Friday. I'm in Love.

I do realize that I promised a blog on Monday giving you a rundown of the fun I've been having for the past year or so.  Monday came and went, and nobody was surprised that nothing popped up in their RSS feeds from me.  Admit it.  I wasn't surprised, either.

Mostly, I wasn't shocked because I spent the weekend riding out a torrent of vomit and diarrhea around the house.  The Pale Rider, the Grim Specter of Death, whose poisonous touch brings about a pestilence and who leaves gasping, retching, heaving broken, disease-ridden bodies in its wake, took a turn through the house.  I realize that I'm now thirty-eight, and though my mind likes to think that I'm still in my twenties and that I'm flushed with the hale and hearty glow of youth, my body likes to say "Whoa, there, fella.  You might need to take a rest or two before commencing with grabbing life by the horns."

Plus, Monday was President's Day, and no one was at work anyway, right?  I mean, I wasn't at work, so you shouldn't have been at work, either.  Yeah, we'll go with that excuse.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better.  I've been rescued from the lingering, lasting feeling of nausea that had settled into the pit of my stomach over the weekend, and the boneweariness of the fatigue that had suffused itself deep into my being has mostly gone.  One could say I've been cured of the illness from which I had been ailing.

And, it's Friday!  See, there's a certain synergy to the title.

So, now that I've taken up half a blog with explaining why there wasn't a blog (I went how long between posts?  I shouldn't have to explain myself, but, guilt works like that.  You're welcome.  And, I'm sorry.  Again.  Wanna make out?  Again?), I feel I should at least give a little run-down on that which I had teased in this space a week ago.

But then, what's the point?  Remember a few years ago when some Biblically-minded chap went through and calculated when Jesus was supposed to return in glory to judge the living and the dead, Homer-style?  But the guy forgot to mail Jesus the invite, and so the Son of God never showed up?  Rude.  On the guy's part.  Not on Jesus' side.  He can't RSVP if he never got the Save-the-Date card.

Oh, and remember when the world was supposed to end on my birthday a couple of years ago, with hellfire and brimstone and the sky falling and all that rot?  Well, yeah, it didn't, and the loans I took out of my 401K in order to really celebrate my birthday--think android wang, Russian prostitutes and monkey waiters, complete with the mini tuxedos--are demanding to be repaid.  Fuck.

Anyway, we're in one of those end times again.  Tomorrow, in case you didn't realize it, is the scheduled date of Ragnarok, which is the Norse version of Armageddon (that bears quite the uncanny resemblance to Armageddon, if you've read Revelation or had it shoved down your throat throughout your childhood).  I can see I just ruined the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics for you.  Many regrets.

If you're unfamiliar with Ragnarok (aside from the kickass sword from Final Fantasy III/VI), there will be a clash among the gods the likes of which we've never seen before (I wonder why...) and probably won't see again.  Because we'll be dead.  All of us.  Including most of the gods.

Everything starts because Loki busts out of his prison and rallies an army of the dead in Helheim, which is the realm of the dead.  The overseer of Helheim is Hel, who is, coincidentally, Loki's daughter.  As is Jorgmandr, the world serpent that will rise from the depths of the ocean and who will eventually poison Thor during the battle.  The Dark Elves, the Fire Giants, the Frost Giants and the Dwarves will all be involved, along with Odin's army of warriors that have been feasting, fighting, fucking and generally getting rowdy up in Valhalla for all these centuries.  It will be quite the throw down, to be sure.  Get your popcorn, kids.

Just don't plan on sitting through all of it.  Humanity is wiped out during the course of the fighting.  I guess epic battles between all-powerful celestial beings will do that to a species.  Curse these weak and spongy bags of flesh we call bodies!!!  Only when the world is reborn after all the fighting and Magni and Modi--Thor's sons--are walking through a field of green will they find two sleeping humans--a man and a woman--who will repopulate the Earth.  The rest of us?  Compost.

If there's anything that will help to calm your end-of-the-world fears, it's that Ragnarok was supposed to be preceded by the Fimbulwinter, which was a terrible winter that would bury much of the world in snow, ice and cold and would last for three years.  And, as everyone knows, we've all had a terrifically mild winter this year, so there's nothing to worry about (if you're reading this from Europe, just play along).

So, bust the seal out of a box of wine tonight, sit back, turn on the news, and watch as the cameras roll while one-handed Tyr and the giant Fenrir wolf duke it out.  You've been fairly warned; if it seems like the sun and the moon have been devoured by giant, celestial wolves, don't come crying to me.  I'll just tell you that I told you so.

Is Your Heart Fonder Yet?

I didn't post yesterday because I was up late Tuesday night doing this whole "research" thing for the story I'm working on. Plus, I was watching Master Shake microwave kittens. Wrong? Sure. Disgusting? Yeah. But the whole thing was disturbingly and irreverently funny.

I didn't get a chance to post over lunch because I was busy wrapping up stuff at work so that I can take the remainder of the week off. I'm taking the boy to a baseball game today--Durham is home to America's favorite minor league team, after all--and tomorrow I'm taking off because, honestly, who wants to come back from a day at the ballpark and work, especially on a Friday? Not me, that's for one.

So, I'm not really posting today because I was, again, doing research last night followed up by a little bit of *knowing laughter* with the wife. Apparently, blog posting comes somewhere behind Norse gods and wild monkey sex. I figure it's good for you guys to know where you fall.

I thought I'd show you this, though. When I joined the Facebook, I tried to resist the urge to play some of those stupid games, and then I got hooked on one or two of them. Again, I apologize if I let something slip from time to time and spam your pages. Honest. I'm sorry.

However, this happened to me the other day and I found it so amusing that I felt compelled to share it.


Nothing sates your megalomaniacal thirst for power like fighting the Son of God and winning! Awesome.

Now that I've appeased my inner Jacob, I thought I'd take this new-found power and tell you all to skip out on work and go take in a ballgame today, like me. It's Thirsty Thursday, after all, so you should celebrate it. Go on. You've worked hard. You deserve it. It's not like you sit around all day reading blogs or anything.

A Few Follow-Ups

I told you I used to be a member of the Liberal Media, right? If you're new to the show, back when I was in high school, I wrote a weekly column about my small town for the local rag. At the same time, I had an opinion column with the high school paper. I got burnt out pretty quickly doing two gigs like that, which is kind of funny, since one was a weekly column and the other was bi-monthly. Still, I had lots of activities going on, like quiz bowl (what? me? do trivia? never!), basketball, trying to get into college, trying to get laid. You know, the usual shit.

Anyway, what sort of journalistic integrity would I be providing if I didn't do a few follow up stories to those things I've reported here previously? A pretty lousy one, that's what, so to prove that I'm better than Keith Olbermann, I'll do those follow-ups, and you'll like them and not see them as a thinly veiled attempt to hide the fact that I was too lacking in creativity to give you anything new today.

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Remember when I told you about that brutal and savage criminal, Joseph Carnavale? He was the man responsible for inspiring terror during rush hour traffic because he built a barrel monster out of the orange and white barrels lining every fucking street in the Raleigh-Durham area and then set said monster alongside the road. Well, not only did he flash a few moments of brilliant creativity, but he also proved that the Raleigh police department is filled with humorless asshats.

Mr. Carnavale, a student at NC State University, had his day in court yesterday and was given 50 hours of community service. Carnavale said he would like to serve his sentence by working with Habitat for Humanity. Clearly, this is a deranged lunatic prowling our streets...at least according to Raleigh police.

"The law is what we enforce," Raleigh police spokeswoman Laura Hourigan said. "We go out every day and do our job, and the job is enforcement, and that's why we did what we did."

And good for you, Laura Hourigan. God bless the men and women in blue protecting our streets in Raleigh.

Meanwhile, the guy who killed Jenna Nielsen is still at large. Raleigh police have no leads at this time.

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Last Wednesday, I told you of James Waylett--the dude who plays Vincent Crabbe in the Harry Potter movies--and his...advanced studies of herbology. He, too, had his day in court (which apparently was also his 20th birthday). He was sentenced to 120 hours of community service.

He will spend most of it polishing the trophies with Filch. The rest of it will be spent changing Mrs. Norris' litter box.

Since Waylett, who was looking at a possibility of 14 years in prison, was quick to admit the pot was his and cooperated with the police so well, the judge saw fit to give him the community service rather than sending him to the hoosegow. I'm sure Lucius Malfoy had nothing to do with this.

Incidentally...my spell checker is perfectly fine with "hoosegow", but gives me a red underline for "herbology".

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On Monday, I told you of my drunken interactions with a couple of my students in a little afterhours soiree--and by soiree I mean a poorly-judged stumble onto campus.

Curious as to what happened to the students in the story (I never learned Barefoot Girl's name...other than it was Carrie, so no follow up there). Turns out that both of the students are now doctors. Sean is a podiatrist in Chicago. Andrea is a doctor at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.

Andrea is also married. I only know this because her Facebook profile has a picture of her in a white dress dancing with some guy in a tuxedo. My brilliant powers of deduction have led me to this conclusion. Also, I found a wedding announcement from her local paper.

As soon as I find Sean's email address, I'm going to find out if he wants me to repay him for that burger and fries.

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And finally, the other night my wife and I were lying in bed discussing how limited our childhoods were when it came to music and television. The whole story can be summed up as thus: if it wasn't the Judds or the Beach Boys, she didn't listen to it growing up, and my favorite band when I graduated high school was Simon & Garfunkel.

Television was not much better. She watched a lot of Golden Girls, 227, Amen and Empty Nest, whereas I watched Leave it to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, and the Waltons. I sighed and then said, "Yeah, I spent a lot of time reading when I was a kid."

"And masturbating," she added.

"No, not so much. Don't you remember the Jamie Randol story?"

"Oh yeah. How long would you go in between?"

"Like, weeks. Months, if I could. One of my main reasons, aside from feeling guilty, was that my mom had me terrified that Jesus was retuning at any second!, and I really didn't want to be lying there beating off when the Rapture occurred."

"Wow, so, what, she told you that if you stroked the one-eyed monster, Jesus would come?"

*pregnant silence followed by gales of laughter*

When I composed myself: "I am so blogging about this."