The End of the Year (Didn't I Do This Last Year?)

So, here we are, end of the year once again.

This has been a very interesting year; very different but not too much.

Let's go over some highlights (and/or lowlights) of this year.

The "Frasier" Reboot/Relaunch/Revival/Resurgence/Regurgitation/Resurrection/Revamp/Return

I'm gonna let you in on little secret that I feel has been out there for quite a while and some of you probably had assumptions about, if you were paying attention. Now I'm sure there might be some of you who are a bit shocked by this but I'm doing this because times have changed and what might have been a bit taboo when I was a teenager, has become a lot more socially acceptable now.
If this concerns you, I just ask that you understand and try to see past the label but...here we go.

Lots of Reading...Not Enough Writing

I've been neglecting this blog for a lot longer than I ever intended to. I would like to blame others for that but the only person I can blame is myself because after all it is my blog and I should be able to find something to rant about.

For the past few weeks I've been getting a lot of books realted to writing. Back in high school I was certain I was working on the next great novel, however I realize now that I have a long way to go. I feel comfortable with writing dialogue but everything else, describing actions and scenery...well I bore myself. And when Schweitzer-Man finds you boring...then you're doing something wrong.

So I've been doing too much reading, not enough writing. But there are a lot of things coming up that I'll be writing about. Next month is the Calgary Expo; the following month Aaron and I will be flying out to Montreal for a bachelor party and in June I'm going on a cruise with most of the Schweitzer clan. Aaron thought about joining us on said cruise but backed out because he and Katelynn have their honeymoon later in the year.

And yeah, there's a lot going on in entertainment that I'm going to want to talk about but at the moment, work and my own personal distractions are holding me up. Don't worry. I'll be back.

Vegas Vacation: Coles Notes Edition

Normally, I could bombard you with a recap of my trip to Las Vegas with a summary so detailed that Tom Clancy would find it longwinded but instead, I'll just go in point form:

• Walking in -30 weather with howling wind is a bitch.
  
  
• Getting to the gate for the flight was one long maze of lines, scans, questions and bullshit that seem so easy to get around that it's a miracle there aren't more terrorist attacks in North America.
  
  
• Aaron's friend Oleg is a nice guy despite living in Edmonton. He and Aaron met on the internet and at this point, I'll allow you to make your own To Catch a Predator joke.
  
  
• Aaron claims he wants to get back into boxing which shocked the hell out of me. I plan to sell him my heavybag for five times what it's worth.
  
  
• Flights can suck ass when you wait an hour on the runway for them to de-ice the plane. Seriously, a whole hour just waiting. A word of advice to any people who want to fly out when it's really cold: Pre-drink.
  
  Flight 547 to Las Vegas is now boozing
  
  
• Nearly suffered heatstroke once we landed in Vegas.
  
  
• Our hotel was right across from Caesar's Palace. Sadly, it was not as extravagant. Did have a better buffet though.
  
  Breakfast of champions
  
  
• Heavy drinking was one of the activities we lined up for ourselves however it was probably a bad idea to eat only two hot dogs before downing drink after drink after drink.
  
  
• I can understand people visiting Las Vegas but for the life of me I can't understand how anyone can live there.
  
  
• Four Loco is an alright drink for the first few sips but after that it's like punch at a high-school dance that someone spiked way too much.
  
  No es bueno
  
  
• We didn't stay up all night partying unlike the people below us however I'm very certain that when it was all done they played 'That's All Folks' from Bugs Bunny.
  
  
• We spent our first night looking for a strip club but when that didn't work we tried looking for the buffet in our hotel which was even more pathetic considering we kept walking past the stairway.
  
  
• It was probably a good thing though since we were so wasted that we would have been thrown out.
  
  
• Aaron came up with the good idea of going to The Gun Store so we can shoot stuff. It sounded like a good idea so we went.
  
  Special discounts for children and psychopaths
  
  
• You know how in the movies someone who has never fired a gun before will pick one up and turn into Clint Eastwood. Yeah, that's a load of shit.
  
  
• I was having a hard time deciding which gun to shoot however I ended up picking the Baretta, just like Robert Blake.
  
  
• There were many targets to choose from and I decided to go with a zombie clown. Aaron took the zombie soldier (Headshots were a must) and Oleg took one that had two bad guys on it. The taller guy was pointing a gun and screaming and the guy in front of him looked like that midget from Fantasy Island.
  
  "What did I ever do to you, Oleg?"
  
  
• The people who work at The Gun Shop were packing heat at all times. Aaron even saw on the website that if you didn't drop the gun when they told you to, that they would shoot you.
  
  
• Apparently Katelynn doesn't like guns. The Gun Store employee deemed her a 'hippie'.
  
  
• Aaron probably did the best out of the three of us. I was only lucky to manage one headshot on my Zombie Clown. However, truth be told, I had to hold back lest my identity as a former assassin be uncovered.
  
  
• After shooting our loads (So to speak) we went back to the hotel for a bit and then decided to do more sightseeing. I mentioned how Mandalay Bay had a boxing museum that I was interested in checking out. And since we could get buzzed along the way, off we went.
  
  
• As I mentioned earlier, just because it looks close doesn't mean that it really is. We walked, drank, drank, walked, stopped to drink, stopped to pee and then drink some more before walking a lot more.
  
  
• I felt kinda bad for Aaron and Oleg because they're not boxing dorks like I was and yet here we were, busting our asses just to get to Mandalay Bay for a museum. At one point I told them that they could go back to the hotel and rest (And drink some more) but they insisted we stick together.
  
  
• If I didn't wear the camera strap around my neck, Aaron would owe me a new camera. He decided it would be funny to poke my ribs while I tried to focus in on a shot. Naturally had the camera been damaged, I would have had to kill him but thankfully, this was not the case.
  
  Aaron caused me to take this...
  
  ...when I was going for this.
  

• The Mandalay Bay fight museum was...smaller than I had expected. And naturally, I almost got us kicked out within ten seconds of entering because I didn't notice the 'No Cameras' sign.
  

• I don't see the harm in me taking a picture of De la Hoya's trunks he wore against Vargas but if those are the rules...
  
  
• Was a bit disapointed that most of the stuff was actually up for sale. I mean, yeah in hindsight it might be cool to own some small part of boxing history. But to have it for sale in a museum? Just didn't sit right with me.
  
  
• Surprised they didn't have any Manny Pacquiao shirts for sale for $10. I would bought one and started wearing it right then and there.
  
  
• From there it was more walking but this time back to the hotel. Thankfully there were trams that could take us from hotel to hotel but sometimes it felt like we were doing the same amount of walking.
  
  
• You'd think we would have been tired after all this walking but once we rested our feet back at the hotel, we decided we would head to one of the strip clubs we couldn't find before. And since we had free passes, we'd be kinda dumb to not use them.
  
  
• "Little Darlings" sounds like a strip club that features midgets. Oddly enough, one guy did offer us passes to Larry Flynt's strip club which features naked midget mud wrestling. Pass.
  
  Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three.
  
  
• We weren't even in the club for two minutes and already Oleg was being felt up. Sadly it was by security after he kept setting off the metal detector.
  
  
• We were greatly disapointed that the strip club didn't even serve alcohol. Instead they offered us soft drinks. Cause everyone knows nothing goes better with a lap dance than Mountain Dew.
  
  
• There was one dancer named Pink who I swear had the upper body of a twelve year old boy. However she made up for her lack of boobies by...humping somebody's baseball hat. I'm not kidding. The guy didn't look to happy about it either.
  

• If you want to read more about what happened at the strip club, pick up this month's issue of Penthouse.
  
  
• I was enjoying the scene but for some reason, when receiving a lap dance, I wanted to burst out and sing, "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts".
  
  
• I don't understand why guys think they have to buy souveniers for their girlfriends. Seriously, they'll get over it. Besides, do you think they'll be envious of the crabs you picked up from that stripper and how there wasn't any left for her?
  
  
• Every time I said, "That's my last beer," I was being handed another one. And I drank it.
  
  
• Yes there is footage of me shotgunning a beer. Yes, Aaron and Oleg are full of crap when they say I only did about 1/4 of it, it was more like 3/4 (I would know, I was the one drinking). And yes, I did throw up for over a minute. OK, it wasn't like a minute long puke or anything. Think of it like puking in segments.
  And no, I will not upload it.
  
  
• After the first one Oleg asked, "Did you throw up?" despite being the one holding the camera and pointing it right at me.
  
  
• Even though they were laughing at my expense and I told them, "I fucking hate you guys", I still had a smile on my face.
  
  All the beers I drank
  
  
• Halfway through my barf Aaron told me to finish my beer however I had already put the can down and chances are that I puked on that as well as the balcony.
  
  
• It was funny that immediately after throwing up everything I had eaten up to that point, the next thing I wanted to do was get back to the buffet.
  
  
• I suck at gambling
  
  
• Last day was kind of bittersweet. It was a nice vacation but like all good ones it felt too short and we knew that we were leaving nice warm weather to go back to hell frozen over.
  
  
• If I ever go back to Vegas, I think it will have to be the weekend of a big fight.
  
  
• Viva Las Vegas

Back Home...by that I mean Calgary

After a week in humid Ontario, I'm back in my comfortable basement apartment, munching on a late meal of Burger King. It was a nice, relaxing time with my family but it has made me come to the conclusion that no one in my family has much luck when it comes to flying. Now granted, I did have trouble getting into Toronto last Saturday but goddammit, I saw something on the wing trying to sabotage us! I don't care if William Shatner is the only one who believes me, it happened.

The next time Shatner looked at something this horrible, he watched Star Trek: Generations

Not much has changed in the neighborhood where I grew up except that there are a lot more windmills around than the last time I was there. In fact, there were no windmills. Holy crap were there a lot of them. Sad thing was none of them were moving.

"They look like TIE Fighters," observed my dad as we were driving into Essex.
Ooh, nice try to nerd it up, Dad, but to the more experienced and seasoned dork, these windmills clearly look more like Shuttle Tydirium from Return of the Jedi.

This looks like the windmills in Essex County...

...while this does not.

It was nice to see my whole family on both sides as well considering that closest I get to a family are the few glimpses I get of my landlords now that I work midnights and their two babies who will jabber non stop if you let them though when they do it's quite funny.

One thing that I really missed (to the amazement of my cousin who couldn't have cared less) was the discussions that my father's side of the family has with each other. It leads to arguments, clashes of ideology and philosophy, statements that if captured on film would prevent any member of my family from running for office. But in the end it all ends with us hugging, saying goodbye and treasuring the time that we have together.

Of course my mother had to cry at the airport. To throw fuel on the fire that was her sorrow I was tempted to bring along a baby picture to show off my divine cuteness but decided not to risk it considering she would claim I was an Al-Qaeda operative and that it wasn't an alarm clock I was bring back, just to keep me a little longer.

How could you say 'goodbye' to that face?

"I'll miss cooking with you," she sobbed. One thing about both sides of my family is that we know good food and we know how to make it. My last night consisted off a turkey dinner to make up for all the holidays I had misssed. However, I do plan to get back this December in time for Christmas.

Not your standard Saturday night dinner but that's why my family kicks ass