Get in where you fit in

I have to tell you interwebs, the last few months have been complete insanity. Just to recap: Hot Mary and myself bought a house, had to maintain said house, Mary's been dealing with both taking masters courses and teaching at SU, I've gone through the most grueling work schedule of my life as we switch over to a new accounting system, we got married, Mary was maid of honor in a wedding, i was best man in a wedding, Mary was also involved in 2 other weddings, and our families have had hosts of birthdays, events, and goings-ons.



It has been crazy.



However, with my good friend, mutual best man, and life-partner, Casey, having his wedding last weekend, Mary and I are now able to forget about wedding-stuff and get back to regular life. Sure, the holidays are right around the corner and work is still extremely demanding, but we've successfully made it through the gauntlet.



That being said, I can honestly say that weddings are a blast. There is the downside of having to put on pants and ties and all that shit but I don't know if there are too many things much more fun than seeing people you rarely get the chance to hang with, getting drunk with complete strangers, dancing with a special lady, and just generally having a celebration. And the food is typically awesome as well.



So just this past weekend I had the honor of being the best man for my good buddy Casey and I had a terrific time. Some good people that I haven't seen in forever came in from out-of-town which was cool. The rehearsal dinner was at DBQ where I ate a stupid amount of pork. I understand that Dinosaur gets a lot of hype and the food is definitely worth it, but I really hate going there. You typically have to wait for an hour and a half and there is usually no waiting room. You either stand outside and freeze or go inside and have some dudes nuts on your hip while you wait. Good times. However, for this occasion they had the banquet room rented out and it took away all of that bad nonsense. Open bar: good, no waiting: good, bbq meats: good, not stuffy and crowded: good.



The wedding itself was short and sweet and it was a definite relief to not be the nervous groom. A quick photo session followed and then the limo whisked us away for a quick trip to Colemans for a bridal party shot of Jameson and more pictures.



I have to tell you, leading up to this event I was nervous as hell over having to give a best man speech. I do not do well talking. I do especially not well when talking in front of large groups of people. All the advice I saw online was not to get too drunk or I'd end up making an ass of myself. So, quite honestly, I tried my best not to. However, it was obvious that I was sneakily getting drunk: 2 beers before the ceremony, beer and champagne on the way to Colemans, shot of Jameson at the bar, more champagne on the way to the reception spot. At that point I was arriving at a location with a fantastic open bar with a belly full of liquid heaven and riding high.



Long story short I got drunk.



Beers, scotches, whiskeys, and tequillas (blah) were all going down the hatch. And you know what? The speech went great. People laughed at just about everything (except the one joke I thought would be the winner, go figure) and I was getting congratulated all night long. I really did not like the experience though. I'm definitely not the type of guy who enjoys ripping on people and to do so with a microphone in my hand makes me feel even more guilty. I don't think Casey was mad so that's good. However, he shouldn't be considering his speech for me consisted of blasting me for being a "short, sweaty, italian". Hehe, it's funny because it's true.



So, from that point on the night got fuzzy. It became a whirlwind of dancing with Mary, throwing down scotch, and eating chicken. I'm pretty sure I booed at fellow groomsman and brother of groom, Cory, more than was necessary but that's just one of the many obnoxious things that I do.



And that's how the wedding season came to an end. It's kind of funny, that whole wedding story was not at all what this post was supposed to be about. The real story is how I will now have a little more time on my hands and Fallout New Vegas comes out today and I am now completely perplexed with how to prioritize my video game playing.



Here is my current video game situation:

Fallout New Vegas-Did I mention that it came out today? I got it through Steam yesterday and preloaded it last night so that I could play it before work this morning. My thoughts so far? Well, so far it is very similar to Fallout 3. That is both good and bad. It's good because Fallout 3 is in my top 10 for games. It's bad because it doesn't quite bring that "wow" factor that I got from playing 3. Either way, it's mine and I plan on playing it as much as I can because I still have not caught up on games that I've been working on for years.

Fallout 3-Well... I beat the game, so why am I still playing it? A better question is: I originally obtained the game and all of its downloadable content and completed all of it for... umm... free, so why did I then go and buy it all again only a couple weeks ago? Well, it was on sale through Steam while they were promoting New Vegas, and I really liked it. That's the joy of a lot of the games that I dig. They're highly replayable. So now I have two Fallout games on my comp and both are huge games with much room to explore and alot of mods from the community.

League of Legends-Oh I am hooked on this little piece of work. So this game is a free-to-play online game that is built off of some online map thing that was popular with World of Warcraft III. The gist is this: you and a few other anonymous souls get online, choose from a roster of about 60 "champions" and battle on a map against a few other anonymous enemies. It's a little RPG, a little RTS, and a lot of fun. I've been playing a couple rounds of that per day for about a month now. Can't say that I pwn n00bs the way some hardcore gamers may do, but I hold my own. You can spend actual money to purchase champions that you can have access to every week (they rotate 10 champions each week that everyone can choose from) or to gain skins or buffs but you also earn points through your matches to do the same thing. At this point I have picked up a couple favorites. My most favorite at this point and the one guy I purchased is a guy named Heimerdinger. He is a bit different from most of the other champions in that his main power lies in using turrets that he can construct. Not an overly offensive unit but you can often catch overextended guys and make 'em pay. My next favorite is probably this little minx named Morgana who is excellent at bringing down waves of minions and has some terrific abilities that can gank opposing champions. I haven't bought her yet because she seems to be free every other week so far. We'll see. So anyway, this stupid game has sucked away a big chunk of my life lately.

Company of Heroes-Well I used to play this game a lot a few years ago and it was easily one of my favorites. There's a certain point in the campaign where I stopped having fun so I stopped playing it. However, it was recently on sale on Steam (Steam is the devil by the way) so I picked it up and started playing it again. All I can say is that the graphics are really dated. Still a very good game, I just probably shouldn't have bought it considering I am not a big RTS guy.

So those are the four games I have been playing lately. Sitting in the back of my mind at almost all times though would be the RPGs that I need to get to:Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Dragon Age. All 3 of these are considered some of the best RPGs to ever exist and Id hate to just have them sit there and collect dust.

Now the obligatory list of games that I am in the middle of: Torchlight, Team Fortress 2, Civ 4 (Civ 5 is out too!!!), Crysis, Halo 2, FEAR, Kings Bounty, Battlefield Heroes....

Sigh...

I don't even want to think about what will happen when I have a kid.

So that's it for now. I have a bunch of stuff bouncing around my brain that I have neglected to talk about in this blog. You poor people (haha) have been denied the oppurtunity to hear about all the crap that I think about. Stuff like: how awful my fantasy baseball team was and what I should have done to fix it, the already-in-progress fantasy football and hockey seasons which i will win, my own wedding, my trip to colombia to propose, our honeymoon in Maui, other weddings, sandwiches, the Redskins, the Yankees (boo to cliff lee), stupid shit that has been said by idiots (Rush/Beck/O'Reilly/Hannity) who inspire bigger idiots, the absolute hilarity of the candidates taking over the GOP and how retarded Republican voters are for thinking they are viable (Christine O'Donnell? Really?), the failures and successes of Democrats, and the fact that I am going to try to grow a beard. Oh yeah, and my personal favorite, the shrill rantings of Sarah Palin.

Keep it real kids.

Just checking in...

Hey world? How's it going? My life has been a tornado of happenings this summer and fall. Home ownin', marryin', mowin', working super long hours, weddingin', best manin'... you know, the usual. Still no time for proper blogging, that's for sure. But here's a link to the site of our wedding photographer. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get back at this blogging thing. Later people.

Who's your name again?

Yeah, no time for blogging. My life is currently absorbed in various wedding preparations and making sure that I get enough work done so that I don't get dragged back to the office in the middle of the "Electric Slide". See you on the otherside.

I'm a homo...

...wner

Homeowner. That's what I meant to say. Stop being immature.

So yes, at 2:00 today Hot Mary and I will commence signing paperwork that will ensure that we will be in debt for the next couple decades. We may not have money to eat or throw at strippers but we will have a roof over our heads that we can call our own. Looks like someone needs to get himself a lawnmower and a couple illegal immigrants.

By the way, my interneting has been reduced lately as I try to make myself a much more efficient employee. That leaves little time for blogging and other useless garbage like that so I'll do a quick roundup on some of the other events going.

-I am quickly making myself become "Scotch guy". Not quite sure when this happened but there are a few liquors out there that I've never tried and scotch is the first one that I've delved in to. When I was in college my liquor intake was limited to vodka, whiskey, whatever it is they dump in a long island iced tea, and a couple stints with tequila. So i really wanted to give scotch and brandy a try. Scotch is good, i like it. The buzz it gives you comes with a lot of fuzzy warmth. Now my intake for the most part has been limited to super cheap brands like Old Smuggler, but good buddy Matt recently bought me some good stuff for my birthday and I can't wait to give it a try. The first step in my efforts to become just like Ron Burgundy is now complete. I must now go about acquiring many leather bound books.

-Next up, the NFL draft was last night, and I was pleased with what the Skins did with their #1 pick by selecting Oklahoma Offensive Tackle, Trent Williams. The only thing that would have been better would have been if they somehow managed to trade down and get some more picks as well as trading both Albert Haynesworth and Jason Campbell for picks. I definitely had my concerns that the Redskins would pull some crazy shenanigans and draft Tebow or something but this is good. The team that takes the field this year will definitely be different that what I am used to seeing. That has to be a good thing, right?

By the way, the draft coverage today has been awful. You'd think that Tim Tebow was the only selection last night. There is literally no talk of anything else. Tim Tebow Tim Tebow Tim Tebow... and what it means for Brady Quinn. Awesome. I'm not at all tired of hearing about Tebow. Keep it coming. Asses. All of you.

What else...

-My fantasy team is playing like garbage. No thanks to awful performances from my closers. Every time that my starting pitchers manage to put together a somewhat respectable job one of the closers comes along and allows 3 runs in an inning, thus ruining my ratios, taking a loss, and not giving me a save. Dan Haren and Josh Beckett are doing the exact opposite of what you expect from an ace. Granted, we're not even 3 weeks in to the season but it still sucks. Meh.

-So have you heard of this new sandwich from KFC called the Double Down? It's two pieces of fried chicken as the bread with cheese and bacon in the middle. I have to admit that I did go and try it and let me just say this: all hype. What could be better right? I love chicken. I love bacon. I love cheese. Sounds like a slam dunk. Wrong. It was ok, but it cost something like 6 bucks and all I could taste was sodium. KFC also had some secret sauce on that thing that was kind of nasty. I don't know what I expected but I figured I should try it as soon as it came out because otherwise I'd be wondering about it all the time. Now I got it out of the way and I can live happily ever after.

-Lost is an awesome show and I'll miss it when it's gone.

That's all for now I think. My heart isn't really in to the blogging this morning since all I can think of is what needs to be done with the house. So have a good weekend people. And lets get this shit done Red Wings!

Don't threaten me with a good time

I now want health care reform to be passed like never before courtesy of Rush threatening to leave the US if it goes through.

"...if this passes and it's five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented -- I am leaving the country."

Update: What a downer. It turns out that Rush is only going to "leave the country to get private medical treatment in Costa Rica", not to live there permanently. Perhaps we can invade Costa Rica and give them Universal Health Care?

Celebration bitches!

It somehow escaped my notice that I surpassed post #100 a couple posts ago. Blogger.com should celebrate by sending me a cheese sandwich. Byaawwwhh!

Das Boot!

Ever see that movie "Beerfest" where the boys have to learn the secret of drinking beer out of a glass boot? That shit is real. I had the pleasure of hanging out at Wolff's Biergarten this past weekend on my whirlwind tour of I-90.

The Hot Mary and I shot out to Albany for a quickie visit as one of Mary's friends was having her 24th birthday. So, after my first taste of sushi and some pregame beverages at her apartment, we all went to Wolff's establishment for her free birthday boot.

The thing was huge, and it took four of us to polish it off but at one point I took a drink and as I righted the boot I see beer geyser-ing right back at my face. Luckily, it wasn't quite as dramatic as in the movie but it was undoubtedly true that you must employ some sort of twisty technique in order to drink it properly. I spent the rest of my time trying to figure it out but it never really worked.