They say it's your birthday! Well its my birthday too now!

Thank you once again to the Beatles for the song title. Well, actually, it was my birthday yesterday and although the day didn't go exactly as I would have liked it, all in all, it wasn't a bad 28th birthday. Work sucked, but thats always a given. I usually like to take the day off on my birthday, but I had no more time off to use, so I had to work. But, to make up for it I went on a nice long lunch with my dad to a place by his office, so that was nice. Randy and I also went to the Ranger game last night, and despite the fact that they lost 5-4 in overtime, it was an entertaining game. Sucks that they lost, but what can you do? My co-worker hooked me up with getting a birthday message to me on the Garden Vision, and little gift bag with a t-shirt, hat and stuff like that. So that was cool.

The crap part of my birthday is that the girl I went out with last week said she's not in a state of mind to date right now, so that's the end of that. I understand where she's coming from, sort of. She's unemployed and looking for work, and thats taking its toll on her, so it seems. I totally get that and went through the same thing myself years ago. So, moving on!

Thats about it. Need to get ready for work. Wednesday. Ugh.

And it's Bond... James Bond. Sorry, couldn't resist. Thats the title of the new Bond theme by Chris Cornell, of Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog and Audioslave fame. Great Bond theme, for an awesome Bond movie. I saw Casino Royale with my brother and Jason on Friday night and I have to admit, it was pretty kick ass! Daniel Craig, the new guy playing Bond is pretty damn good in the role, and he actually plays Bond as one mean bastard at times, which is refreshing, considering how the last few Bond movies with Brosnan went. Need I bring up Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in The World Is Not Enough? I thought not. Anyway, go see it, like now! You won't regret it. You get the Matt Guarantee on this one. Plus, Eva Green, the new Bond girl, is hot as hell, so there's eye candy. And for the ladies, yes, Bond is a good looking guy.

So, Thanksgiving came and went and this nice long holiday weekend is almost over. I'm somewhat depressed about it. I really don't want to go back to work tomorrow, and I sure as hell don't want to work a full week. Hopefully it'll go by fast, because I don't think I can take a lot more of this crap!

Anyway, thats enough for now. I'm too depressed about the weekend being over to go into details about the weekend. Actually, there isn't much to go over, I think I mentioned it all! Hope everyone had a good holiday. See ya!

Yeah, I'm sticking with the one word song titles lately. Sue me for being uncreative. The title in this instance is the classic Paul McCartney penned Beatles tune. One of, if not THE most covered song in history. Sing it with me now... "Yesterday.... all my troubles seemed so far away... now it looks as though they're here to stay... Oh I believe, in Yesterday..." And you can thank me for having that song stuck in your head all day. I can take it!

Anyway, so onto the reason for the title. Yesterday, last night exactly (damn, I just realized "Last Night" is the name of a song by The Strokes, that would've so much better to use. Oh well, next time) I went on a very awesome date with a lovely lady. I'm not going to say much and jinx it, but I think it went well and that she liked me, which is a good thing, a very good thing. We agreed to go out again, with tentative plans for Sunday. So we'll see what happens. Keep your fingers crossed! I could finally use some luck in the arena of dating.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone if I don't post it tomorrow!

That actually fits as a song title. Band: Jimmy Eat World. Album: Futures, released in 2004. Really great album and song.

Yeah, so work. Mondays suck. But at least its a short week and I'm taking a half day Wednesday anyway to go see my orthopedic doctor. I'm curious what he's going to say. My knee was really hurting in the joint, lower inside portion for what I can only assume is absolutely no reason starting Thursday night and lasting into today. Its better today, but for some other odd reason my entire lower half of my body, all my joints, running from my lower back down to my feet were stiff. Why? No clue. I can only assume the weather and leave it at that. It better pass, thats all I have to say.

The weekend? How was it? Usual. Relaxing in that I got plenty of sleep, even though the sleep I got came in fits. I'd pass out for two hours or so then wake up, toss, turn, pass back out for a little while, rinse and repeat. It was like that both Saturday and Sunday night. And I will admit this now, I'm a loser and passed out at about 9 PM on Saturday night. I went out to grab some food and beer with my roommate, and I just couldn't stay awake when we got home. No clue why. My roommate did the same last night, sadly. But, we did go to see Borat, which is both funny and highly offensive, but its all in good fun. Despite all the fun that was poked the Jews way, I took no offense, mostly because Sascha Baron Cohen is Jewish himself.

Anyway, thats about it on this front. Thanksgiving and my birthday are coming up. Always fun times for me! Adios for now!

No we're never going to survive, unless, we get a little....

Well, you know the rest. Seal. Damn you seal. How'd you ever bag Heidi Klum? One of the great mysteries of the world, along with the pyramids and velcro.

Anyway, so the point of the title? This has been a crazy week of work. So crazy, that I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about anything work related until 9 AM Monday. That means I left my blackberry at my house while I'm at my parents with the power off, and I will not be checking my work e-mail. Fuck work!

So, this weeks results. Last week, although I failed to mention it, I maintained. This week, post New Orleans craziness I gained 2 pounds. Not the end of the world by any measure of the imagination. So the stats are now as follows, down 57, 23 to go, with 71%.

Enough for now. I'm sick of looking at a computer, even my own!

Here I am!

Sorry, couldn't resist that one. But its fitting with the song title theme I'm presently trying to work with here. So New Orleans. The big trip to the Big Easy. It came and it went. Verdict? Awesome! Yet, exhausting. Put simply, I don't think the human body is designed to be that drunk for that long a span of time over that many consecutive days. But, we were on vacation, well, all of us except Seth, but he still partied down, better than me sometimes! Alright onto the recap. But before I do, a good number of our pictures and a brief selection of videos taken in Naw'lins are up at my .mac Homepage.

Click here, but be warned, proceed at your own caution, as there is some questionable behavior, language, and a drunk cop singing and dancing with his shirt off. Enjoy!

OK, recap. I left work a little early on Wednesday, the day before we left because I had a physical therapy appointment that consisted of about a half hour of just constant massage on my knee and thigh, and it felt great. Just what I needed before going away to a town that I'd be doing a lot of walking around. I went home, and packed up my stuff, stuffing all my clothes and whatnot into a small a suitcase as possible. Then, I relaxed for the evening, waiting for Brett and Andrew (Seth's brother) to show up as we were all leaving from the airport together the next morning. Once everyone got there we hung out for a little bit, then I went to bed at around 12:30 or 1 or so.

Thursday morning I woke up bright and early, hopped in the shower and ran out to grab a quick bagel to munch on before we left for the airport. Once everyone was up and ready, we loaded up Brett's truck and headed for the airport. Did I mention that Brett packed the largest suitcase imaginable? And that we were only gone for 5 days. He could've lived for two weeks out of that thing! Anyway, it took awhile to get to the airport, what with morning commuter traffic on Long Island and whatnot, but we finally made it to the parking place, checked our car in and took a shuttle bus to our respective terminals. Seth, Brett and I were all flying American, but Andrew found a cheaper flight on Delta, so his flights were all a half hour earlier than ours.

We checked out baggage, got our tickets and went through security and onto the terminal. We met up with Seth's co-worker, Lisa, who was already sitting and waiting at the airport. We all grabbed a little snack to hold us over before boarding, and just sat and chilled out together before boarding. The flight wasn't late boarding or taking off, which was nice, so I just sat down in my roomy exit row seat, popped on my iPod and read my book, and tried to take a nap. I had a window seat so I was able to see out as we were approaching New Orleans. We flew directly over the towns I used to work and live in, and it was kind of weird to see it all from that far up. It all looked OK, even though I heard one of towns got really nailed by Katrina. We landed, de-planed, and grabbed our luggage in record time, hopped in a taxi and headed for the hotel.

Brett, Andrew and myself hung back while Seth checked in, because we didn't want him to get in trouble for having us all crash in his room, but he managed to snag four room keys anyway. We dumped our stuff in the room, sort of unpacked, and headed out with Lisa to try to find some food, as we were all starving. We walked around a bit, and unfortunately, since it was 2 PM, a lot of the restaurants stopped serving lunch, or at least all the nice ones. We managed to find a place in the corner of the French Quarter close to the hotel that was still taking people, so we sat down and proceeded to be entertained by one hell of a funny waiter.

So of course the second we sit down and the waiter takes our drink order, we all ordered something with alcohol in it. Brett and Andrew got the restaurants version of a hurricane, which honestly tasted like it was pure alcohol. A fantastic way to start things off. Pure alcohol on an empty stomach! Everyone else had a beer or so, and Brett and Andrew had two each of the faux-hurricane. The waiter was entertaining and funny and pointed out a few spots on the map to hit. Brett asked him what time the bars all closed, and he said, "When the last drunk motherf*cker leaves!" The meal was OK. Honestly, we were all just starving and needed a place to eat, and this was the first one to come along.

After lunch, I was a little buzzed, but Brett and Andrew were pretty close to drunk. Seth and Lisa had to head off to the convention center to setup their booth, so they left us, and Brett, Andrew and myself headed out in the French Quarter. First stop was Cafe Du Monde to put some yummy fried dough in their stomachs to hopefully soak up some of the alcohol in their system and provide something more than the lunch we had to do the same. I don't think it worked all that well, but damn do beignets taste good! I must've had at least 30 of them while I was down there. And I wonder why it said I was up 7 pounds when I stepped on the scale Tuesday morning!

Anyway, after beignets, we headed for Bourbon Street to chill, waste time waiting for Seth to finish up at work, and just drink. I took them to this cool bar I know of on Bourbon, but far enough away from all the neon of the street that makes it a very cool place to just sit, chill and drink. Its called Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and its supposedly the oldest bar in the nation. I'm sure that's debatable, but damn are their drinks good. We went in, had a seat at the bar and were served by a very, very cute waitress named Inez (I think thats how she spelled it, I never bothered to ask). We then proceeded to drink, and drink a lot during the next three hours or so. The whole time we were flirting with the bartender, who had that Southern accent that just does me in. Although once we found out she was our age and had a 7 year old son, that kind of turned us off a bit, but she was still cool to talk to. She called Andrew a euphemism for female genitalia for wanting a Baileys on ice. Brett had about two hurricanes at this place, which were pretty potent. Technically, I drank about half of one of his, because I was trying to get him to slow down and not get so trashed.

I failed miserably at that one. He stood in front of the jukebox in the place for about 10 minutes, before I went over and helped him put the money in. Then he was there for another 10 minutes because he couldn't play the songs he wanted. So I just pushed him out of the way and put on about 16 songs, all of various degrees of rocking. We finally heard from Seth and headed out to meet him. By this time, Brett was having trouble walking in a straight line and was slurring his words. And, it was only 7 PM! Nuts I tell you. Along the way we stopped and got him a slice of pizza, again in hopes of getting some food into him to soak up the alcohol. Again, failing. We finally met Seth and Lisa in the lobby of the hotel and I don't think either of them could really believe just how drunk Brett was. We decided it was best to take him up to the room and get him to sober up a bit before heading out for dinner.

What ensued in the hotel room was equal parts hilarious and pathetic. Brett was a mess. The two video's on my .mac site are of him that night in the hotel room, just babbling. We waited around the hotel for about an hour, and while he was still not sober, not by a long shot, he was somewhat better. I left and went down and talked to Lisa while Seth and Andrew talked to Brett. Seth wouldn't let him leave the room for dinner until he agreed that he wouldn't drink again until 12 AM, midnight. He even made him shake on it and give him his word. Once that was done we went out to a really nice oyster bar, called Bourbon House. Andrew was getting a little tired, so he went back to the hotel to take a nap while Brett, Lisa, Seth and myself ate.

Right off the bat Brett was being a pain in the ass. The waiter came to take our drink order and her tried to get a Coors Light, which we all shot down, and continued to shoot down. The whole meal he just kept complaining about how it was BS that he couldn't drink until midnight, and we had to keep reminding how drunk he was, and how much of a jackass he was being while loaded. Generally, he was like a little child that couldn't understand why his toys were being taken away, and it was really annoying, and I was starting to get pissed off at him. The food was good though, and we had this bread pudding covered in chocolate for dessert, which was just amazing.

After that we headed out in search of a cool bar to go to. For some reason it seemed that pickings were slim and we winded up in some place called the Krazy Korner where a band was playing. Probably the worst cover band, ever. And to top it off, we were the youngest people in there. It was about 11:30 PM, but Brett decided he had enough waiting and ordered himself some vodka and club sodas. The fact that he was breaking his word was bad enough, but then he tried to play it off like he was just drinking water. Come on, we're not that stupid. So by this time, I was really pissed off at him. After that place we headed back down Bourbon to this other western themed bar, complete with mechanical bull.

We hung out there for awhile, but I was getting bored and tired, both in general and of Brett, so I headed back to the hotel. Andrew was passed out in the hotel room, so when I came home I woke him up, and he decided to head back out and join up with everyone else. I went to sleep. I was awoken at about 3:00 AM or so by Seth and Andrew bringing Brett back, even drunker than he was earlier in the evening. He wouldn't shut up, kept going on about something, and doing impressions of my dad calling my name (I'll admit, that was funny). He passed out on the floor, and Seth and Andrew went back out. They finally came back about an hour later. Brett was still passed out on the floor. He was breathing. We were decent enough to check that.

Seth woke up the next morning and had to go back out to work to finish setting up his booth, as some of the books we was expecting weren't there and he had to figure it all out. Since I went to bed earlier than everyone else, I wasn't about to sit around and wait for them all to wake up. So I got up, showered, dressed and headed out on my own to get some food and wander around. Seth said I should check up on Brett and bring him some food later in the morning, to which I begrudgingly said yes to. I figured he got himself that drunk, he can deal with it himself. Maybe that makes me a crappy friend, but I was still ticked at him.

Anyway, so I went out and grabbed some eggs and grits at this awesome place I knew of on Bourbon. A real shit hole, but some of the best breakfast to be had. Amazing. I then walked around the Quarter for awhile, made some phone calls before deciding I should probably head back and check on Brett and Andrew. I went to Cafe Du Monde first and got some beignets for myself, and some to-go for them. On my way back Andrew called me and I told him I was heading back to the room, he said he'd meet me there. When I got there, Brett was still passed out on the floor, and still a little drunk. Andrew said he's never seen someone stay so drunk for such a long span of time. He honestly probably didn't get all the alcohol out of him until about 3 PM, so that means for a 24 hour span, he was at least buzzed. Crazy.

We woke him up, got some beignets in him and he showered and got ready to head out. Andrew and Brett were still hungry so we swung into a Po-Boy shop somewhere and they got some lunch. After that we just wandered around the Quarter some more. We went into St. Louis Cathedral and walked along the river, checked out a cool art gallery on Royal Street until we finally heard from Seth. We met up with them and basically walked along the same places we'd just seen before we headed back to Cafe Du Monde, since Seth and Lisa hadn't had a taste of it yet. (Although Seth had been to New Orleans twice to visit me). After that we went back to the hotel to relax a little, while Seth and Lisa had to go off and do more work stuff that evening. I took a brief nap and Brett was going to pass out, when Andrew said he was going to head out. I decided to join him and he hit up a cigar shop he passed earlier in the day. Then it was onto the famous Pat O'Briens, where we must've consumed more hurricanes in a weekend than should be allowed by law. Andrew and I sat by the flaming fountain, drank, talked, and waited to hear from Brett and as well what Seth's dinner plans were. Brett eventually woke up and met us there when we heard that Seth would be going out for food with his boss. That left us on our own, so we left the bar and proceeded to find a place to eat. We were on a mission for good jambalaya, and ironically enough, the place right next to Pat O's had it on the menu, so we went in and ordered up three plates. Lets just say it wasn't the best I've ever had.

With a crappy meal in our stomachs we decided to check out a strip club, so we made our way to Rick's Cabaret. The strippers were decent looking for the most part. A little too fake for my tastes. A cute, and very natural looking one went up on stage so we tipped her a few bucks and when she was done she came over and sat on Andrew's lap and hung out with us for about an hour. I was amazed that she could just sit and talk and not get yelled at for not working the crowd for lap dances when she said, "I have two words for you honey, independent contractor." OK then.

Bored with fake boobs, we headed back to Pat O'Briens where we'd eventually meet back up with Seth and Lisa. We managed to snag a table big enough for five so we sat down and kept two empty seats for our comrades en route. While sitting there a pair of women, both married, one with her husband came by and asked if they could use our chairs. I think Brett offered to let them sit down, and I said, as politely as I could for being very buzzed that we were waiting on people to show up, so no. She didn't like it one bit and she got on my case. This devolved into a "blame me for being rude because I'm from New York" and "I'm calm and laid back because we're from San Diego" type of talked. Somewhere, out of my ass, I pulled out the whole East Coast - West Coast rap feud and said that Tupac and Biggie were casualties enough, so lets all be friends. We talked a bit while they waited for a table and they deduced that we were too good of guys to be single. So I said, "Why don't you find me a cute single girl here then?" But by then they had their table. When they left an hour or so later they told us we should have girlfriends, get married and have kids, because its the best. OK. Another bunch of married people sat down behind us again and one commented on my Better Than Ezra shirt, and we talked about that. But again, married. It was a running theme. Most of the cute girls we saw were either married, or with a boyfriend the whole time we were there. Very disheartening. Soon after Seth and Lisa left to go back to the hotel because the trade show started early the next morning.

Back to the story, at about this time Brett was talking to a girl we'll call GI Jane, because I think she was in the military and could kick all our asses, had a ton of tattoos and she seemed to take a liking to him. I thought she was hideous looking, but Brett must've been drunk enough to talk to her. I somehow struck up a conversation with a cute girl, who went to school down there but was from Long Island, but it didn't go anywhere, as she said she needed to get back to her friends. Deciding to leave, we headed to Cafe Du Monde (yet again, like the third time for me in a day) for some refueling. While there Brett and I tried, again, unsuccessfully to hit on some girls there, two of whom turned out to live in the town north of New Orleans that I did.

Refueled we decided to head back to Bourbon. On our way there we ran into a group of three girls and one of them singled Brett out, went up to him and said, "I love your bald head!" Its not bald, he's a cop, so he cuts it very close. "Can I rub it?" At that I broke out the camera. She started rubbing his head and then they started making out for about 5 to 10 seconds. One of her friends said, "welcome to New Orleans" and then they left. That quickly. About a minute encounter total, but a great story. We headed back to the original strip club for awhile, where Brett got the worst table dance in history from a very unattractive, at least to me, stripper. After awhile we got bored and left. We went back to the hotel at about 3:00 AM, but it could've been 4:00 for all I know. We passed out, Brett once again eschewing the bed for the floor and called it a night.

Seth woke up early to hit his conference/trade show and we slept in a bit, but eventually got ready and were out of the hotel at about noon. We grabbed some breakfast at a diner down the street that honestly wasn't very good, and made our way over to the Aquarium of the Americas to see what they had. Brett was all about seeing the white alligator and penguins. The aquarium was cool, and we got some good pictures of what there is to see there and tell of our time spent there. The highlight being the penguins and the sea otters. We had a good laugh at the otters, and any South Park fan would know why. While I was at the Aquarium I was trying to coordinate getting together with Christine, my ex that lived north of New Orleans, but that didn't happen. She couldn't fit it into my schedule and I wasn't about to sacrifice time with my friends to see her, you know? She is still an ex. Speaking of, while at the Aquarium I got the text message from Jason about my other ex, and had a good laugh once I called him up about it and spoke to his girlfriend about it.

After the Aquarium, it was kind of cold out, so we went back to the hotel to get long sleeves and jackets and then decided to hit the casino for a bit. We played some blackjack and both Brett and I lost $60. Brett lost an additional $30 playing one spin of roulette. Not the end of the world, but think how many hurricanes that would buy! We left the casino and hit Bourbon, yet again, to await word from Seth about dinner. We hit a place called Tropical Isle and sampled New Orleans other signature drink, the Hand Grenade. Those had some kick to them too, but kind of upset our stomach. Needless to say we left there to await further instructions from Seth, but grabbed a slice of pizza to settle our stomachs after the Hand Grenade.

We finally got in touch with Seth and they decided they were going to hit a jazz club to take in a show and grab dinner. The place was called Snug Harbor and the Ellis Marsalis Trio was playing. When we first got there the matire-d or whatever he was, was an ass and said it'd be a 45 minute wait for a table and the 8 PM performance was sold out. We went up to buy tickets to the 10 PM show, and the girl selling tickets said there was still some available at 8, so we bought some and went up on the balcony to watch. While waiting Lisa went down to talk to the host to make sure he had a table ready for us to eat when the show was over, because honestly, by then, we were starving.

The show was really good, and the drummer was quite animated, and really stole the show away from Ellis, who was the main attraction on piano. It was all good though. After the show we had to wait about 10 minutes to sit at our table, but it wasn't too bad. The food there was pretty damn good, and the drinks were massive. We had these huge 36 ounce glasses that had some kind of rum drink in them that tasted like lemonade. Needless to say it got us buzzed! After dinner we headed back to Bourbon and for some bar called the Old Absinthe House, which isn't as cool as it sounds. Its mainly a sports bar, and it doesn't serve absinthe, since its illegal in the USA. After awhile there I was falling asleep at the bar, and Lisa was pretty tired too so we headed back to the hotel. Seth and Andrew didn't get back until like 4 AM, and Brett, he's another story... I want to say he got back to the room at about 7 AM. He was talking to two girls with LSU jerseys on and tried to hook up with them, with everyone even hitting a crap strip club at some point because one of the girls said, "I want to see some titties!" Whats the response to that? Look in the mirror? I crack myself up. After those girls, Brett supposedly went back to some woman's hotel room, but she was married and wouldn't do anything, so Brett left and came back.

Sunday morning Seth was late leaving for his thing, and Andrew and Brett were comatose. I woke up, got ready and headed out to check out the D-Day World War II museum. I'd been there once before, but it was cool so I checked it out again. Its in New Orleans because all the boats the troops used to land on shore at Normandy and elsewhere were designed and built by someone in New Orleans, so theres history there. On average I killed about two hours there and then left to get some food. Andrew called me while I was on my way back so we got together and grabbed some breakfast at the crap hole I went to on Friday, under the promise of good grits. Unfortunately they were out of grits. But we ate anyway and almost saw a brawl break out between a customer that wanted melted cheese on her hash browns and the chef cooking at the grill because of some supposed attitude being exchanged there. I didn't realize breakfast came with a show, and I tried to stay low key throughout it all because I didn't want a frying pan to come flying at my head! After breakfast we walked around the Quarter a bit, trying to find souvenirs. I bought a magnet for my co-worker that I always buy magnets for and some Pat O's hurricane mix and an ornate shot glass for another one.

With the souvenir shopping done and it being Sunday and all, we decided to head to man church. Yes, we hit a bar and watched football! The Saints were playing the Steelers and we wanted to watch it with a hometown crowd. We went back to Lafitte's and the cute bartender was back, so there was more flirting going on. After two hours there Brett joined up with us as we awaited word from Seth, something we seemed to do a lot of. An hour later we took off with some dinner recommendations from the cute bartender, which we never used! We went back to the hotel, met up with Lisa and Seth and went to a place called Mother's Restaurant. It's a cafeteria style eatery with probably the best jambalaya and bread pudding I've ever had. The food was so damn good and so worth waiting on a long line for.

After dinner we hopped in a cab back to Pat O's, because we were taking a ghost tour that left out of the Reverend Zombie's Voodoo Shop across the street. Seth and Brett waited to start the tour with hurricanes, while Lisa, Andrew and I checked out the shop. I talked to the weirdly cute shop girl, Kimberly, about voodoo and how its not all about cursing people. With the thoughts of my lesbian ex on my mind I asked if there was anything I could do to help let go of the past and embrace the future, so she sold me a little thing called a mojo bag. In it are a few stones, but over time I'm supposed to add my own little things into it. One thing to do is to write out all the things I am going to do in my life (not what I want to do, what I'm going to do) and put it in the bag, and every so often revisit the list and see where I'm at. I also should put a few little personal memento's, like a stone from a memorable place or something to that effect. At the moment I just have my list and a guitar pick in there, but its a start. Lets hope it works its mojo!

The ghost tour started up and it was a really interesting experience. I don't know how much of it is true and how much is total bull crap, but the tour guide was really good at telling a story, very funny in his delivery and overall just very entertaining. The tour lasted about two hours, with a nice little drinking break in the middle to grab a beer. Fun fact about New Orleans: You can drink on the street as long as you take it in a plastic or paper cup. The tour ended about where it started so that means only one thing... back to Pat O'Briens! Seth, Brett and Andrew watched the end of the Sunday night Giants - Bears game while Lisa and I chilled and talked. After about another hour or so of drinking hurricanes we headed out to Cafe Du Monde for one more memorable visit.

Once we downed way too many beignets than once person ever should, Brett got the idea in his head that it would be hilarious to dump a bag of powdered sugar on his head. We convinced him that it would in fact be a funny thing to do, but that he should wait until we were away from the place so that he didn't make a mess for the employees. So we went out to a corner across the street and he proceeded to dump the bag of sugar all over his head. Ever see the movie Powder? Thats a pretty accurate imitation. Check out the pictures and video. It was hilarious. He moved to fast for me to get the moment of dumping, but I got enough, trust me.

We then walked back to the hotel, with Brett covered in sugar, the whole way. He refused to clean up. He made one hell of a sight walking through the lobby. When he got off the elevator there was just a wall of white powder where he'd been leaning against. We then rented Pirate of the Caribbean 2 from the hotel pay per view and passed out.

The next morning, Monday we found out that we had to leave when Seth left for the final day of the convention. So we all had to pack and get ready pretty quickly so we could leave on time. We checked our bags with the hotel bellhop and went to get some breakfast. We walked right past where the sugar incident was and the sugar, and the bag, were still on the street corner. That was pretty funny too. We had some quick breakfast and went back to the hotel to catch a cab to the airport.

Unfortunately we got to the airport way too early, only to end up having our flight delayed by bad weather around New York. Our flight was supposed to leave at 1:30, it didn't take off until 4:45. That bad. Complete with 45 minutes of waiting on the runway. We didn't land in New York until after 8, didn't get home until almost 10. Needless to say I was exhausted after spending about 9 hours either on a plane or an airport. We could've driven halfway home in that time.

But, in the end, crazy trip, if you can't tell already. The pics and videos are up, so take a look and enjoy. I know I'll have the fond memories!

And I'm out!

OK, I'm going to keep this brief because I'm exhausted from traveling back from New Orleans for the greater portion of my Monday. I'll get into the whole New Orleans trip, in all its greatness, craziness, drunkenness, and any other "ness" I can think of tomorrow, hopefully once I post the pics and video.

Alright, so the point of the post and reference to a White Stripes song, its not about me. I got a short text message from my brother's best friend Jason (I know I've mentioned him a thousand times. I should really create a cast of characters in my life thread and detail who everyone I mention on a regular basis is and just keep a link to it at the top. I'll put that on my to-do list, along with a lot of other important things I need to do in this lifetime) that said this and only this, and caused me to laugh out loud:

"I think your ex is a lesbo"

Robyn, Jason's girlfriend, went to high school with my ex, and must've been searching MySpace for people she went to high school with when she stumbled onto her page in doing so, and saw a ton of pictures of her getting really close with other women, and mentioning them as "her lady."

I'm tempted to text message her and just say, "What's with everyone coming out of the woodwork telling me you've gone full on lesbo?"

But I think I'll pass. I'll get into later when I talk about New Orleans, but I'm done with all that shit. Brett, of all people, gave me a very good piece of advice, courtesy of his idiot ex-girlfriend, that focusing on people you hate and resent is equivalent to letting them live in your mind rent free. So the eviction is coming, hardcore.

Yeah, so my bitch of ex, who I knew was bi-sexual when we first started dating, seems to have gone lesbo. What would you think about that? I know she was dating some guy a few months after me, so its not like I turned her off men, so I can remain secure in my manhood.

Anyway, thoughts or comments on this one?

Wow, I'm on a roll with this new subject/title theme thing I have going on. This one courtesy of Better Than Ezra, who I saw play in NYC this summer, and they kicked ass! Anyway, so onto the actual substance, what little there is.

This day of work is almost over! Then, its home, to physical therapy, this time with the cute girl, and then finally, home to pack. I'm sure we have to get up crazy early tomorrow to leave at a decent time to get to the airport, but who gives a crap? This time tomorrow I'll be in New Orleans, and hopefully on my way to many, many nights of fun! (read = drunken debauchery). Can't wait.

I'm going to try to post my weigh in tomorrow, since I won't be around a computer most of the weekend (thankfully! I'm not even bringing my laptop or blackberry with me. E-mail be damned!), if not, you'll just have to wait.

I'll be back Monday night, with hopefully a ton of stories and even more pictures! Have a great weekend everyone. I know I will!!!!

Like what I did there? Culture Club. Sticking to the theme!

Anyway, I had physical therapy last night, this time with a new guy that I've never seen before. He seemed to get off on the fact that he was going to be hurting me, but only one thing he did really hurt. The rest of his demeanor was just really creepy. Telling me I had to wear athletic shorts instead of sweats or pajama bottoms because he needed direct access to the skin. He rolled up my pajama pants all the way up to my crotch, which was a little embarrassing and uncomfortable at the same time. At one point he started attaching a plunger to my knee cap, to do what, I have no idea. Because once he realized it wasn't working, he just said, go home! Needless to say I'm going to avoid making appointments with him in the future. Besides, my next appointment is on Wednesday, with the girl!

Alright, I'm out!

Thats the title of a great Queens of the Stone Age song, in case you're curious. Maybe I should make that a new theme of mine, titles of entries after song titles? Grey's Anatomy does it with episode titles, so why not? We'll see how it goes. I see it being a sporadic thing.

Anyway, to the point of the title. The "You" I'm talking about, is a collective "You," and that collective "You" consists of my parents, my brother, his fiance and her parents. Why? I can hear you asking. Because they just are. Example. Their wedding is officially 369 days away, thats a year, with 4 days to spare. My brother and his fiance are crazy because they went and registered for gifts already at Macy's and Williams-Sonoma. That would be bad enough, as I think there is plenty of time to do all that stuff. Plus, the sheer amount of stuff they registered for is crazy in and of itself. Where are they going to store all this stuff? He lives at home and she has a small apartment! Insane.

Anyway, next example. I go with my mom to the mall yesterday morning, just because I needed to get out of my parents house for a morning. I would've just gone home, but I was picking Seth up at his parents after the Giants game, so I had to stick around a bit. So we go to the mall, and she already printed out the Macy's registry from the website at 7 AM that morning. We go right to the bridal registry area and print out a receipt of all the items that are left to purchase off the list. My mom takes her list right up to the cashier and says that she wants to buy all of their dishes and something else, I can't remember. The cashier takes a look at the freshly printed receipt and says thats its not on there anymore, someone already purchased it. Who could that other person possibly be? The only other person that knew they registered and would care so much to buy something so soon, her mother. So that just proves that there is someone equally as insane and nuts as my mom out there. Great, huh?

To make matters worse, my mom would not shut up about it. She must've gone on and mentioned that she couldn't believe she beat her to the punch at least 10 times to that cashier, maybe 5 more to the cashier she bought the bread maker on the list from, and another 7 or so while waiting for it all to be gift wrapped. It was at that point that I couldn't take it anymore and told my mom I'd meet up with her when she was done and I went to the Apple Store.

We walk in to my parents house and my dad asks me what we got. I hear my mom walking in behind me and before I opened my mouth I just point with my thumb back to my mom, and of course she goes into it all, yet again, for about the 5 millionth time. I need to spend less time at my parents house, because this crap is starting to drive me crazy. Their crazy will rub off on me, and thats not cool.

Funny side note to that story. As we're driving to the mall my mom mentions to me that Beth, my brother's fiance, and her parents and one of her sisters are coming to my parents house for Thanksgiving. Although my mom refers to her sister as the "weird" sister. I knew what that meant, because her youngest sister is a lesbian. So I said just that to my mom, and she then proceeds to take my tone as being anti-gay, when I'm not at all. She then goes onto tell me that a woman that she'd friend with, who lives in the same town as my bitch of an ex, called to tell her two weeks ago that the whore ex-o-mine is gay as well. I'm sitting there cracking up on the inside, because I'm not really sure how to handle that statement. When I first started dating the slut, after about a month of hanging out, we had the are we boyfriend and girlfriend talk. It was at this point that she told me up front, just so I should know, that she was bi-sexual, to which I had no problem with. Hell, I thought I hit the jackpot! I couldn't have been more wrong. So my mom telling me that she heard she was gay, was no big deal to me. So I tell my mom, "I wouldn't go that far. If anything, I'd say she's bi-sexual." I thought, in typical mom fashion, that she'd press the issue, but she just went on to say that they were a weird family and left it at that. Still funny as hell though.

Alright, thats enough babbling for now. Just the rest of today and Tuesday and Wednesday to get through and then its onto New Orleans! I spoke to my other ex that lives down there last night and we're going to try to hang out. Everyone, when I tell them that, instantly assumes that we'll be sleeping together or getting back together. I'd take option A, but hell no to option B. We'll see what happens. I just know it'll be a hell of a trip all around.

Peace!

Its Friday, so I'm just going to jump right in. So despite not really exercising much this week, just on Sunday and Monday, I still managed to drop two pounds. So I'm down a total of 59 with 21 to go, and I'm 74% to my goal of dropping 80. Nice. I guess the lack of working out was aided by the fact that I didn't really eat much this week, and when I did, it wasn't much because I wasn't really in the mood to deal with pain in my mouth at all. I didn't really eat anything more than a slice or two of bread and some English muffins on Tuesday. Wednesday I had some more English muffins and some Chinese for lunch, and by Thursday I was back on my regular diet. I wish it had been 3 though, just so I could say it was an even 60 and be that much closer to having only teen numbers to go. Oh well, hopefully next week.

My mouth is healing up OK. I'm really glad I got this taken care of sooner, rather than later. I think by the time I'm in New Orleans next week I'll be completely fine, so perfect timing in that instance. I've stayed far far away from the Vicodin since Tuesday. As fun as it was being high as a kite, the after effects weren't that pleasant. I've stuck to Tylenol for the most part, and the pain is really nominal now. My mom advised to stay away from Advil and all ibuprofen for at least a week, so thats the plan.

Had my first physical therapy appointment since last Saturday last night, and I knew I'd been slacking on doing my exercises at home, I just didn't think the guy could tell just by feeling my knee. He starts massaging it and says, "The patella is a little off to the side... you been doing your homework?" Busted! I'll admit I got lazy, mostly because I was feeling better, so I thought I could slack. I just have to realize that the reason that I was feeling better was because I was doing the work, and I'm just going to get worse eventually if I don't keep doing it. Its the same with dieting and losing weight. Just because you're doing well doesn't mean you can slack off, because its all just going to come back eventually. So I'm going to stick to a regime of doing a few sets of the exercises I need to do when I wake up in the morning and again at night when I'm just watching TV or something.

Damn, I'm not even 30 and I'm falling apart!

Other than that nothing new to report. New Orleans next weekend, which will be crazy. I need to borrow my moms digital camera to document all of the debauchery. Should be fun. I may even get together with my ex that lives down there and maybe grab a meal with her and her parents. We're cool now, and who turns down a free meal? Bad I know, so sue me. I have nothing major planned this weekend. I'll probably go to my parents tonight as I have some errands to run in their town in the morning, like getting a hair cut, and thats about it.

Alright, back to work. Have a great weekend everyone!

Ever see Almost Famous? Great movie. Best scene is when Billy Crudup's character is on the roof of some kids house party and he's going to jump off it into the pool, and they ask him what he wants his last words to be... and he says, "I'm On Drugs!"

That was me yesterday and last night. The drug? Vicodin. And let me tell you, it lives up to the hype, as I was flying high. OK, so before you start thinking I'm a hardcore narcotics addict, let me set the stage.

For months I could feel in the back of my mouth a wisdom tooth that had a cavity in it, but since it didn't hurt and didn't break off I didn't think anything of it. Until last Thursday, when I chewed a Werthers caramel and a little piece broke off. It felt weird, but didn't hurt. So I think OK, I'll make an appointment with the dentist and get it looked at. Too bad the only appointment was for two weeks from now, after I get back from New Orleans. But again I figured, what the hell, it didn't hurt, I can wait. Fast forward to Saturday night when I'm out with Brett eating dinner. I bite into a fry on that side of the mouth, and all of a sudden, pain. Like I hit a nerve or something. I tried to ignore it, but the more I hit it, the more it hurt, like hell. So Monday I make an emergency appointment with my dentist to get it looked at. I leave work early and the first words out of his mouth are, yeah, thats gotta go.

Basically, since the tooth was so far in the back, there was no way in hell brushing would've cleaned it adequately, so it gets a cavity, rots to all hell and basically imploded. He numbed me up with some Novocain, and scraped away some of the jagged edges and filled the cavity with some temporary filling material and suggested I go see an oral surgeon by the end of the week to get it yanked. He gave me two doctors names that took my insurance, so I set out to find one to get it out ASAP. I'm leaving for New Orleans next week, so I didn't want a pain in my tooth while on vacation. Especially to that town!

So I made an appointment for Tuesday to get the tooth pulled, and got clearance from my boss to work from home (out of vacation time after New Orleans passes), so I woke up, went to my parents house, where my dad took the day off to take me to the doctor. Went through the usual routine at the office, took some x-rays and sat down in the good old dentists chair. The doctor offered me the choice of being knocked out or just numbed up. I took the sedation! I just remember getting an IV in the arm and the next thing that happened was waking up. Isn't that the weirdest feeling in the world? Its like no time passed, but yet, it had... so a half hour of my life is gone. Oh well. They walked me to the car, with a goody bag full of gauze, and a prescription for an antibiotic and good old Vicodin! I got home and managed to gum down a piece of bread and took my first dose of each.

After 30 minutes or so the Vicodin kicked in and wow, what a feeling. I felt very sleepy, but tingly too. Definitely a high of some sort. I definitely didn't feel any pain in my jaw, which was a good thing. I hung out at home, working from my laptop, and trying to get through the experience. At about 3:30 I was feeling up to trying to eat something, so I toasted up some English Muffins and ate them, just to have something in my stomach for the next round of painkillers, which I then proceeded to take. I was sticking more to the 4 hours in the every 4 to 6 hours. With that one, once it kicked in, all I have to say is whoa. That one really threw me for a loop, and really messed with my stomach. So much so that I puked my guts up about two hours later. Soon after I thought it would be a good time to head home, as I had a physical therapy appointment.

I'm still curious just how the hell I managed to get home, considering the state I was in. I know I was sleepy, thats for sure. I got home and Seth and Rob were asking how I was doing, and could immediately tell how messed up I was. They advised that I not go to physical therapy and definitely not drive anywhere. I was all set to drive there, as it was only two minutes away, until I sat down on the couch and didn't want to get up. I cancelled my appointment 20 minutes before it was set to start and laid down on the couch. And passed out!

I was woken up by my oral surgeon calling to check on me, which was nice of him. After I hung up I passed right back out until about 9:20 when my mom called to check on me. At that point I got off the couch and went to my own room, laid down, and passed the hell out. That stuff really, really messed me up, well, that and the anesthesia.

I woke up in the morning to my mom calling me to check on me, and then got up and went to work. Work sucked, mostly because my mouth hurt, and I definitely didn't want to take another Vicodin and risk puking my guts up at work. I just took Tylenol and got through the day. Came home and I'm trying to relax. Now I have a bottle of Vicodin with my name on it, and no desire to take it. Fun stuff, huh?

So thats been my past few days... tons of fun... what about you?