1,000 in the 10 minutes he was standing there. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things at casinos and this stands among them.

Yesterday was our big Thanksgiving dinner. Everything went very well, actually about as well as it could be for a dinner for 31 people. The food was so good and I think I’m actually still full!

I’m on vacation until December 1 and will be in Springfield Monday-Tuesday of this week, so I probably won’t be updating. Wish me a good time, about as good of a time as one could have in Springfield, IL. Actually it should be cool, I’m going to the Lincoln library and museum.

I was watching this episode of Frontline on PBS the other day. It originally aired in April of 2008, but don’t ask me why I didn’t see it until now, just don’t go lookin for it to be re-aired again anytime soon. Then again, how many people here actually watch PBS. You should though, they do have some really good info and shows sometimes. Actually, I should probably donate to them too, after all its from viewers like me that allow PBS to continue to bring us high quality programs. Come to think of it, its not from viewers like me, since I’ve never donated to them. But that doesn’t mean I should’t give to them. And it doesn’t mean I won’t at some point. And it also doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t watch PBS.

But, I digress. The topic of this show was health care systems in 5 other countries: England, Japan, Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland. Or was it Sweeden? No, it was Switzerland. Anywho, all 5 of these countries have a better heath care system than the United States. The host of the show visited all 5 countries and spoke with experts from each country. Well, I don’t know if they were experts, but they were people. They also showed him walking on the streets and showed a lot of natives of those countries. One thing I observed, and rather easily I might add, was the lack of weight of the locals. Hell, they must have showed a thousand people on the streets of Tokyo and I don’t think I saw a single overweight person. As for the other countries, there might have been a few, but for the most part, they were thin. This brings up the dirty little secret of America’s health scare debate. That’s right I said health scare!!!!

I think I did a post about Americans being fat previously, but honestly, I’ve written a lot of posts and I can’t remember all of them. And also, this is something that is worth repeating, since the press and the politicians of both parties do a damn good job of not bringing it up. First of all, I’m not letting the health insurance companies off the hook. We all know the health insurances companies are pure evil and must be stopped at any cost. And the doctors, drug companies and hospitals are all very greedy as well and they are just as much to blame as anybody else for the rising cost of health care. But, the dirty little secret is that the American people are just as much to blame as anybody else. And why? Because we don’t take care of ourselves.

Its no big secret that America is probably the fattest country in the world and if we aren’t the fattest, than we are certainly close to the top. Americans don’t eat properly and don’t exercise. They smoke. They drink. They do drugs. But mainly, we are fat. This comes with a cost that nobody seems to be willing to talk about. Being obese comes with a myriad of health risks and problems. Sure, I know people who are overweight and healthy, just like I know people who are thin and not so healthy. But, the fact is, you are far more likely to have health problems if you are overweight. And its not just the problems that everybody thinks of, like heart disease, stroke or diabetes. Carrying all that extra weight puts a lot of stress on the body, people develop problems with their knees, backs, or other joints and bones. They are at a higher risk for sleep apnea. They are at a higher risk for cancer, reproductive problems, gallstones, gout, and yes gentleman, impotence. While you make think of a fat man as jolly, there ain’t nothing happy about not being able to get your jollies off.

According to a 2007 Forbes study, a staggering 74.1% of Americans over the age of 15 are overweight. And according to a 2008 report on sciencedaily.com, if the trends continues, by the year 2030 more than 86% of Americans will be overweight. This would result in 1 of every 6 health care dollars spent in total direct health care costs paying for overweight and obesity-related costs. There is a lot of talk about the swine flu being a pandemic, but if you ask me, the real pandemic is obesity. And while the government struggles to come up with enough vaccine for the swine flu, there is no vaccine needed for obesity; the cure is something that nearly everybody is capable of, yet nobody seems willing to do: diet and exercise. Sure there are some people with glandular problems who truly can not control their weight. But, that is not the same problem for a majority of people. And the title of my post and the whole post in general might be mean or insensitive, especially to those of you who are overweight, but I don’t regret it or apologize about it one bit. Hell, its not like overweight people don’t know they are overweight. And its not like people haven’t been mean or insensitive to them before. Its just that there is not nearly enough focus on the one thing that we can each do to make a rather significant difference in this health care crisis. Look, we can’t control (at least not yet) what the health care companies, doctors or drug companies do. What we can control is how we take care of ourselves. You can almost make the argument that to take care of yourself is to be patriotic. You can almost make that argument.

If only more people understood this and knew the effect obesity has on not only themselves, but others as well.

I love Thanksgiving. Each year I have at least 3 Thanksgivings, one in October for Canadian Thanksgiving, one with all of my friends the Saturday before the real Thanksgiving and of course, the real Thanksgiving. I still don’t know why Thanksgiving is overshadowed so much by Christmas, early on I wrote a post about it. As far as I know there aren’t any or many Thanksgiving movies or songs. Of course many of you may know about The Thanksgiving Song by Adam Sandler if not check out this nifty video somebody did on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z27FKwupds

The only Thanksgiving movie that comes to mind is not even a real Thanksgiving movie in the sense that the plot does not revolve around Thanksgiving. It is a great movie though, Planes Trains & Automobiles. I’ve always loved this movie, it very well might be my favorite John Hughes (who died just a few months ago, by the way) movie. Then again I really like National Lampoon’s Vacation and Christmas Vacation. And of course, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is great too. Ok, so maybe its my favorite John Candy movie. Wait, then again, I love Spaceballs too. Maybe its my favorite Steve Martin movie. Yes. I’ve looked, it IS my favorite Steve Martin movie.

Anywho, one of my favorite scenes is when Steve Martin’s character rents a car and shows up at the lot to find out its not there. He goes back to dealer just a tad bit upset. Maybe not even a tad bit. Just slightly mad. A little bit. Little bit. The interaction with the worker is classic and she ends the scene with a memorable line. Anybody in customer service can relate to dealing with a customer like that and we all wish that we could say something like that to a customer. Anywho, check out the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4CgLRcYN74

Wow. I gave you two links in one post. Shouldn’t I get a cookie or something for that?

Depending on who you ask, Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler is no longer in the band……………or he is in the band and never left. I dunno. I went to their website to find out info about Steven leaving and found it about as useful as body armor on a corpse. Its not that it wasn’t a good website, it just didn’t off much in the way of his future with the band or the band’s future without him. One report I heard on the radio last week was that guitarist Joe Perry said that they were going to replace Tyler and move on. Just wait one fuckin minute. Go on? Aerosmith without Steven Tyler? Is there even an Aerosmith without him? Honestly who the hell would pay to see Aerosmith without Steven fuckin Tyler. And who would by an Aerosmith album without Tyler? And who exactly are they going to get to replace him, Extreme lead singer Gary Cherone? Ok, for those of you familiar with the joke, Cherone replaced Sammy Hagar for one forgettable album when he left or got kicked out of Van Halen, again depending on who you ask.

I love Aerosmith, I would place them among my top 5 bands of all time. But seriously, there is no Aerosmith without Steven Tyler and if the rest of the band is foolish to think otherwise, than they are sadly mistaken. I love when bands lose a key member and they think that people want to actually see the band without that member. So they confidently continue on without that person assuming that everybody loves them and nobody will notice that he or she is gone. In reality, people only went to the shows and bought the albums because of that person. And conversely, the person who has left the band tries to forge on alone only to realize that they are a waste without the rest of the band. And soon it turns out that both sides are pretty much fucking worthless apart and they magically realize that without each other, they can’t make any money and are one step away from playing county fairs and doing Burger King commercials. And the step away is in the worse direction; in other words BK and the county fair would be a step up!

After a while, they say “why the fuck are we fighting when there is gobs and gobs of money to be made, none of which we can make without each other.” And next thing you know, they are back, making an album and touring the world. I certainly hope that Aerosmith realizes this before they march on without Tyler. Hell, they are in their fucking 60s and haven’t made good music in years, they probably should have quit a long time ago. The band is great and from what I hear, put on a great live show (I’ve never seen them live…………..for some reason, I haven’t been to many concerts of anybody) and a big part of that is Tyler. Not only would it not be the same without him, but the band would probably become a laughingstock.

Friday night I got off work an hour early so that I could play Cyber Sport. What is Cyber Sport you ask? Is it an internet sport involving sports and cyber? No you dumbass, such a thing doesn’t even exist!! Actually its kinda like Whirley Ball. What is Whirley Ball you ask? Is it a sport involving whirley? Boy you really are a big fuckin dumbass. No, Whirley Ball is kinda like Cyber Sport. You know what, why don’t I just give you the link and let you figure it out for yourself:

http://www.chicagoindoorracing.com/CyberSport.aspx

This was the first time any of us had played Cyber Sport. We had a coupon for 2 free 8 minute games and then we also did another half hour for something like $100. The referee for the game was a young pimple faced teen. He was a fun kid who seemed to love his job and was much more friendly and social than those Commie bastards at Whirley Ball. Yeah, I’m ripping on Whirley Ball, the workers there are kinda dickish. Anywho, we only had 9 people so we had to have uneven teams. The ball they had us using was a lame foam ball, kinda like a Nerf softball. It was really hard to make shots with that ball. Fortunately, for our team, it was easy for the opposing team to get penalties, as my friend Dave got a penalty and they lost 1-0. The second game ended in a scoreless tie. The third game was scoreless until the final seconds. I found myself with the ball under the goal with only about 5 seconds left. I threw it up and missed. My friend and teammate Don got the “rebound” and put it up and in just as time expired, giving us an exciting buzzer beating win. As soon as it went in, he took off his seatbelt and jumped out of the car as we mobbed him at center court. It was not unlike the reaction of the Bulls the other night when Brad Miller hit an apparent game winning shot. The only difference was that Miller’s shot was overturned via replay.

For the last 2 games, they gave us a hard, hollow, plastic ball to use. This thing made all the difference in the world, we were actually able to make shots. And by we, I mean everybody else, because I still sucked. I think each team won one of the two games.

Afterwards we got something eat at the restaurant they had there. We sat down and ordered our food, placing orders for the appetizers and dinners at the same time. I also ordered a cherry Coke. The place was not very busy at all, but for some reason, it took an hour to get our food. And I don’t mean an hour to get the main course, but an hour to get everything, it all arrived at the same time. And to make matters even worse, the waiter didn’t even bring me my coke until the food came. We were all pretty pissed about the whole damn thing. Not only did the food not come for an hour, but the only time the waiter checked on us was when we saw him walking past another table and we called him over there. The service was horrible. I’ve always been a big tipper myself, but this was ri-damn-diculous. I think we tipped 5%. He was lucky to even get that. Fortunately the food was good.

After that we played shuffleboard. I know that is an old people game, but damnit it was fun. The only other time I played was on the Wii, and playing it in person was even more fun and exciting.

Last night I played in a poker game at a friends house. It was kind of a charity thing in which if you brought a couple of gifts for Toys for Tots you got extra chips. That didn’t help me, I still lost.

Today I got a new cellamaphone. I had my old phone for over 3 years so it was definitely time for a new one. I went with a phone with a keyboard because I don’t exactly have mad texting skills and the keyboard will make things way easier. At least, I hope it makes things easier. I haven’t made a call or sent a text with it yet; I’m letting it charge right now.

Why is it that every word that ends with the last 3 letters of ist is bad? There is racist, sexist, dentist. Ok, well maybe dentist isn’t really bad. Then again, how many people actually like dentists? I mean, I like my dentist and don’t mind going to him, but how many normal people like the dentist?

But usually when you add ist to the end of the word it means something bad. Except for Atheist. I think we should start a campaign to change the term Atheist to sound like something more……………nice. There are a lot of people who think Atheists are bad or evil and those of us who are Atheists know better. So maybe we can call ourselves something else, like nonbeliever or……………I dunno. Maybe something shorter than nonbeliever. Maybe something like free thinker. No, that still might be too long. Let’s see, what is the opposite of deity.

Ok, clearly I’m lacking in my knowledge of vocabulary. But, somebody should come up with another word. And somebody should know the opposite of deity.

I guess I should probably post a few pictures of me with glasses so you can see just how hideous I look with glasses.

Clearly you can see right here that the glasses forced me to do a vile thing in making an obscene gesture.

Look here, having glasses left me so depressed that I was unable to shave. Clearly the smile is photo shopped.

The glasses weighed so much, that they caused me to be dropped.

So clearly you can see that glasses were very bad for me. Of course, I am still in the early stages of still adjusting to contacts. I’m still not able to wear them for a full day. Each day I’m supposed to increase by an hour the wearing of the contacts. Saturday I started with wearing them for about 4  hours, Sunday 5 hours and so forth. I never realized until I got glasses just how dry the air is at my work, so I have been bringing eye drops to help keep my eyes moist. I go back to the eye doc next Tuesday. We’ll see how I’m doing then.