In An Mmmbop You're Gone, In An Mmmbop You're Not There

After we went tailgating for the Nascar race in KC last year and had a blast, Lane, Skye, Alex and I were all about going again this year. We spent the last few weeks hyping it up to whoever would listen, in an effort to add more people to our party. A bunch of people said they were going. Then, with visions of an all-day Drinking Olympics dancing in my head, people started bailing out, until all that were left were the original four. Normally that is two more people than I usually need to get crunk, but my weekends have been crazy lately (and will continue to be crazy the next few weeks) so we all bailed too. As a result of everyone ditching out on Nascar festivities, the following friendship points have been subtracted:

Ashley- going to Nebraska to see your new manfriend. Yes, he is very cool- he definitely has my seal of approval- but you should've had him come down here. Nascar would've been more fun than watching Cornhusker football. Yeahhhh Go Big Red!
-100 friendship points.

Jud: out late the previous night at a bachelor party. Definitely an acceptable reason, but I hold you to a higher standard than others. You're supposed to be a drinking champion.
-50 friendship points.

Shaun- going to church. I won't comment further as I don't want to get struck by lightning.
-0 friendship points. That's WJWD.

Jenn & Ringer- helping Janelle with wedding invitations. Are you kidding?!? Why don't you just kick my dog while you're at it?
-1,000 friendship points

I award myself -10 points, as the argument could be used that "Old Jim would've still gone." But if I was gonna go, it was gonna be all or nothing, so I chose nothing. As a very wise man and his Funky Bunch once told me, "If you're not in it to win it, then get the hell out."


Question of the day: Let's say you are accused of a crime. A very high-profile crime that is intensely scrutinized by the public. You are 100% innocent. Suppose you have two options:

A). You are acquitted of all charges, but the vast majority of the world believes you are guilty. Your entire world is turned upside down. Virtually everybody except your family and your very closest friends shun you. Your spouse/significant other leaves you. No company will hire you. Everywhere you go, people are heckling you, calling you names, vandalizing your car, to the point that you rarely go out in public. Basically you become O.J. Simpson, except you don't lose a civil trial, so you won't be bankrupt. You can write a book that will make a lot of money, which will offset the fact you can't find work anywhere. Your legacy is forever tarnished; you will go down in history as a scumbag. All these things happen to you, but you do not set foot in jail.

B). You are found guilty. You go to a maximum security prison for 15 years. During this time, you experience unspeakable torture. Picture all the bad things you've seen from any prison movie, and they are all happening to you. Once again, your spouse/significant other leaves you. The general public considers you guilty, and your reputation is destroyed by the media. However, everyone else you know believes you are innocent and stands by you. After 15 years, evidence arises that completely exonerates you, and you are pardoned. You win a lawsuit for enough money that you will live in incredible luxury for the rest of your life. You write a book on your trials that becomes an award-winning movie, and establishes you as a national hero, to be remembered for generations to come. You find a new spouse, although it's unclear whether she loves you, or just your money and celebrity status. And you have lost those 15 years of your life, which are filled with enough bad memories that you have trouble sleeping for the rest of your days.

Which option would you choose?

Yep, Still Champs

Hey, remember when KU came back from 9 points down with 2:12 left to win the national championship? That was pretty neat.

Happy Friday, bone diddleys. Nascar returns to Kansas City again this weekend, and tailgating begins at 8 am on Sunday. Bergman, there could be some Drexlers flying around pretty early. As my boy MyShawn would say, as he shrugs his shoulders: "Could be fun."

Are You Kidding Me?

By writing this, I hope I don't discourage people from having their own opinion and disagreeing with me, but just know that if you are ridiculous about it, then you're gonna get made fun of...

So when I listed a bunch of random, stupid, made up "facts" about Alex Rodriguez the other day, I thought I had a pretty good idea of how it would go down. Some people would laugh. Some people would think it's horribly boring and unfunny. Some people would skim through the post and barely even read it, since they don't follow baseball. Some people would heartily agree, and maybe come up with some of their own, since they share my dislike of A-Rod. And some people would disagree, since they enjoy A-Rod. I thought there was even a possibility of a few jokes about Manny or Youkilis or Papelbon, or maybe some other anti-Red Sox sentiments would turn up in the comments, especially from my buddies who are Twins fans.

What I didn't expect was that some rando from the Bronx named "Evelyn" would take severe offense to a clearly--let me repeat--CLEARLY satirical topic. Among other things, here's what she had to say (go check all the comments from yesterday if you feel like this isn't enough to make you laugh):


"It is incredible that you have all this time to post this garbage..YOu probably don't even know the guy.

So who cares if A-Rod collects magnets in the shape of a state..My mother collects magnets in the shape of fruits, animals, vegetables and every possible eatible thing out there, and you know what is the bottom line..nobody cares.So what if he eats the biggest slice of pizza, guest what we all do.. And regarding the women comment, with the kind of money this guy has I doubt very much, women are not flocking to him...Remember money talks and BS walks. He would not need to get a fake phone number if I was around. He would get it without asking."


Well now. Ignoring the numerous spelling and grammatical errors (because this isn't a column for the New York Times, it's a fucking blog, and its contents probably shouldn't be, ahem, taken so seriously) this is quite the piece of work. I will give you some propers, Evelyn: you made a lot of people laugh their asses off with that last paragraph. You brightened up the work day for a sizable group of people.

Normally I love it when people either disagree with me or make fun of me in the comments; everyone knows I enjoy a good healthy discussion that borders on an argument, especially when it is about a particularly trivial subject. And Lord knows I rip on a lot of people and a lot of things; it would be incredibly lame if I gave it out but couldn't take it.

But are you for real?

Yes, Evelyn, you are correct when you say that I "don't even know the guy." I have no idea what A-Rod's thoughts are concerning Lord of the Rings. I am unsure of his tipping policy in restaurants. I don't have his paper-rock-scissors lifetime winning percentage at my disposal. He may or may not enjoy magnets in the shape of different states....I've heard those are popular. I can't say for sure what his workout playlist sounds like (but I'd bet there's lots of Madonna in it.) I have never shared a pizza with A-Rod, so I have no knowledge of what his etiquette is when he's down to the last two slices. You're probably right, he probably doesn't have to fake getting a woman's phone number (I mean, YOU'D give it to him without asking, so he'd get at least one, right?) I highly doubt he even has a facebook account...but he should look into it, then he and Jeter could message each other all day, LOLZ.

The point of all this, if it wasn't obvious the first time around, is it's all a FUCKING JOKE. Please act accordingly. I would have loved it if you would've said something like "When Hammen is losing in Online Madden, he 'accidentally' unplugs his internet connection so the game doesn't count on his win/loss record." That would've been funny. But instead, you treated me like I was Kramer at the Laugh Factory.

So "Evelyn", if you are a buddy of mine posing as someone else, then come forward, reveal yourself, and take a bow; you have forced me to write an entire post directly to you. I died a little bit inside when I typed this. Good prank, you win. Well played.

If you are a real person, however, then I can do nothing but wish you well as you travel the internet searching for blogs that make fun of A-Rod, and staunchly defending him when it is unnecessary. Keep fighting the good fight.

Little-Known Facts About Alex Rodriguez

--When A-Rod is on the first date with a new girl, he immediately grabs the check as soon as the waiter sets it down. When she makes the token offer to pay, he thinks it over for a couple seconds, then lets her pay for her half of the meal. But he gets the tip.

--A-Rod thought that the last Lord of the Rings movie could've used some more endings, because "it just didn't tie up all the loose ends."

--A-Rod says he'll be the DD, but then gets drunker than everyone else and makes someone else drive his car home because he really needs it the next morning.

--When A-Rod is riding in the car with someone, and he gets a call on his cell, he turns the radio way down so he can hear. But if his buddy has to make a call, and he goes to turn down the music, A-Rod yells, "Hey! I was listening to that!" and cranks the volume back up.

--A-Rod claims he knows what is in the briefcase at the end of Pulp Fiction, but won't tell anyone because "it's much cooler if you figure it out yourself."

--When A-Rod is taking a road trip with his friends, he has to stop in a gas station in every state to get a magnet in the shape of that state, even if they don't need gas and no one needs to go to the bathroom.

--When A-Rod eats at Olive Garden, he'll give less of a tip because the free breadsticks were a little on the dry side.

--While at the bar with buddies, A-Rod will go up to buy a beer, make sure no one is looking, grab a coaster, and scribble down a fake woman's name and fake number, then come back to the table and brag that some random chick just came up and started hitting on him, so he got her number, but he's probably not gonna call her.

--A-Rod claims to have the best workout playlist ever on his iPod, but really it's just the live version of Thunderstruck by AC/DC repeated 18 times.

--A-Rod says things like, "No excuses, play like a champion!" and tries to pass it off as his own, because he doesn't think that many people have seen Wedding Crashers yet.

--If you go golfing with A-Rod and you get a cart, he won't let you drive once the entire 18 holes.

--When A-Rod goes to a wedding, he wears a tux to the reception so it looks like he was in the wedding party too.

--When everyone else in the group is on their phone texting people, A-Rod feels left out, so he pulls out his phone and starts texting people too. Only he doesn't have anyone to text, so really he's just scrolling through the main menu over and over again, but it totally looks like he's texting someone.

--When A-Rod plays paper-rock-scissors, he always hesitates for a split second before he shoots so he can see what the other person is doing first. He still doesn't win very often, though.

--A-Rod is one of those guys who includes his nickname in his facebook profile, so it says Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez.

--If you're splitting a pizza with A-Rod and you're down to the last two slices, he'll take the bigger one, then only eat half of it and waste the rest, because he wasn't that hungry anyway.

USA! USA! USA!

The Ryder Cup is my second favorite sporting event after March Madness, but it's been a long time since I've been able to really celebrate it. It's mind-boggling to think that the last time the United States won, I was a junior in high school, and even then they needed a miracle to do it. This was easily the most likable U.S. team of my lifetime. Congrats to Captain Paul Azinger, Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim, Boo Weekley, J.B. Holmes, Kenny Perry, Jim Furyk, Justin Leonard, Hunter Mahan, Chad Campbell, Steve Stricker, Ben Curtis, and Stewart Cink.

In other news, it appears as though Julio Lugo's season may be done. I'm crushed. Get well soon, Julio!***

***Sarcasm.

I, Paul, Take You, Mandy...

My favorite moments, stories, and pictures from the week that was:

THURSDAY

Paul, Bergman, Me, Fundy, ADawg. This was such an awful round of golf. Fun, but awful. I couldn't make a putt, like normal. Fundy was playing well until the beer kicked in. After that, the wheels flew off his round so violently that bystanders were nearly injured. ADawg should've probably just traded his golf cart for an ATV or something, since he was in the woods far more often than the fairway. Did he check for wood ticks?

We started off the evening playing blackjack at the bar. I don't miss much about North Dakota, but $1 blackjack is certainly up there. Who needs Vegas when you've got charitable gaming? We turned that blackjack area into a near-riot. Later that night, Buffalo Wild Wings was nearly our undoing. Noles puked in the bathroom, and ADawg couldn't have come any closer to puking up his tequila shot right there at the table (leading the rest of us to tell everyone around us that it was his 21st birthday.) Paul decided (in classic Old Paul form) that he wanted to run to the river to throw up, a good six blocks away. Naturally, he doesn't tell anyone first, so after we finally realize that no one's seen him for like half an hour, I have to go chase him down. Ironically, we were trying to be responsible when we went to BWW, as we realized it was 11 pm and we hadn't eaten yet. Unreal. We would've been better off mainlining everclear and going to a strip club.

My favorite part of Buck's that night was that when you were at the blackjack table, you could watch a monitor that showed the dance floor. When we first got there, there weren't a ton of ladies shaking their tailfeathers yet, but Fundy and ADawg ventured out there anyway. They would try and saddle up to some random chicks, get shot down, and then nonchalantly mosey back to the middle and dance with each other, wait a couple minutes, and repeat. I could barely concentrate on the cards I was laughing so hard. Later on we ran into Mandy, Tara, the Zidon sisters, and the rest of the bridesmaids (and I mean literally ran into; we were supposed to drink on our own that night, and we ended up at the same bar. Fucking North Dakota towns) and Paul was dancing with a woman who was, um, a little on the heavy side of the scale. Mandy comes up to Noles and I and asks, matter-of-factly, "Is Paul dancing with the fattest girl in the entire bar right now?"

After the bar, most everyone goes to sleep at a decent hour. Bergman, the Zidons, and I decide to take the party to the hotel hallway, and we keep going.....and going.....until we saw a hotel employee carrying a breakfast tray to someone's room. We realized it was 8 am and decided to wrap it up. Sara may or may not have slept in the closet.

FRIDAY

After struggling through breakfast, picking up my tux, the wedding rehearsal, and my allergies, after just an hour and a half of sleeping on the floor underneath a table, I am energized by the fact that the cavalry is starting to arrive. Alex, Chelsey, Russell, Jason, Pete, Lindsey, and others begin to filter in to the groom's dinner/BBQ, and then at the Broken Oar we add Lane, Skye, Amber, Sweeney, and Moose to our crew, so we're rolling pretty deep now.

The Broken Oar turned out to be pretty awesome. If you ever find yourself partying in Bismarck (God forbid) try and make it there. The best part of that night was Lane introducing TechnoBall on the dance floor. Since he invented that after he moved to Kansas, basically none of our friends had seen it yet; they had only heard me talk about it on here. As Noles said afterwards, "When I read about it I kinda thought it was bullshit, but that was fucking awesome!"

After the bar we went back and hopped from room to room partying, not being quiet at all. It wasn't until the next day that we found out Paul's family was staying NEXT DOOR to us. Whoops. Sweeney may or may not have flashed the pizza guy.

SATURDAY

We turned the picture taking session into a complete shitshow. If you know this group of guys, it really isn't too shocking. Basically, any time we're supposed to be on our best behavior, we are anything but. The wind kept blowing our jackets and ties around; Noles and Fundy were repeatedly grabbing my ass right before the flash went off, causing me to giggle and squirm and jump around; I was telling the photographer not to put ADawg in any pictures, because if he can't reunite his parents at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance and get back to 1985, he won't even show up in the photograph anyway; and Fundy and I pretended to be conjoined twins (in our defense, Stuck On You was on TV that morning, and letting us watch that right before picture taking is like giving a hyperactive kid a six-pack of Red Bull before dropping him off at day care.) By the end of the session, the photographers either loved us, or they wanted us to die a slow, horrible death. One of the two.

The ceremony, which was held outside, was equally hectic. The wind picked up and wreaked havoc on things:

-During Chelsey's scripture reading, she was facing the wind, and wearing a wrap dress. I'll let you draw your own picture. Use your imagination.

-I had to help Tara hold her music book while she was singing, since the wind blew the pages around. I failed horribly in my simple task:

Tara, handing me the book and whispering "Don't fuck this up."

Me, IMMEDIATELY fumbling the book and losing the page "Ummm I fucked it up."

Tara, not whispering anymore "Are you kidding me?!?"

Me, flipping through pages to reclaim her song "If you wouldn't have said anything, I would've been fine!"

-The microphone kept shorting out, so when Paul started his vows, he wasn't sure if it would be on or not, so he leaned in and yelled "I Paul, take you, Mandy!".....the microphone was on. On the bright side, this led to the first Unamused Mandy Face of the day! Best face ever.

This all contributed to make the ceremony awesome, in my opinion, as it kind of took the pressure off and put everyone in a festive mood. Right before the kiss, when Paul pulled out the binaca and sprayed it away from his mouth, Dumb & Dumber style, it brought the house down.

During dinner, we got our first look at Ike, who I hadn't seen since his wedding in June. He was sporting, quite simply, the shittiest beard in human history. He only grows facial hair on his moles, and in about 4 other spots on his face. So he grows out the hair in those places until they can at least cover 75% of his face. He calls it his comb-under. I would estimate that 50-60% of the conversation at the head table were beard jokes at Ike's expense.

My favorite moment of Paul's speech: when he starts out by saying, "You know, I look around tonight, and you know what I see...." and during his pause everyone just dies laughing. Because every single person in there knows Paul and in their mind is saying, "Oh sweet Jesus what is he going to say next..." The kid doesn't even have to make a joke and he gets people to laugh at him. It must be a good feeling. Or an awful feeling, I haven't decided yet. My second favorite moment: when he dusted off the "I love you Dad" straight from Old School. The only shocking thing about him pulling out a Will Ferrel quote at his wedding was that he waited so long to do it.

The dance was a typical dance, but the deejay unfortunately ignored all my songs (no word on what happened with that yet) except we finally did get Apache played, and it was as magical as I dreamt it would be. TechnoBall and VirtualJumpRope were also pulled out at some point. During the dollar dance, Tara and I were competing to see who could raise the most money, so I started a 3 for 1 deal where you paid your dollar, got to dance with me, then I passed you to ADawg, and then he passed you to Paul. So you barely had to stand in my line, while Tara's line stretched out forever. Somehow she still beat me by 3 dollars.

(Side note: Moms LOVED dancing with ADawg. I usually brag about my skill in hitting on Moms, but this was ridiculous. They were loving the shit out of him. Probably because they see his shirt and it reminds them of when they shopped for their own kids at Baby Gap.)

To break it down SAT style:

Middle-aged Moms : ADawg :: Me : Chili cheese wraps

Best part of the dollar dance: every time someone would come through the line, I'd grab them, start dancing with them, and go through my little spiel about the 3 for 1, batting my eyes and sweet-talking them the whole time. Well, this one elderly lady comes through (no idea who she was, I think she may have been on Mandy's side) stops me and says, "Ummm, I'll pass." I stop, dumbfounded. "You don't want to dance with me?" "No, I'll just stand over here until Paul is free." And she did just that. I have to give her props for dissing me like that though. It would've been much cooler if she would've waved her hand in front of her face and yelled, "You can't see me, you can't see me!" and some of her friends from her Bridge game came up around her yelling "Ohhhh snap! You just got served, bitch!" But alas.

Maybe my favorite part of the entire evening was when Lane had some drink made that included apple pucker, green slushee mix, and some other shit, and called it a Slimer. Now, if you know us personally, or just pay attention on this blog, you know where this is going. It started with a couple of Ghostbusters jokes. Then it turned into me telling the bartender he should only put one straw in the glass instead of two, because you NEVER cross the streams. Then, it escalated so that every time someone at the bar would order one (word spread fast, they were selling like crazy) we would all gather around and sing the Ghostbusters song. Loudly. And not just the words. Oh, no. The tune and everything. We were loving every second of it, but I'm sure the bartender wanted to shove each and every one of us into his proton pack.

Earlier on in the night, a bunch of the girlfriends/fiancees/wives decided that since they always watch us dudes get silly drunk while they stay relatively under control, they were going to flip the switch on us tonight and get crunk sauced. The commanding officers of this little rebellion (Smapes, Bobbi, Natalee) started out guns blazing, doing shots, loving life, but.....well, you learn pretty early on in your life that

girls + tons of liquor + chip on their shoulder + wedding = A FUCKING DISASTER

And this was no different. There were lots of emotional girls struggling to stand up by the end of the night. I hope you ladies learned your lesson. And I can sound sexist because of all the heat us guys are taking from the ladies for not giving up our jackets to the bridesmaids during the ceremony. We're men. Men who built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. And you're just women with a brain 1/3 the size of ours. It's science.

Anyway, afterwards, we after-partied for awhile at our hotel, ADawg and Bergman sang "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin" to Chelsey, then we passed out around 4. Sweeney didn't flash the pizza guy this time. He seemed disappointed.

Now we come to the picture portion of the post:

Noles trying on Sweeney's dress, and me picking some lint out of his sweater. Take a good look at this, Mike. Do you REALLY think you can beat him in a beard contest?

Pastor: Oh yeah? Well, the proper girl in the hat just eye-fucked the shit out of me.

Paul: Hee hee hee. That's from Wedding Crashers.

Pastor: I know, right? Up top, bro.

Paul: You just inspired me to quote Old School during my speech, my man.

Just after the binaca spray. People love to be in the presence of true love. It's powerful stuff.

I put this picture up only because there is some speculation that I may have been crying here. I would like say that in actuality, I am trying to hide the fact that I'm laughing because Mandy is getting ready to bust out the legendary Mandy Unamused Face.

Me, Fundy, Noles. ADawg was late to the dinner because he was still in the woods off of hole 7 looking for his tee shot.

Rachel, Sara, Katie, Mo, Tara. Us guys have been getting absolutely raked over the coals for not giving up our jackets during the ceremony when it was cold outside. Let the record show that as soon as we stepped inside, we gave them right up. We're likely huddling together for warmth during this, freezing our asses off. What was the air conditioning set at, like 71? C'mon, who says chivalry is dead?

Mandy and Lane. When there's somethin' strange, and it don't look good...who ya gonna call?



Bergman and Sweeney. If I was an artist, and this was my portrait, it would be titled If We Can't Be Lovers Then We Can't Be Friends.

See? I told you the Moms loved ADawg. Look how excited they are! Oh, wait. That's ADawg's mom. Is this how you spell Oedipus Complex?




Katie and I. My recollection of this moment = low. Now I'm not a betting man, but the safe bet would be that is this during the Dollar Dance.



ADawg, it's happening! You're starting to fade out of the picture now too! You have to get your parents to kiss and get to the clock tower, the lightning's gonna strike soon!

A developing story: if I keep using Back to the Future jokes at this rate, will I have any left for ADawg's wedding in three weeks? Stay tuned.

Ike, Bobbi, Casey, Jake. The good news about Ike's beard is that he won a Worst Beard bet with the Shoebomber Richard Reid, and he has a crisp $5 bill coming his way.

Here's Ike getting ready before the wedding. The valmorification is complete.

Chelsey, Alex, and Sweeney. A.k.a. Miss February, Miss July, and Miss October of the "Girls of Room 276."

The lovely bride and me. It was somewhat awkward during this dance when I heard her whisper "If only it was you and me, Jim..." but it was pretty quiet, so I just pretended like I didn't hear it.

All in all, a fannnnntastic weekend. Congrats to the happy couple. I'm sure I left out a lot of stories that I forgot about, or there were some good ones that I wasn't present for and didn't get the story on. Comment it up with those.

Oh, and Weisser- since Salwey and I were unable to accomplish our dream of live-streaming video of Kuntz's wedding and Paul's wedding, which were going on simultaneously, I'd like a report on that. Minimum 500 words. Go.

Eff You, DeSean

Gotta love the little stunt that DeSean Jackson pulled last night at the goal line. I played Skye this week in fantasy football, and she has Brian Westbrook, and I have Jackson, so that was a nice little 12-point swing in her favor....and I lost by one point. Did I mention that Westbrook also had 2 fumbles that the scorers later took away and gave to McNabb instead? Sweet. I guess the Fantasy Gods just didn't want me to win this week. Fair enough.

To those of you who have been giving me the "Jimmy Shaker in Ransom" treatment and increasing your demands: I promise the post on Paul's wedding is coming. My mental and physical strength is increasing by the day. Be patient.


Question of the Day: Imagine you were told that tomorrow you were going to be entered into a competition against one other individual. You don't know who the opponent will be, just that it will be someone completely random. You get to choose what event you're competing in. There are no limitations to what event you choose. It can be athletic, an eating contest, a video game, a cross-country race, trivia, beer pong, paper-rock-scissors, anything. However, the loser of the competition will be killed on the spot. What event would you choose?

A more succinct way of putting it would be: What do you think you are better at than anybody else in the world, if your life depended on it?

That Escalated Quickly

I love how just recently I wrote about my tumultous relationship with alcohol, and mentioned how I don't even drink very often anymore, and then I experience a stretch like Paul's wedding week.

I am absolutely catatonic today. This is an extended hangover on the same level as coming back from Vegas. (Side note: after one of my Vegas trips, I was completely strung out, and my first night back at Culligan was rough. Jon-Jon was leaving for work at around 7 a.m. the next morning, and when he came out into the living room, he found me sitting on the couch, eyes glazed over, double-fisting 24 oz. energy drinks and watching Richie Rich on TBS. And that's about how I feel like today.)

My eyes are completely dried out. So far today I've only eaten an apple and a nutri-grain bar (so I'm about 6,000 calories under my daily average.) My lips are roughly the same color as A-Rod's in the 8th inning of a chilly October playoff game. My tongue feels so furry, it's like somebody stuffed a teddy bear inside my mouth. I could brush my teeth for 3 hours straight and my mouth still wouldn't feel fresh. I have absolutely no sense of what time it is, and can't understand why there isn't a beer in my hands at any given moment. My back hurts, my head hurts, my life hurts.

I'll write an extended review of the shenanigans, once pictures start surfacing and I can have some visual aids, but for now here's a crude breakdown of Wednesday-Sunday:

Wednesday: Work 7am-3pm. Drive from Lawrence to Fargo, 4pm-1am. Have a couple beers at Fundy's place. Go to sleep.

Thursday: Drive from Fargo to Bismarck 10:30am-1:30pm. Drink 2pm-8am (not a typo.) Sleep 8am-10am. We're actually well into Friday now.

Friday: Pick up tux, do wedding rehearsal, load up on ibuprofen, tums, claritin, go to groom's dinner. Drink 4pm-4am.

Saturday: Swimming, pictures, wedding, wedding dance, after-party. Drink 6pm-3am.

Sunday: Gift-opening, drive from Bismarck to Fargo 12pm-3pm. Eat with family, Bergman, and Russell. Drive from Fargo to Lawrence 4pm-1am.

Today: re-evaluation of life.


I originally had today off from work, but since I got back to town ahead of schedule last night, I decided that I would just go in and work today, and I could save that vacation day for later this year. I immediately regret that decision.

Don't misconstrue this as me looking for sympathy. I know that I have no one to blame but myself. I'm just trying to give an accurate portrayal of my current physical state. If you're scoring at home, once I set foot in Bismarck on Thursday afternoon, I logged 39 hours of drinking and 11 hours of sleeping over the next three days.

As Barney Gumble would say, "Don't cry for me, I'm already dead."

A Very Special St. Aubyn Tribute

I leave tomorrow evening to head back up to North Dakota for the St. Aubyn/Murphy nuptials, which is sure to be one gigantic shitshow of a weekend. In honor of the occasion, I thought I would pay tribute here to one of the craziest kids I know, by chronicling some of the more ridiculous drinking shenanigans he had back in his heyday.

--The time he was too drunk at an after-party to drive, so he responsibly called a cab...and had the cabbie drop him off at his car which was still downtown at the bar, and then drove home.

--The time freshman year that an annoying girl kept inviting herself out with us, and she had a crush on St. Aubyn, so he said quote "I'll shoot her down and make her cry tonight, and then she'll leave us alone." Yeah, he made out with her for like 6 hours that night.

--The time he projectile vomited clear across the dorm room, by simply pulling back his homemade curtain over his bed, letting loose, closing his curtain and calmly going back to sleep. I got out of there seconds before I lost the contents of my own stomach and it turned into the lardass scene from Stand By Me.

--The time we were at Green Mill, and he was telling a story, and emphatically threw his arm in the air for dramatic effect...and shattered the light bulb above the table, bringing down a storm of broken glass into our drinks. And just in case that wasn't enough, as we're getting our table cleaned off, he was explaining to our server how it happened, and thrust his arm in the air again....and stuck his finger in the open socket and mildly electrocuted himself. We were only like 2 drinks in at this point. Even when he's sober he's a circus act.

--The time he and I got roofied...seriously. We were at Gilly's, and he was on only his 7th drink, and I was on my 5th, when all of a sudden he fell off his barstool. And just laid there. I grabbed him, and volunteered to take him home, since I didn't feel like getting hammered that night. The last thing I remember is deciding I wanted Taco Bell. All of a sudden it's the next morning, I'm still fully clothed, shoes and all, on the couch. I go down to my car and it looks like the Taco Bell kitchen exploded in the passenger seat. Cheese, meat, lettuce, EVERYWHERE. To this day neither one of us knows what happened. I guarantee that our drinks were really supposed to go to the slutty-looking 19-year-old chicks with the fake i.d.'s, those bartenders at Gilly's are sketchy like that. I made St. Aubyn clean out my car.

--During the 2005 spring break in Louisville, we were talking with some rando who looked Asian. St. Aubyn and I were smack in the middle of our "Zoolander is the funniest movie ever!" phase. After talking for a while and building up a decent conversation, he asks her where she is from. She replies "Malaysia." St. Aubyn looks back at me, his face lights up like he just won the lotto, and he turns back to her and does some little karate move with his hands, and screams at her, "You must KILL THE PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA!" Needless to say, that was the end of that conversation.

--At Chelsey and Mike's wedding a couple years ago, there was an, um, interesting mix of us shitheads who drink way too much, and Chelsey's friends from Bible Camp who can dance sober. St. Aubyn enjoys a few dances with this girl, and she seems to be enjoying herself. I believe he may even have received a compliment from her on his dancing abilities. After a song finishes, he makes a comment about how he needs another beer. Disappointed, she asks, "Ohhh...you mean you're drinking right now?" St. Aubyn's reply, combined with a completely incredulous look on his face:

"Are you crazy? I'm fuckin' CRUSHED right now!!!"

They didn't dance again after that.

--After one night at the bar, St. Aubyn goes to some after party with some buddies. He has no idea whose house it is. He promptly passes out, and when he wakes up a couple hours later, everyone he knows is gone. So he begins walking home. He doesn't really remember much after that, but one of our buddies (Timmy B maybe?), on his way home, spots him in front of the Ralph Engelstad Arena, playing on a snow hill by himself. At 4 a.m. In the bitter cold. For Christmas that year, my mom wanted to get him a pair of snowpants.

--One semester, a bunch of us took the Personal Marketing class, probably one of the easiest A's at UND. One of our "assignments" was to learn how to eat a professional dinner at Sanders, in case we ran into one on a job interview: learning about different silverware, how to order and taste wine, etc. etc. Before the dinner, we were encouraged to try as many different wines as possible, so we diversified our tastes. Big, BIG mistake. Turning us loose in a classy restaurant with a free pass to drink as much as we want is the equivalent of making Jason Voorhees a camp counselor at Crystal Lake and telling him to go nuts. So, true to form, we get hammered. After the dinner ends, our crew stays and polishes off a few more bottles of wine, then get some beers after that. As we're stumbling out the door, St. Aubyn decides he wants to "thank our professor for such a special night." The prof is still there, bullshitting with a couple of the 40 year olds in the class (who stuck around to get career advice from him. They're actually taking the class because they're in-between jobs and having trouble getting re-hired, and the mortgage payments are piling up; we're taking it because class lets out at least an hour early every Wednesday night, and there's no homework.)

Weisser, Deuce and I try to tell him that it wouldn't be a good idea to try and talk to our professor with his BAC rivaling his GPA, but St. Aubyn won't hear it. He will not be denied. So he shuffles over and patiently waits his turn to speak, wobbling and swaying just over the prof's shoulder, practically breathing in his ear. After awhile he gets bored with waiting, looks across the restaurant at us, a good 40 feet away, and yells loud enough for us to hear, "Ahhhh screw it!!!" Our prof nearly jumps out of his shoes he yelled so loud. St. Aubyn strolls away, unaware of any wrongdoing, as we sprint out the door to keep from being associated with him. And "ahhh screw it" enters our Hall of Fame of legendary phrases.

--Last October, while at The Outhouse, St. Aubyn enticed a stripper onto his lap. Somehow she stayed there for over an hour, without St. Aubyn giving her a single dollar. When she finally left, we asked him what the hell he said to keep her there without buying a dance. His answer, "I told her that my girlfriend just died, and I was just looking to enjoy someone's company, and I couldn't imagine a more beautiful girl to talk to." While we broke up laughing, he produced a 20 dollar bill....which he stole from her g-string while she sat there.

--Lastly, my personal favorite: one night freshman year, St. Aubyn leaves a party at Ike & Jake's early, having hit his drinking ceiling. One of St. Aubyn's staples when drunk is to take a sit-down shower before he goes to bed, which is exactly what it sounds like. In his mind, it combines the greatest aspects of both a shower and a bath. However, on this night, he is a little too drunk to be partaking in one of his favorite activities. He promptly passes out, covering the drain in the process. I'm still at the party, so the first people on the scene are our suitemates, after the first little bit of overflowed water starts trickling into their room. They pound on the bathroom door, to no avail. St. Aubyn, due to the shape of the shower and placement of the drain, is in no personal danger, but he's not waking up anytime soon, and the water is continuing to spill out at an increasingly alarming rate.

Finally they go get the RA, and he uses the master key to unlock the bathroom, and they haul St. Aubyn out of there, butt-ass naked in all his glory. By this time water has made its way into every room in our wing.....except, by some act of God that we surely didn't deserve, there is not a single drop in our room. So now it's around 2 a.m. and everyone in a 12-room radius is squeeging out their rooms and drying out their possessions. There are giant fans blowing everywhere in an attempt to dry out the hallway. St. Aubyn is sitting in a towel in his bed, having not made any kind of effort to help out with the cleanup of Walsh Hall's version of Hurricane Katrina (I would make a George Bush joke here, but I don't give a shit about politics.)

So eventually our RA comes in to our room and sarcastically asks, "So, are you feeling any better?" And St. Aubyn, who had been fighting a courageous battle to keep from passing out again, answers, "Yeah, in fact....I'm gonna go back to the party." And that kid, bless his heart, gets dressed, walks right past the incredulous stares of everyone cleaning up in the hallway, and walks back to Ike & Jake's house and calmly cracks another beer before telling us what he remembers of the story (I picked up the rest the next day.) Luckily it was somewhat late in the school year, because the first black kids who integrated into white schools in the 1950's received better treatment than St. Aubyn and I got from our fellow residents the rest the semester.

So that concludes our list. I hope it doesn't jeopardize my status as Best Man this weekend. If there's any that I missed, feel free to add them.

Any Given Sunday (You Can Find Me On The Couch)

I love when football season starts. I get to sit on the couch and watch TV for up to and including 9 hours, my only concern being what my order from Sonic is going to be. Do I get 2 chili cheese wraps and 1 cheeseburger, or 2 cheeseburgers and just 1 chili cheese wrap? Fuck it, I'll get 2 of each.

Now normally, this kind of day would depress me, and force me to look in the mirror and wonder what I'm doing with my life. But it's OK, because football is on, so it's perfectly fine to sit on my ass and spend more time recovering from my Friday and Saturday night shenanigans (roughly 40 beers the last two days) than it took to actually experience said shenanigans.

{Side note: my ultimate "What am I doing with my life?" moment came freshman year of college. We were pregaming in Schne and Kos' dorm room. I was sitting on their futon, watching them battle each other in Dr. Mario, and I happened to glance up at the mirror that sat directly across from my spot. In one hand I had a can of Schmidt's (the old-style can with the big elk and wilderness scene on it) and in the other I was gnawing on a log of chocalate chip cookie dough. It was an eye-opening portrait of my life. I still drank Schmidt's for another year afterwards, but I stopped eating entire logs of cookie dough.}

OK, here's the obligatory "here's my fantasy football team" post that is so popular this time of year:

QB- Ben Rothliesburger

RB- Larry Johnson (since traded to Bergman for Clinton Portis)

RB- Julius Jones

WR- Plaxico Burress

WR- Hines Ward

WR- Donte Stallworth

TE- Chris Cooley

K- Neil Rackers

DEF- Packers

QB- Jay Cutler

RB- Deangelo Williams (already cut him and picked up my boy Chris Johnson)

WR- DeSean Jackson

TE- Alge Crumpler

DEF- J-E-T-S Jets-Jets-Jets!

I know I bitched about this last year, then went on to win the title (thanks to some savvy pickups and a TON of luck once I hit the playoffs) but I'm going to complain again about not having a live draft, and not having a serpentine draft order. The way it sets up, I have to commit to choosing a certain position (I chose RB) in the first round. So it comes to my pick, and the best available RB is Larry Johnson (who I can't stand.) Now, I have to take him, since I said choose RB first round. But in reality, I'm gonna say fuck him and take Romo or Manning or Moss, or a different RB, or something. And then, to top that off, I'm not even guaranteed a high secound round pick because the drafting order is fucked. I hate it. I know we're spread out now, everywhere from San Diego (which of course in German means a whale's vagina) to Chicago to North Dakota to Kansas to Kentucky, but we're gonna have to figure something out for next year, kids.

"No more of this automated draft shit. This bush league psyche-out stuff. It's laughable, man!"

And here are my NFL predictions that no one cares about. I pretty much just do this for myself, I like looking back on these. Now I'm not a gambling man or anything, but when I do, I usually clean up during the season gambling on individual games; but for some reason my pre-season predictions are garbage. It's a crazy world we live in.

NFC East
1. Dallas
2. Philadelphia
3. NY Giants
4. Washington

NFC North
1. Minnesota
2. Green Bay
3. Detroit
4. Chicago

NFC South
1. New Orleans
2. Tampa Bay
3. Carolina
4. Atlanta

NFC West
1. Arizona
2. Seattle
3. St. Louis
4. San Francisco

NFC Playoffs:
Wild Card Round: Green Bay over Minnesota, Philly over Arizona
Divisional Round: New Orleans over Green Bay, Dallas over Philly
Championship: Dallas over New Orleans

AFC East
1. New England
2. NY Jets
3. Buffalo
4. Miami

AFC North
1. Pittsburgh
2. Cleveland
3. Baltimore
4. Cincinnati

AFC South
1. Jacksonville
2. Indianapolis
3. Houston
4. Tennessee

AFC West
1. San Diego
2. Denver
3. Oakland
4. Kansas City

AFC Playoffs
Wild Card round: Jacksonville over NY Jets, Indianapolis over Pittsburgh
Divisional round: Jacksonville over San Diego, New England over Indianapolis
Championship: New England over Jacksonville

Super Bowl: New England over Dallas

And as I'm sitting here typing this, I now have a new favorite commercial: the one where the Williams sisters and the Manning brothers are arguing. The very end part where Eli pounds the table and yells, "And stop copying us!" makes me giggle every time. I'm sure once they play it like 37 times in the next few hours, I might not like it so much.

I Wanna Talk To Samson!

For all you visual learners out there, here are two reasons why, in my mind, Darrell Arthur and Mario Chalmers could get busted with marijuana every single day for the rest of their lives and I still wouldn't be mad at them:

I say blaze it up, as long as that weed was the shiznittle bam snip snap sack!

Every year I attempt to add every KU basketball player as friends on facebook. It's admittedly nerdy, and it doesn't really serve any purpose. I've only had 3 of them accept the friend request in 3 years now, and it's not like we write on each other's walls or send each other bumper stickers or recruit each other for Ninjas vs. Zombies or Hobo Wars or any of that other ridiculous shit that people actually use (I know you like drinking, so I got you a little gift....a tiny clipart picture of a mug full of beer!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ;) LOL !!!!!)

Blow me.

But, every once in a while, I'll go creep Brady Morningstar's wall, and then I remember that it's worth it because I get to read messages from Cole Aldrich that say:

Tell me fucking boring this class is...? lol

Or one from Darrell Arthur (now in the Memphis, TN network) just a couple days before he gets busted smoking:

wazzz good wit cha boi

Or from Sherron Collins' baby mama, who loves to type (with the caps lock down, apparently) things like:

AYE LORD I PUT BOUT 2 OR 3 PICS UP OF MARI ...MY COMPUTER TWEEKN SO I COULDNT TAGGED YU BUT MARI GOT HOES LORD LOL

Or

HEY BRADY I HOPE YO DIRTY ASS KNOW B4L STANDS FOR....BROKE.4..LIFE..N IM QUITE SURE YOU NOT IN THAT CATAGORY LMAO HAHA

What can I say, that shit cracks me up. I guess if you want to make me laugh really hard, just send me an email that combines gratuitous usage of capital letters, ghetto slang, numerous spelling and grammatical errors, and phrases like LOL and LMAO. I'm easy to please like that.

Happy Friday, hopefully everyone goes out and makes some bad decisions this weekend. Grab that net and catch that beautiful butterfly!

I better wrap this up, MY COMPUTER TWEEKN, LOL.

Alcohol And Me: A Love/Hate Relationship

Alcohol and I have always had a tumultous relationship. If we were a real life couple, the cops would have been at our place a few times already, responding to a call from our neighbors, reporting a domestic dispute. Alcohol would answer the door in a stained AC/DC shirt and jean shorts and tell the cops that nothing happened, we just got into a little argument and then I fell. I would be sitting in a tattered recliner in the corner, holding an ice pack to my bruised and bleeding face, just nodding in agreement and mumbling, "I...fell. I fell and hit my head." Then the next day, Alcohol would take me out to a romantic dinner at Red Lobster, and tell me that I look beautiful and that the only reason that he hits me is because he's so in love with me that it makes him crazy sometimes.


It's odd. Some days I can drink aggressively for 20 hours, barely eating anything all day, and still be functional at the end of the night. I mean, I'm completely shithoused, but I'm still technically functional. I can remember all the horrible decisions I made over the course of the day. Then, the very next day, I can drink for just a little over 4 hours, and before I know it I'm emptying the contents of my stomach into a urinal and subsequently blacking out the next six hours. Some days I can be hitting it hard all afternoon and all night, and still be reasonable and coherent enough to talk my friends out of getting their ass kicked, or keeping an eye on girl friends who are about to get taken advantage of by some rando at the bar. Or I can drink for just 5 hours and be so hammered that I'm trying to get thrown out of the College World Series, and leave my buddy behind to hang out with people I just met a couple hours earlier in a strange city. I can't explain it.

Some days I'll be pregaming before the bar, and I'll be on my third beer, and I'll feel that little tingle, that familiar little tremor of excitement that rolls through your body and alerts you that you are, in fact, starting to get a little buzzed. On only my third beer. Other days I can put down a 12-pack before I feel much of an effect. No rhyme or reason to it.

And so it went last Saturday. We went tailgating for the KU football game at about 2 in the afternoon. Beautiful weather, an abundance of beer, good food, random people aplenty to talk too, games of beanbags to dominate people in. So I polish off my 12-pack, score a bunch of beer from other people, some more from the Budweiser tent, plus I have to shotgun a couple more since we finally lost a game of bags and that was the running bet. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 beers or so. I'm at the perfect level of drunkenness; drunk enough to act afool and make a bunch of new friends, but not be an over-the-top idiot. I probably met about 15 new people over the course of the day, and I can still rattle off every single one of their names, four days later. I was still completely coherent at the end of the football game. But then, a few hours later, I'm sitting at home with Alex, finishing my shitty Burrito King chicken soft tacos, casually sipping on a few Pooh BeaRs and watching season 2 of The O.C., and all of a sudden Jim Hammen syndrome breaks out.

This symptoms of this unfortunate affliction are red splotches all over my body, light-headedness, and shortness of breath. In short, it's a horrible allergic reaction to alcohol. It happened often enough during college that it became a running joke with my friends (hence the name.) The weird thing is that I only get it when I consume large amounts of vodka, rum, etc. It would go away as soon as I switched to beer. Sometimes I would get it when I had got really drunk for a bunch of nights in a row, and the cumulative effect would hit me on Sunday night. Either way, I had never got it from just drinking beer before. Once again, I can't explain it. I hadn't had it for a long time, since I don't get hammered that often these days, and I was hoping that JH syndrome was a thing of the past. Apparently not.


So once again, Alcohol and I had a little falling out. I've locked myself in the bathroom, tending to the gash on my face while sobbing uncontrollably and promising myself that this is the last time I let this happen. Meanwhile, Alcohol is quietly knocking on the door and telling me that work has been stressing him out lately, and as soon as the bank approves that loan he applied for, things will turn around, he promises. When I ignore him, he stomps out, slamming the screen door behind him, and the last thing I hear before I break into tears again is the sound of a Def Leppard guitar solo blasting over the squeal of tires and gravel as he tears off into the night.

As I go back and read this, it kinda sounds like I have an awful drinking problem, and I'm writing this on my way to rehab or something like that. You don't have to stage an intervention or anything, I barely even drink these days. I'm not going John Daly or anything. I CAN QUIT ANYTIME, I JUST DON'T WANT TO RIGHT NOW! GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!!!