I got an e-card from Chuck today — my best friend’s dad. It’s quite classy, and very artistic, and not offensive in any way shape or form. 
I love the 3 French Hens!
It’s here …
… gather your children and cover their eyes and ears …
… the effing Transportation Workers Union has GONE ON STRIKE here in NYC!!!
B@stards. They’ve gone on strike over things like this:
@sshats, they’re all @sshats.
I quote Alvin when I sing, in a high-pitched voice, “Christmas, Christmas, time is here / Time for Joy / and Time for Cheer … “. Yep, time to whip out the mail-merge and whip up some non-dairy non-alcoholic egg nog. Or is it? Try this on for size. NSFW, it will offend, and YHMV. I love it when a Christmas Rat tells people to “STFU and stop whining like a little b!tch.” =D
The holiday cartoons continue. Today’s is Olive, the Other Reindeer — with Drew Barrymore as a dog who thinks she’s “All of the other reindeer”. And Guido the Killer Pimp. And Michael Stipe. Check it out!
I’m setting up for Christmas! Got my cheepee $9 paper Christmas tree up, complete with fire-hazard lights. I’m putting on the ornaments I’ve gotten over the years, as I watch such old chestnuts as Frosty the Snowman, Frosty 2: Politically Correct, which suxx0rs, and Robbie the Reindeer. It’s fun, come on over!
Yowch, expensive day.
I’ve been having some problems with my steam heat system (yep, still in a big ol’ house in Brooklyn) recently … it’s been wasting a lot of energy. So I called these guys who sent me a postcard. “Check your boiler, Immediate Service”, etc etc. I figured when I called they’d set an appointment. Nope, they were at my door not 5 minutes after I hung up. They replaced a split air valve, cleaned and flushed the boiler, vacuumed out the chimney, taught me how to use the sight glass, etc … all things which make it more efficient. Lower my heating bill and all that. $476. Still, it should save me some duckets in the long run. The lead guy, he tells me I need a new boiler (of course), $5k and all, plus some sheeting inside the chimney … I say let’s see if I have money after Christmas. 
His assistant, a truly great guy, is honest. He takes me aside when the lead guy is out of the room, tells me my boiler has at least 15 years left in it and the other guy is just greedy. Got to love honest people.
I also signed up for my EMT course today, at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It starts 31-Jan, and runs Mo/We/Th until mid-May. A grand … but this is something I’ve wanted to do for more than a year. Woo! Wish me luck!
Last night Ev and I went to the new Nokia theater in Times Sq for some tunage — the Jaegermeister music tour. Disturbed puts on such a great show … from the lights to the well-mixed sound to the inspirational speeches that Draiman would give between some songs. I love the tunes and was happily surprised at how tight the live performance was (this was my first live concert for them). I’m still banging my head.
I dug Dope, the opening band … nothing like some real c0ck-swinging heavy metal death vomit music to warm up the crowd. But I have to agree that Corrosion of Conformity blew. There was zero energy, and it’s true I fell asleep a few times.
Lizardman was the MC … and he put on some displays of “f_cked up sh1t”. Things swinging from hooks attached to body parts, etc. I guess if you drink enough Jagermeister then you can do anything.
Oh, and the venue was pretty good, even if it wasn’t dirty enough … I definitely got my $45 worth out of Disturbed.
Aw, man, is this all I get? =) This week I was quoted on Forbes.com. I wrote several lengthy emails about VoIP products and technology to this guy … and he used a bit of it. Heck, any press is good press, right?
While I must admit to making some silly faces behind my face shield while on the moto … I don’t think I’ve ever done anything this silly while off the bike. Apparently dancing around your living room in your motorcycle leathers is in!
And in another one hot off the presses .. go check out the Top 10 Weirdest USB Drives. Danger, do not eat.
Last night the Scratchsters played Lucky Jacks in our home bar. Terry, you make Dempsey’s a great place to play. Huge drinks and cheeeeap …
On to the night:
Match 1: Diarmuid (4) vs Dr Pain (6). Diarmuid broke and turned game 1 over quickly … with a brief hold on the reins Pain sank a few. Little did he know that simply missing one ball would see his opponent run the damn table and win after one inning. Pain rallied to win game 2 in no time flat, but an unfortunate scratch-on-8 lost him game 3 … and Diarmuid raced to to win the match three up, one down. Less than 6 innings for the whole match, too. 4-boy won’t be a 4 for long!
2: Fleetwood (4) vs Trish (3). Fleetwood played a solid game 1, and got a short lead. He came off his last solid poorly tho, and missed the 8 due to a bad leave. Trish capitalized for the win. Sudden death, then … and it resulted in death. By the time I came back from a call and a smoke, Trish was closing out her second win, and the match. The Irish were on fire that night …
3: Twitchy (4) and Fred (3) fought over the same 9 ball at the opening of their match – Twitchy finally brought it down. Didn’t do him too much good. Twirchy got angry, there was much fist banging and heavy were his sighs … but Fred bested him two-naught.
3: Chris (3) vs me (3). Silly me, I didn’t think I needed to play like a 6 to beat a 3, but I was wrong. Chris trounced me in game 1, playing like a 5 with killer leaves and and many a crushed shot. I got it together to win the 2nd – I had to run 5 balls to the 8 to stay alive in the match tho. I had a hance to win game 3, but a miss on my last ball enabled Chris to triple-bank his 9 and set up for the black. With one stroke we were in the hole 4-nil.
5: gCue (4) vs Jeremy (5). The Cue-man fought to a 4-ball lead early, but stalled with his last ball (the 4) snookered behind 4 of Jeremy’s @ the side pocket. Jeremy floundered for a bit, and gCue made a killer safety on a long bank to his purple nemesis … and scratched on it in the next inning. Still, he persevered, and waited for Jeremy to screw up one time too many. A win to start the match! gCue ran way out front in game 2. Some trouble with the 1 and 3 slowed him down tho, and Jeremy came from behind to tie the match. Jeremy took the lead in the third, but looked to lose game 4 … until gCue scratched the 8. Bogus! Sudden death once again. gCue pwned once again with the big lead, ending up with a snookered 5. He hoped that Jer would clean up some of the mess – Jer obliged, and our manb stayed alive with some smooth downtable play. Last game, for the match: Jeremy started making some careless mistakes, but our luck still didn’t want to take a turn for the better. “It’s a tight one,” quoth Cue, after missing a rough corner shot. “First drama of the night,” Fleetwood chuckled. Jeremy miscalculated a shot intended to break his 4 off the 8, which broke up the field for our guy … gCue got caught behind Jer’s 4, and missed … and Jer brought it home.
A stunning reversal from last week … a 5-nil loss. In the averages we’re still ahead, but we were only 7 points out of first after last week. There are only two weeks left before the playoffs, so we may have to rely on a wildcard draw. Still, we turned a season that started off abysmally into something to be proud of, thanks to our amazing East Village captain! Yeah, gCue!
