A friend from home, Law and Order, the Vag-ankees and toilet water definitely make for an interesting weekend...

So this weekend was definitely an interesting one.

First, on the way back to the office from lunch Friday, I noticed some commotion on the steps of the courthouse across the street from my office building. Upon further inspection, they were totally filming some "Law and Order" action since its steps are the ones you always see people on in the show.

Unfortunately I didn't see anybody I recognized, but whoever was there got
some schnazzy looking director's chairs to chill in.

It looks like they were filming some sort of press conference. You can't really see it in the picture, but the people were crowding around a guy standing at a podium.
So that afternoon, a friend of mine from back at USF flew in, which was cool. I hadn't seen her since last winter, so it was fun to catch up. We went to see the D-Rays at Yankee Stadium... twice! Granted the first time, our game got rained out... so we had to go back Saturday night.

The game was a lot of fun (though we lost), but it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get, right? As she'll probably tell you, I won on that front.

They had the final destination of this year's Vag-ankees team on
display right in the stadium.
P.S. Along with both being mature and taking the high road we found ways to include "gay" in every Yankees player's name (Bobby A-gay-u, Gay-Rod, Robinson Gay-no, etc... sometimes I miss middle school)... We also determined that the Devil Rays need to draft Oroku Saki and put him in the infield to complement Akinora Iwamura.

Though, unfortunately Saki might be on the DL for a while after getting jumped (like out of nowhere and for no reason!) by a group of crazy teenagers...



Sidenote... On the way to the game, we passed a bunch of kids playing in a spraying fire hydrant, which I always thought was strange. For a little while there in the middle of the summer, I saw kids playing in gallons and gallons of spraying hydrant water almost daily. Heck, in Florida we had lawn watering restrictions, so it's always crazy to me to see that.

Every time I see it though, part of me is just waiting for someone to come out of nowhere and start beating the crap out of someone on the street, a la "The Godfather."



That's why whenever I see the whole fire hydrant thing... I keep aware of my surroundings.

Anywho...

So, along with baseball, we did some barhopping and wandered around midtown and just had an overall good time. We even caught Brutus the Buckeye being naughty...

Maybe they were a bit distracted
during the USC game, hmmm...
So God decided to make sure the weekend stayed interesting even after my friend flew back to Tampa, I kept busy all day Sunday in the bathroom... since that afternoon my toilet clogged and flooded out the bathroom... twice. The room filled with toilet water, I cleaned it up, then it filled again. That was weak... and gross. I'm pretty sure my neighbors heard me yelling obscenities as it flooded the second time. I was quite pissed.

Don't worry, I have no pictures of that to post, as it wasn't too pleasant.

It was extra weak because it made me miss the WNBA game I was going to go to to get Bill Laimbeer's autograph at. I guess that will have to wait until next year.

I've never been to a WNBA game, and while I've heard people talk trash about them I'd venture to say they are probably more fun than being on your knees cleaning up toilet water.

On another interesting note, my work is going to send me to Texas for either a couple of weeks or a whole month to help with Hurricane Ike related work... so that should be interesting. I'll probably leave by the end of the week. I'm not quite sure yet how exactly that will impact the posting and such, but we'll see.

I'm really excited, I think it will be interesting...

"Reading totally sucks ass" - Officer Barbrady

So, though I joked about being an avid non-reader, I actually tore through a book this week that was great... until about the last 75 pages. It was called With a Tangled Skein.


It's part of a series, and I read another book in the series, On a Pale Horse, and it was great. So that's why I picked up this one... and it was great too, until I got toward the end. Then it started sucking like a Dyson. Once it started sucking, it just kept sucking all the way to the end... I swear, it "never lost suction."

Those last pages were literally painful to finish, but I figured I had read the first 300 or so pages and they were enjoyable so I'd see it through to the end and maybe the very end would be good. Wrong.

The end involved a stupid maze of puzzles that were either really easy to figure out (thus making the ten pages it took the heroine to "figure it out" painful) or they were just so dumb they weren't worth pondering.

This puzzle maze went on until the very end. I just kept reading and seeing there were less and less pages and then BAM! It was over. The solution to the whole book was the simplest, dumbest thing. I thought of the solution pretty much as soon as the problem was presented, as anyone over three (except apparently the heroine) would figure it out pretty quickly.

I swear to God. Ridiculous.

Since I doubt any of you will read the book, I'll oversimplify the plot and spoil it...

The main character is the Incarnate Fate (made up of three people)... who, along with several other powers, can ultimately cause people to die if they want, because they determine fates.

Long story short, Satan has rigged the Senate and filled certain Senate seats with people who will do his bidding and prevent the right, good people, from getting their seats in the future.

So Fate is stumped, for about 100 pages, on how to fix the problem and get some of the stacked Senators out of the Senate and set the world's fate right.

So about 25 pages lead up to the puzzle maze, and then the main character goes through this massive 75 pages of stupid puzzle maze to find the answer...

Any ideas? Bueller? Bueller?

Put overly simply, at the end the heroine is like "Oh yeah, Fate can determine the Senator fates and ultimately cut them short, thus getting rid of them."

I just about shat myself. I was so pissed. The first 300ish pages were great. Heck, I tore through the book in four days, which is crazy for me... but the end that I read today just hurt my brain and made me begin to question the value of the written word.

When I finished it, I couldn't help but think of Officer Barbrady's speech from the South Park episode where he learns to read. He was tricked into learning to read by a crazy bookmobile driver who was having sex with chickens and leaving clues that forced Barbrady to learn to read in order to catch him... brilliant.

They hold a parade to celebrate his learning to read and this is part of his speech to the crowd...

Officer Barbrady: "Well, first of all I'd like to thank the town of South Park, the town that borne me and eventually will rob me of my life precious.

Second, I'd like to say to all those out there who think they can screw chickens just to teach people to read... Your days are numbered!!!

And finally, I'd like to say that READING TOTALLY SUCKS ASS!!"

That scene played through my head in loop once I put the book down in disgust.

The bookmobile driver had given him the breezy read that is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand... which led to his rage against reading.

Side note: Apparently an Atlas Shrugged movie is in the works and may star Angelina Jolie... weird.

This whole book reading experience has left me a bit jaded. I think it's time to go back to reading the Post on my subway ride to and from work again. Books and me are not friends at the moment. Seriously.

Besides, I almost feel like I'm cheating on my newspaper guy in the morning. He stands outside the train station entrance with stacks of papers every morning and for a while I would like clockwork pick up a Post every morning. Since I started reading the book though, I've walked by, novel in hand, and just tried not to make eye contact.

Anywho... it's T-minus one day until my open house... we'll see if anyone shows. I met some nice people in the elevator who seemed nice and vaguely interested in coming. They may swing by. Who knows. No matter what, it should be an interesting evening. We'll see...

Follow up: The bronze bull is back at Bloomingdale, and apparently it was indeed some very stupid kids. It sounds like they were probably from Brandon high, so it makes sense that they're stupid I suppose.

Other follow-up: I think I'll stop checking...I'm fairly certain Sue Bird rejected my friend request on MySpace :(

That's ice cold... and I maintain it's also not a great way to help build a fan base for the WNBA. Despite the hurt, I think I'll still try to go see Bill Laimbeer when his team comes to Madison Square Garden. I'll soldier, somehow.