Party All the Time

Ah, Eddie's classic hit. This past Friday I had a Christmas party. Generally I think I'm very good at coming up with party activities and how it's all going to unfold. From the music, to food, to the games and events. However, I am absolutely terrible when it comes to organizing the big day. I think this is partially because people do not think I can organize parties or think I'm going to mess it up and it's going to be no fun, so very few people tend to show up. This party wasn't much of an exception, as not as many people as I would have liked showed up. However it was still extremely successful in my opinion, and in the end all the people I really wanted to show up did anyway.

The party wasn't actually my idea. After a night of racquetball, two of my friends decided that I was going to host a wallyball tournament at the club house where I live. The idea was that we would meet for 5:00 Mass, drive to my place, have the tournament and then have dinner and watch a movie at the club house which has a grill/bar, big screen, pool table and comfy couches. But when I went to reserve the court I was told that the employee Christmas party was being held the night I wanted to reserve it and that the club house would be closed. Fortunately, when the lady saw my face drop she took pity and said she would let my group in anyway. So we got the court. But we could not go into the rest of the club house because of the party.

Well that's no so bad, we could just go to my apartment and have dinner and watch the movie. The problem is that one of the guests, Kate, has cerebral palsy and cannot walk so good, let alone climb three flights of stairs. So I came up with a solution. Before Mass I went and got a platter of subs from Subway, then ran off to Meijer for chips and pop and threw it all in my trunk. The idea was that we could go to the club house for the tournament and then if Kate didn't feel up to making the climb to my place, we could go to a handicap accesible dorm on campus I had in mind and simply take over one of the party rooms that has a big screen and have dinner there.

But after Mass, one of the other guests said he would just piggy-back Kate up the stairs. That seemed absoutely insane to me but they were both fine with it so I said alright. If they both didn't mind taking the risk of one of them falling down I'm not going to stop them. It turns out that he also piggy-backed her down those three flights of steps which he practically ran down. That got me a little upset because I felt that was extremely dangerous, but if the two idiots broke their necks I wasn't going to complain. Two less morons for me to put up with. Anyway, we had dinner and watched the movie in my place. In all about 10 people showed up by the time it was all over. About half came and went at different times, so there was a good flow of people. I also chose the movie, and told them I didn't want their clever suggestions. We watched 'Hot Rod' which is halarious and clean. That's something that I want to gripe about. No one trusts me with movies. Like everything I'm going to pick out is either going to be raunchy, or excessively violent or both. But what I find is that when my friends pick out movies, they choose the terrible flicks and everyone ends up miserable. So I forced upon them my own pick, and of course everyone loved it.

Now the part of this party that was successful was that I managed to get the current girl I'm interested in to come over. I keep expecting to have to write up some horrible new ordeal on here the past few weeks but so far, like the party, I've done pretty well. So sorry Gurney for the lack of laughs.

On the Up and Up

In one of my recent posts I talked about a certain online dating service that caught my eye while I was at the library. Apparently nothing gets past their network administrators because they found me! Check out the comment section. I'm not sure what keywords they used in the search, because doing a basic google search on the first 40 pages came up with no links here. However, since I managed to catch their eye, that means I can catch others as well, and as a result I believe I'm entitled to a discount. In other news I did cancel the one site I was subscribing to. It was fun I suppose looking around and sending out e-mails but I think I want to go back to the old-fashioned way. I'd rather be told 'no' for free than spend $20 a month for the same response.

Like Bubble Gum

All too often today I see people trying force their tastes on others. Now you might say I do this too on my Tasteful Thursday articles, but I'm not forcing them on you. It's not like you have to read these articles, and I'm not going to pout if you have a different opinion on the matter. You'd be wrong, but I'm' not going to lose sleep at night over it. Sushi is a good example. Some people like it and I happen to know a few of them. Occasionally they'll suggest we go out to eat and order it. And I'll say I don't like it. Then they'll proclaim their bewilderment that I don't like it and say that I must not have had good sushi before. As if these mid-Westerners are the authority on good and bad sushi. Well I don't know if it qualifies as "good" or not, but I've had it at one of Tokyo's finest and I didn't like it so back off.

But having said that I am still willing to try new dishes. Last night I went out with a group of people for Chinese. We drove 20 minutes to get to the restaurant that according to my Chinese friend is the best in the area. The place on the outside looks like a dive. But do not get me wrong, most of the best restaurants I've been too have absolutely no curbside appeal. It's one of those strip mall Chinese restaurants, but the place was packed noticeably by Asians. Considering we were in the middle of nowhere in farm country, it was pretty impressive seeing such a large collection of Asians in one place. So I was happy to see that this place must be clearly be highly regarded by the very people it caters to.

My friend went up and ordered for us. In China you generally get a lot of different dishes and then share them. He got a bunch of different ones, some mushroom dish, crispy tofu, baby calamari (baby squid), mock chicken rolls (pork instead of chicken hence mock), chicken ribs, beef and basil, crispy fish and maybe more that I cannot remember. Most of the food was pretty tasty. The chicken ribs, beef and basil, and even baby calamari were good. But my problem with Asian food, and especially tofu is the texture. Tofu to me feels like slime in my mouth, and in this country we are generally raised to equate slimy food with food that's gone bad. The calamari did taste good but it was chewy, and chewy meat grosses me out because I've come to associate that with poorly cooked meat like chicken. Plus I really didn't like seeing the little baby legs. The presentation just looked wrong, tasty or not. The beef was tasty too but the problem is that they covered it in a sauce so I had trouble seeing if the quality of the beef was good or not. When I eat out, I like to make sure the chiefs aren't cutting corners. The fish was tasty too but the big problem with that is we weren't anywhere near a place where fish should be coming from.

So in short the taste of the Chinese food we had was quite yummy, but the textures of the dishes were not pleasing to my Americanized familiarities. The idea behind this little adventure is too start up a group that goes out every now and then to try out foreign foods. So far we've got German, Lebanese, and Jordan places in mind.

Floating Cream

When we were little kids this was always the happiest time of the year. We were out of school, and had the snow to tide us over until the new set of toys came. Now it seems to be one of the most depressing times of the year. The sun isn't out so much, the cold makes us want to stay inside, we have to buy everyone presents, and those of us still in school have to deal with finals which also come with little sleep.

The solution to this problem is Root Beer floats. My co-worker and I were discussing this yesterday when he said he wanted to go to Meijer and get some ice-cream to add to the Root Beer I have at work. Some people eat ice-cream when their depressed. Seeing someone eating Rocky Road right from the carton is right up there with drinking alone. And people can drink Root Beer while experiencing any sort of emotions. But Root Beer floats and depression are not compatible. You cannot remain gloomy while drinking a Root Beer float. Just the idea that in the near future you may be having a Root Beer float can cheer you up a bit. So I think that we should adopt a 3:00 Root Beer float time. Let Europe have their hot leaf water.

For more happy news Sarge has had her first baby, Liam. I think that calls for a Root Beer float. That should be today's task for you. In celebration of Liam, go make yourself a Root Beer float tonight. You can also post your Root Beer float ingredients. For example, last night I was feeling rebellous and made one with Jone's Root Beer and Hawaiian Sundae ice-cream. It's coconut ice-cream with pineapple and cashews. The result was a triumph.

Misunderstood Controversy

A while back I wrote about how I was upset with the press for messing up a story on Nancy Pelosi. Well the press is at it again messing up a story on President Obama. This time they are saying that his acceptance speech of the Nobel Peace Prize dealt with the controversy of him receiving a peace prize while leading a nation at war. But this is the first time I've heard anyone say this is the controversy. The real controversy is that he was nominated for the prize 2 weeks after he was elected and still hadn't done anything yet. He won the prize on potential acts. That's the controversy I've been hearing about. And I think it's undefendable. Otherwise I want my Ph.D. in EE right now because I certainly have the potential to get it. Or better yet, give me the Masters of Theology I was supposed to be getting at the end of this year had the school not shut down.

In other news I'm at the library right now. I've pretty much given up on the two online dating sites I look at. I could never get the few people I was interested in to write me back, and I kept getting written to by people I was not interested in. However, I just saw the guy next to me at onlinebootycall.com. Now that has promise.

Stringing up the Lights

Even though today is Monday, I've decided it is Thursday because it's time for another Tasteful Thursday topic, Christmas tree lights. Yesterday I went and got my first Christmas tree. The tree is a live dwarf Aspen. It is Charlie Brown little, but it made transporting easier since there's only one of me, and it's in its own pot which means I can keep it outside on the balcony during the rest of the year. I thought about going fake but they were expensive, already lit, and stupid. I hate it when cat ladies buy fake plants and flowers thinking it makes their house looks better. They don't, and instead of making the place look better they just make it look dirty because they collect dust. "Oh but I can't afford live flowers." Well that doesn't mean you go fake. Stop being a poser buying knockoffs. Either get the real thing or do without.

Now having said that, we come back to Christmas trees. People my age buying fake trees are feeble. Let's put it in words "Hey, I'm a bachelor in my mid-twenties with a fake tree and LED lighting. I'm being energy efficient, saving money in the long run, and guaranteeing that one less tree has to be cut down." "You're also a feeble nancy boy." That would be an at worst response. The most appropriate response would be physical actions.

I got the tree at Lowes, but I couldn't find any lights. Obviously it's not a one stop shop. So I headed over to Meijer. Meijer had these new LED ones. I was interested in them because I know that in addition to the power savings, LEDs last much longer than regular lights. I wanted white lights, because there is nothing classier than a Christmas tree done up right in white lights. Whenever you see one of the truly remarkable trees, they don't have any blinking lights, icicles, or every color of the rainbow twinkling from the branches. I picked up two boxes and went home.

After getting everything in place I plugged in the lights and was disgusted. Looking at the lights was like looking into the sun. It was physically painful. They were too bright, and had that cool bluish tint rather than the warm yellowish one. Essentially my tree was decorated in stupid hillbilly redneck halogen car lights, that do nothing except cause pain and distract. Back to the store I went. I returned them and then headed over to Menards.

Menards had their outdoors looking right. The trees they had lit up were all done properly. White lights with the yellowish tint. So I was hopeful I would be able to find a box in the store. Like Meijer they had a huge selection of LED bulbs. Even more so. But finally at much looking I found a box of old traditionals. I plugged them in at the store, saw they were right and flew home to string them up. The results are below.

Formalisms

Complaining about my birthday would be like complaining about getting free ice-cream. But since I'm picky, I'm going to complain about it anyway. The chief problem was that I did not get to see two of my friends who live here in town at breakfast. Now generally this would not be a big deal, but one of those friends in particular was supposed to go, not because it was my birthday but coincidentally because I was going to ask her to a dance. The dance is a formal attire shin-dig and is invitation only. I happened to be given an invitation by one of the people who is hosting the event. Last year I was also invited to this dance, and even had a date, some one I had been wanting to take to this dance for the past 5 years but never got a chance to (the dance is a rather old annual winter tradition). But just a few days before the event my date decided she did not want to go with me and I ended up not going at all. So this year, I had higher hopes because the girl I was going to ask out at that breakfast always wanted to go but never had anyone ask her before.

Because it is a formal event, I was going to ask her in person sometime during the breakfast. This was right before everyone was leaving for Turkey break so I wanted to be sure and do it before we all left. But she didn't go to breakfast. I thought about waiting until this week (the dance is this Friday), but then thought that I should ask her while she was at home so that while she was home she could pick up a dress if she didn't already have one here. That was a small trivial part to why last year's date decided not to go. Her claim was she didn't have a good dress. And while this was more a convenient excuse for her to get around saying any real reason, I did not want to mess up this year's dance as well. So on Saturday I gave newbie a buzz to ask her. I felt calling someone up is still preferable to e-mail or even worse yet texting.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm not very good at remaining calm when I approach girls. When I called I do not think it could have been at a worse time. It seemed that precisely at that moment, right then, her sister had won All American. Now I have no clue what this is, some sports thing I guess, but everyone was making a huge fuss about it in the background. So I pretended to be happy for her sister, although my nerves were already running high and all I wanted to do was get to the point of why I was calling and then get off the phone. After all the fuss, she finally realized I must have had some reason for calling and asked what I wanted. Then I got to ask her if she'd like to go the dance with me. And miracle of miracles she got excited and shouted out "Wow! I've never been asked to go to this dance before! And now in less than a day I've gotten two invitations." "What?" "Yeah, I got e-mailed yesterday from a guy asking if he could take me."

At this point I tried to explain to her that whoever it was that e-mailed her was a coward who needed to grow a pair. But as I said, her sister had just won All American and she needed to get off the phone.

I'm not going to the dance. Instead I'm going up to Chicago. There's going to be an alumni dinner there on the top floor of one of the tall buildings (obviously I'm not from Chicago). The dinner is for those of us who were affiliated with the Newman Center on campus when we were undergrads, so I should get to see a lot of old faces. And I get to ride up and back with two of the priests so that should be fun. Okay, this paragraph doesn't really belong with this post but if after I go up I want to talk about it, I wanted to give myself a good segway.

A few days later, after I made that phone call, I got another call from a friend of mine who did get a date for this dance. So I congratulated him for manning up to ask a girl out. He said he text messaged her. I was at work when I got this call, but that did not stop me from screaming at him for being a gut-less wonder. You do not, e-mail, text, or facebook a girl to a formal dance. It is just not done. You grow a pair and ask her out in person. Speaking of which, the girls are also partially to blame for putting up with these pathetic proposals. Then after I calmed down a bit, I asked him who the lucky girl is that he's taking. Her name is Maggie.