Break a Leg

I think that around this time of year, it is typical for people to look back and reflect on the things they've accomplished or failed to accomplish during the last 365± days, accolades they've acquired, people they've pissed off, pooches they've booted, and so on.  Well, I'm not gonna.  I don't feel like it.  Instead, I will share the experiences of the last 24 hours.  I think that'll be enough.

First off, last night I went to dinner and a movie with my brother and my dad.  My brother lives in Hawaii (the bastard) and doesn't make it to the mainland that often, so we decided to go to the local microbrew and have some good old pub food.  Marin Brew Co. has appetizer wings that come in your choice of bar-b-que or buffalo flavor.  Due to a snafu in the kitchen several years ago, I was served the wings with both sauces mixed together...and I've never gone back.  At first I was trying to get the mixed sauces known as "Yarish Style".  I encourage everybody I ever meet to try the wings this way.  Then, I converted my friend Nate without much effort and he coined the term "bufflaque" which I think is much better.  So we had some bufflaque wings, some pizza, some salad (scoff) and some beer.  It was good.

Then we went to see Valkyrie at the movie theater in the local mall.  You will ask "How was that?"  I will answer "Meh".  Perhaps my unenthusiastic response spawns from the kid sitting next to me.  He and his mom came into the theater just as the movie was starting.  There wasn't enough room in our row for them to sit together, so she parked him next to me and sat in the seat behind him.  Through the next two hours he proceeded to crinkle his candy back, slurp his soda, repeatedly turn around to get more popcorn from dear old mother, and generally be mildly annoying.

When the movie was over and we all funnelled out of the theater, he was rejoined with his mom.  Anybody see a little movie called Gladiator?  Remember the hot sister that had a thing for Maximus?  Yeah.  It was her.  Now, anybody who knows their pop culture won't be as surprised at the next part as I was.  There was apparently a second son, because one minute he was holding her hand, the next minute he was yelling "Daddy! Daddy!" and running through the crowd.  And who is our mystery father figure?  Lars.  As in Lars from Metallica.  Now I have what I consider to be a slightly atypical response to seeing famous people in public.  I do not run up to the and ask for their autograph or ask to shake their hand or point out that they are who they are to themselves and everybody in the immediate area.  No.

I compare their height to mine.

Lars = shoulder height.

Story #2:  I have mentioned once or twice that I play Kingdom of Loathing.  I also listen to Radio KoL, which is a free live stream that runs 24/7.  The DJs are people that usually play the game.  They also have lots of games and contests and stuff.  One of the DJs was having a contest she called Skaraoke.  Basically, if you wanted to take part in the contest, you posted on her forum.  What ever number you were in the order of posters, that was your number, i.e., the first post was number 1, the next was number 2, and so on.  I was number 54, which actually largely irrelevant, but I just want you to have a complete picture.  Then, the day after the deadline for entries during her show, the DJ went down the list of entrants.  She had a numbered list of 127 different songs.  Every time she got to the next post number, she would roll the digital equivalent of a 127-sided die.  Whatever number came up, that would be that person's song to sing, and then she would move on.  I ended up with Every Breath You Take by The Police. Then what happened was the DJ would send you the karaoke track: no lead vocals, just the instruments and maybe some back up vocals.  It was the responsibility of everybody participating to provide the lead vocals to the track and send it back to the DJ.

Now, I can sing, but I can't sing like Sting.  And I wasn't about to try.  Especially since I had a cold.  So the first time my voice cracked on a high note, I decided that I would need a little help from my friends, so i started doing impressions: Gizmo, Kermit, a Gregorian choir...whatever.  Pretty much butchering the song, but in a hopefully amusing way.  I'm pretty sure I was the first person to get my submission in.  I'm not sure how many original entries there were on the forums, but at the deadline of 12am eastern time last night, there were 42 submissions (a nice little coincidence for all you Hitchhiker fans).  So then the DJ loaded all the songs into her playlist, hit random, and played them all so everybody could hear everybody else's submissions so that they could vote on them later.

The ironic part here is that the DJ's show is always on when I'm at work so I never get to listen.  This morning was no different.  There is a chat channel for people who are listening to Radio KoL, so I could see the reactions to what was being played.  By the time I actually logged into chat this morning, my song had already played, so I had no idea how people reacted to it. 

Once all the songs were done playing, everybody voted on the songs that they thought were the best and the worst.  There were 3 prize categories: Best, Worst, and DJ's pick.  All the prizes would be in-game items of some value. 

Long story short (too late): I got voted Best Song...which I can only assume or at least hope means "most amuzing".  The DJ announced the winners on the radio...so I didn't know I had won until people started congratulating me. 

Then I went home early from work.

So all in all, not a bad way to end the year.  Now I plan to go eat some good food and get pretty hammered.

Happy Jenday and Happy New Year!