Drink Rum

Well, boy oh boy... my Halloween Party on Saturday was a great success.

I firstly want to thank everyone who attended for coming. These parties are nothing without you. An enormous amount of work goes into getting prepared for this event each year and it always worth it come event time when friends are all gathered 'round laughing, drinking, eating, and wearing silly hats.

As always, there are things that I meant to do for the party and forgot about in the hustle and bustle.

This year was supposed to feature a real costume contest. Many people who come to these events spend a great amount of time and effort on their costumes. I had a prize and everything. So anyway... I decided to post the costume contest winners here instead. Without further delay:

Best Tandom Costumes: Andy & Phil as the Mackenzie Brothers from Strange Brew (take off hoser)

Best Display of the Female Anatomy: MJ as the boobalicious dark fairy

Best Incorporation of Nature: Paul as a tree (although Paul, my house is now full of your leaves and twigs)

Best Costumes Accessories Left Behind After the Party: Witchy Pam for leaving her broomstick and cool skull drinking glass

Most Impractical Costume (Tie): Brian as Spiderman (couldn't drink with the mask on) and Jonathan as Towelie (could barely move at all)

Best Costume that Helped Decorate the House: LB as Guy Who Thought the Party was a Rave. I'm still finding random glo-light sticks around the house.

Scariest Costume: Blue as a priest. I still wake up screaming.

Best Prop: Blue's flask hiding bible.

Costume I Wish I'd Though Of: Leo as a Zombie. The costume wasn't as important as the fact that he was chained to boobalicious MJ.

And (drumroll) the best costume award goes to...

Chrissy for her depiction of a nun (complete with ruler). There was something very wholesome and quite disturbing about it all.

Well done everyone... and I can't wait until doing it all again next year!

Posted by Monty at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This has been a really, really strange week for me. I have been through some big highs and deep lows. I have no idea where I am though... it's like I'm just waiting for the next "event".

Here's the quick and dirty on it all:

My assistant's last day at work was today. That was tough in and of itself... but the fact that I'd mentally had him working until next monday really made my week crap when I found my mistake. Work in general is busy as hell.

I've got one week to get a ton of stuff done and I think there's no way it's all going to happen. But I will push myself to burnout to do it.

Because the week after, I'll be in Las Vegas on the company dime for a week. Great fun. Assuming I survive to that point.

I went to the Redskins game this past weekend. I had uber seats. (Thanks Phil!) I taunted the kicker. There'll probably have to be a whole seperate post about that.

My muse broke. That's much more different than the situation earlier this summer where I lost my muse. I will be thrilled when my muse is fixed. But that may be a while.

I've got my favorite holiday in the world coming up. And a great party with great people.

I'm not even close to ready for it.

My knee has been acting up.

I bought an Audi TT Roadster Convertible. It's super bad. It's also the most impractical car in the universe. But it sure is fun to drive. (I still have the SUV, so add to the "impractical list" the fact that I own more cars than I can drive... it runs in my family.)

I'll put a photo up here. By the way... the purchase was inspired by a variety of things, but one of them was Slide and his amazing bike. I thought how cool it was to buy something like that just for the feeling of joy of being on the road. And I thought to myself... wouldn't it be awesome to flick him and his joy off as I ran his ass off the road in a convertible.

My halloween costume is done. I don't know how. I probably put less effort into it than any other costume I've done in years... although I've been thinking about it for 20 years.

Tomorrow will be tough. I'm at the point where I have so much to do I don't even know where to start.

The plan is pretty simple though...

One really bad day at work.
One really cool halloween party.
One day recovering from said party. (I smell football)
One really bad week at work.
One really awesome week in Las Vegas.

That gets me through mid-November.

After that... I'm guessing my head will explode. As long as it's after Las Vegas... fine by me. The way my luck at the craps table was last time... I might need an exploded head to forgive my potential gambling debts.

Posted by Monty at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hello dedicated readers and people with nothing better to do.

This has been a rather crappy week. It seems like everyone around me is going out of their way to set off every hot button anger issue they can. I swear there's gotta be a "how to piss off Monty" blog out there that people are reading. It's working.

Fortunately, it seems that some of the crap is starting to subside.

Somehow I became the poster boy of racism after voicing my support for my county's crackdown on illegal immigration. I appreciate that it's a hot issue, but I honestly don't have the patience to hear anymore crap from anyone about how I should be helping my neighbors and whatnot.

Yesterday I finally snapped at someone from DC when they were talking about how my taxes should be used to fund crap programs for welfare illegal aliens. I responded, "You seem to be very generous with my money. (since it's my taxes in play not anyone from DCs) When was the last time you gave any money to an illegal alien? Do you only stand on your principles when someone else pays for them? I think I also called her a self-righteous bitch. That might have crossed a line, but I'm not interested in playing nice anymore.

But that being said, this post isn't about how crappy this week is. And it is. But how awesome next week is going to be. I woke up (late) in a foul mood because I'd been planning something really fun for today as a stress break from work (another pain) but that has since been overtaken by events and isn't happening... so I was bitter... but then the doorbell rang.

Usually, I hate the doorbell because it's ring denotes someone on my property that I'd rather not have on my property. But today it was the fed ex guy. He had a package for me. It was a significant piece of my halloween costume that had arrived early. Woo-hoo!

Packages in the mail is just like the good parts of christmas... so i unwrapped my surprise and was thrilled that it fit like it was supposed to.

More on that later.

I'm very thrilled halloween is on the horizon. The party is in about 10 days and if i can make it through the other crap that's floating around without getting myself arrested, I'll be ok.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I haven't sufficiently prepared for it. I overbooked myself in the weeks leading up to the holiday so I won't be able to do what I really wanted to do for the holiday. I think that is the quickest way to hit "uber annoying" with me. For me to have set an expectation for something and/or planned and worked towards making something happen and then have it not happen or fail. That's my today in a nutshell.

However... Halloween is coming. That's keeps me focused.

This post really didn't gel like it should have. At least its maintaining the status quo.

Posted by Monty at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So last night... at about 2:30AM.... Prince William County board of supervisors passed a resolution that will do the following:

Allow local police to require proof of citizenship of detainees (note, probable cause is still required for ID checks, police aren't allowed to just do ID checks for fun and games). Illegal aliens will be detained and shipped to the feds for processing.

Allow all programs funded by county tax dollars to require citizenship as a condition for participation in those programs. A major exclusion here, though, is emergency health care which is still required to be provided regardless of citizenship, insurance, etc.

The Board (which is populated by Republicans and Democrats) voted unamimously in favor of the resolution.

Here's some background... mainly for the people who don't live in the county and think this is an exercise in political theory... as opposed to me... who has to deal with this nonsense daily and as a fact of life.

Prince William County, over the past five years, has become a safe haven for illegal immigrants. Fairfax and Loudon counties have had more strict regulations regarding immigrants and neighboring Prince William has had none really. The majority of folks in Prince William County are fed up. There are areas, especially in Manassas and Woodbridge that have been completely run into the ground by crime, mostly MS13 gang related. Prince William Hospital's ER is jammed packed 24/7 with non-emergency handout seekers. 40% of the county's school kids are learning english as a second language. Social services/welfare spending has gone through the roof. The vast majority of residents, including legal immigrants, are tired of it. All of the supervisor positions are up for re-election this year.

The people of the county have spoken. The supervisors have listened.

Democracy in action.

400 people spoke last night at the hearing on the resolution. Most were pointless ramblings. There was a group of children who spoke and begged the board not to hurt their families and send their parents away. I thought that was funny. Obviously it isn't the parent's responsibility to obtain citizenship an ensure family unity... the county should just make it happen.

That and the random lady who went on a rant about how she had the right to be there. She was speaking from the illegal alien point of view and I think it summed up why this whole thing bothers me... somehow... people have come to feel that everyone is entitled to live in the US. They have the right to be here. They really don't. The law is pretty clear on that.

I think there are already 2 law suits against the county on this. The good news is that the county seems to have no inclination to back down and is looking forward to testing the law in court.

I was pleased to see that the board did not allow non-county residents to speak at the hearing. Since really... it's none of their business.

Posted by Monty at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to wide variety of people, I am a cold heartless mean racist type person.

And maybe I am... to some degree. Although I'm not racist. People have commented that some remarks I've made seemed racist or prejudiced... to which I usually counter (truthfully) that I dislike all people in general equally.

So the latest bit of angst that I'm inflicting on my fellow not-white man has to do with my support of the pending county legislation designed to discontinue all public services from illegal aliens and also allow local police to require proof of citizenship of anyone arrested.

I think that's a great idea. The federal government can't figure out what to do about immigration being out of control so my local government has decided it will do it. Great!

But some liberal folks seem to think I'm a racist because I don't support tax dollars going to help illegal aliens. Keep in mind... I don't support my tax dollars going to white trash mommies that burp out kids with no source of income and end up being a public debt.

You can accuse me of being mean. I'll take that. I'd love to see less of the money I work for being redistributed to other people that are social parasites. I love when I have to go to the ER and wait hours in pain while the nurses deal with unqualified parents and their uninsured kids with a cold who can't get service unless they go to the ER. I also like that because I have a job and am not a welfare case, I have to pay more in hospital bills to make up the difference that these donkeys create.

Ya know... I'm not a terribly mean person. I donated $750 to an at risk youth help program... basically helping orphans aged 7-17 get a chance at a real life. Those are the kids that never get adopted and statistically don't have a lot to look forward to in life. I thought it was a good donation. I also got some cool football tickets out of the deal too. But I was presented with the situation and I felt compelled to contribute some of my money to help.

Tax dollars is my money too. And I get pissed off when I see my money spent on stupid ideas and even worse on stupid people.

I don't illegal aliens. As a whole. The notion that because they're oppressed in their native land and want a better life is a justification for them to become my problem is crap. I don't care. I really don't. I have enough trouble dealing with all the problems in my own life without feeling compelled to take on the problems of a third world economy. I'm also pretty annoyed with the people who can't seperate the difference between not wanting illegal aliens around and not wanting legal immigrants around. Legal immigrants... yay! Seriously. Good for them. The guy I work with... legal immigrant. Worked very hard to be in the country legally and is an awesome guy. He wanted to provide a better life for his family and has been able to do so legally.

I guess I'm kidding myself.

Once I talked about how I hated people who had delusional senses of entitlement. I was going to say that I didn't get why people felt entitled to a piece of my piece of the pie. But then I realised that I am in fact the delusional one. I can't stand myself for feeling entitled to keep what I earned for myself to do with what I see fit.

I really, really hope the republican party gets its act together. I mean old school fiscal conservative stuff. Drop the religious zealots, drop the legislation of morality, and drop the sucking on corporate america's teet.

Boy I'm angry.

Posted by Monty at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was reading that one of our legislative committees just passed a resolution to declare Turkey as a bunch of genocidal maniacs. My gawd! What are those wiley Turks up to now? Well, the answer is nothing.

They're being called out on massive casualties to Armenians killed in the early 1900's.

Um, why?

I mean, who cares?

I'm sure there's now a Armenian American political action group out there that started this, but honestly... who cares?

It's kinda like if Spain's government sent out a declaration saying the United States committed genocide against Indians. It's true... but it's irrelevant. I'd have thought there was a stronger Native American political movement in the US than Armenian. We should also issue genocide statements about Russia, Britain, Spain, France, and other countries with a history of steam rolling ethnic groups.

So we decide now... when our foreign policy is an internation joke... to tell our one legit friend in the middle east (saudi arabia's a joke, I'd endorse a nuclear strike against them by the way) that we want to reprimand them for something that happened so far in the past to make it irrelevant. If Turkey was still killing Armenians, go for it. If I recall, France did the same thing and Turkey cut ties with them. Why are we following France? A general rule of government is to do the opposite of France in any situation. Seriously. If France thinks its a good idea, it's not. If France thinks its horrible... it'll cure cancer.

Also... Turkey has provided the only stable air fields to the US in the Middle East. Operations Screw the Pooch pt I & II have relied logistically on Turkey's air fields. Now that we've got a couple functioning in Iraq, are we saying we don't need Turkey anymore?

Ya know... if for some reason Turkey booted the US out, we'd have to maintain a large defense force to maintain those airfields in Iraq. And the US would have a legit reason for not drawing down troop levels in some areas.

Is it possible that someone is clever enough to pick a fight with Turkey so we get a justification to keep troop levels high in Iraq?

Maybe I'm thinking too much.

I need to go read some on the history of the Ottoman Empire.

Posted by Monty at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So... if you read yesterday's post, you know that it wasn't fun day.

To that you can also added a multi-tractor trailer pile up on the interstate that closed it for an hour. I just wanted to go home. But no... god decided that it was better to smash two trucks together. (Imagine, if you will, the mental picture of a five year old kneeling on the floor with a toy truck in each hand and ramming them together in front of himself while shouting, "vrooom, vrooom". That's what god was doing. Or was it?

It wasn't a positive thing for anyone (except maybe the tow truck drivers). It seems if anything goes right in the world... someone gives god credit. If a kid survives a horrible house fire, people thank god. If the same kid were to have burnt up (crackle, crackle, crackle). Would be have been angry at god? Maybe, but probably not.

If there's a god, I don't think he's got the time, energy, or interest to... well... play god in the billions of people on the planet (or trillions if you believe that there's aliens out there). Well, no wait... god has plenty of time. I imagine if you have an eternal lifespan, you've probably got nothing to do. How many times can you make you kid's face appear on toast before it gets old? I think he's got energy two... he built the whole universe in a week, he set a bush on fire, he wrote on stone tablets with lightning for his sake. It takes energy to generate lightning... just ask Raiden.

So that just leaves interest. Why would god be interested in our little world?

Because it's entertaining.

Earth is god's favorite reality show ever,

He has his own version of Survivor... he calles it Survivor: The Middle East.

If you win... you get to play another game. If you lose... you get recycled.

I also think that god uses space shuttle rockets for lawn darts.

Where was my point? I dunno.

Some dude was talking to himself again in out mens room. It was pretty damn revolting.

Posted by Monty at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh Crap Fairy, why dost though poo upon me?

Something has been itching at me for the past 10 days and I hadn't really been able to put my finger on exactly what it was. I'm pretty sure I know what's put me in my current mood (Welcome to Crap Town, population you bro!"), but for the sake of the story it doesn't really matter other than as background. Basically, just know that I woke up salty and just got saltier as the day went (goes... it ain't over).

So I woke up feeling sick to my stomach... that's not unusual, I popped a quick Promethazine and the stomach felt better. For an hour. Then it came back. Fortunately I have a pile of Promethazine to keep my stomach in line... although I've noticed it's producing horrible heartburn. Oh well.

I spent a good 30 minutes chasing my dog around the house trying to get my one remaining clean sock in the house from him. He thought it was great fun until I started throwing things at him... then he just took off and dropped the sock. I showed up for work a good 90 minutes late with one slobber covered sock. What a great feeling.

I also missed a meeting that was a rescheduled meeting that I missed last week. My blackberry died over the weekend so I had no idea. Today was supposed to be a beta launch for a product that I managed to forget to write. I'd like to say for the record that I got kicked up and down the hall (rightly so) until my CEO's iron boot broke. Now I have to figure out how to get this all written and tested in 48 hours. Great. My own bed though.

So after that, my assistant tells me he's quitting. Firstly, to call him an assistant is really downplaying how much of a help he is. When he leaves, my work life is going to errode into a mess very quickly. I did what I could to try to keep him... I knew he was unhappy. But it wasn't enough. And had I not been sick and out of the office last week, I probably could have done more. But that's done. What a happy moment in time. The move is good for him... and I told him that when I threw my notebook across the room that it wasn't personal. It wasn't.

So let's see what was next? Oh yeah, I got yelled at some more. This time for failing to do something that someone else did improperly. I was too tired to fight and I just responded, "You're right... I'll try harder next time... although you might want to talk to the person who actually did it wrong."

A server got moved and it seems to have broken one of my programs. We all spent an hour standing in a circle pointing at each other over who needed to fix it. I said I'd do it because my leg was hurting and I wanted to go away. I have no idea how to fix it, but we can add that to the ever-growing list.

Oh... and someone who has no technical skill or knowledge decided to pronounce part of the software I'm stuck maintaining insecure. So know I have to write a dissertation on why it is. I don't know if it is or not... but I'm going to say it is because even if it is an insecure setup, I can't make it secure so it'd just end up on the "hey, you figure this out" pile that my desk has become. No lie... I have a pile on my desk of work orders, trouble tickets, and assorted crap.

But I can navigate the pile easier than a clean desk.

Why bring that up? Got yelled at for having a messy desk.

I told the angry senior staff member that I'd be more than happy to clean it off this afternoon, but asked if I could trouble her for a match and some lighter fluid.

Normally, I'd say who cares and go home and take a vicodin vacation... but alas the last of the vicodin is gone. Instead I'll probably camp out in the theatre tonight and watch movies about people whose lives suck more than mine at the moment. We'll see how it goes. So far, I'm 0 for 3 seeing how things go.

Posted by Monty at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What on Earth is going on in my head these days?

In the past three days I've purchased a pile of Redskins football tickets at a charity auction, am a hair close to purchasing an Audi TT Roadster (vroom), have spent most of my time trying to figure out how to avoid any responsibility for much of anything.

If I liked caviar (which I don't) the title would have been perfect for me at the moment.

So anyway... I went to the Redskins game yesterday... that was fun. The away team was the Detroit Lions. There were very few Lions fans in the stadium... and compared to New York fans they were much relaxed. As usual I went out of my way to be nice to at least one of the away team people. I think it's going to be my thing. I held the door open for a Lion fan as he we were leaving the rest room and told him that I was sorry they lost the game, but that Lions fans seemed to be more cool about everything than the jackass people from Jersey. He commented back that because the Lions have sucked for years anyone who is a fan is used to getting beat and have to be good natured. He was also witty which I appreciated. I was walking next to him headed towards the exit after the game and someone in a Redskins jersey (dressed like me, the nerve!) shouted, "We beat you! We beat you!" The Lions fan looked at Jack Shouty and replied, "You didn't beat me, I didn't even play." Drunky McDrunk didn't have a response to that. I laughed and complimented him.

Then he went his own way.

We were up in the nosebleeds again, but this time there were far fewer drunkards. I had a parking pass so I didn't have to ride the bum bus. That saved me a good two hours of annoyance.

I've got club level seats for the Redskins v. Chicago game (and another parking pass) in December. I have a feeling that I'm going to end up buying more tickets for other games. I'm having too much fun at the games... and fun for me is like crack and it's hard to stop.

Hooray for massive expenses and wreckless diversions.

Posted by Monty at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, great day with friends at the Maryland Rennaisance Festival.

Sunday, great day with medical staffers at the hospital.

I don't have the strength to type the long version... so here's the short.

Sunday, 8:30AM... wake up with an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.

Over the next few hours I was hit with horrible and explosive badness. Basically, everything that was in me wanted out via any passage it could fine.

I realized that I was in a bad way and couldn't even keep water down. By this point, my stomach was more in pain and getting up made me dizzy and pained.

EMTs came and I was taken via ambulance to the hospital.

While there I was IVed and they took samples of everything I had. My blood's white blood cell count was at an "extremely elevated" level. They took me in for a CAT scan of my guts to see if something was wrong. The CAT was negative for bad stuff, but the blood cell count was bad as it's an indicator of something being wrong. But they couldn't find it and determined that I wasn't in a life threatening situation so they released me.

I'm taking pain pills for my gut, which still hurts, and my back and neck are sore.

I'll be out from work for a few more days. Hopefully feeling better soon too.

So groggy.

So... for now... it's gastroenteritis. Tomorrow I'll see a doctor and see where I am.

Good night

Posted by Monty at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)