stuff is cool

Do not allow children to mix drinks. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth.

I am not a huuuuuge X-Men fan. I am not all that excited about the upcoming movie, though I will probably see it. I just want to see Kelsey Grammer as Beast, because of all the X-Men, Beast is one of my favorites. My brother and I used to watch the cartoon passionately. As recently as 3 years ago, a bunch of us were at my friend Matt’s place and he put on some of his VHS collection of the cartoon. Watching it while drinking PBR was a real trip.

I loved only 2 characters: Beast, and Gambit.

I held out hope that Gambit would appear in the last installment, because he was so popular, at least with the kids at my school. But alas. I was dissapointed, but wasn’t downright CRUSHED until I found out that LOST’s Josh Holloway (Sawyer) was offered the role but turned it down. Not only is he PERFECT, but he was so perfect they didn’t even bother to even have Gambit if they coulnd’t have him. DAMN YOU, JOSH!

You wanna play with Gambit? Here, pick a card!

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Want a free bottle of Country Bob’s All Purpose BBQ sauce? Click above. How can you pass up such an offer, after all they claim:

(click image for info)

PS. Heathen states need not apply: “Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce coupons will only be sent to states within the continental United States excluding the following areas: Alaska, California, Hawaii, North Dakota, Oregon, and Vermont.” Take that, heathens!

For my birthday (in October) I want an Insta-Patch Cell Phone, a Bottomless Manpurse, and a Hoodie of Invisibility, just like Jack Bauer.

I have always maintained that GiGi sometimes smells like tortilla chips. My old dog Sandy also used to smell like tortilla chips, so I am comfortable with this phenomenon. Danny refused to believe me. Until last night. They were playing quietly before bedtime and he was snuggling her widdle head and suddenly he started laughing. “Oh my god, she DOES smell like tortilla chips!” He was giggling like he does when she licks his hands. He looooves that baby girl.

Viva GiGi.

(note: this is purely biographical and to a lesser extent, evangelical. Don’t say you weren’t warned)

I’ve always led a fairly active lifestyle, even when I was very young. In my younger years I was always on some sort of organized sports team. From the community swim team every summer to youth soccer to little league baseball and then finally on to swimming four hours a day with the high school swim team, there was always something to keep me active. Even in my spare time my friends and I would play basketball or ride bikes or invent new games like soccer golf to play in the neighborhood.

Then came college.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I was never the most diligent student nor the most involved student. Nor was I the biggest party animal either. But, between double-majoring and the increasing soul-sucking power of the internet (specifically IRC and online message boards), spare time in college was at a bit of a premium even if it wasn’t because I was spending time on things like studying or attending student interest groups. Sadly, I wouldn’t be joining the Trinity University swim team either — partly because I knew it would take an inordinate amount of time, and partly because I knew I’d be one of the slowest members due to the fact that in spite of having swam for basically all of my life, the most rigorous swim program I was in was my high school’s swim team. So college would essentially be the first extended period in my life where I wasn’t a part of some organized sports.

Luckily, my good friend (and senior-year roommate) Byron Denney introduced me to the game of ultimate. I think it came up because he knew that I had played on the school’s frisbee/disc golf course, but regardless of how it came up, he not only introduced me to the game but he also got me involved in the first tournament I ever went to, Huckin for Love 2001 in Houston. It was a “hat tournament” which means that they basically put everyone’s names in a hat and drew teams that way, so Byron and I actually didn’t end up on the same team but it was a good opportunity to learn more and to meet more people. I knew I loved the sport when our team decided on using the team name “Midget Clown on a Unicycle” (thanks, Jason Bargas). An extra bonus was that veryone was more than willing to teach me more about the sport as I was still very “green”. So, in spite of the fact that it was actually quite cold (lower 50s) that day and I froze my tail off (Byron, if you find this story and still have the pictures, scan them and send them to me!), I still had a blast.

Back at Trinity, Byron and I would try to play more and more, but unfortunately we never got a real regular game going, and with all the added work associated with graduating (finishing up class requirements, all the graduation stuff, job searching, etc.) ultimate sort of fell by the wayside. Then graduation came and went and I found myself living at a friend’s house still in San Antonio, earning part-time wages working at home for the summer. Then, I moved back to Houston a few short months later, and lived at home once again. None of my friends from high school were around anymore, and I was in a long-distance relationship so I became a bit of a shut-in spending most of my time online chatting. Luckily that summer, Shane, one of my friends who was still at Trinity came back to Houston for the summer. He got me back into ultimate a bit, and got me the hell out of the house (that summer my long-distance relationship turned into a live-together-and-I-support-two-people relationship). Then, in August, Shane played with the San Antonio Ultimate team in the UPA Sectionals tournament in Austin and he invited me to play with them. Although I was exhausted and cramping at the end of the day, it was awesome. The HFL tournament wasn’t very competitive, but this tournament was and I loved it. So, soon after that I started playing regularly at the penultimates pick-up game. From there, I’ve just gradually increased my involvement with the sport and now going on 3 years of steady play, I love it more than ever.

So, in summary, here are the reasons to love ultimate:

• fun
• good exercise
• cheap (all you need is a field, some friends, and a disc … and I will give you one for free)
• good people
• drinking is heavily encouraged at many tournaments (at Celebracion in Austin, they gave a Nalgene bottle full of tequila to every team)

Any Houstonians interested in playing should drop me a line or just stop by the HUC website.

It’s Friday night, 9:18 pm. I am showered and in my jammies (plus my new Superman underpants), sitting under my quilt in Danny’s bed. Danny is out playing poker. I had plans with a friend but she got sick. So, with nothing else to do, I continued on to Danny’s, where I spend the weekends. Usually I have plans with friends for Friday night while Danny plays poker. I think this is only the second time I have been semi-voluntarily stuck at home on a Friday night. And you know what? So far, not bad. I have plenty of books and things to do on the computer, and a french bread pizza in the oven. Heath Fiddle-Faddle for dessert. Maybe this night will fly past. I am feelin’ pretty proud of myself, and I just wanted to share. I am growing up, little by little.

In response to your responses:

David Moscow also happens to be the young version of Tom Hanks in Big. For real!

Doogie’s Friend, AKA Racetrack AKA Max Casella, was born sometime in the mid to late 60s, making him NOT a kid when he was in Newsies, or Doogie for that matter. Iiiiiinteresting.

Nummers are pretty much rawhide chews of all types. If it’s instantly edible, it’s a cookie. If you have to gnaw on for some time, it’s a nummers.

Last night my brother Ben and I watched Newsies, a classic favorite. I couldn’t help but look at it with my 25-year-old eyes instead of 12-year-old eyes, and of course it wasn’t as good as I thought it was. But by now, I don’t love it for what it is, I love it for what it was. There are quite a few things that I love for what they used to be. But Danny will always be loved for what he is as well as what he was. And he is a HUGE DORK GOOBER SOQUID PURPLE MONKEY DISHWASHER.

I also love my brother because he is just so funny and ridiculous. Last night he was dancing around the living room practicing to sell Chronicles down by Minute Maid Park. I wound up getting pretty sick, throwing up, with a terrible headache. He helped me get to bed, brought me water and a garbage bag, and said if anyone ever fucked with me, he would fuck them up. That’s Ben! I am going to miss living with him.

In the last post I said I really only watch two shows, 24 and Lost. Well, to be quite honest, Meg and I have been kinda falling into Prison Break as well. We didn’t actively seek out the show to watch it, it just happens to occupy the time slot before 24 and, well, my mom watches it and we’re over there on Monday nights so we go ahead and watch it too. Since we came in a little past halfway into the season at first it seemed like we missed too much to really catch up, but it’s come together pretty nicely and my mother has been pretty patient with me and Meg (mostly me) asking questions.

(note: plot discussion of Prison Break follows, so if you’re behind or if you may want to watch it later, it’s probably a good idea not to read)
However, I don’t see myself making a point to watch Prison Break next season like I probably will with the other two series. Of course, that may hinge on what happens in tonight’s episode, since supposedly they escape tonight. At first, I thought “well, that’s a short series,” but I’ve heard rumors that there will be a The Fugitive-like component to a future season, so I’m thinking that some, if not all, of the escapees-to-be will make it out. So either the main characters both make it out, only one of the two makes it, or neither make it. And really, any way I look at it, I can’t see any satisfactory result.

If both make it, it becomes The Fugitive where I’m sure Michael will end up being something like Macgyver, keeping them alive and on the run all the while cutting to the boring political coverup plot with “that chick from The Craft” (yeah, I know it’s Robin Tunney, but I’m sure most casual viewers wouldn’t) and the rest of the other boring non-characters on the outside.

If only Michael makes it, then well, where the hell do you go from here? Is he going to break back in to Fox River to get his brother?

If neither make it, then any reasonable prison system would transfer them away from each other and probably into a higher security facility (although they might be in a max security facility already … time to put them in a supermax).

If only Lincoln makes it .. well, this may actually be satisfactory. Of course, again I would think Michael would be transferred out of Fox River since he seems to know all to well how to get out of there. But then what? There are a few possibilities: we go back to the Macgyver idea where Michael figures out how to break out of his new facility without having been the structural engineer behind it, or we degenerate into a boring political drama about Lincoln’s framing and eventually Michael gets pardoned or something, or perhaps even it just becomes a prime-time major-network friendly version of Oz with Michael biding his time. Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t be satisfactory.

Basically, unless the Prison Break writers manage to come up with something fiendishly clever, chances are I’ll only be catching their show next season as I flip by my local Fox affiliate. Or if they keep it in its pre-24 time slot.