Welcome Home

The dog that always ignores me wouldn’t stop barking at me and giving me that low whine that he typically reserves only for The Roommate.

The Roommate gave me a big hug.

And The Cat just stood by my bedroom door and gave me that look of “Yeah yeah, whatever – you’re back. Now, open your fucking door bitch, I need a nap!”

Ah…..it’s good to be home!

I’ve recently returned from a 10-day stint in Central Florida. I know, you feel terrible for me don’t you? And you should, but I did have to go for work.

Not only was it great to get out of gloomy Chicago in February, but I got see my parents for two mini-trips (I went down early, spent a few days with them – did my work thing – and then went and spent a few more days with them).

I have a great time with my parents – if you’ve ever met me, all I can say is that my parents are much more crazy than I am!! A whole lot more.

Some of the highlights of the trip included:

- Going to Universal Studios, for free (convention thingy) and winning a whole bunch of stuffed animals playing “carnival games”
- Staying at The Swan Hotel at Disney
- Paying $80 for a pedicure (fortunately that included the tip)
- Going to The Magic Kingdom with my co-workers (we had a blast)
- Breading fish for a Fish Fry
- Playing “Knock Rummy”
- Clothes shopping with my Mom
- Chowing down on Crab Legs at the Chinese Buffet
- Meeting up with my friend Mark for a few days while he was visiting his Parents
- Having the airline lose my luggage (fortunately it was on my trip home)

But now I’m back and I have tons of pictures and videos to upload – so give me a few days!

Three Rants and an Alley

I had to run some errands during lunch today - I'll never do that again.

Why does everyone think that they're the only person on this planet? I swear that we have turned into a society of "It's me, just me, and only me"

I'll try to keep my rant to a minimum today as I know you have more important things to do.

1. Turn Signals - remember, turn signals aren't for you, they're for the REST of the world to know what the fuck you're doing you asshole.

2. Why does everyone at the post office go to lunch at the same time as the rest of the world? I stood in line for 15 minutes while two windows were open, when it was my turn one of the windows closed, and of course there was a "problem" at the one open window. Don't they realize that people sometimes run errands during lunch time and it's really not the time to only have one window open. Fortunately 10 minutes later they opened another window - I guess someone was done with their smoke break.

3. Is it so difficult to verify that you put all of the food in the bag? I don't like to admit that I've been to both Wendys AND McDonalds within three days of each other, but it is what it is, isn't it? We stopped at McD's Saturday morning for breakfast while on a foraging trip to get party supplies and they forgot our Hashbrowns. I want ALL of my fat please. Then yesterday I stopped at Wendy's (uhm, because it took so long at the Post Office) and they forgot my fries. I guess it's much more difficult to read information on the monitor than I thought it was.

Whew, I'm done......that felt good, I hope you didn't read all the way to the end, otherwise I'll feel bad!

Oh yeah, I forgot about our alley. We've had a really funky winter so far, high temps, lo temps, rain, ice, snow. Our Alley looks like a really uneven ice skating rink, we had a warm up over the weekend and then the temps dropped so everything froze where it was. Footprints, animal prints, Starbucks Coffee Cups, there are undulating rivers of what appear to be molten ice. As I was driving down the alley last night there was one set of tracks down the middle. It was just like being at the Car Wash where you have to line your wheels up so you can get tugged through the wash. All I had to do was line my wheels up with the grooves and give it the gas, I didn't even have to steer. The only problem came when I had to get off at my exit (the garage), I turned the wheels but they said "No" this is a one way trip, from one end of the alley to the other. It was actually quite fun albeit a little nerve wracking! But I did finally make it in the garage.

Tennis Anyone?

Tennis Anyone?
Originally uploaded by Michael_L

The Second Wii-mbledon Tennis Tournament is going on this afternoon.

Who are you gonna cheer for?

Cable is Getting Da Boot

Well, I've done it again, I got rid of Cable TV! It's rediculous the prices they charge, for what we truly watch.

We've been paying a little over $100 a month for TV and Internet. We have the basic TV package (although we do have a DVR and because of that we had to get the HDTV Package) and 5MBPS Broadband.

The final straw just came a few weeks ago....we got a lovely letter in the mail from RCN (disguised as Junk Mail, I might add) telling us that they're going "All Digital - for YOUR benefit" and the only thing you need to do is get a digital tuner box for every TV that you have in your house. They'll gladly send us the boxes at no charge and only then charge us "just" $4.00 a month per box.

Well the problem is, we've got Four TV's in our house....yes I know there are only two of us there, but I have a TV in my bedroom, The Roommate has the same, we have one in the TV Room and one in the Kitchen.

So on top of the $100+ we're paying per month, they now want to tack on an additional $12.00 per month, so with taxes, etc our bill will be over $120 per month.

"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" I said to The Roommate - we're getting rid of Cable TV.

After I picked him up off the floor and applied a wet handtowel to his forehead I repeated myself and he slumped back in his chair and gave out a gasp, I thought I was going to have to call 9-1-1 and make a Fireman cum, instead I grabbed a paper bag and made him breath into it.

Before moving last year, I lived without cable for 5 years and didn't miss it at all. Surprisingly there are a lot of "off the air" channels in Chicago. The last time I counted there were upwards of 15 channels. Now granted, several of those are in a foreign language (but the Spanish channels typically have hot guys so I really don't care what they're saying), but we have all of the network channels, plus a few extras.

We're also downgrading our Broadband connection to 3MBPS DSL (which will probably be faster than the crappy 5MBPS that cable barely provided) and getting rid of our landline.

In all, we're going to be saving about about $115 a month between the two of us - hey that's a Broadway Show a month almost in savings.

Of course I won't know what's going on with "The Girls Next Door" anylonger, but I think I'll be able to cope!

Wednesday Birthdays Are The Best

The one thing that we all have in common is a birthday. I don't care who you are, you have a birthday - whether you want to admit it or not. My sister who has been older than me for most of her life has been stuck at the age of 29 for quite sometime. Now she'll admit that she has a birthday, but she'll also stick to her guns that she's 29.

So even though we all have Birthdays - it's actually WHEN your birthday occurs that really matters....now it should happen on the same calendar day every year (that is unless you're a Leap Year Baby), but it doesn't always occur on the same day of the week. That's the real key to having a fabulous birthday if you really think about it.

So here's how you get to celebrate your birthday, If your birthday falls on:

Sunday - you get to celebrate your birthday on the sabbath, and you feel really bad getting drunk on a Sunday.

Monday - You get to return to work and no one remembers because they're still wishing it were the weekend.

Tuesday - You get to go to Denny's for your Birthday Dinner because who wants to cook on a Tuesday Night?

Thursday - Everyone has forgotten because it's Friday tomorrow and that's way more important than your birthday.

Friday - These birthdays are fun, but the drinking starts right after work and you don't wake up until Monday morning.

Saturday - The good thing about a Saturday Birthday is that everyone is already out at the clubs celebrating and you just get to join along and have everyone buy you free cocktails!

But by and far the best day to have a birtday on is a Wednesday.

Because Wednesday birthdays fall smack dab in the middle of the week and who in their right mind goes out and parties and gets drunk on a Wednesday Night (well who over the age of 25 does that?) So when your birthday falls on a Wednesday you get to party for a whole week.

The weekend prior to your birthday you get to go out and say "Oh my birthday is on Wednesday" and everyone buys you cocktails because they may not see you next weekend. Then on your birthday you get to have a nice dinner out at a fancy restaurant because really, who wants to cook on a Wednesday and you're not only celebrating your birthday but also Hump Day. Even better than that is you get to go out all weekend and say "My birthday was on Wednesday, you missed it." So everyone feels guilty and buys you drinks and presents and all sorts of goodies because you can lay the guilt on so well.

Oh yeah, it's my birthday today....and it's a Wednesday, so where are my presents?

Who knew Partner Swapping could be so fun.

The ever delicious Andrea arrived in my fair city Fridy afternoon and with her arrival The Roommate was shuttled off to the exotic destination known as Cleveland, Ohio. I had promised Andrea an exciting fun filled weekend in Chicago and I hope that I didn't disappoint her.

Friday started off like every other Friday by playing Uno and eating Sloppy Joes and French Fries, that quickly transitioned to playing Wii Tennis in the hopes of getting Andrea ready to “play with the boys” Having never played Wii before, let's just say that by the time she left Chicago she was sporting a new arm sling and complaining of Tennis Elbow.

Saturday was spent ingesting massive amounts of MSG masqarading as Dim Sum. 14 of us joined forces and managed to eat more than $200 worth of Dim Sum, a hearty task I might add. After Dim Sum Saturday we proceeded with a tour of downtown Chicago and finally catching a bus back north where we hibernated for the evening playing Wii and eating delectable Sushi (well actually Maki Rolls because none of us really like raw fish).

We spent the rest of our time shopping, putting gas in the car and sleeping in late, well all except me because I was playing Dr. Doolittle since The Roommate went to Cleveland. I must say there's something unnerving about a pussy laying in bed with you and a pair of eyes attached to a dog leering over the edge of the bed at you pleading to go outside and pee at 5:00 am.

While Andrea was here I was able to start her path to becoming a star by having her perform as a Magician's Assistant. I tried to get him to cut her in half, but he didn't know that trick....pity really. Mother Nature also played a hand in the festivities by creating a fog that blanketed the city and shut down the Airport forcing Andrea to spend another day in the Windy City which was spent walking around the downtown area and soaking up the Art that is the Art Institute of Chicago. I can safely say now that I am more cultured than before she arrived.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and due to an unchangeable work schedule, Andrea was forced to brave her own way to the airport with the hopes that her plane would take off and not strand her in the city for another day.

So when are you coming to visit?

Wife Swapping

It's been snowing since yesterday morning. Not a blizzard by any means, but it's been snowing constantly since yesterday and we have approximately 8 inches of snow on the ground and we're under a Winter Storm Warning until 6:00pm tonight. This after a weekend where the temps hit the high 40's and wiped out all of the snow that had been on the ground.

We've got our fingers crossed that Mother Nature will stop the snow for a little bit, open the skies and let the airplanes land at Midway (I don't care about O'Hare it can snow all day out there for all I care.) It's a big day here because we're Wife Swapping....er, Partner Swapping....hmmm....not even that really, I guess it's more of a Wife/Roommate Swap thingy.

The ever delightful Andi-licious will hopefully be stepping foot on a plane very soon and shortly after standing on Chicago soil. You may remember that last year the infamous George showed up in Chicago to watch the Super Series with us (well The Roommate), well this year I'm sending The Roommate off to Cleveland to watch the Super Series with George and Andi is coming here so we can have a fun Girls Weekend.

I've got all sorts of fun things planned this weekend, since it's the weekend leading up to my Birthday Celebration.

I hope we get to see each other, keep your fingers crossed!