Boozing and Bearding

So, as previously mentioned, Saturday was the Y.O.T.B.F.B.! It was quite a success on the charity level and also on the fun level. (read more about the details here) A good time was had by all. Too good a time for yours truly it seems. It's now approximately 42 hours since I last had any booze go into my system and I still feel crappy. This is definitely in the top 5 of my worst hangovers ever. My yesterday (Sunday) went like this:

• 4am (thanks to the EST to EDT change) - Arrived home from bar
• noonish - woke up, decided some breakfast might be good. Went to breakfast joint. Ordered breakfast. Ate one bite of egg, one bite of potatoes, one bite of biscuit/gravy, and one piece of bacon then called it quits in fear of vomitus.
• 1pm - returned to couch
• Napped, watched bad Sunday TV, napped some more, drank some lemonade
• 4pm - cut off beard with clippers
• Returned to couch for more napping
  
• 6pm - ordered Chinese food
• Attempted to eat a little soup. Pretty much had two spoonfuls of the broth. Went back to the couch
• 8pm - Simpsons begin. Fall asleep.
• 9:15pm - wake up, eat a small plate of rice and noodles from Chinese food
• 10pm - in bed
  

So as you can see, a pretty wholesome day. It's always bad when I don't/can't eat. That's never a good sign whether it's hangover, germ or mental related.

Today I woke up, still feeling not so great. I ate today, but my stomach is still less than happy with me. I'm sure there are other organs equally as mad too. They're just waiting to let me know at a later date I'm guessing. Probably with some sort of failure or cancer or something.

Anyway, I may need some time off before doing that sort of thing again. Yikes. But there were some laughs and some ridiculous photos and then additional laughs so maybe it was all worth it.

Saturday Night Game Plan

Of course I was going to mention this earlier, but I didn't so now we're down to crunch time ... this is what I'll be doing tonight: Y.O.T.B.F.B.!

I've got a beard and everything! The beard will probably be gone tomorrow, but I'm pretty confident that a hangover will be taking its place. All in the name of charity. And foolishness.

R.I.P. Macho B

Sadly, the Jaguar in the article I mentioned a couple of posts ago is no more: Rare Arizona Jaguar Euthanized

Stupid kidneys.

A Bunch of Stuff

Not surprisingly I have been absent from my blogging for longer than intended. Again. Oddly, I have actually had things to write about, but just haven't sat down to do it. Why? Who could say? I know I have a list of potential reasons, but none are really valid so F it. I won't even try.

Let's see, maybe a little recap of things that have happened that could have been cool stories, but since I am packing them into one post it will be perhaps slightly abbreviated ...

Number 1, football. I play in a league with some work folk. It's co-ed and two-hand touch. This sounds like a good combination for perverts such as myself, but two things hinder the perversion. One, it's winter and everybody wears lots of clothes, including gloves and two, most of the girls are scary and not really the sorts that I want to touch. And I'm guessing for the most part they aren't into the gents anyway. That's purely speculation, but I'll stick with my gut on this one.

Every week football is a mess. There are (again) two factors that influence this. One, we are pretty awful and two, Mother Nature. Every week the weather and the field conditions are different. Muddy, snowy, frozen, rain, slush, wind, you name it.

Three memorable football events over the last few weeks: One week it was sort of warm. I even wore shorts. BUT, there was leftover snow on the ground. This snow was melting, but not entirely, so we were playing in slushy water the whole game. Water over the tops of my feet. Ice water essentially. Our feet were so numb by the end that it was scary. I was seriously wondering if I had done permanent damage. As it turns out, I'm a overreacting pussy and we were fine. But Jesus that was uncomfortable. Also a highlight of that game, and memorable moment number two, is a girl from the other team gave a guy on my team the hardest slap I've ever seen administered. It was awesome. And really over nothing. His face was red until halftime and she got kicked out. The last memorable moment that I will mention is the game following the slush and the slap. My friend Mike and I were playing defense and guarding our guys, when they crossed each other we managed to run into each other full steam. We both got knocked pretty good, but Mike went down. When I got to him his mouth was a bloody mess and he was looking dazed. He eventually got up and made his way to the sidelines before eventually going home. His teeth were all intact as was his nose. After he had left, another guy on my team asked, "What part of you ran into him?" I said, "I think it was my shoulder but I'm not sure. But my shoulder sort of hurts so I'm guessing that was it." He said, "Oh yeah, it was your shoulder." I look and there is blood spatter and a piece of lip on the shoulder of the fleece I was wearing. Update: Photo now available here. I'm a murderer.

Number 2, I went to a pretty sweet birthday party at a place just east of downtown CL. The bar was great. 100 years old, cool owners/bartenders, good jukebox, snacks, beers I never see anymore (Stroh's?) a dog, a cat and fun times all around. Read these little blurbs about this place here and you'll get the idea: Playboy | Esquire

Number 3, I attended a show at Beachland Ballroom. It was Tim Fite as the headliner with Benjy Ferree and Elephant Bones opening. I had listened to Benjy Ferree online and was sort of looking forward to it live but was slightly let down. I like the more "old timey" sounding stuff (e.g. "Fear" on the MySpace page) but there wasn't all that much of that. They were fine. I guess I was just expecting something a bit different. Thumbs up to local guys, Elephant Bones. A good sound. Solid, gimmick-free rock (other than the singer's hat I suppose.) Fite was odd but good. Certainly entertaining. It's cool to see someone just doing their thing. I'm sure he's not making much (if any) money, but he keeps making weird, non-radio friendly music (art?) because that's what he wants to do. Amen to that.

Number 4, I had shingles. Not the flat, tar/stone sheets that go on your roof. This sort of shingles. My waist along my left side felt weird for like a week, almost like I had dry skin or like my pants had rubbed there or something, but I couldn't see anything. Then one day I woke up and the whole area (especially heading down towards my crotch) was tender and it hurt to sit. When odd feelings start progressing towards my "junk" I get nervous, so I went to the doctor. He knew right away what I had. I got some medicine to decrease the discomfort, I rested up a bit and now I'm pretty much back to 100%. I'm a medical misfit!

Alright, I'm going to go finish a movie I started yesterday and get to bed. I'll try to come back and give you a little update on this coming weekend as well as an update on some communications.

Jags in MX and AZ

I went to Belize a few years back. One of the things I did there was a night hike (with guide) in a preserve where Jaguars lived and had been spotted. I had a pretty big hard on with the hopes of seeing one ... hopefully not clawing out my guts, but seeing one walking or hunting or whatever. No dice (although I did see some other cool stuff).

Well, it looks like perhaps my hard on will return if the Jaguar's comeback continues like this: Rare Jaguars Spotted in Arizona and Mexico

Big cats in the U.S.! I like it.

No Stearing Required

So last night after work I decided to splurge $5 and get my car washed automatic style. After weeks of shitty, messy, cold, the weather here in Cleveland got its ass over freezing for a minute so I figured that even though more cold and more precipitation (and hence more salt on the road) is on the way it would be nice of me to get rid of the already existing filth funking up my ride.

I go to the car wash, get in line, pay and roll into the bay. There is a girl in front of me whose car is already riding along the track, on its way into cleaner pastures. I get lined up, drive in, put it in neutral and off I go. The soap is happening, the cloth whappers are beating against my car, the car wash magic is happening. Then there is a bit of a jolt and a thud. I figure it's just a joint in the track or something. Then it happens again. I put on my wipers to see if I can see anything and that works. The thud is actually me hitting the girl in front of me. Not hard, but hitting nevertheless. My car hits then backs off, then the next roller catches my tire and pushes for another hit. There's not a lot I can do. Brakes aren't going to help, I can't back up because there is another car there, I can't get out unless I want a soapy soaking and even then my car will keep doing what it's doing ... trapped!

After a couple more bumps, the guy running the place realizes that there is a bit of an automotive log jam happening and stops the wash. He comes walking through and notices that the girl ahead of me is sort of off the track. I think she must have been steering instead of just letting the car wash take care of everything. So she's sort of perched on the edge of the guide track. The attendant tells her that she's going to have to put her car in gear and try to slowly drive out. She puts it in gear, rolls a bit and comes off of the edge of the track. That's all good, but when her car hits the floor she hit some sort of drain which became dislodged and in went her front tire. She was stuck. She was crying.

She was there to stay until someone figured out how to lift the car a bit. There was talk of a tow truck, but none of that was my concern. I had been entertained enough. The cars behind me backed out and then I did too. I got the guy working there to rinse off the soap on my car and also got a coupon for a free wash for use some other day. So pretty much two washes for free. I guess that some low speed impacts were worth it.

Not a Washout

So the leaking water issue subsided with a non-disaster status. No collapsed ceiling, no lost sentimental goods and only slight irritation.

Basically, I took a long lunch break during work, some roofing guys came over, shoveled snow off the roof and chopped ice out of the gutters and through some salt up there to get things melting and flowing off the roof rather than melting, getting stuck behind the ice and flowing back under the shingles and into my living room as it had been doing.

Despite being fairly hillbillyish, these roof guys did an alright job. No more water in my living room so crisis averted I suppose. Now I just have to move my stuff back where it belongs and life in my little apartment will go back to normal. Messy, but dry normalcy.