Weekend Round-Up

So, there’s another weekend for the books. It seemed like it lasted longer than most weekends, so that’s kind of a cool thing. Here’s some savory nuggets to chew n’ enjoy.

Birthday – Yep, turned 35 on the 19th, just like I’d planned. It’s so weird to me to be able to be heading toward 40. Crazy, crazy. I picked up a CD off my shelf and looked at the copyright date. It said 1988! I don’t know where the time’s got, but I didn’t think Salt N’ Pepa’s
“Assault With a Deadly Pepa” album could be almost 20 years old. What??? I had lunch with some friends and got my first gift(s) of the day. I got Irvine Welsh’s new short story collection If You Like School, You’ll Love Work. I know it’s weird that I like Irvine Welsh considering that I write for children, but it’s true. The guy’s a genius. After that, I went home where a couple of dudes were putting new patio doors in under my dad’s supervision. Kind of a weird birthday to have construction happening at Casa de Troupe, but that’s how we roll. Also, we had pizza and birthday cake.

Xbox 360 – Let the nerdiness begin! With the assorted gift cards and Reward Zone certificates I’ve accumulated, I was able to release the hounds and buy my new toy. Yes, yes. I know what an obstacle such a machine presents to my self-imposed deadlines of writing and editing, but I was a good boy. I only played until like 2am on my birthday. It’s…well…it’s friggin’ great. The graphics are almost TOO good, if that makes sense. I’ve got perfect vision and it made me feel as though I needed glasses to see how spotless the resolution looks. (Boy, does that sound WAY nerdy) Anyway, it’s been a nice reward for getting my work done and I really do enjoy blasting stuff in Halo 3. Like I’ve said before in this here blog. It’s like crack. Audio/visual crack. The best part? I don’t need a pipe to enjoy it.

Bachelor Party – Well, I know the previous words ‘bachelor party’ usually make people think “Oh, boy. Here we go” and visions of the Jerry Springer show and bachelor parties that have gone out of control spring to mind. Clear your head, filthies. This was easily the oddest and most ‘interesting’ BP I’ve been to in…well, forever. First of all, my friend who’s getting married, (we’ll call him J since that’s his name) decided he wanted to cook for us. He wanted to make us a traditional Mexican meal…at my place. Since Laura and Travis were headed to Mankato, it worked out. He got there at 2pm and started cooking. Let me tell you, I’ve never seen our kitchen in such a state. My wife and I are kind of ‘clean as you go’ people, but my friend isn’t. The place looked like a bomb went off. I was scared. He showed me some of the ingredients that were going into the food and I got even more scared. I even checked to make sure I had turkey dogs in case the whole thing went south. Anyway, the rest of the dudes came over, we played Xbox 360 and around 8pm(!) or so, it was time to eat. Holy crap. There was chicken with green sauce on it. There was a thing with potatoes and peppers in there. Some bowl had corn, onions and some white cream(!) in it. Also, there were deep fried dough balls of cheese. If you’ve been a voracious reader of this blog, you know I’m a picky eater. I didn’t want to insult J (actually, I was just hungry) so I tried almost everything. And you know what? It was pretty damn good. I did carve out the white n’ creamy cheese inside the doughballs, but overall it was decent. The only problem? I got to clean the kitchen. Yarg… But, in the end, it was more like a dinner party/vids night. No real heavy drinking, no strippers, no regrets. That’s the way to do it, y’all.

Writing – Because of my b-day and the bachelor party, I knew I was going to get behind in my quest to finish Anna 2.0. I’m happy to report that I resisted the temptations of DVR’d shows and Xbox 360 long enough to get myself COMPLETELY back on track. That’s right, suckas. I spit out a whopping 3,000+ words yesterday and a couple thousand on Saturday before J came and trashed my kitchen. I wish I could say it was all completely brilliant, but it’s getting there. I really think the ending is going to be pretty sweet. Big. Bad. Beautiful.

Anyway…now I’m back at work. I’ve got to go to a meeting in like 20 minutes and I want to just go home and do ANYTHING but sit and listen to people talk about processes and agendas and touching base and all the other dumb corporate buzz words that they throw around.

Math Equation of the Day: 2 Hours + Meetings + TKT = Coma