Once again.


My only annual blog tradition is to post this poem I wrote a few years ago. Since I've moved into my condo and some of the references don't apply any more I've been thinking about updating it, but for now I'm going to post this old chestnut exactly as I have done since 2004.


'Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving.
by Andrew Boisseau.

'Twas the night before Thanksgiving, when all through the crib,
Not a creature was stirring, not even this lib.
The dirty clothes were strewn with no reason or rhyme,
In the hopes they would pick themselves up, given enough time.

The neighbors were stomping on my ceiling, their floor,
While the pizza delivery guy stood at the door,
And me in my pajamas, right after a shower,
I'd be in bed soon, in about an hour.

When out in the hallway, there came such a sound,
The fire alarm beep just would not quiet down.
I got up from my seat, and sprang to the hall,
When the alarm stopped beeping, up high on the wall.

The moon was not out, but perhaps it would be later,
And I got chills when I realized I was out of toilet paper.
So I got dressed to go out, and headed to the store,
And a neighbor took my parking spot, which made me quite sore.

He in a pick up truck, so eager to steal,
My spot was gone, and he took it with zeal.
More rapid invectives, I've never said,
But that did not mean that I wanted him dead.

Now BASTARD! Now JERK OFF! Now CRETIN and FOOL!
On, SPOT STEALER! On THIEF! You know that's not cool!
You could have parked elsewhere, you know that it's true!
I'll steal your spot one day, though, there's nothing you can do!

As dry leaves fell from my shoes into my car,
I raced to the store which was not really that far.
So into the store, i picked up my food,
And waited in line behind some girl and a dude.

And then in a huff, I realized my fate,
The couple had a hundred, but the bill was 108.
So I waited and waited, for them to sort out
What they would buy, while I tried not to pout.

He was dressed in a dark coat, she in bright red,
And I stood there waiting, and looking quite dead,
The manager came over, to help with the bill,
While the people behind me would not keep still.

My eyes -- how they looked, all bloodshot and dead,
I had to get home, and get into bed,
But I stood there in line, instead of just leaving,
I was okay, but the cashier was still seething.

The bill was paid finally, and off the two went,
It was my turn now, and it was money well spent.
I got stuff for the bathroom, the kitchen and such,
But carrying it to the car was really quite much.

I felt chubby and plump, in as poor shape as ever,
It's been so long since I worked out, it seems like forever.
So I made a commitment, I know I won't keep,
I'll work out everyday, and gets lots of sleep.

I spoke not a word, as I let the music blare,
I drove home quickly, and in no time was there,
I unloaded the groceries, and then parked my car,
It wasn't the same spot, but it wasn't too far.

I sat on the couch, to play with my mac,
And I surfed the ol' web, once I was back.
You may laugh at me now, and what I call living,
Even so, I wish all of you, a Happy Thanksgiving!

One just scratched me.


So I'm watching Steve and Allison's place this weekend and taking care of their cats so I get to party all night downtown and then just walk home to their place where I can pass of from all the alcohol, so of course Jay and I went to a movie and then I came home and now I'm on the internet, sans beer. Probably didn't help that it was raining. Weird how it always seems to rain on the weekends.

It also didn't help that one of the cats scratched me. Not too bad though. Fortunately I had my sweatshirt on so it only barely nicked a vein. I was able to stop the bleeding with a tourniquet. No more petting from Mr. Black Cat. I'm sure they named the bastard car and told me the name but I forgot it. The other cat is cool though.

Doesn't feel like I'm taking advantage of this opportunity right now with a place to stay downtown though. Somehow I pictured tonight would be a little more exciting. Oh well. Maybe I should use reverse psychology on myself and picture tomorrow night just like tonight.

Ugh. Now I'm going to have nightmares.

Really boring nightmares.

Early season blowout.


I had a pretty good time watching Texas blow out Western Carolina tonight. The game was pretty sloppy and the pizza I bought was nothing to write home about unless I wanted to end a relationship, but we had great seats and it was cool to see some college hoops in action again after such a long break. If I can't watch my Hokies live I guess watching the #3 team in the country is a good consolation.

Late night in Austin star gazing.


So last night I decided I'd check out the meteor shower with no planning what so ever. At about 2AM I'd finished making my lemon pudding for the Plan B dinner group and I headed out to the car with my camera and a vague idea where to go to get a better view of the night darkness, away from the city lights.

As I drove off I began to wonder how smart it would be to park my car on the side of the road in some rural area I'd never been to before and camp out in the darkness alone. I wondered if any horror films began that way. I could end up parking near a bear or some other vicious wild animal that could see perfectly fine in the dark. My only weapon would be the flash of my camera and the ear splitting childish cries of fear I would produce as I fumbled around for the keys I'd dropped right after I'd locked myself out of my car.

But wild animals weren't the biggest fear. I wondered how far out I would have to drive to avoid certain kinds of serial killers wandering aimlessly through the night.

I figured if I stayed where I was, at my apartment complex, I'd most likely get stalked by some knife wielding maniac like Michael Myers from Halloween. An unstoppable killing force silently creeping up on me until it was too late. I could drive a little ways out of town though and I'd probably wind up in Jason territory. A deranged animal of a man who protects his territory with a machete or just about anything else that can puncture human flesh.

There was really no way of knowing how far I'd have to drive to get out of possible Jason territory, but beyond him would be large swaths of rural land patrolled by half-mutant creatures that only distantly resemble humans, like those in The Hills Have Eyes. They would work as a team to distract me from the car long enough to disable it. I would run in fear through their gauntlet of terror until I was lost and had no hop of getting home.

Clearly I'd have to find some no man's land that existed between the territories of Michael and Jason or Jason and the mutant killer families or hope that the killers were busy stalking some other sky watchers somewhere else in their territorial borders. So I drove and drove until I found as dark a spot as I could and parked the car to catch a view of the stars.

After I'd turned off the car lights though I found the light pollution was really no better where I had gone than in my parking lot, so I decided to head home and spend a little more time star gazing at home before bed.

I stayed out for a little while and saw several streaks of light over about 15 minutes and then I went to bed. All in all a pretty interesting night, and no serial killers to speak of... wait, what was that noise... Great, it looks like something tripped the breakers and now all the lights are out. I guess I'll just post this and then go outside to the main breaker box and reset it. It looks like one of my neighbors is out there already just standing there like a bump on a log not knowing what to do. Didn't even bring a flashlight with him...what a moron. Oh well. Just got to fix this then its off to bed.

Thath hurth.


I bit my tonight today at lunch and so later on as I was thinking about the unpleasantness that is the right side of my tongue I thought about tweeting about it from my iphone. I started to type out "I hathe when I bithe my tonghue," but then I realized I was typing it out as if I was speaking it which really didn't make sense given the nature of tweeting, which is entirely based on your manual dexterity typing.

If I could record a tweet then it might make sense, but if I started typing out a lot of misspelled words people might think I was hit on the head with a rock and maybe I had a concussion instead of just a wounded tongue. I'm not even sure the spelling would match the sounds I was making while trying to say the words anyway.

Then there's the whole issue with my tweets showing up on facebook. I have it set up that way on purpose but it would be nice to privatize some tweets so I could say things on twitter that I wouldn't want on facebook because the tweets might upset some facebook friends. I guess that's what this blog is for now. A repository for things that might piss off various facebook friends.

Finally there's the whole issue of the iPhone always correcting my spelling. Like I need to spend 10 minutes fixing the spelling corrections the phone made.

I'll worry about it when I need it.


The other day I was joking with my friend Rock that I'd have to resort to Plan B if a woman said YES when I asked her out on a date.

Alejandro at the Continental Club.


Pretty cool evening tonight listening to Alejandro play some new songs he's working on for his next album. He's playing at the Continental Club for the next few months and each night he performs he plans on treating the stage as his own personal studio space where he plays different versions of the songs, either with a little accompaniment or with his full band. Eventually he'll settle on which songs he wants to include on the next album but it is pretty cool listening to him perform the songs in various ways. I'm definitely planning on seeing him play at least a few more times over the next few months.

And still champion.


I'm good at three things. Unfortunately, two of the three involve making desserts. The third thing I'm good at turns out to be table shuffleboard of all things. I've played it a few times in the last year and always done well. The other day while at the Va Tech watch party one of the other alumni asked if I wanted to play and I beat him 23-4. I really need to watch that. I should try to win by less so that whoever I play will want to play again.

That's not a problem for my brother, who hates to lose. We played a couple of nights ago. After I had mentioned wanting to play he challenged me to a game and was up pretty big on me at first. At one point he was up 11-1, and the deficit may have gotten even greater, but I came back and won the game 21-19, and so we played a second game. Best two out of three. When I won the second game, winning the best two out of three, we played the third game, which I also won.

So now my brother is planning on studying the game until he can finally beat me. Eventually he probably will win a game and maybe get better than me. He still won't beat me at making pumpkin chiffon pie, or hot lemon pudding.

A little bit of nature.


Yesterday while playing at Butler I spotted a walking stick on a post next to the last hole. I haven't seen a walking stick in the wild in a a very long time, not just because they are hard to spot, but also because I haven't been looking for them. But there it was, moving rhythmically back and forth like a little dancer. I watched it for a little while while the other players were teeing off. I hadn't played especially well and one last hole wasn't going to save the day. I'd found something that interested me more, at least for a few minutes.

I tried to take a picture from my iphone but the post was in shadow and the walking stick was far too skinny to get a decent shot. Instead all I got was a series of out of focus lines, so I put the phone away and tried to study it and understand it better. Where was it's mouth? What did it eat? What ate walking sticks? I wondered how it came to be standing on the post, with it's white painted top that completely ruined the walking stick's ability to hide in nature. On the post it stood out easily, or as easily as a paper thin series of twigs could.

As I stepped back, a gust of wind came by and the walking stick reached up with it's front legs. Suddenly it was floating away, a slender dark vertical line with it's even slimmer legs spread out. The wind carried it up a few feet and after it had travelled about fifteen feet I lost track of it.

Such a little thing cast against a post, then cast again to the wind, to drift wherever the wind would take it, not knowing where the journey would end.

My Hokie shirt is good luck for some people.


It's really simple. The previous two Va Tech games I went with other Virginia Tech shirts other than my traditional maroon with orange "HOKIES" on it. It's a cool shirt but for each of the games I had one reason or another for not wearing it. Actually, the reason was probably that it was dirty, so I had to go with one of my other Hokie t-shirts. Suddenly Tech went on a two game skid and is now out of BCS contention. Coincidence? I think not.

As proof I wore my "HOKIES" shirt tonight and what happens? Tech wins. That's pretty much the definition of proof in my book. My "HOKIES" shirt is a real good luck charm for the football team.

Now if I could only find that shirt that's a good luck charm for me with the ladies.

Oh, forget about it.

One to go.


I sold my old iMac this past weekend. For a while I was worried I'd spend all the money I made before I could deposit it today but fortunately I exercised some self control, which when it comes to money is a rare thing, and deposited most of it today after lunch.

Next I'll be selling the computer I'm using right now, and then I have to figure out how long I can go without a portable computer before i break down and buy a new one. Can I wait until MacWorld in January? That's a long way off, two months at least. I think that might be too long to expect me to go without one.

Oh well, I don't think anyone was really expecting me to buy them Christmas presents anyway.

At 8AM?


For some insane reason the Race For The Cure took place today at like 8:30 in the morning, as if that's going to help stop breast cancer. Here's the thing. It really doesn't matter what time I show up at the Domain and walk 5 kilometers. My walking isn't going to fix anything except the perception that I am a lazy ass, and I'm not sure that's an incorrect perception. Me getting up at the crack of dawn just might give people the wrong impression of me. As a matter of fact I'm sure of it.

Getting back to me walking at 8AM though. I'd feel a little better about it if the walk was scheduled for later in the morning, say after 10AM. but then if it was that late then I guess I'd have to put on sunscreen. They could have the walk in the afternoon, but then that is my golf playing time at Butler. How about if they have the walks at night, as kind of a breast cancer research fundraiser and crime prevention watch, except that if 30,000 people are walking on the specified route then there would probably be a lot of homes burglarized during the walk. Okay, so maybe the early morning would be the best time since burglars are generally a lazy bunch.

I guess the thing that irks me is that I walk 5K and donate some money and at the end of the race there aren't any breasts to touch. What kind of bait and switch did I fall for? I guess I shouldn't complain too much. It's just that I could have slept in and had the same "no touching breasts" experience.

Still thinking about a halloween costume.


So i went downtown to a party tonight and everyone was dressed in their costumes. Jay had suggested I wear my Green Lantern shirt since he was wearing his Batman shirt but I don't think anyone really knows who the golden age Green Lantern was so it probably went over or below their heads.

Since everyone else was dressed as a slutty this or that I tried to spice up my costume a little by going as a slutty golden age Green Lantern by undoing my belt buckle and unbuttoning my pants but I don't think it went over as well as I thought it would.

Tomorrow I'll probably go as a russian soldier. A slutty russian soldier? We'll see.