Good news today for me! I am the champion of my Fantasy Football League. To those of you with vaginas and those of you with painful vaginas (OOOOOOuvre) this way not be a big deal, but for me it is. We have a very competitive group with a $50 buy in, so I made some bank to boot. I had a terrible season but made some late season moves that really paid off.

E

Everyone else is asleep, so I got a few minutes to share some thoughts. For A-dogg, they will have bullitz

• My lovely wife's mother's family is always special at the holidays. We stopped giving gifts to each other last yar (end of feeding frenzy one) so everything got a little better, but this year we did a "East-Asian" Christmas. you know, the gift swap thing. So we (Recitative and I) draw a candle which we swap with a oy (teenager) who has a tupperwizzare with $7 and some candy. Two other people (another teenager and a younger boy) have the same thing. Kaphy's 40-something cousin draws a picture frame. SO HE TAKES OUR CANDY. THIS DIPSHIT ACTUALLY TOOK CANDY FROM A BABY!!!! Recit. is bawling and this ass now has $7 to buy some Budweiser. Great. Luckily, the other teenager swapped with us and took the frame. At least someone there has a soul. BTW Recit. used the money to buy gifts for others- more coming here.
• At the same party, I overhear a great conversation. This guy (early 20s) wants to buy a new generator for his boat. He needs some ungodly number of watts. Why, you ask? So he can power water proof lights to lay on the lake to draw the fish to the surface. This guy does construction for a living and is apparently a dynamite specialist... yep you see where this is going. After the fish are brought to the light, he will toss in a stick of dynamite and blow them up. I'm serious here. Then all he needs to do is scoop them out with a net. Here it comes--------- this guy doesn't eat fish. He's doing this for the sport.
• My family's Christmas is not what I remember from my childhood. My cousin's kids are 6 and 8 and are gift hounds. Like begging all night to open the gifts and crap. When we started to open presents we let the older one be Santa and pass out the gifts. what does he do? Goes through them and pulls out his and puts the rest back. Sad. Sad, sad, sad-ass, sad. I was a little let down. Still great to see everyone. The irony here is that my aunt and uncle (whose hme we were in) have a big-ass sign in the yard that reads Merry CHRISTmas. Baptists, just damn. "you're trying to take Jesus out of Christmas!!! Wait, where are my presents?!?"
• Kaphy and I have worked really hard to minimize Santa in our ritual. He fills the stockings, but the big gifts are from your family- the people that love you. We don't ever tell our kids that Santa only comes to good girls. Gifts are given to celebrate the birht of Jesus. So my family must have asked our kids last night 100 f&$%ing times if Santa was coming. Also, Kaphy's dad bought this MickEE Ratt saves Santa video. So, Recit. goes around now saying "no, no, no donald. you've got to be nice if you want Christmas presents." Sometimes I wish I was a monk.
• Christmas really is different with kids. There is nothing like sharing it through there eyes. This is a magical time. I'm not bitter or angry, just a little disappointed.
• A quick joke to piss off most of you: Why don't Republicans use book marks? There used to bending over their pages.
• Lastly, I want to say this: OBAMA '08. In a nod to Karl Rove. If you disagree you are un-american, un-patriotic, you hate freedom, un-Christian, and a racist.
• Merry Christmas to all. Hope to see you all soon.

E

Let's recap my night, shall we. We go out around 7 to finish Kaphy's dad's XMas shopping. Don't ask, but somehow this is our duty... When we finish at 9ish Recititive actually says "I want to go home and go to bed." For those of you who have never had a two year old, this is not a sentence I have ever heard before. So we get home, change into PJs, go potty, and run to bed. Where we jump in and nail our eye on the headboard. Great. Fucking great.

Ten minutes of screaming, one doctor phone call, and one ruined shirt later, we are on our way to Gwinnizzle Hospital. We arrive at roughly 10 pm. At 11 we finally get triaged. At midnight they take her back. At 1 am they start treatment- a whopping 3 stitches. At 2 we are discharged. The way I see it that is 1.33 hours per stitch. OR 30 minutes wait for every one minute with a doctor.

No sour grapes. Care was adequate, just frustrating. Our doctor always insists that we go there rather than Bearroww Coountyy Hospital, although I can't see how how much different it could be.

Whatever- 3 hours sleep down 80 performance finals to go!

Merry Christmas all,
Erik

Oh, and I worked out next to this yesterday...

E

Well the semester is winding down and the Starbukks cards are piling up... We did the holiday concert last night and it went shockingly well. I really don't think we could have played any better.

It frustrates me that I busted my butt at my last school for 4 years to get where we did and this group already plays better- after have received virtually no teaching for the past two years. I just wonder about all those kids who could have been great if they had been taught worth a damn in middle school.

I also felt different last night than at my past concerts. I have a real sense of obligation to continue what these kids got in MS. They are so well taught and such good kids that I have to do a good job or I'm a bad person. A good problem to have, I know. One of my MS folks was there and it made feel good to know that they were not let down (any more).

I hope to see everyone over the break!
E

Merriam-Webster's #1 Word of the Year for 2006 based on votes from visitors to their Web site:


truthiness (noun)
1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)

w0rd,
E

I have learned something in my time as a 30+ year old. The more than three shakes and you're playing with it rule goesout the day you turn 30.

My prostate used to be such a pleasant part of my life...

E