Updating my own damn blog

Well, that's the way it was put to my anyways.

Compared to calgary, this weekend was pretty tame. Friday I spent catching up on sleep. I had a two hour nap when I got back from class and that night I slept for 12H. It was quite the battle convincing myself to just go to bed as there is a desire to continue partying comming off the calgary trip, but knew it was necessary.

After quite the sleep, I felt like a delicious breakfast that morning. Upon examining what I had in the kitchen I decided that banana pancakes, bacon and eggs were in order. After a bit of breakfast magic I was chowing down on deliciousness. I finished off with a delicious coffee before starting some studying for a test I have on friday.

After about three hours of some semi-sucessful studying, I turned to making some a pot luck dish for a dinner I had been invited to later that night. Now I enjoy cooking but hate the amount of prep required for making some of the better dishes. Thus I picked a simple Jambalaya recipe that I came accross on the net.

It was a straight forward recipe and after about two and a half hours total, I had it ready. It was too hot to sample so I had to trust that I had made it properly. Turns out that it was in fact pretty good and thus for one day I was 'an extra-ordinary chef'.

After sprucing up I headed over to BPICgal's to rendez-vouz at which point we both left for the party. I was told I looked quite handsome which made me feel special.

The pot luck itself was pretty dissapointing. Nothing but salads and breads with the only main dish being mine at the time. Thus, my plate was mainly my jambalaya which turned out to be delicious. Thankfully, sometime later, some mini pizzas would show up and a lot later, some type of roast.

The party following that was pretty dismal. The promised bands did show up but it was a rather non-moving preformance aisde from the fact that the people there were all old and I didn't feel like talking to them. Thus my only alternative was to fire up the six beers I brought with J-Bun in an attempt to salvage what looked to be a failure in the making.

Thankfully, BPIC would show up a little later after returning from his boar hunting. Naturally he had a little magic in his pocket and a couple of us venutred upstairs to indulge in the magic show.

When we came back down there was some improv jams going on which was pretty cool. One guy had some pretty sick freestyles going on and one of BPIC's buds was pulling some mad notes on the drums. That went on for a little while until the 5-0 showed up with a nice fine for noise disturbance.

The party cooled off after that and J-Bun and I soon took off. We arrived back at the T-Bone palace for the end of the weekly beirut tourney. I kinda high and tired and wanted to go to bed but decided to be social and mingle.

Things were pretty normal until J-Bun got into a verbal scrap with Kickfiend. Under normal circumstances, he's a pretty cool guy but with likely 8-10 molsen kick's in him, things got slightly out of hand and ended with J-Bun getting slapped. At that point I stepped in and demanded an apology be made before things got too nutty. Thankfully the apology was quickly handed over and later a more meaningful apology was given to me. Molsen kick has been banned from tournies for this reason.

J-Bun and I retired after that figuring one slap was enough for the night. Once again, I slept pretty well.

Today has been mainly spent studying with a break for the gym. I got locked out again after forgetting my keys for the second time. That's life though.

Closing thoughts:
- Molsen Kick does strange things
- I've been told that a photo of BPIC and I giving each other a peck on the cheek is gay. The ladies seem to enjoy it though so I could care less.
- BPIC and BPICgal had some interest in me going out with a friend of their's (who hosted the potluck and party). There realy seems to be little in common between the two of us so I can't figure out why they thought it was a good idea.
- Pre-Drinking is a bad term. In theory this would be all the actions leading up to actual drinking if it was in fact pre-drinking. Thus it would be the warm up act of twisting caps and pouring drinks before they're consumed, right?
- I am a fantastic chef. Zouty Lagosy!
- Just close your eyes by Waterproof blonde is my song of the week

Waterproof Blonde - Just Clothes your eyes

Decieved by my eyes
in all I was told I should see
Opinions not mine
The person they taught me to be
One light in the dark
A vision of someone I knew
Then in the darkness
I saw a voice say I'm you

Inside me a light was turned on
Then I was alive

If you close your eyes
Your life, a naked truth revealed
Dreams you never lived and scars never heal
In the darkness light will take you to the other side
If I've been waiting there you'll see if you just close your eyes

Hearts uninspired
Trapped inside somebody's dream
Too close to the fire
Yet cold and so numb with the pain
The fever has broken
And the river has run to the sea
Washed to the ocean
And saved by your voice inside me

Inside me a light was turned on
then I was alive

If you close your eyes
your life a naked truth revealed
Dreams you never lived and scars never heal
In the darkness light will take you to the other side
If I've been waiting there you'll see if you just close your eyes

Never thought I would be here
So high in the air
this is my unanswered prayer
defined by another
so much wasted time
out of the darkness
each breath that I take will be mine

If you close your eyes
Your life, a naked truth revealed
Dreams you never lived and scars never heal
In the darkness light will take you to the other side
If I've been waiting there you'll see if you just close your eyes

If you just close your eyes

Too much

Well if I made one of my normal blog entries I think I could write a novel like BPIC. So I'm gonna resume the last few weeks in point form.

Sunday
I was very hungover and sad that the previous day had to end. I was also amazed at how much money I'd spent. A little too much. BPIC was over, we ate subs and watched Jay and Silent Bob strikes back. After that he left, I updated my website with semi pics and then went to bed and passed out.

Monday
Realized I was heading home the next day and thus had to pack for calgary or else I'd have nothing to take. Laundry was finished at which point we celebrated Keeves's B-day. That was messy. McM and the rest demolished alcohol. There was a 19 year old here who kept ranting about how good Donny Darko was. It's a good movie but not at a party. Oh well.

Tuesday
Went home and played video games and forgot to pick my sister up from the train station. Whoops!

Wednesday
Realized I needed to get stuff done instead of just playing video games. Cleaned up the house a little, went to the gym, did some groceries, made some delicious dinner. Thumper, BPIC and J-Bun (Previously action Gal) arrived and we chatted about how awesome Calgary was gonna be. No one wanted to sleep.

Thursday
Everyone wanted to sleep when it was time to hit the airport. So after some violent bed shaking, we were on our way to calgary. Plane ride was cramped and they served cardboard waffles but we were on our way to calgary!!! We arrived, tried to nap but that didn't work so we went and saw sin city which was messed up. Jessica Alba is hot though. Got back and went to train after being up for 20+ hours. That wasn't very pretty. Quickest grading ever followed that at a record 15 minutes. Went to the bar and I fell asleep in the comfy chair. Met EnglishMutt there who put us up at his place which was nice of him.

Friday
Went to Lake Louise for the day which was awesome. We threw timbits during the car ride there, took a trail down lake louise, bought some delicious citrus water, had dinner at the Keg and then threw muffins at the other car on the way back because we were out of timbits. Had a pint that night when we returned and turned in a little early to conserve energy for the next day.

Saturday
Course and a grading = tired T-Bone. It also means time to party like it was 1999! We were introduced to Peter's Drive-In that day which is a wickedly sweet venue. They have 32 or so flavours of Shakes amongst other items. I got a Root Beer shake, double cheeseburger and a chesse dog. It was delicious. Jfashion decided to get a large fry which was nutty because the serving size turned out to be the size of an adult head. No joke. Four of us couldn't put a dent in it. After failing that mission, we went to EnglishMutt's to shower and then we were off to Molly Mallone's. In summary, I had many pints of guinness, did many foolish things and made google eyes with a mini Britney Spears. I can't believe a hot girl was attracted to me. These things don't usually happen.

Sunday
Ugghhhhhh. Hungover training. The course was cut short because people were falling over. Everyone was dead tired. Naturally, I was dumb and went to the very end. After the course, we once again hit Peter's Drive-In as J-Bun wanted milkshakes and no one objected. After milksahkes, I think we napped but it was a blur at this point as fatigue had set in. That night we went to ScrewDriver Bill's/Corkscrew Bibs/BottleScrew Bill's. I don't acutally know what the real name is to this day. Drank a little, got slapped by a Shodan and then drank more. I wanted to go dancing but we decided to get nachos instead at EnglishMutt's. After two rounds of Nachos and burning some some wrapped greenish plant it was 4am and time to pass out.

Monday
Next morning it was time to pack and say goodbye to the nice folk who had hosted us. After having some food we concluded out trip with some shopping and then headed for the airport. I tried to lighten the sad atmosphere by saying that 'I was sad' over and over again but it was still sad.

Tuesday
Got home at 4am, slept and made it to 2/4 classes. Posted photos Calgary on my website, did some laundry and slept. Write-off day to catch up on sleep basically.

Wednesday
Saw Hook with J-Bun and BPIC to ease the Calgary withdrawl. We ate some delicious cake.

Thursday and Friday
Finished a final copy of the slideshow and caught up on sleep. Gonna run later.

Concluding thoughts:
- I want to be back in Calgary. Thanks to everyone who covered my fare so I could be part of this.
- I can't believe a hot girl flirted with me. That dosn't make any sense at all. Must be calgary water.
- Finally done the slideshow
- I am still very privilleged to have met so many wonderful and considerate people
- Website: zouty.recurse.org

The Semi!

What an awesome day this turned out to be.

I awoke that morning to buy items for the breakfast I was suppose to hold but it turns out that most people were partying until six in the morning and thus would not end up making it. A couple stragglers, including a ridiculously hungover Jumpy would arrive. Things were pretty chill until rock climbing as we just chilled on the porch and chatted away in the warm sun.

The two thirty meeting time for rock climbing rolled around and about half the individuals who said that they were attending showed up on time. I was not suprised by this at all as no one is ever prompt in the club. That's just life though.

After making a few telephone calls, most items got straightened out. One individual decided to just not show up. I'll include a note here that if you want to know the best way to piss me off, then you should know that easiest way to do that is to say you're going to do something and then not do so without any explanation or apology. It's the rudest thing you could possibly do.

Thankfully the day progressed up from there and that was the only thing that would get me pissed. Rock climbing was a blast, I mingled, I climbed, I mingled more and snapped some hilariously funny photos. I had to do a little time shuffling since we started a little later but that was pretty easy.

Slideshow came next and as people trickled into the T-Bone Palace, I knew that this was gonna be exactly as I wanted it to be. My goal was to pay tribute to everyone who had played a role in my Jitsu run and I think when everyone saw the slideshow, they were content as everyone understood what I wanted to say in that we'd been part of something special.

Since we were a little past due on the clock, we didn't have too much reflection time to look at the photos and remember the awesome times but it was okay because we were on our way to make more.

Dinner was awesome. Just awesome. Food was awesome. The awards were awesome. The Bus was awesome for putting such a lavish meal together for everyone. I could not stop eating the delciousness. The theme was egyptian and there was everything from baba ganoush (sp?) to lamb kabobs. Magnificent.

From there we hit the palace again for some pre grizz drinks and then were off to the dance floor. As soon as we got there, we were into our shot stylings with a good ol prarie fire. It was crazilily strong and set my face on fire but it was okay since it was a good burn. Following that came the dancing in the extremely hot dance area. At this point something awesome happend that should have happend a long time ago.

Now I had not spoken of this on the blog because I don't like to harp on the bad but Fish and I had not spoken for almost three weeks. Even at large socials, snickery glances would go back and forth and that would be the extent of things between us. While on the dancefloor, my bladder decided it was washroom time. On the way there, I noticed another pack of us were on the way to the dance floor including Fish with the look that had become all too custom.

Within about thirty seconds, I decided it was time to quit acting like a hipster doofus and deal with things like a big boy would. So I went to the bar and got her one of her favourite drinks. After spilling half of it while trying to get back to the dance floor I would finally get back and offer it to her as a peace offering. Intially extending my hand, I'm sure she questioned whether I was aiming towards her but would confirm things by swiftly kicking her in the ass and affirming it. And thus, at least for the night, things were gonna be okay.

The dancing was awesome with the DJ playing some good oldies. I managed to get two requests in and they were both played which was amazing. When I tried for a third, I was notified that it was time for the last dance. I wasn't quite sure how time had flown by but while the chimes of 'One' began to play, I knew there were only two girls who I wanted to be dancing with.

For once, Sparxx never crossed my mind which was good and bad. Good in that I wouldn't be wasting time anymore but bad in that it was sad that such sincere feelings had turned to nothing.

But with the fitting lyric 'Is it getting better, or do you feel the same?' I knew which of the two I needed to be holding at the time. Thus I quickly apologized to ActionGal, who would warmly say 'you're right' and latched onto Fish. Things made sense then and in going with fate that night I whispered 'that it was time to fix things' and it is. It was good to be on the right path overall that night.

The rest of the night would find us back at my place, sipping on Scotch and other drinks until the sun came up. It was the end to a day that will forever stay in my heart and was a fitting way for T-Bone to exit the club. No sadness, no tears, just smiles.

A long overdue post

According to my log, the last time I posted was after the Queen's grading and even that was very short. Thus for brevities sake I'm just going to resume the event between then and friday.

-Fuckin exams!!!!!
-Slideshow came along well and was a treat (I think) to those who watched it
-24 rocked the house. Jack killed 40 or more people. One person he 'stabbed in the heart'.
-Feast a Mania came and went but much like Batista overcame Triple H, the Batista Burger was just that much better than cerebral assassin pate.
-Overall wrestlemania was a treat

When exams were said and done, I was definately gald to walk away from them. I had no motivation in the last one and unfortunately it showed. The rest of them all went pretty well thankfully. Overall though I was just glad to be done.

When I got home I immediately proceeded to do all the things that get left behind. The washroom was throughly cleaned and once that was done, I cleaned myself up with a shave, shower and haircut (not on my own, at the salon). That took me to about 5 ish at which point to overall fatigue of the last week had set in. At that point I just sat in my chair and vegitated for about 30 mins and watched wrestlemania again. From there I attempted to finalize numbers for dinner and climbing for the Semi-Formal.

Next came the session which was my last at Queen's. I was super exhausted at his point so naturally I got a good warmup going with lots of breakfalling and thankfully it did the trick and woke me up. The session itself was good with an intro for Action Gal into the kamikazi ways of Jitsu teaching. In the end, it was a nice farewell as a member of the Queen's Club as next year I'll just be a guest. It wasn't as emotional as I thought it would be, mainly because I was pretty beat.

From there, I attempted to socialize as much as my body would let me. The X-ray folk were participating in an unofficial pub crawl so I joined them at the Brass where they had a shot and then moved on towards MyBar. I got kind of excited at this point and started buying people drinks and in about thirty minutes I had laid down about $50 dollars of which $7 or so were spent on me. It's a good thing I don't make a habit out of this. Its also good that shots were cheap as a fuck at MyBar, otherwise I might have done something more foolish.

The X-ray folk decided that they were heading to the Toucan (which is downtown) and so I decided to leave at this point and head over to Jumpy's who was holding the last party ever at his house. When I got there, there were a fair amount of people there which is how I enjoy it as it is condusive to socializing. I talked to a few about their attendence at the Semi and chastized those who gave me the wrong answer. At about 1 am, the dancing picked up. I made a critical judgement that I needed sleep if I was going to enjoy the Semi-Formal the next day and cut out here. Sometimes I wish I had unlimited stamina and could do everything as long as I wanted but unfortunately and confined to the laws of man. I think I passed out as soon as I hit the bed and didn't wake up until the next day...

... which was the Semi-Formal!!!

Frekin Exams

Alright, so exams are pissing me off. I can't even write a good entry to entail how happy I was about the grading. The only thing I can say is that in summary I am very proud overall to have been part of the grading (even as an uke) and moreso about the fine candidates that recieved their belts. Congrats all.

I've posted some pictures from the social afterwards with blogger and picasa. I don't like this format. Tell me if you like it.

Weeeeeee! 

Brand new pretty belts! 

Cheers! - Part 1 

Delicious!

Cheers! - Part 2 

Cheers! - Part 3 

Arm wrestling again! 

The wounded Joanna! 

And Happy About it! 

Yes please! 

Three handome gents 

Our role model 

A few sexy folk 

Just that photogenic 

Hulkamania will live forever

This Saturday, leading into the greatest extravaganza in sports entertainment, will mark the date that the Hulkster will be inducted into the WWE hall of fame,

Surely, everyone in some way or another knew of Hulk Hogan and no one will ever forger the his "commandments" to train hard, eat your vitamins, say your prayers and the fourth, to believe in yourself.

To commorate this event, I am posting the harder to find version of Hulk's theme before it was even his. Enjoy while remembering that the true power lies in the 24 inch pythons and that Hulkamania will live forever.

The second weekend home

After, about a five hour ride home, I arrived to a nice little Wendy's dinner but lots of noise as family was over from New York. Now, for those who havn't heard my stories, my family is ghetto and things tend to get loud when everyone gets together. This was no exception. I managed to be okay with it though as I had my delicious Wendy's and would only have to put up with it for a few days.

The next day was filled with lots of cleaning and preparing for a church ceremony for my grandmother the next day. I tried to study but gave up on that after thirty minutes based on all the noise and pieces of work that needed to be done. I had also downloaded Knights of the Republic 2 which also kept me busy. That was my friday. I was awoken that night pretty spontaineously as more family showed up and it was decided that I was losing my bed. That was great.... nope. To top that, my second bed option was a not so comfortable two seater love seat. How nice.

I awoke the next day to more excessive noise from the kitchen as people got things ready for church. I felt terrible as not only did I sleep poorly but was feeling the effects of the vegeterian diet.

During religious occasions, no meat/eggs is allowed to be cooked or eaten in the house. Who knows why? It seems pretty non-sensical to me. But I follow anyways at the request of my mother. I wasn't aware that this was going to be the rule as no one told me and was not sufficiently prepared (with protein bars/beans/iron suppliments) so I had nothing.

From there we all suited up and went to church. Initially, as with most church visits, I wasn't in the mood to be there but as time passed, I saw how much my grandmother was enjoying it as well as having all her family there and started to enjoy it myself.

The pandit also went into some of the scripture translation which is nice because he takes hindi translations which mean nothing to me and translates them in english for everyone. Overall its a nice reminder of the positive ways to live life and the simplicities in life which we all take for granted.

Church ended an we all came home. I played some more Knights of the Republic while the family mingled in their usual manner. Later that night, a few of us younger folk sneaked out to Denny's to get some good ol Vitamin M in us. Instant satisfaction.

This morning (sunday) some of my mom's sisters left back to New York. I was sad to see them go because I know my grandmother enjoy's having here daughters around and part of the fun (which she rarely gets to have) was gone. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

Monday to Thursday

Nothing much to report here. I spent those four days catching up on sleep and studying my ass off for a test and case study on thursday as well as a little bit of Jitsu teaching. Thankfully everything went pretty well which is good. At that point it was time for another trip home to celebrate my grandmother's b-day.

Sunday - Griswold mission

At about 4 in the morning, I awoke to my cell phone ringing. It must have been ringing a while because the battery almost went dead. I did eventually wake up to answer and was McM to say that his parents flight had been pushed from arriving at 6:09 to 2:47. I thought that was pretty sweet which meant I could sleep in a bit more. However I was wrong. My dad showed up twice to wake me up at 4:30 and 5:00 to wake me up thinking their flight was still arriving at 6:09. Grrrrrrr. I think those lost two hours were the nice restful kind where you get your good sleep because I could feel the 'blah' the next day.

I got to the Airport early to make sure I was there on time and take into consideration idiot time because I'm an idiot when it comes to following directions properly. Somehow, my idiot reflexes went away as I found the arrival deck pretty quickly. However, we didn't quite leave at that point.

Turns out they'd been put through hell the previous night which had caused the flight delay and Mr. K wanted to file a complaint which was warrented. However, during his complaint time I had to listen to Mrs. K about every minute of their ordeal. Don't get me wrong in that I felt bad for them, but I didn't need a detailed novel about every last second from last night to their arrival. Everyone goes through rough times, but my view is that you should suck it up unless you're asked about it. Thankfully, Mr. K called her in to give a report with the Air Canada supervisor.

After that I went to pick up the van, bring it around and get the Griswold's all packed up. The ride back was the opposite of the ride down for the initial half. I had to turn down the music volume to less that a whisper, McM's sister complain about the hot and then cold fluctuations and then a never ending dinner debate. Eventually Mr.K, being the stand up guy that he is, put his foot down and decided on a little diner off the highway. From there things went a bit smoother. Everyone fell asleep and I was able to turn the music up a little to pass the time.

We arrived back to K-town at about 9pm if my memory serves me correctly and at that point I was done. McM showed up and after a little bit of social exchange with the familia about their trip, we were on our way back to downtown home. I was definately glad to be home. I had a shower and just sat down for what I thought was to be a little downtime. Nope!

Naturally as soon as I get home, everyone decides that they want to get into discussions about the state of affairs of our relationships. I got a little snickity after the crazyness of the day aside form the fact that it seemed to be the same argument I always have with both parties. Needless to say, I wasn't in the mood for it at the time and just shot back as oppose to playing the peacekeeper, which I often do.

From on trip home to another

Well its been one long blur week. Strange thing is that it realy involved no alcohol or distortion causing substances (like Nyquil which will knock you out). Upon waking up last saturday I found myself sufficiently refreshed to make a drive home. I proceeded to get a few things in order to head home for the day and settle up for breakfast. I was too lazy to actually string anything together in the mess that laid remaining from the beiruit invitational, so I decided to end my McDonalds abstinance and just get breakfast there. Matty McMatt was MIA until I got to McDonalds at which point he called and I decided to delay my trip by thirty minutes or so to see if he was in any functional capacity (He has tendency to eat at the Golden King when he's drunk and hate himself the next day). Thankfully there was no golden king but he didn't look like he was in the best shape. Thus I made sure he had some water and then put on Anchorman so he could laugh his way through the pain.

The drive home was pretty relaxing. The three hours just flew by as I had the Phantom OST and Amanda Marshall playin'. No one was present when I got home, so I decided to go shopping at Future Shop. This wasn't one of the best judgements I had made, as it turned into a $150 dollar DVD binge. I was only planning on getting Anchorman, but then saw the Ric Flair DVD set as well as the Eddy Guererro DVD set at FutureShop. In the back of my mind, I said to myself that I realy couldn't get all three. But somewhere else it said shut up and just buy. Thus I did. However, it didn't end there. The same part that said shut up said that I needed the Chris Benoit DVD so I ventured to Best Buy (accross the street) too see if they had it. They did and thus after the hour I had four dvd sets which totalled $150. Man, I have expensive birthday habbits.

Someone was home when I tried again which thankfully ended my birthday shopping. FOr the next little bit, I took care of small items like T4 slips and reading old mail I'd picked up from 94 Division. Turns out there was a $80 cheque there with vacation pay from the now defunct Allie Lou's. Sweet!

My parents, my sister, her boyfriend and myself all went out for dinner at that point. We tried a place called Baton Rouge but it was quite busy so we settled on AppleBee's. I had a Mesquite Steak which was very delicious. I also had an Apple Crisp which was also delicious. I was pretty stuffed at that point. When I got home I just lay there for a little while and went to bed early since I had to pick up the Kirkey's from the Airport in the morning. Then came the next day...

Friday - Not so Much

In retrospect Friday wasn't that eventful but it seemed long since I was a damaged unit. I woke up at 930 determined to make my last two classes. Thankfully at that point one of my classmates came online just as I was leaving letting me know that classes had been cancelled. That was the best news I'd recieved that morning and at that point I curled up into my bed in the fetal position and faded from time and space until about one in the afternoon.

Until Jitsu, I didn't do very much. I tried to get whatever food and liquid I could into me since there was the pre-grading that night but my stomach was on strike from the night before. I did manage to get some spaghetti down and had a delicious salad. Naturally, I was watching Anchorman special features in all of this. Such a brilliant movie.

Pre-grading rolled around and by the end of break falling I was ready to die. Thankfully there was some matsu (meditation break) where I regained control over my stomach and sucked it up for the rest of the event.

Afterwards, there was another dual party event which I needed to attend. At my place, the Beiruit invitational was being held and at Jumpy's he was holding that last party ever at his house. The latter was also a celebration for ActionGal's b-day. It was quite the struggle gettnig away from the Beiruit invitational as everyone was still wishing me a happy birthday and asking about how my night was.

Eventually, I made it to Jumpy's place along with Thumper, acquired some delicious food at A and P and settled into the night there. I brought a few beers but they all went down pretty slowly as my stomach had now gone on strike for both thursday night and a pre-grading. I still managed to have a few quality conversations with a few individuals who I hadn't seen in a while so the night still had its ups. Though, it seemed like I was chasing my new hat down for the duration of the night. It got more attention than I did. I'm gonna have to start taking a fee for renting that thing out.

Though I didn't want to leave Jumpy's, I still had to make it back to the Beiruit invitational and thus left at about 130am. Upon arriving home, I did a bit of socializing before my body decided to shut down and resolve the strike. Sometimes I wish I had unlimited stamina.

Then there's the weekend...

On a bit of an aside, I am now recruiting legions for the Z-unit army. So far there is:
Me - Two Quarter
Thumper - ThumpDaddy
Jumpy - StuDiddy

The deal since thursday

The last couple of days have been busy to say the least.

Thursday
I last left of with a statement that we were approaching the Zoutival and it promised to be a helluva good time. Needless to say Zout made good on that promise. After staying in class to finish an assignment til about 3 pm, I headed home with dreams of making it to the gym, showering and heading out to Alfie's for a Pint and their showing of the U2 concert. None of that realy happend other than the shower part (thankfully) as I just vegged for about 2 hours talking to people who had messaged me to wish me a happy birthday. After the shower though, McM and Overcast took me out to dinner at Stooley's. I had a T-U-Wanna burger which was fantastic as well as a caesar salad. Because I took so long to shower and pretty myself, we were slightly running behind the time people were invited to come over. Needless to say, a few phone calls were recieved in regards to where we were. Our excuse is that there was a five minute problem with the door which required us to use a Trident. A fitting excuse.

At about 8pm, things got underway. The beiruit table was erected and Anchorman was slipped into the DVD player. Between a little "That's two Bitches!" and "Heyo!" a few drinks were consumed. At about 1030ish, Actiongal, BPIC and gal, showed up with guiness and muffins. An unbeatable combination. As the night progressed, people got drunker, I ended up smoking some type of plant covered wrapping and McM got himself into a verbal confrontation (which didn't go over well). Thus as we proceeded to the Peel Pub, he stayed home. I've since come to understand that both parties went at it and pushed each others buttons so I've concluded both were in the wrong. At the bar, I skulled a guiness, took a few random shots down and got yelled at by an off duty server for drunkenly going through jackets (on a pool table) when someone had come by earlier looking for a lost digital camera. I guess I figured I was Jacques Cousteau and could dive deep enough to find something lost.

After heading home (with some help) I proceeded to puke my gusts out about three times with the last round having a bonus tumble on my way to the washroom. By this time I knew I was in for a rough morning.

Friday to follow.

"On a day like today, you never want to see the sun go down"

Ezekiel 25:17: 'The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides with the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon those with great vengeance and with furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know that my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.'

A bible passage from me? Strange I know but it seems quite appropriate on my birthday. Aside from that, I'm stealing this from pulp fiction, so don't look for me to start dishing out bible versus like a bible Thumper.

I woke up this morning in quite the joyous of moods. Obviously it was my b-day and I was going to be treated like the Papa Zout, but what slowly set in is how many people take the time to remember you on days when you'd think you were the last person on their mind. Within about half an hour of walking up, I recieved about a half dozen or so b-day wishes, some from people I didn't expect to hear from at all all with a little something personal to say. I would have like to have stayed and talked (MSN) to all of them but needed to be off to school. Needless to say I was happy to hear a kind word.

And so, it just played in my head over and over again that I'm a pretty fortunate guy to be in the position I'm in. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the finest individuals and aside from that, know that they would hold me close to them. Now, don't misunderstand and think that I think lowly of myself because that's not the case. My point is simply that all you can ever leave in this world is a smile on people's faces and warm spot of people's heart. Everyone messaging me today is almost a reminder of how many places you've done that and no matter how many times you mess up, say something dumb or just make a fool of yourself, they're still willing to look at you with the same fondness.

Those close people are the ones who sheppard me through life and they're is nothing more special than that. It is the single most important thing that you can get in life and it's nice to to have so much of it in my life. To those, who on a regular basis, greet me with a smile and shake my hand, I'd like to say thank you for without you I wouldn't be the man I am today.

So, I suppose I'd leave off by saying that gifts are always welcome. I love money. I love beer. I love kisses. They're all good on my terms. But you can't outdo what you've already done and that is believe in you're average brown man on his journey called life.

"You stay classy Planet Earth"

It's almost time for a Zoutival

Things are going my way which is wicked sweet. McM made a fantastic meal last night. The dish itself was a pork casserole but the ingredients must have been magic because the meal was delicious.

On the way to class this morning, I found five dollars sitting on the sidewalk. I picked it up and looked around to see if anyone had dropped it but there were likely 30 or so people around so I figured I'd keep it seeing as though I couldn't interview every person. I felt slightly bad that I was just pocketing the money but in a fitting twist, there was a cover your crest about one bock down and decided to donate the money to them. I figured whoever lost it would rather see the money go to a good cause then a beer in my hand.

But, the even better news Ladies and Gentlemen, is that Zoutival is almost upon us and promises to be a hipla and possible even a hoopla. Events will likely include a pre beer at some bar at about 5ish. At this point I will likely be returning home to dinner it up and spruce myself for the Zoutival.

Then it's beiruit time at about 8ish. Hitting a bar at perhaps 11ish then ritzing the dance floor after the bar. It's gonna be a smashing good time.

Happy St. Zouty's Day!

"Look to the sky, its written in the stars"

Quite the simple and nice line. Anyone who manages to name the song it's from will earn Zouty points from Papa Zout.

Today has been mainly filled with a lot of fun filled work since I did a whole lot of nothing yesterday but work on the music video (which you've hopefully watched). Got an assignment done and am studying for a test tommorrow. Boo to tests.

The good part is that after tommorrow it's clear sailing until Thursday B-day Thursday! I'm pretty excited about it as it is gonna good times full of Anchorman quotes and insane hijinks. The attendee list so far is:

-Myself (Papa Zout)
-McM
-Mosie
-BPIC
-BPICgirl
-Jumpy
-ActionGal
-(Your name here. It could be you)

A nice little rounded group which is just what the doctor ordered. I do believe the tentative schedule will be something in the lines of starting at the 439, moving to a Bar for some green beers and then possibly hitting some form of dance establishment. We will have to see. Either way, I'm looking forward to it.

Playing Catchup

This weekend was suppose to be a huge party weekend but instead of doing this I decided to be responsible and catch up on work and sleep. The day started off pretty well with a fair amount of sleeping in and a good breakfast but, as you may gather from my tone, went downhill after that.

While sorting through my notes and piecing together what I needed to do today, I decided to briefly see what kind of footage I got from the sponsored throw last night. As I was going through this, I had some pretty upbeat music going and the next thing I knew I had spent three or four hours working on a sponsored throw music video.

Thus, for the benefit of those who love jitsu and those who have no clue what jitsu looks like, I present the T-Bone sponsored throw music video for 2005:

Sponsored throw video 2005

Score one more for me

I'm not sure why I picked that title. Just a line in a John Mayer song which happend to play.

Sunday was another full filled jitsu day which I cursed myself every moment for drinking my face off, getting five hours of sleep and only having a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I'm definately glad High Cheif decided to take it easy on us sunday.

The day closed off with a little bit of movie and brownie action and BPIC's place. I found out that if you layer brownies to thickly it won't cook as fast and thus shouldn't use a cake pan. Thus it was decided to take mouthfuls of brownie batter and nuke it in the microwave. It was a very interesting little concocktion. Tasty but hot as well. We'll have to do it several more times.

Monday I found out that the test after my b-day was cancelled which was awesome! Something else happend that day which was awesome but I can't remember.

Tuesday was one hell of a day. Me and Fish finally had it out and though the outcome wasn't the ideal way to leave things, it was better than when we started. While walking to class on wednesday, an old HBK line kept ringing in my ears when he said "I've done what I had to do, but lost what I need to have". When dealing with Sparxx I'd put up with a lot of nonsense because I never realy considered myself that much. This time I actually put myself first. I was upset at the way things transpired and held my place regardless of what was put my way. Unfortunately, I think that sweet subtle gentleness that we had was lost. Though I havn't ruled it gone, just on vacation.

This one was tangled, simply put. There was no easy piece of reason to solve this and I know because I searched pretty hard. I'm not a fan of this because I've always contended that their should be easy answers or perhaps I'm not a fan because the easy answer is not one I'm willing to accept. Either way, its ripping a hole in my right now. Time hopefully holds an answer.

It's a week until my b-day and I get the feeling it's gonna be off the hook. It's thursday, it's St. Patty's Day and there is no test the next day. Sweet! Until then, I head to the gym to clear my head as its my one sanctuary aside from Jitsu.

Lesson to learn... go to the gym.

Saturday!

I can only begin by saying that saturday could quite easily be one of the best days of my life. I knew that it was gonna be one of those weekends that stand out based on the fact that all my friends were in town but never in my wildest dreams would I imagine what awaited me.

I awoke saturday morning at about 9ish thinking that I had to get to the course. Upon making the realization that the course was in our hometown this time (and wouldn't have to drive two hours to another town) I could sleep in. However, my sleeping in was brought to an abrubt halt when I heard a pounding on my door about 30 mins later. It turned out to be Je-Pat who came to our house to poop and use the shower. He was suppose to stay over friday night and was entitled to this so it was alright by me.

I decided since I was up, I might as well get a start on the day and my first task was decided for me based on the absolute disaster zone that my family room had become. There was beer spilt everywhere, bottles all over the place and ice melting on the kitchen floor. Since I knew McM would likely be out cold for a while I decided to give him a hand and clean up the funk. Three 24s later and a whole role of paper towel, the house was partially clean. It's as much as I could do before my tummy called for breakfast. After a bowl of cereal and an orange I started to pack the Gi and get ready for the five hour mash-a-thon.

It was then that I got a call to go to Morrison's for breakfast. I thought to myself that a second breakfast would be fine since the course was an hour or so away. I ordered quite the meal and even though it was full, I was fine and dandy when the course actually rolled around. Man, it was one helluva good time and crazy whooping. I suppose the only downside was that two people got hurt.

I arrived home to shower and clean myself up and make myself pretty for the bar. After getting a call from Mosie about tentative plans for the night, Thumper and I took off for the bar. Upon getting to the bar, I realized I had no money in my wallet and thus needed to head to the banking machine. After convincing Jumpy to head to a bank machine with me, I was on my way. What was awaiting me completely unreal. There was only one of three machines in operation and the man at the machine was some old piss drunk codger (who I think pissed himself) passing out on the machine complaining that the machine screwed him of his money. Just my gawd damn luck! After waiting there for about 15 minutes, one of his more sober friends came by to help him finish his transaction and be on his way. I was ready to shoot someone at this point so thankfully he finished.

After finally arriving at the bar, I sat down to have a delicous Steak dinner which was off the charts. Apparently the chef didn't believe in pre cut steaks so he cuts them fresh of the shank when they're ordered and the deliciuosness was quite evident. Upon finishing dinner I decided to cut into the drinks and start socializing. What happend next would be something I'd never forget for the rest of my life.

I was sitting chatting with Robden and his gal when I was called over by BPIC to a table where Thumper was sitting with High Chief. While walking over I was thinking to myself that they were probably just going to ask me if I was going to teach BPIC's club while they were in calgary. As I sat down, High Chief gave me one of his sinister smiles which always says "You're gonna love this." At this point I was almost certain that they were going to ask me to teach. However, the conversation went as such:

High Chief: (Laughs)
Thumper: T-Bone! What are you doing the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th?
Myself: Nothing much, why?
Thumper: Well there is a calgary trip as you know and we think you should come.

Thinking this was a way to get out of the montreal trip I fired back:

Myself: Oh no. You're not getting out of montreal that easy. And I've already told you that I can't come to Calgary on account of finances. So you're comming to Montreal!

Thumper: (Pause and look at High Chief) Well... what if I said the expenses of the flight were covered?

Myself: (Pause) (Blink) (Pause) Oh no. I can't let you do that. I might have called you a doo doo head and kindergarden baby, but only wanted you to come to montreal, not this. No way.

Thumper: Well, you're too late as it already been done. BPIC booked the ticket last night.

Myself: (Long Pause)

Thumper: So needless to say now I can't afford to come to montreal. And besides, it wouldn't be the same without you.

I realy couldn't form any more words at that point. No one, save for my parents, had ever done anything that nice for me in my entire life. I was just a stunned bunny at that point. [I will add here, that I love the three of you for putting this together for me. Nothing could mean more to me than to take money out of your pocket, just to have me there. Thank you].

After hugging everyone for a solid two or three minutes, I proceeded back to socialize. I was having trouble gaining my composure for a good half and hour though. Eventually I would get it back and proceed to celebrate with the b-day boy. A shot here, a car bomb there and I was on my way.

I awaited for my university buddies to get in touch with me for about an hour or so but would never get that call. Thus it was time to take matters into my own hands. I decided to go to one of the possible mentioned destinations, the elixer, at about 1 am. Thankfully I ran into an acquaintance who knew most of my friends and thus confirmed that I was in the right spot. I paid my $5, chastized Mosie for not calling me and then proceeded to dance it up. It might entertain you to know that someone tried to pick a fight with me because I wouldn't let him randomly dance with one girl who was hanging out with the crowd. However, I managed to avoid that situation. The night winded down with us heading out leaving Mosie to hang out with DQ5000 which was a fitting punishment for not calling. [I don't like DQ5000 because she has done nothing but be a bitch to my best friend and ate pizza that I bought for her only to insult me after without thanking me. I wish I had more phone books].

The night concluded with some of us heading to Denny's for some dessert. It was a good time overall but everyone was falling asleep. I couldn't figure out how these people, who hadn't gone through a hellish five hour course, were tired. Perhaps it was because I was drunk. Je-Pat fell asleep on me after having his dessert so I ended up paying for him. All is well that ends well. I got home that night at about 430 only to realized that I had to be up for 9 am to train again. How wonderful.

As you can see, it was a pretty zanny day.

The end to an awesome weekend

This past weekend was one of the best and most eventful weekends I've had in my entire life. Thus, I'm going to make this a multi-part blog entry chronicalling each day from friday to sunday.

Friday:
Friday morning started off in the normal manner with school and what not. Pretty mundane stuff as per usual. We had a test that morning that went realy well and got 95% percent on. From there on in, I completely zoned out til I got back home. From there I decided to send Thumper another e-mail to see if I could pursuade him to come to montreal.

This was the second in a line where the subject was that "The T-Bone guy is spreading rumours about you". The first rumour was that T-Bone was going to attempt to guilt Thumper into comming to Montreal by reminding him it was T-Bone's b-day and that it would be his last Road Trip with the Queen's club. This second (and more hilarious) one was that T-Bone was being even worse and threatening to call him a 'doo-doo head' and 'kindergarden baby' if he did not come. The e-mails were half in jest and half serious. I selfishly wanted him to come to Montreal but not at any personal expense and think that the e-mails said that well. I think he realized that and it came into play later.

The rest of the day was spent trying to get work done since none would get done during the week. This worked for two hours at which point my brain shut down and asked for a break. This worked out well as the furnace repairman came by to fix what we thought at the time was a broken furnace. He came in, went downstairs and proceeded to start his diagnosis. The first thing that came out of his mouth was "wow!" which made me say "hu-what?". Apparently, out furnace is so old that it didn't even have a time stamp but instead a model number which told him that our machine was from 1968!!!!!!!!

He then proceeded to further tell me that there were a whole bunch of things wrong with it (busted heat exchanger, crippled motor, worn out belt) and that all this stuff was causing carbon monoxide emission! Carbon Monoxide?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Great Oden's Raven! Thus, I was told that the gas needed to be shut off immediately and the furnace needed to be replaced (because they can't get parts from 1968). Thus I needed to call in McM, so he could call in his parents to handle the situation (they own the house). He arrived home, got the synopsis and proceeded to call his parents, who were on vacation in Mexico. Now up until this point, we'd had a borken furnace, and $85 service fee and needed to get space heaters to warm the house. After speaking with McM's dad, the fee was waived, we had a new furnace and the sales representative was going to stop by and bring us space heaters. Amazing!!! No other could take care of things that well and that fast. Too bad we've had to run space heaters for five days. Ughhhhhh.

Thumper, BPIC and I arrived before the session early as it was Anders b-day and we wanted to pick out some good throws to thump him with. Upon meeting with them, I told BPIC about the e-mails and he laughed. When Thumper walked in, he asked him if he'd heard 'what that T-Bone guy had been saying?' to which Thumper answered in jest that he'd lay him out if he found out it was true. We all laughed.

Three hour session rolled by and we thumped Anders good. You can view the video on my website. After the session I had a chance to talk to Thumper about the likelyhood of him comming to Montreal and he said if he was going to Calgary he realy couldn't make it due to many commitments which was fair. I was slightly bummed but figured it was only one trip. From there I rolled home as McM said our buddies were stopping by later that night. After struggling to make Dinner and have a shower (because I was tired), I joined into the festivites with RA and McM. We watched our bible, Anchorman and jested for a few. Our buddies eventually came by for all of 10 mins before going to the Nog. I would have gone but didn't want to spend money and needed sleep before a weekend course and thus I retired. However, we did make plans for saturday night. A saturday that would turn out to be even wackier than friday.

This is ridiculous!

For the past two weekends I've realy had nothing to do except school work as nothing seemed to be happening. Then all of a sudden comes this weekend where I can easily forecast that there won't be enough time to fit all plans into. Provincials are comming up and since this will be the last one I'll be attending as a member of the Queen's Club (since I'm in Cornhole next year) and thus was gonna kick back and let it all fly. Now I must say, Provincials are usually quite the event. Five hours of training on the saturday and four on the sunday not to mention a giant social. Thus, even though it's a blast and worthwhile, the weekend is shot.

Two days ago, I found out that about a dozen or so of my buddies from the university run were comming down on saturday, a couple of which are the type of people you smile just being around. I should also add that some folk, I havn't seen since we graduated last year april which is almost a good year ago. Conflict of interest!!!!

I'm at a crossroads where my heart screams to hang out with both groups but knows there's only so much time in the day. The only thing that I have on my side is that Provincials are in Kingston so I might be able to jump around like a Mexican jumping bean.

"What do I do? This is HARD!!!!"

Other random thoughts:
- t - 13 days
- Montreal in a week and I still need a contingency plan to get Thumper and Baby Bear to come
- Damn Test every week
- There's not enough time in the day to study
- It's almost been a month since I was made to feel worthless, but am past it now
- I have to go to the gym, then toucan and still have time to study
- Good thing OC is a re-run.

Wow, there are a lot of things in there. What's on your brain?

My Integirty Test Said:

eRLF Raw Score: -15, 10, 20, 10.

enigmatic: Casual in introspection, prone to be mysterious. Reliable: Consistent in foul weather, prone to self-confidence. Loyal: Obliged to others, prone to be responsible. Faithful: Genuine in romance, prone to be hurt.

The Integrity Test
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=5131731863914616130

A run of thoughts

Well let's see here; Radiography of the Stomach and Upper GI, Research Ethics, Cardiovascular, Duplication/Subtraction and introduction to health care. That's likely why my brain isn't working right now and always takes a while to recharge.

March is here and promises to be more interesting than last month. Provincials are this weekend (5th and 6th) and they're in Kingston! The following week (12th and 13th) is up in the air as there is either, the possibility of a Jitsu montreal trip, a jump to hamilton to celebrate a friend's b-day or just throw a huge party at my house for my own b-day. The weekend after that I'm going home to visit the familia and pick up the Griswolds at the airport. From there, there's the easter weekend and Queen's pre-gradings. Not to mention the actual grading on April 1st and then the Queen's Semi-Formal on the 10th. In summary:

March 2005
5th and 6th	Provincials
9th	Sponsored Throw
12th and 13th	Montreal Road Trip/ Trip to Hamilton/ Giant Party???
18th	Queen's Pre-Grading: Green and Above
19th-20th	Home for Rest / Griswold Pickup
23rd	Queen's Pre-Grading: Orange and Below
April 2005
1st	Queen's Grading
3rd	Feast - A - Mania for WM 21!!
4th-8th	Exams
9th	Queen's Semi - Formal

Then there's school and regular training which in total amount to quite the mouthful. "Great Oden's Raven!"

Current Song: Andrew Llyod Webber - Wishing you were somehow here again

Asepticville

Well, it happend. I finally snapped, went blitzwing and cleaned the majority of the house. I had been able to deal with it for the most part but wednesday night is when I cracked. In what could be described as an out of the ordinary event, a beiruit competition was held on a wednesday. At this event I did end up getting quite drunk but aside from that massive amounts of beer was spilt. On top of that, the wash bowels kept filling with massive amounts of grossness from the floor. Thus I cracked and if I wasn't so hungover and tired yesterday, I would likely have done it yesterday.

Today, after doing the dishes, wiping down the shelves, sweeping and then vacuuming, the house is for the most part clean. McM even pitched and cleaned the bathroom. (though I don't think he swept because the broom never left the kitchen).

The jitsu community here at Queen's will be expieriencing a special treat today. One of the higher level Dan's will be visting the club today. I have had the prilege of training under him on two seperate occasions and must say that it is quite a treat. One those occasions I was a yellow and the second time a green belt. I'm exicted to see what he might have in his hat now that I'm brown and am allowed to do all the cool stuff.

The OC--> Lesbian kisses, hot Kiersten and Summer kissing Seth spiderman style = fan-frekin-tastic. Booya!

Here it is!

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I present to you the intro to the show that will never exist but will forever be a hit amongst all of you!

The 439

"It's AnchorMAN! Not AnchorLADY!"

Well, if people havn't figured it out yet, the movie Anchorman has become my new bible as I love it and will follow it religiously. Here are some excerpts from this very hilarious movie:

Ron Burgundy: I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Down it goes, into my belly...

Brian Fantana: Oh, that was one crazy party. I am hung over.
Champ Kind: Tell me about it. I woke up this morning and I shit a squirrel. I mean it. Literally. Hell of it is, damn thing's still alive. So I got this shit-covered squirrel down there in the office. Don't know what to name it.
Brick Tamland: You should name it Shaun! [From Wake up Ron Burgandy]

Ron Burgundy: You are a smelly pirate hooker!
Veronica Corningstone: You look like a blueberry!
Ron Burgundy: Why don't you go back to your home on Whore Island!
Veronica Corningstone: Well you... have bad hair!

Ron Burgundy: 1001, 1002, 1003. Ohh, it's a deep burn! It's so deep! Oh, I can barely lift my right arm because I did so many. I don't know if you heard me counting, but I did over a thousand.

Ron Burgundy: I'm going to punch you in the ovary, right in the babymaker.

Ron Burgundy: Boy, that escalated quickly... I mean, that really got out of hand fast!
Champ Kind: It jumped up a notch!
Ron Burgundy: It did, didn't it?
Brick Tamland: Yeah, I stabbed a man in the heart!
Ron Burgundy: I saw that! Brick killed a guy! Did you throw a trident?
Brick Tamland: Yeah, there were horses, and a man on fire, and I killed a guy with a trident!
Ron Burgundy: Brick, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. You should find yourself a safehouse or a relative close by. Lay low for a while, because you're probably wanted for murder.

Well, that's enough for now. It's only about half of them if that. I'll likely add another addition to compliment this one. At the gym today I was contemplating who would be my news team if I were to belong to one.

If it was the kingston folk:
Bleat: Ron
McM: Brian Fantana
Myself: Champ
RA: (smart) Brick [From wake up Ron Burgandy]

If it was Jitsu Folk:
Myself - Champ
BPIC - Brian
Thumper - Ron
Anders - Brick

Somehow, I think I'll be sworn at for that.

Current Song: Goo Goo Dolls - Give a little bit

The swords have been laid down

And so, the great battle of our time came to a somewhat anti-climatic conclusion on saturday ending a week long strife. The reason for the lack of drama ending came from the sage words of Natasha who identified that we were at a point where we were simply arguing about what one person said in response to some previous statement and were not actaully bringing up the stem of the original conflict. Upon actually doing so, the real problem (which was silly) was identified and apologies were made. Thus, we decided to resume things back to normal and get somewhat inebriated with some Beiruit. Mosie also popped in for a cameo visit which was sweet.

I've watched five movies this weekend and found one word to describe each of them.

Saw- Twisted
Ong-Bak - Intense
Sideways - Divine
Phantom of the Opera - Brilliant
Ladder 49 - Moving

It's not often you watch five flicks and they all turn out to be good.

Sunday, McM, RA and myself all attended a Daytona 500 party at the residence of RA's boss. I've never been into Nascar but was allured by the promise of a large feast. RA was not kidding when he said there would be scores of food. There was chili, Meatballs, Veggies, cupcakes, cake, Feta Paté and a host of other items. And with that, my diet went out the window for the day.

There was one girl at the Daytona party who seemed familiar but knew I'd never met. Towards the end of the race, I somewhat put my finger on it in that this girl reminded me of a dream I'd had quite a while back (grade 9). She seemed quite young so that might be why it struck up a memory from that time frame though what got me was that I still remember a dream that much later. Amazing what the mind keeps in vault.

I've been thinking I might make an entry similar to McMs about the ideal girl but that may take some time since I'm more for personality. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

The Value of rational thinking

Plato, Aristotle and various other philosophers were studies of rational thought and appricated human life because we were the only species that were believed to be capable of sophisticated rational thought. I have always been a student of this style because it quite simply makes the most sense as that is it's nature.

In a somewhat heated argument between myself and McM, I attempted to discuss with him the problems that I had with him and why I thought this way. When I attempted to follow rational thought bringing evidence into my side of the argument I was accused of "grasping at straws and having a weak argument". I endugled this for a bit and asked for something to any piece of information that would counter my original statement. What I was met with was, "you're an idiot and you're wrong" and various other forms of that statement. When I further pointed out that he wasn't dissuading me from my standpoint and to come up with something better, all I was treated to was more "you're an idiot and your argument is weak."

So all I was treated to was a lot of adhominum (sp?) as oppose to something with foundation. What do I mean by foundation? Well, I'll justify a statement I made earlier with some foundation. The statement itself? "That peice of shit left me to do the garbage in the rain. Mofo" A little harsh? Sure. Why did I say it? For the following reasons:

Imagine that for the majority of the time you deal with someone's shortcommings in stride and take it with smile. Shortcomming's like:

- Never replacing my coffee table that was broken at one of his parties
- Stealing my winter gloves in the cold weather several time without ever asking so I was gloveless
- Opening a brand new bag of salad mix which I'd bought, when there was one a quarter full already in the fridge
- Constantly hogging the bandwidth on the internet for useless downloads
- Rarely cleaning up after his poker/beiruit nights which includes use of my table
- Throwing a McDonalds bag on the floor (the meal which I had purchased for him) on the floor of the family room which I had spent the day cleaning after one of his parties
- Likely a dozen other items which I shall not list because their personal

Then, leaving to go fuck around and leaving the garbage for me to do. On top of this, while I can't prove it, I'm pretty sure it was to spite me for not speaking to him. I'm judging this based on the fact that the response was "go fuck yourself" as oppose to "it just slipped my mind". That's an action and the reasoning behind it.

I would like nothing more than to be wrong about this and say I made a judgement call that was wrong but so far I've only been met with hostile aggression. And so I'll wait until evidence of the contrary is brought my way to make that call.

For those of you wondering what we're argument, I can't say because it's personal. Probably the reason it's gotten so big.

And for the record, if the friendship was to end (which I'm not saying it's close to), I'd say that slandering someone on the internet weighs heavier than not speaking to someone and swearing at them once. I'm sure comments will decide.

Current Song: Kenny Rogers - The Gambler (fitting)

Respect from your peers

Well, it's about time that I made a post, after all, it has been a solid week. Last week was spent in a very rageful and angry state which is the reason I didn't post. Grrrrrrrrr. I've always made it a point to never say anything in states like that because most of the time something is said for anger's sake and not because it's actually meant.

For the time being, it's safe to say that I've snapped out of that spell. The reason for this could only be an excellent jitsu weekend getting the wind knocked out of me and boozing it up. Saturday saw a day filled with Tai-Sabaki leading into lots and lots of drops. So not only were you dizzy at the outset of the technique but would also go onto get dropped to finish. I think it's safe to say the everyone from orange belt to Dan's were sore and tired by the end of the session.

The course finished and we headed over to Anti-Grav's where we would be spending the night. I think upon getting a cup and water source, I drank about two litres of water and sat for a good thirty minutes straight. Anti-Grav's girlfriend shared some of her excellent brownies with us and then it was off to downtown for dinner and drinks.

Dinner was at the good old Elgin Street Diner. That place never fails to serve the greasiet food within ten minutes and once again didn't fail. As bad as I knew it was, I still downed the cheeseburger and poutine that I ordered and it hit the spot. From there we headed to the Oz café.

Now before I begin, I have never like the Oz café based on it's size and the usual amount of people we have show up. If I'm ever in a crowded room, the first thing I'll do it head for an empty corner and usually wait for people to come to me as I can't stand being surrounded by people. This is usually the case at the Oz café but this time it was different. There were about a dozen or so of the Jitsuka that I've grown up with through my jitsu journey which was nice and welcome. Thus I decided to take advantage and have a drink or two and talk to those that I had not seen in a while.

One or two... a few conversations... sleep... yeah right. There comes a point where you're use to having a drink in hand and enjoying talking to someone so much then when the drink ends and the conversation is still going, you get another drink. Let's just say there were a lot of good coversations going that night including me modeling several women's purses. I think I was enjoying everything so much that when it came time to catch a ride home with Anti-Grav, I opted out favouring staying with Thumper. The night kept rolling until it was closing time and what would seem like an end to the night. Not the case however. At the end, there were three of us left which included Thumper, myself and FlippyDan. Instead of kicking us out of the bar though, the two owners invited us to stay in the bar. The only catch was that we had to move out of sight at the entrance. A fair trade.

We continued talking about life and such with the owner joining us and even giving out a round of hot choclates. That was definately very, very nice of them and was definately appreciated by T-Bone and the rest. Oz gets major points and will definately be my prefered destination from here on in.

At one point in the later hours of the morning (?) we were talking about clubs and about how I could go about getting some teaching experience in my year in cornhole. I'm not sure what lead into what was said next, but at a moment which I think will forever stick in my head, Flippy Dan turned to me and said that if I ever happend to be in Peterborough and attending his session, that he would have me line up with him at the front of the class and have him teach his students. For a moment I just stopped as I didn't know how to respond to that. I've respected what FlippyDan brings to the table ever since I've met him, both on and off the mats and for him to tell me that I could line up with him at the front of class (haks or not) put a smile on my... soul. It's safe to say, that most Jitsuka always wonder whether, they're actaully embodying the spirit of Shorinji Kan Jiu Jitsu at all points of their training and to me, this said that someone recognized that I did and that their was a mutual respect from a peer.

Eventually I came back to real life and started joining in on the conversation again, but would never realy leave that moment. Hopefully, it won't go to my head. Things continued a bit further past that but Thumper and I knew it was time to go when he said "Anyone want to watch the sun go down?". We got a Taxi home with a never ending joke telling driver and about six am he hit the bed.

We were awoken that morning by Anti-Grav who asked us if we wanted to go get breakfast to which I reponded whether he in turn could bring breakfast to me and feed me. Gawd I was tired, hungover and dehydrated. Such a wonderful combination. Needless to say, at the purple and above portion of the course that day, I felt every breakfall and my head was about ready to split at the end. Upon conclusion, we showered, hit the ol subway on the way out and headed back home. I hit the bed at seven and didn't wake up til seven this morning. All in all, an awesome week. Killed my anger completely.

Hope everyone is having a Happy Valentine's Day and all the ladies who read this save me a special valentine's day kiss. :O) I'm bad, you love it.

Super Bowl Bonanza!

Last night was the superbowl and while I've never been any type of football fan, I was invited to a super bowl bash and thus decided to partake. The main lure of this endevor were the muchies provided to me from the Griswolds but other than that I also enjoy the antics of the Griswold's and thus had another reason to go.

Overall, it was good times. Mrs. G made a WHOLE wack of appertizers which included a veggie platter, nachos with two types of dip, shrimp ring, bowl of nuts, chips and a crackers plate. I couldn't believe it. I was in snack heaven and dug in very quickly anticipating that others would soon arrive and also demolish these delicious foods. I was soon to learn though that other than the Griswold family and a selection of the McM clique, we would be all the invitees. I could not believe it. There was a mass of food to the seven or eight of us.

The game itself began and amidst watching it and trying to decipher the rantings of Mr. G, I found the game pretty entertaining. I wasn't rooting for anyone, as I knew nothing about football but always like the idea of a team competing to be the best.

The half time show was terrible. I realy can't figure out how they couldn't find anyone better than Paul McCartney. I mean honestly, I can understand the network's point of view and trying to find something more family oriented but this was just boring. I found the fireworks more entertaining than the preformer. The only thing that excited me at this point was the prospect of dinner.

Dinner was awesome too. Not only was their delicious lasagna but also delicious sausage. Delicious! Because, everything Mrs. G makes is delicious, the food went down fast than Paris Hilton with... well, whatever guy she's with. From there we proceeded to the second half of the game.

I could barely sit at this point as I'd filled every inch of my stomach with food and thus I layed down for the second half. The game was close and in the end made for an exciting ending although, the eagles seemed to throw the game somewhat. However, I could be wrong. Postgame, Mrs. G served us lemon maringue pie. I realy shouldn't have eaten more but I did anyways because it looked fantastic.

After this we watched the Simpsons and American Dad which wern't that great but made for a satisfactory end to the night. We departed from the Griswold's all full to the Brim and ready for bed. As soon as I got home I hit the bed like a Brick. If only I could eat like that all my life.

Current Song: Jennifer Lopez - Get Right (who knew such an annoying beat could produce a somewhat decent song)

Back from the Homested

Today I returned home from Brownzmania to my second home in K-town. I spent the majority of my time off either sleeping, lazing about or downloading DVDs. I've never actually downloaded a dvd before, but thought I'd try it out to say that I've done it and know how to do it. I still prefer the Xvid movie as it allows for almost the same viewing pleasure and downloads in a tenth of the time. It's also easier to find on the internet. The postitive side to downloading a DVD is that I can watch the movie in my DVD player which is cool because I can lay about the house and watch my movie.

Got some shopping done while I was at home. Two shirts were purchased from Old Navy and a tank top from Trent 21 (the local T-shirt store). It was quite difficult finding a new T-shirt as there was a huge selection to choose from. There were many new designs including the nintendo genre as well as some new family guy stuff. After eliminating a good portion of the t-shirts I did want (based on themes which I already have t-shirts to cover) I narrowed it down to a Spider-Man ribbed tank top and a spray paint punisher logo t-shirt. Now I have to admit, the punisher shirt was pretty f'n cool, but in the end I eliminated it mainly because McM has one already and it would lost its orginality. Thus I purchased the Spider-Man Tank which I am still happy with.

Upon returning to K-town and disclosing this information to McM, a somewhat heated argument began in regards to this choice. His point was, that regardless of whether or not he had the shirt, that I should have purchased the Punisher logo shirt. This was based on the premise that the Punisher has a higher degree of coolness and could dummy Spider-Man with one shot. I counter argued that the Punisher couldn't hit what he couldn't catch and thus would lose to Spider-Man as he would flip all over the place and shoot web into the Punshier's guns. Thus I am still satisfied with my purchase. I will be glad when I wear the colour's of spidey when the time comes. Until then I will leave you with this; Does anyone know how Peter Parker (from the movie) could afford a fitted custom Spider-Man costume if he can barely make rent?

Women just got a few points back

There was a point last week where I was ready to write a furious tantrum about how ridiculous the female species was and let loose upon them. It was a juncture which it seemed that the last good female friendship I had had fizzled was would turn into another act of life. I was proved wrong though.

I'm not sure exactly how I am with women, whether it be as friends or more but in the end nothing seemed to produce anything genuine. It was always a show where things would turn into nothing or a facade of friendship. Last week things seemed to be verging on that path for what was perhaps the last long standing female friend I've had.

The story itself is a long one but can be summarized in the following way. I'd been friends with Fish for the greater part of three years. Last month she got together with my best friend and while I was happy that they'd each have someone awesome, it changed things. I couldn't tell her some things anymore because it figured it'd be talked about between the two of them and then get turned into something ridiculous. I didn't want one opinion from two people on the matters of my life but their own individual takes and that wouldn't happen as long as things were they way they were. So we drifted apart turning things into the casual facade of friendship making lots of small talk.

Last week, things ended between the two mentioned parties and made for quite the predicament. McM and I have always shot straight so I knew where his head was at most of the time and thus it was easy to stay friends. On the other side of the coin though, I realy had no clue coupled to the fact that I was just tempted to let things stay a casual facade.

This is where women get their points back as I was challenged that night to be the man that she knew I was and that I think I am. Going backwards on the time scale, we had gone out that night with the Jitsu gang, gotten hammered and ended up back at my place. As the night rolled to a close, everyone was leaving and she was going to walk home to NOP land alone. That dosn't work for me, no matter who you are and thus I walked her home.

On the way I was confronted about whether things were alright (obviously that case was they weren't). This threw me off as it's usually me who puts the hard questions to people going for resolutions to problems (Score points here). So we got talking, about how things were and sourcing out why they were. Then we moved on to what to do about it. I was simply going in circles about what the altruistic thing to do was (put it behind us and move forward) but then comming backwards with a selfish answer (I was forgetten about). Then she did something I had totally ruled out from the abilities of the female gender.

She took my hand, told me she was human who makes mistakes but above that, she knew she loved me (as a friend). Here she got more points but then proceeded to line up for the home run shot. As hard as it was for her, she told me, after saying the former, that she couldn't stop me from walking out the door and not speaking to her again. At this point, time stood still and my cycle shattered. I couldn't bring myself to even think about stepping away from someone who I'd grown with for so long. (Score home run). She showed faith in me and in her heart, knew that I was above petty thoughts and actions and after about five minutes I gave her a hug and put this shit behind us.

I gave up on believing in her but she never lost faith in me. I missed the ball on this one but she never once stuck it to me for this. It would have definately been easy to 'be a girl' and just be as ridiculous as I was. But she wasn't.

At this point I'm still looking for the words to put this all in context. In the end all I can come up with is that there's a girl out there with the biggest heart in the world and it was so full of compassion, forgiveness, warmth and love that she could overide me being a goof. I feel pretty lucky right now is about all I can realy say.

Still Alive

Well, I'm halfway done exams and thought that it was time to add another blog entry to the mix. Life's been pretty nutty this past week as it's been nothing but exams and as much fun as it is, it's not. Not. Just not. So, hopefully this little musing will be a temporary salvation.

I've been thinking of a way to make blog entries more interesting as of late with my recent abstinence from drama (even though it looks like drama will be the subject of my next entry) and while I was in procrastinating, it was my revelation that, aside from other people's business, people love charts. However, the conundrum is figuring outwhat type of chart would people enjoy. Thus, over the next little while I'll probably throw out a few random charts that pop into mind, free of all internet bias. Just right out of the old brown noggin.

Today's topic: The oldin days of pop music. I recently came upon my old collection of pop music from the year 2000 and concluded that the style and focus has come a long way since then. None the less we all still loved it back then and with that I present the top five of the year 2000 (give or take):

5. N Sync - Bye Bye Bye. It was an era of boy bands back then and studios were pumping tracks out left right and centre. Now, while I'm sure they were pumping other things as well, this track still stood out from the rest with a little bit of teenage rebellion and a pretty cool video idea.

4. 3 Doors Down - Kryptonite. It wasn't uncommon to turn on the radio (remember that thing) way back and hear this track playing. Kryptonite ushered in an era of alternative rock into pop music phasing out the backstreet era.

3. Creed - Higher. Could they're be a more overplayed band than these guys? The song was good the first couple times I heard it (listen to it now) but after the 9, 657th time I thought I was Scott Stapp (the lead singer). No wonder he wanted to relearn love.

2. Britney Spears - Stronger. Alright, I now I'm gonna get blasted for this one but honestly put it all together. She was at the peak of her popularity, had an innocence to her at the time, was incredibly smoking hot in that little black number and the song wasn't half bad.

1. Bon Jovi - It's my life. Is anyone actually surprised that this is my No. 1 pick? This was my anthem in first year and the song plain and simple just kicks ass. Wanna fight about it?

Now the list more or less just summarizes the songs which stood out that year. I didn't say that they had to be good. They're are likely tons that I've left out, so add a comment if you want some recognition for your favourite jam of 2000. That way I won't be the only person taking the heat for my adoration of pop music. L8r Sk8rz.

Current Song: Collective Soul - Why Pt. 2

Friday's Events

Today is another study day in which I'd rather be anywhere in the world instead of in front of my notes. However I have been here most of the day and as such it is time to break away from this nonsense. Recently I have been getting very little work done despite the fact that I have five exams next week in five days. It dosn't bother me heavily at all, possibly because I still make the day somewhat eventful. Friday went as such.

I began the day by waking up at 10am which is an hour short of 11 am, where a proper 10H sleep would have had me wake up. I don't feel like acutally getting up but when I was up, I was no longer tired so I went with it. Did my morning routine (teeth, pushups, situps, breakfast) and then showered. This brought me to about 12 pm.

From then onwards to about 5, I got a fair amount of review done all the while playing 'Alexi Murdoch - Orange Sky'. I've been downloading copius amounts of movies recently (Finding Neverland, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, Anchorman, Shark Tale, Wimbeldon, Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind, Ray and Sky Captain) but was good and decided not to watch any of them. Though I did download the past three episodes of the O.C. From there I was done studying.

I washed my Gi (because it was smelly) had a snack and proceeded to the gym. I got a fairly good workout done with about 20 min before jitsu. I took that time to rehydrate and talk to my Sensei about the previous three sessions me and BPIC had taught. From there it was time to train. I was definately excited to train as it would be the first time I've gotten the chance in the new year. However, my body had other ideas at it was pretty tired from the workout. Thus between that and the sheer ice weather, it was no surprise that I quickly found myself a little short of breath with some heavy wheezing. Thus the first part of training was a little sluggish. However, I eventually got to my inhaler and things proceeded upwards from this point. It was nice to train again and could easily tell that BPIC found it equally as fun.

I returned home from the session to McM and his friends playing a little texas holdem. I wasn't in the mood for cards so I withheld, opting instead to make a lovely chicken and brocoli alfredo past. At this juncture, myself and RA sat down and proceeded to watch WWF's greatest champions which featured many greats including Macho Man in his prime and the Hart Foundation. After finishing with this, I proceeded to have a few beers and socialize a little bit. This only lasted for a few mins though, as I was done at this point. I made up my bed (as I'd washed my sheets earlier) and hit the bed.

That was friday. If you found that boring just remember that I did not twist your arm to read it. You did it all by yourself. Today is no more interesting which is why I'm taking time to write a lengthy blog entry. Maybe I should re-invest my time in drama again. Give people something more entertaining to read.

Figured it out

(Forgive me if there are any spelling crimes in the following post)

I was talking to McM today about the nonsense of everyday life and while I was listening intently, it occured to me that the chaos of everyone's life no longer interested me.

Then it dawned on me. In most instances people write in their blogs about the things that bother them in life whether it be veagens, spelling mistakes or relationship banter. If you've read my resolution entry you'd know that it was in one way or another, a way of saying that I wasn't gonna try so hard anymore in terms of making life conform to the way you want it and instead just let it exist as it is.

For the most part I've done exactly that and in doing so, I think the result has been that I havn't had anything to vent about. Leaving everyone else's chaos to them has somewhat simplified my everyday course of action and there's been little on my mind other than a slight headache after landing on my head last wednesday in Jitsu.

Overall, I like it better so far. It will likely make for some poor blog entires in the next little while but who knows? Maybe one day I'll once again find my way back to the everyday drama of life. For now, I'm contempt to stay chill, focus on my training regiment and just go with the flow. Brilliant.

Exams

Exams are comming up for which I do not want to study for but none the less must study for. Thus if one does not hear from my in the next little while, it will be because I've locked myself in my room. Hopefully I shall remain in your prayers as you all wish me good luck. :O)

I'll likely be procrastination beyond belief, so one can expect more random entries.

Feeling Blah

With the holidays over and life returning to its normal state, things seem much more bland now. Everyone who was home for the holidays went home and the nostalgia from all the fun has somewhat worn off.

It's likely been the reason I havn't written that much in the blog as of late. School is that same non sense that it was when I left, I've OC'ed out myself after watching 34 episodes in a week and jitsu hasn't started. Cutting off good times, cold turkey sucks.

But Jitsu begins once again tommorrow which means its time to hit the mats again and let the good times roll. The holiday gave me time to recover physically and mentally from all the training put in going for brown. Now, being fully healed, it will make everything that much more fun.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, a little lag time is good. Time to think, time to heal and time to catch your breath.

New Years

Well the only way to start about New Year's is that it was quite the scene. As an abstract, I dominated myself with screwdrivers all night on top of whatever else was donated to me. But to tell the story best I must start from the beginning or as much of it as I can remember.

I left Brownzmania early friday morning to arrive in K-town later. The journey for the most part runs smoothly. I got up at 5 am on the dot, left the house at 525, got on the go train to union at 550, arrive at union at 630, get breakfast, board the train at 655 and arrive at 915. This is where the efficiency stops. I had previously arranged with McM to get a ride at that time. He tells me to call about 30 mins before I get into K-town (pressumably so he can wake up, have coffee, and arrive to VIA on time). For once in my life, I'm actually prompt and accomplish calling him on time. However, McM shows up 30 minutes later than 915 and like the ass that he is, promtly shows up honking his horn right in front of via for a solid minute. Though I'm ready to burst, he has offered to pick me up, so I let it go. At this point however, I found out that we're going on a bit of a detour out of kingston. I don't mind this so much as I'm use to it, but instead of telling me where we're going, a constant destination point of the 'portal' is made. Once is funny, twice is pushing it, seven times and I'm once again ready to hit someone. Though, I find out that we're picking up Keeves and the Hamma and the idea of them camping in the middle of winter once again brings smile to my face. On the way back, we are watching Elf in the backseat (McM is driving his Dad's pimped out 2005 pilot) and are doing commentary to it which makes it that much more fun. Will Ferrell is too funny though and after about 20 mins we decide its time to watch the movie. We complete tasks of dropping people off and acquiring appetizers and what not.

House gets cleaned, alcohol gets made, showers are had and OC gets watched (So begins the obecession). People arrive. Hilarity begins. We begin the night with a little wrasslin all the while stuffing our faces with feta paté. I choose my drink of the evening which is the screwdriver. I have a pretty high tolerance so I make doubles. Eventually, everyone arrives and I'm starting to settle into the evening. After about three or four doubles I decide to change the way I'm making drinks. Usually I add ice, vodka to the top of the ice then add OJ. My new plan? Add ice, fill to the top of ice with OJ and then add vodka to the top. This takes is from about a double to a triple. I think I downed two of those but things get foggy at this point. Bei-Ruit begins and I get looped into things. I make a tag out because I'm too drunk to see and let another take my place. The team ends up losing and decides to pawn off their lost cups onto me because I'm a champ.

This is where things go downhill as the mixture of beer and vodka put me over the top. I remember the new year vaguely and bits and pieces til two. As McM's blog points out, I did wet myself slightly but pissed is far from the truth. Circumstances surrounding this are mysterious though as I don't remember having to go to the washroom or any dire urgence to urinate. But as I said, I can't remember a whole lot as is. [I should point out here that William Matthew Kirkey is a direspectful ass (more colourful words are jumping into mind, but I'd like to think I'm above that) for not only posting a hugely exagerated story but also a video which I'm not so proud of.]

Things continue upwards from there thankfully as I change my pants (in what was a comical moment) and come back down for the rest of the night. At this point I'm smart enough to cut myself off and McM is feeding me water perhaps saving me from certain doom. People slowly start dissapearing and I'm snapping photos like no ones business. My rate of speech slowly returns to normal from its drunken banter state. BPIC shows up around 3am(???) and we smoke some fun stuff and hang for a bit. I'm telling him a story about Sparxx and all of a sudden I hear this nutty noise from the kitchen which I would later find out was Hamma making songs on pots and pans (Our non-stick pans hang from a rack on the wall). The story goes that RA was taking his car home and wrote him a note in his pocket so he'd know. As a joke though he said that the note wrote 'Whether some prime number was acutually prime' to which a song began about the number being 'even or odd'.

Keeves and Hamma are done and pass out. One sucessfully on the couch and the other laying beside two pillows, a sleeping bag and holding a folded blanket like a teddy. BPIC decides to stay and make sure I don't die. We begin to watch movies from the Club Instructor course (which are sweet) and I tell him it would likely be best if I puked. I headed to the washroom and after hovering over the toilet I begin to pass out as oppose to puke. With my last remaining energy, I gather myself up, tell BPIC that I need to pass out and do this.

The next morning I wake up to McM knocking on my door asking me if I'm okay. Strangely I don't feel so bad. My theory is that the OJ sugars saved me somehow. We gather up the troops, laugh hysterically at the 272 mb of media from the last night and head of the McDonalds for double cheeseburgers. At this junture I realize I'm still drunk as while take my order, I'm exchanging lines with Keeves from Elf. ("I painted a picture of a butterfly today"; "Guess what? I saw a dog today. Did you see a dog") This drives the McDonalds lady nuts and not surpsingly she screws up the order. Oh well.

When we return, we eat, watch Hulk Hogan vs. Macho Man from wrestlemania five as the Mega powers exploded. We also decide that we need to watch an elimination chamber match as there is one comming up on Jan 9th at New Year's Revolution. At this point my tummy is letting me know that I was bad last night and so begins the day of recovery and cleaning. Cleaning gets finished, I call my parents and with all the brain power I can muster, have a somewhat decent conversation with them and the proceed to crash for an OC marathon. That perpetuated the start of my OC addiction and is a story for another day.