babbling blue

I haven’t posted for awhile. And I’m bored, so I figured I’d throw up an update on my life for anyone who still tunes in here.

I had a fun but somewhat sad Christmas. Due to Mother Nature’s shenanigans I decided against going up to Wisconsin like I usually do. A couple years ago I drove up in a blizzard and it was terrifying! So instead of seeing my family, I went out for Peking Duck with a bunch of people from Yelp. It was really good, and a lot of fun! I imagine all the wine didn’t hurt either! After that we went out and drank more. Because what can go wrong when you drink a lot? Nothing!

Fast-forward to New Years, and another awesome time. I went to a party hosted by a Yelp-friend and it was a blast! The beer and the jello shots were flowing freely. Perhaps a little too freely, based on the killer headache I had the next morning. Or afternoon, whenever it was I finally got up. But I played flippy cup for the first time, and from what I remember I was pretty good at it! Maybe I can play professionally?

I recently (as in last night) returned from a long weekend in San Diego. As it turned out, getting there was quite an adventure…
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As long as I’m listing, I’m sad to say I’ve made very little progress on my burger to-do list from August. I’ve only had burgers at two of those places! They are:

Epic Burger: I think this place is over-rated. The burger itself was pretty bland and relied almost entirely on the toppings (which were good). Why even bother with a burger if it’s all about the toppings? Also, I had some . . . let’s just say gastro-intestinal discomfort after eating here, so I don’t think I’ll go back.

Marc Burger at Seven on State: This was a pretty good burger, though expensive. And it was really, really messy. I went whole hog and got the namesake burger and it came with a fried egg. It was either sunny-side up or over easy, and the yolk got everywhere!

I’m going to try to make better progress on this list next year!

I’m in Miami, trick!

It’s cloudy here. No me gusta!

No, this isn’t a post about underwear… I’m too lazy to write full-blown blog entries, so I’m just posting some brief snippets of things that I find interesting right now.

• Tomorrow is Friday the 13th, the second one in a row.
• The day after is Pi Day! I plan to celebrate by eating pie. Maybe I’ll even calculate the circumference and area of the pie before I eat it! What are your plans?
• I haven’t really seen Peanut Butter Twix–which was one of my favorites–in a long time. Apparently they were discontinued for awhile, but were brought back briefly and then were discontinued again. Anyway, I was excited to see a commercial for Twix PB. This candy is like Peanut Butter Twix, but with a chocolate cookie part instead of the vanilla cookie in the original. It appears that Twix PB was introduced in 2007, yet I don’t remember ever seeing one. What’s up with that? Of course this “new” candy is getting mixed reviews, so I’ll have to try to find one to taste it for myself.
• The Sears Tower is going to be renamed. The fuck? Hell no, we won’t go (along with that bullshit)! OK so Sears hasn’t had any offices in the building for a long time, and lost naming rights a few years ago. I don’t care. I don’t even associate the Tower with the stupid stores. The Sears Tower is an icon. You don’t rename a mother-fucking icon (nor paint it silver)! I will not call it by its new name, Willis Tower. The name was given away to a British insurance company who will be occupying a relatively small amount of space in the building (though it will be the largest new tenant since 2001). I guess management really is desperate for tenants.
• I’m sick of fucking winter weather!

Thank you, that is all.

I just got back from Portland (OR, not ME) last night. More about that in later posts, but first a rant. . .

My flight from PDX to ORD was scheduled to leave at 2:08pm. Guess what time it left? If you said “It didn’t” you win a prize! It was canceled. But it’s the reason for the cancellation that really boggles the mind.

The aircraft had two non-functioning lavatories. Why? Because someone on the previous flight put baby diapers into two of the toilets. Diapers. Into an airplane toilet. What the fuck? How stupid do you have to be? For one thing, there are signs in words and universal pictogram in all the lavs explaining that nothing but TP should go in those delicate toilets. For another thing, you wouldn’t do that at home, what on (or above) Earth would make you think it’s OK to do it on a freakin’ plane?

The maintenance crew was not able to get the mess unclogged in a timely fashion, so the flight was canceled and 100+ people had to be rebooked and most likely got to their destinations several hours late (for me, it was about 5 hours, flying to ORD through SFO). I’d like to find the shit-for-brains that did that and shove their face into one of those dirty diapers. And I bet I could find 100 or so people to line up behind me for their turn to do the same.

P.S. Happy Mardi Gras!

I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. All told, I think I was home for maybe 10 hours all weekend, not counting (all too little) sleep. And most of that was in the mornings between waking up too damn early and going to lunch.

Friday I went to dinner at Firefly with the boys. It was good, as always. After Firefly we went to Roscoe’s, which was moderately entertaining. Most of us went to Cocktail for awhile, but it wasn’t very exciting there, and when someone blew chunks on the floor it seemed like a good time to leave. We lost one, and two of us went back to Roscoe’s, which was a bit more interesting. Eventually got bored and went home, then messed around online until bed time.
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London, England
Berlin, Germany
Chicago, IL
Boston, MA
Las Vegas, NV
Seattle, WA
Nashville, TN
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Fort Atkinson, WI
Sturgeon Bay, WI
Eagle River, WI

What the hell does “Auld Lang Syne” mean anyway? Apparently it’s Scottish, translating literally to “old long since”, or less literally “long long ago”. It’s from some poem written long, long ago, in 1788. If you want to more, check out the Wikipedia entry on it, cause I’m bored with this topic.

Anyway, Happy New Year to all. Let’s hope it’s better than 2008. While I can’t say that last year was terrible for me personally, I can’t say it was all that great either. And it was certainly a very eye-opening year for most of the world. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at my 401k in months. I think it would be far too depressing.

So now New Years is done, and we enter the long, barren stretch between New Years and Memorial Day. Unless you’re one of the lucky few to get President’s Day or King Day off (I am not) you have a lot of 5-day weeks to look forward to before you get a break. *sigh* I wish someone had had the foresight to distribute holidays a little more equally about the calendar.

Mini-update on my holidays: Christmas was OK. Lots of driving and stuff. Got to see most of my family, which was nice. Nearly everything I got was in some way related to eating or drinking. Hmm… New Years was fun. Enjoyed the party a lot (thanks Jeff and Gregg) and wasn’t too hung over the next day. Saw “Doubt” on New Years Day. It was pretty good. Meryl Streep is an amazing actress. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Fifteen more days to Obama’s inauguration. Fifteen more days of Bush in the White House. The nightmare is almost over!

That’s all for now. I’ll try to post more often in the future.

So in the big news department. . . this is some big news. I am pleased to announce that I have completed grad school! I haven’t graduated yet. . . there is no commencement until June, so forget that nonsense. However, I will soon have my masters degree “conferred” upon me!

I finished my last presentation in my last class on Monday, 11/24/2008. The next day I left for a vacation in gorgeous Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Pictures will be posted soon.

Anyway. . .

WOO HOO!

P.S. Joe, finish your damn thesis so you can play WoW!

You know you were a bit out of it in the morning when you use the restroom at work and discover first that your underwear are on inside-out and second that you missed a belt loop on your pants.

Maybe I need to start getting more sleep.