Visits From Friends

The past two weekends have been so much fun. I have had the chance to see some old friends that I do not usually get to see due to the fact that we live so far away.

Last weekend my friend Justin came into town from Columbia. Justin was and still is my best non-fraternity friend from Clemson. We have done some fun stuff together like going on road trips for football games, making counterfeit basketball tickets, and all the normal college fun that people have. But I had not seen Justin for almost two years because once I graduated and moved down to Atlanta, he moved over to Columbia, and I have very little reason to go to a place like Columbia. So when he emailed me a few weeks ago saying that he wanted to come visit, I jumped at the chance to see him.

I was happy he was able to come into town. We went over to the Braves/D-backs game and watched Randy Johnson get shelled Friday night (sucks for my fantasy team), watched the Cubbies get killed on national TV (sucks because we are both huge Cubs fans), and almost went over to the Falcons game but decided against it (sucks because we would have seen Mike Vick's leg injury...not like that is a good thing). I know it was a sports-filled weekend, but that is ok because I am a sports fanatic and so is Justin.

All in all, it was a fun weekend (even though I had some bad fortune as it pertains to sporting events) and nice to be able to catch up with him since we do not get to talk that often. I will have to try and keep in better contact with him.

More to come on my exploits with this past weekend's visitors.

I Don't Understand

I don't understand why the head person in charge of a baseball team is the manager, but in every other sport the coach is the head of the team. In baseball, the coaches are under the manager. I'll take any reasonable answer to my question. There probably is no rhyme or reason to it. Stinkin' American pastime.

Somebody please help!!!

Blast From the Past

I was surfing my usual websites in an attempt lower my productivity, and came across an article on the top 10 biggest box office failures. Normally, I would not really care about rankings like these, but I was highly offended by one of the movies that made the list: #10 - "Howard The Duck".

"Howard The Duck" was one of my favorite movies growing up (which may explain why I turned out the way I did). I had it on VHS, which I taped off of some movie channel like HBO and watched it all the time. It was a childhood favorite of mine. But honestly, when you combine the talents of cast that includes Lea Thompson, Tim Robbins, and Jeffrey Jones (the principal from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"), is it really possible to have that bad of a movie? Well, I was flipping through the guide last month, ran across "Howard The Duck" on some random station, and turned it on because it brought back some memories. To my disappointment, I could not stand watching for too long. It was terrible! What was I thinking?! How could my parents let me watch such utter crap?! Oh well...I guess it just goes to show you that children are not the best judges of movie quality.

It rained, and we lost

Last night it rained. Last night we lost twice. Last night I cried.

Well, I did not really cry, but I wanted to. The other stuff though...all true. I am getting real tired of losing. We got our butts kicked in the first game by a team that is not that spectacular, although both times we played them, we have been "mercy ruled". We need to stop beating ourselves. The second game was much better. We were only down by five runs going into the last inning against a team much better than us, but our anemic offense did not come through (as always), our opponents started knocking the ball around, and we did not make the plays we needed to. The result: a 13-3 loss. I have no idea what we can do to improve.

This is so frustrating.

Good Weekend

This weekend was a good weekend. Friday night we did that cool bowling thing with the lights turned down and the dance music blaring. I bowled well the first game, but my second game was rather disappointing. I wish I could say that it was the beer that made me play worse, but that was not the case. To make matters even worse, Sarah bowled her best game ever, a 124, in the second game thus beating the other eight people playing. And while some people had lost too much coordination from the alcohol to bowl well, once again...not me. How embarrassing! I lost by 44 pins! To my girlfriend! To a girl! Who usually stinks! I hope they do not take away my "man card".

Saturday morning consisted of errands: grocery store, oil change, haircut. Nothing too exciting. But in the afternoon, Sarah and I invited a bunch of people over to come hang out by the pool. I forgot to buy a football for the pool again, so we resorted playing with the pool noodles that are out there for everyone. We grilled out, swam a whole heck of a lot, and just chilled in the sun (that is an oxymoron by the way). I find that spending all day in the sun and swimming in the pool is extremely tiring, so I just stayed in a watched movies all night.

Yesterday I had my first real break in a month. Sarah started school this morning so she was up in her classroom preparing all day leaving me at home all day...alone. How peaceful. I had the opportunity to watch the "Harry Pottter and the Chamber of Secrets" finally since Sarah is not as interested in the whole Harry Potter craze as I am. Oh well, her loss. That reminds me, I finished the first Harry Potter book last weekend. I would have to say that the movie was better than the book. The book has almost 300 pages of buildup and about a five page climax, whereas in the movie, the climax was at least a little longer and more visually descriptive. But that has nothing to do with my weekend.

And now back to the daily grind.

I'm bored

I am bored at work. I want to go home. I have no desire to be here. I have no desire to talk about my Harry Potter book that I finished. I do not want to talk about how I almost got thrown out of the last softball game. I do not want to talk about helping Sarah work on her classroom yesterday. I am tired. I just want to sleep.

I hate this

Blogger keeps changing its interface. I hate this one! Go back to the old one!

Guests Are Tiring

Having guests is extremely tiring. Sarah's family was in town this weekend, and while we had a blast going out to eat, touring Atlanta, watching movies, etc., I just crashed after all was said and done.

A few weeks ago, I bought an issue of Jezebel Magazine with the 100 Best Restaurants in Atlanta. I do not have an official tally yet, but I think I have been to almost ten of the hundred restaurants thus far. This weekend I was able to knock another one off of my remaining list: Sotto Sotto. Sotto Sotto is an Italian Restaurant located on N. Highland Avenue in Virginia Highlands and is known for its wide selection of wine. For my main course I had the Lasagnette alla Bolognese, which was absolutely incredible. The meal was very light, yet rather filling. Mmm mmm good! As if I hadn't had enough calories already with the pasta and bread, I went ahead and split an order of egg-less flan covered in caramel sauce. I am beginning to drool again just thinking about the great food. This meal combined with a huge sushi feast the previous night at Twist (another top 100 restaurant, but one we had already visited), I had to have put on a few pounds, which is something I definitely do not need.

As for the rest of the weekend, most of the activities dealt with "Mark's Grand Tour of Atlanta: The Tour For the First Time Atlantan". My tour includes a trip to Atlanta Underground, CNN Center, Centennial Olympic Park, and World of Coke, all of which I have been to at least five times. I swear that I could give a tour at any of the places and get paid for it. Unfortunately for the group, but fortunately for me, the line at the World of Coke was around the block and probably would have taken over an hour to get in, so we just left to go home and go swimming.

What a relaxing weekend!