Tag Archives: Blarney’s

The Pre-Christmas Warm Up

If you haven’t noticed, it’s been a few days since I’ve last posted.  A very influential reader informed me that it would be best if I did so again.

I feel I can not be blamed for the passing of time and of the rate at which it travels.  To me the past few days have blended into one giant super day.  It is mostly the effect of a multi day graduation celebration.  A number of us made trips to Minneapolis (or stayed there since some live there) and we got our “party on” as the kids (ha!) say these days.  Greg found it in his infinite wisdom to purchase a Breathalyzer.  We turned it into a game of sorts and were certainly surprised by the results.  The most interesting part of the night occurred when JJ while playing wingman happened to be the only one to come out “victorious”.  JJ ended up staying and chatting with the girl when the rest of us decided to get out of his hair and head to KHK to see Quigley.  He was a wonderful host but that doesn’t change the fact that my desk is better than his.  Afterwards we stopped at the lovely Burrito Loco to get some food.  Back at Chops’ place Greg and Elizabeth quickly slipped off to dreamland after finishing their Loco. They were the top players in the Breathalyzer Olympics.  Elizabeth being the winner with a BAC of .21.  Chops and I entertained ourselves by making a video of JJ’s empty room and then watched TV while we waited for JJ to return.  JJ showed up in short notice to inform us of the anticlimactic end to his evening.  Unsurprisingly the girl was not JJ’s type and who could blame him?  It’s not that he didn’t have the chance to make things happen, it’s just he is a better guy than that.  Still, it was something out of the usual and that is always a good time.   That was pretty much the end of that evening.

Saturday was quality time with Elizabeth.  We just relaxed the whole day together.  Moments like that are far and few between.  It is wonderful when we get to enjoy each others company alone for so long.  It had rained the previous evening and sequentially dropped back below freezing so I had to veraciously scrape off my car.  The roads were pretty nightmarish when driving Elizabeth back home.  Capped off the evening with some COD4 and some ranked doubles in Halo3 with JJ.  We pretty much rocked everyone we played by a good measure.

My effort to go to sleep early last night failed.  (I blame myself, although JJ could hold a close second.)  Which in turn threw my plans to wake up early and finish my Christmas Shopping into blarney.  (English references ftw!)  Woke up around 4:00pm.  Found, to my wonderful surprise, that my parents had cleared out the middle stall of the garage so that it could now be used to berth a car like it was intended.  Thus, scrapping ice from my car as previously detailed has come to an end.  It was with good timing as today we were hit by a good dose of snow and wind.  So at around 5:00pm I headed out into the storm to finish my Cristmas shopping.  I still had my sister, Secret Santa and few more items to purchase for Elizabeth.  I headed over to W******* L**** and W**-M*** to make my purchases.  I was lucky I had woken up so early (</sarcasm>) because W******* L**** was closing at 6:00pm.  I stopped in 3 different stores and was able to pick up some gifts for my sister and Elizabeth.  With still a few things in mind I headed off to W**-M***, the store that never closes.  I was able to pick up the remainder of my gifts for all three people.  Total time was 40mins for that shopping trip.  Given the terrible driving conditions and the amount of walking between stores I must stay that I deserve some kind of medal.  The only demerit I deserve was forgetting a battery for the garage remote.  A23 battery?  Honestly, what the crap kind of battery is that.

I must reiterate that people are terrible drivers.  You live in Minnesota.  It’s going to snow.  It kind of happens every year.  Long term memory exist for a reason!  Remove head from arse!

Able to rest having completed all my shopping I spent some quality time with the parents.  We prepared for the family Christmas Eve party while Discovery Channel was on in the background.  (A cool show about a couple living with Wolves in Idaho.)  My Dad helped prep the Turkey, my Mom made the stuffing and I made the Chex Mix.  I had to improvise a bit because of the size of the batch we were making but it turned out well.  (Kind of hard to screw up.)  When we were done cooking and the show about the wolves was over we switched it over to Comedy Central where we watched Trading Places.  As the night drew to a close and the show was over, I retreated to the basement for some COD4 with Chad.  We tried to get JJ to play with us, but he his home for the holidays and doesn’t have the mechanical means to connect to Xbox live.

And now we come to the present hour and find me wrapping up this post with a cliche conclusion.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas Eve and if you are having a party, party in moderation.  Enjoy the holiday season and be safe on the roads.  Merry Chirstmas everyone.

What do you want?

Yesterday (yes, I’m posting a little late, but streaks add unnecessary pressure), was indeed a fun night. After doing some laundry I made my way downtown. The traffic had mysterious slow downs along the way, further proving that humans beings don’t deserve the right to drive. After an abnormally long trip, I stopped to pick up some Subway and some more of that wonderful Winter Bourbon Cask Ale. We watched a snippets of a variety of movies while we waited for all parties to arrive. Elizabeth showed up after her work party. The week can get long and it’s not uncommon for me to go without seeing her 4-5 days at a time. After a little pre-party we made our way to Blarney’s. We secured ourselves a place by the fire and proceed to have a good time. The band was a fantastic cover band. They knew a huge variety of songs. I think their name was “4 Degrees”, but I wasn’t in control of all my faculties so I could be wrong. I got a shout out by the band because I was the only one to cheer when they announced that the drummer was going to play the tambourine. That started off the repertoire between the band and our group. It certainly paid off when Greg humorously requested “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.” Fully not expecting it to happen, we were all surprised when the band said they knew that one. They would play it but with one caveat; he had to get up and dance. Greg being his big shy self had no real desire to do that. So I told our waitress Katie to pull his butt up there and make him dance. She was successful in getting him up there but if I remember correctly when she found out what the song was she went away and left poor Greg all by himself. Enough peer pressure and the band already playing, Greg remained up on the stage and danced his usual “Greg” style dancing. (It’s something you must see, it’s glorious.) The brave soldier remained up there and things were looking for the worse when some angel from no where shows up to join Greg on the dance floor. Pretty fun night, Laurence and Chris showed up and brought with them a game I haven’t played since high school. (The one where you make the “OK” symbol below your waist somewhere and if you get someone to look at it you get to punch them in the shoulder. Childish, but all in all pretty funny.) Overall, very fun night; capped off with some Burrito Loco. (Attendance: Myself, Elizabeth, JJ, Chops, Greg, Casey, Laurence, Chris)

Today, I yet again drove downtown, but for a much more healthy reason. With the arrival of winter, comes snow and ice. That means that it’s time for 2 of my most favorite things: skiing and hockey. Today was spent playing hockey and Van Cleve Community Park. We spent most of the time trying to deke each other. After that, JJ put on his Goalie pads (At least the pads that he has accumulated so far. He’s still trying to piece together a full set. A for effort!) We started shooting on him in our little open ice area, using our imaginations to figure where the goal should be. After the sun set we remained on the ice and as the rinks cleared out we finally got JJ in a goal where we shot on him some more. Pretty upsetting that the warming house wasn’t open past 3pm on a Saturday; which also meant that the lights wouldn’t come on. After we were tired enough and no longer able to see it was time to split ways. They have something to attend tonight and I have other things to do. Pretty sore right now, but the hot shower felt good. JJ just notified me that apparently one of my shots broke his cell phone. What his cell phone was doing in his pocket while he was playing goalie, will remain a mystery but that’s sad news none the less. Perfect time to buy a new cell phone I say 🙂

As far as the site goes. You may or may not notice that the new site has now taken over shatteredcube.com and is finally settled into its permanent home. This means that everyone will need to update their RSS feed. You can do this at the bottom of the web page. Click on the RSS link and if you have Firefox add it to your live bookmarks. (I’m ignorant to the workings of IE or other browsers, sorry!)

I forgot to add a list of movies that I want for Christmas as well, but rather than post them I’d like to ask my readership what it is that they want most for Christmas? If you happen to have a different faith, then what would you like for your respective holiday?

“9 minutes”

Justin warned me today that I was within 9 minutes of not posting everyday. This would bring the streak that I was trying to establish to a grinding halt after only 2 days. Of course one could technically say that I missed the deadline, but I prefer to think otherwise. Much like many businesses do not follow the calendar year when it comes to their fiscal year, I do not follow the standard day. My day ends when I go to sleep. If this means I end up with 48 hour days, then so be it. So I say that my day has now concluded and I can now post in detail the events of my day.

It was part two of the review extravaganza that began yesterday. Not a whole lot of exciting things happened. Moving on…I stopped at the liquor store and picked up some Winter Bourbon Ale. It is brewed apparently by Anheuser-Busch, which absolutely blew my mind because it was a very good beer. Played a lot of Halo over at Chops’ and JJ’s. Chops and I were celebrating our last day of classes ever. (At least as an undergraduate.) We decided to make a run to Target after a couple of hours. At Target I successfully, along with Chops, talked JJ into buying Call of Duty 4 (A spectacular game.) Thus causing JJ to spend more money and succumb to peer pressure. I was a little greedy and bought myself something off my wish list. I purchased a new Xbox 360 controller along with a rechargeable battery pack. Chops bought a fancy 4 slot toaster along with a DVD set of all 4 Tremors movies. (The fact that there were 4 shocked me.) We headed back to their place for more Halo action; where I strong armed them into testing my map. (It still has bugs!) Afterwards we went out to Blarney’s for cheap wings and cheap beer. I purchased a couple pints of Guinness along with 24 wings. (I’m sure I will regret this later tonight when the wings finish their job.) $9 later and an hour or so we were headed back home. Casey was nice enough to be the sober cab and drive us. There was some more Halo action (read: Lots), and then it was time for folks to go to bed and go home. (That’d be me. And it was like 3 hours later.) Tomorrow is looking to be a poker night. I can only hope to get yet another 2nd place. I seem to finish second place in every tournament partake in. I have terrible luck when it comes to cards but I can usually win when it comes to a battle of wills and wits.

So my computer just started making very odd noises. I guess that means it is time to stop, good night all. And yes, I think this counts towards continuous posts since on a 24hr cycle I am well within the time limit. ;-P