This Blog Sucks

God, my blog sucks so much now. Everything I've written in the past 3 months is a detriment to the world. It used to be kind of funny. That's right, I know you all think so, I know you've enjoyed hearty chuckles. Don't be shocked at my acknowledgement of my own literary genius! I'm good looking, too, what now bitches?? Anyway, I used to post pretty much every day, and pepper my paragraphs with pictures of unicorns and frolicking children--and I'd write about things I imagined my vast readership of 4 might actually find mildly amusing, like anthropomorphic penii and delicious hamburgers, instead of just chronicling the mundane details of my week. Now look at me. Look at what I've become. It's shite, SHITE! It's time for a Return to Glory, Ty Willingham style--in which I still generally suck but sometimes get lucky. You'll see.

But not yet. Not yet.

I'm heading out right after work for old C-Town, where I'll be meeting up with the fam for a drive down to North Carolina for a week of beach-housing and introducing-the-girlfriend-to-my-family action. It. Will. Be. Awesome.

Hey Sexy Mama! Let's Get Busy and Freaky In That Order!

First things first: Raul punched me in the kidney. I think it was supposed to be a joke-punch, but he had been drinking, so BAM! The joke had an edge to it. Thank God I had a glass tilted towards my face at the time. Not that it matters, since this was shortly after he had poured a full 16oz on my crotch. And THAT was shortly after he picked up a bar stool and took a joke-full-backswing in the middle of a crowded bar. My God man, you're a hero.

Campus is all abuzz this week--the weather actually sucks today, but it was quite gorgeous for Look-At-Me!-Look-At-Me! Day, also known as the first day of classes, on which 98% of the female students prance around in skirts and borderline club tops before crashing back into the jeans/cotton shorts with something written on the ass/PJ pants groove for the year, so that worked out well for all. Aside from the general excitement and fast approach of football season, the return of the students also means more interesting work to fill my days, so I always rather enjoy this time of year.

Lizett comes in tonight, which means I can finally watch Spymate, factual documentary of the real-life adventures of a chimpanzee secret agent. Freaking. Sweet.

Worst Mandatory Day Ever

Today is the first in a string of mandatory work days, during which everyone works until 5--outrageous!--no one can take vacation, and you're not to call in sick unless you are dead. So starting things off right, I woke up to my alarm at 7:10, thought "Why in the hell did I set an alarm for Saturday," turned it off, and went back to sleep for another two and a half hours. Mmmmm, it was good. Around 9:30 my boss called me, and I still didn't get what was going on--who would be calling me so early on a Saturday? Then I saw the caller ID, and it allllll came together. Oh...oh my. That's embarrassing. Fortunately my boss is extremely awesome, so he just laughed at me and told me I'm getting old. I love you Dr. Pace, and am so, so proud to be one of your SuperMegaTerrificHappyPartyFun Shooters of Justice.

So I got in a little past 10, not terrible. Then I found out they just opened up Jordan Hall to the public today, so a few of my coworkers and I ducked out to check it out--and it somehow turned into a 90 minute excursion. It's awesome though. Puts COBA and Coleman-Morse to shame. And it's HUGE. They had a planetarium show which is pretty sweet, too. So that was good. By the time I got back I was 5 hours into the mandatory work day and had only been in the office for about an hour and a half. Awesome.

Then I got a message from Crud! Woohoo! She's at ND, helping little Crudling move in, and she wanted me to come stop by Lyons Hall and say hello. Dare I duck out for a third time on Mandatory Work Day? Oh, I dare. Unfortunately when I got there, she was nowhere to be found, nor were any of the other McClains. Balls. On the plus side though, I deleted her message thinking I had her number programmed into my phone, which I don't, so that's pretty great. Call me back Crud! Caaaaalllll meeeeeee.

Inglorious Death

Welcome back to blogging, Goat. I missed you. I cried. I humped things for comfort in the style of a bonobo monkey. And your take on the key to a long distance relationship, which suspiciously did not contain any keys, has inspired me to reveal my own secret recipe: money. Lots of money. I actually pay Lizett $500 a week to let me tell everyone she's my girlfriend. What does she care? She's in Texas, she never has to see me. She's eating caviar every night and I get to tell everyone I'm dating Boobs McGee. Win-win. Plus, it keeps the other ladies off my back so I can pursue my true life passion: hand painting delicate porcelain cherub figurines. Also, did I just call Lizett Boobs McGee on a semi-public forum? Uh-oh. Well, too late. I've come too far.

Speaking of Lizett, I was texting her on my bike ride back to work after lunch today and it hit me like a hammer to the forehead: WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING? How did I ever come to this? I've seen people chatting away on their cell phones as they ride by and thought, that chump is about to meet an inglorious death, and I shall not weep. And here I am texting? I always ride hands free so if I ever happen to pass my mom she will be impressed with my balance and athleticism, and I usually have my iPod in hand for quick easy music selection, but texting? Is there a Japanese word for dishonorable suicide? Anyway, instead of putting the phone away I added a little blurb to the end about how I was texting from my bike, and yet I live, so Jesus must really like me. Or Lucifer.

Today was official tie day at work, where all the good little Golden Dome employees have to start dressing up again. AND name tags are mandatory this year. I will miss you, endless array of solid color Express For Men polos. Hello endless array of solid color Express For Men button ups, all of which are now comically small on me. So small, in fact, that I have to roll the sleeves up to mid length on most of them to hide the fact that said sleeves don't actually come down to my hands. Get ready to look SO GOOD.

Elliot! The Judge!

I was thinking about Square One today. I think it was on after 3-2-1 Contact. They had this bit where in the middle of the show they'd go "WARNING: Don't tie your shoelaces together, because by the end of the show you may forget and trip yourself." So I'd tie my shoelaces together, and then at the end of the show remember I'd done it, but pretend to forget and elaborately trip. For a little kid that was comedic freaking gold. I don't know why I was thinking about that, but now 20 years later it occurs to me--how many poor little bastards really did forget? How many bruises, skinned knees, sprained wrists? There's blood on your hands, Children's Television Workshop.

This weekend was good. Ball is in California so I had the place to myself. I thought about frolicking around naked and setting drinks directly on the woodwork, but in the end settled on a whole lot of cleaning. Saturday I woke up around 8 and was for some reason feeling ridiculously productive, so I cleaned the bathroom, the kitchen, scoured the fridge and the freezer, reorganized my closet, vacuumed my car, ran errands for the next month, did all my laundry, preemptively ironed all my dress shirts, and still had time for the first half of Judge Dredd before going out. Ugh, I have to start wearing ties to work again on Wednesday. Ugh. Anyway, I'm sure that sounds like an enormously lame Saturday but I haven't accomplished quite so much in quite so little time since I fixed up Kel's condo. Speaking of which, we closed on that, so that's a relief. So long, liability!

Wreckins

It's ridiculously gorgeous in the Bend, so I left my bike at home at lunch and strapped on my blades for the trip back to work. I finally broke them out and vacuumed the dust off of them on Sunday after a ridiculously long hiatus, considering for years and years they were my only means of conveyance. Hey Box, remember that one time I was soaking the dirt and grime from my axles and bearings, but I didn't have a bucket so I used your cereal bowl? Haha, classic! That may have been the sleight that started it all.

Anyway, blading around campus was a scary experience, because I hadn't maintained my skates at all, so my mind kept wandering back all the times I have been savagely wrecked by or on those things. The first day of band camp freshman year, I got caught in a rut outside the band building a split my knee open. There was the garden hose stretched across God Quad at dusk which I never saw but only felt as my blades came to an abrupt stop but my body continued forward in a downward arc until my face met the pavement. Thank God Julia Hughitt happened along and helped me to Lewis, nothing swells the pride like being helped up from a pool of your own blood by Hottie McHotHot. One time a wheel split on South Quad--remember the scene in The Last Crusade where Indy sticks the flag pole through the spokes of that Nazi's dirt bike and it goes flipping off through the air? It was like that. One time a bicyclist and I both swerved the same direction to avoid each other and I took a bike frame to the nards. So many memories.

Hey Box, remember that one time I locked the door and took a nap while you were in the shower and you had to sit in the social lounge in your boxers for like 2 hours? Tenfold for the time you left that hotpot of mac&cheese rotting under the sink over break.

Old Fat Dudes

The "Can you hear me now? Good." guys are in the office, testing for signal strength because ND is getting rid of land lines in the dorms in favor of cable TV, which incidentally I think is the dumbest administrative decision ever, but anyway, I'm here to tell you these guys are not young hipsters in crisp looking uniforms--they are old, they're fat, they have big voluptuous beards, they're pierced, and they have gruff, angry voices that make me afraid that they might harm me. I think I saw a couple of these guys in their Hell's Angels garb, sitting in our seats at Between the Buns. Oh yes, we have seats there. Anyway, I had to regulate, so I hit one of them across the back with a pool cue. We were a few pitchers in. Also, CJ's has a pool table now, I had a great view of it the other night out of the corner of my eye as I was laying face down on the bar, slowly absorbing bits of popcorn into my pores. Rocky later told me my face was delicious. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, it looks like I'm going to make the Penn State opener after all, which is totally awesome, but in a way also kind of sucks because I had planned to finally and at long last answer the question: just how far will a rabid Notre Dame fan go for free Penn State tickets? It was going to be a real life Klondike Bar commercial, and it was going to be glorious. Oh well, instead I guess I will just have to enjoy a long day of tailgating and sweet, sweet ND football with my girlfriend. Suckaaaaaaas!