"Maybe laugh a little more"

It's been a busy week. Last Friday was spent rollercoasting around King's Island with the Martin clan. Highlights include 10 coaster rides plus Delirium, Drop Zone and a couple of swings and Viking Ships. Not to mention La Rosa's pizza and a small prize from the 3-Point Shootout. It was a good time. Niece Noel is quite the amusement park ride enthusiast as well. She's arms up the whole time on the log ride and viking ship. It was a good day.

Rogers and I went couch shopping this weekend. In a couple of weeks, we'll have ample seating for friends.

What else is going on?

• I'm finishing up my application for graduate school.
• I've been pretty tired most of this week.
• I've got a new book to read during a certain time each day thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Patrie.
• I'm finishing up watching Terminator I think for the second time in 25 years.
• El Toritto is a good place to get some fancy Mexican food.
• Rogers has some cool news on the work front.
• I've got some personal statement drafting to do to finish up my application.

Now time to see if the Cavaliers can hold off the Magic for one more game. Here's hoping for an entertaining Lebron vs. Kobe finals. It doesn't look too likely right now.

"Such a timeless flight"

Billy Joel and Elton John setlist from tonight's amazing 3.5-hour show. It was sweet. Managed to snag this.

"Wonder what it's all about"

Tomorrow evening is the Billy Joel/Elton John concert on what I like to refer to as the Two Guys, Four First Names Tour. It will undoubtedly be a good show. Thanks to Eileen referring to the new Coldplay live album download (FREE!) from their web site, I'm getting more excited than ever for the Coldplay concert. It is going to Rock. Snow Patrol will be a great warm-up too. Here's hoping Chris Martin runs out into the crowd like last time. Favorite Coldplay songs:

Honorable mention: Lovers in Japan, Sparks, Now My Feet Won't Touch the Ground
10) Strawberry Swing
9) Death and All His Friends
8) Talk
7) Life in Technicolor ii
6) Clocks
5) In My Place
4) Green Eyes
3) The Scientist
2) White Shadows
1) Viva La Vida - I just cannot get over it. Everytime I hear it, I smile.

After the top few, the rankings get tough for me. I enjoy most of their songs, but those are some that I could listen to over and over again. Coming soon...favorite DMB songs. Will Don't Drink the Water make the cut? Depends on how long the list gets!

"Doesn't mean I'm lost, doesn't mean I'll stop"

Lost! I'm ready for the final season. And I continue to be glad that the next season will be the last. It's been a great show, and it needs to end. This season was good, but I don't know that I'd say it was the best.

Favorite moments...

• Juliet in book club when all of a sudden the plane crashes, and we see the Dharma houses on the island for the first time.
• The numbers in the hatch turning to odd hyrogliphics when they don't enter the code on time...the first time.
• The Episode about Charlie's Greatest Hits.

There are many more, but these few always jump to mind first.

I am looking forward to this weekend. It will be good to relax a bit. Highlights of this week so far:

• Healing from wisdom teeth surgery
• Seeing Ricker for the first time in a long time and Bigcat for the first time in a few weeks
• Waking up with Rogers every morning
• Good client meetings today
• Qdoba, Coldstone and Lost tonight

"The clouds are building outside"

A day in the life...
Present to 12:15 - prepare for tomorrow's meetings
12:15 - 12:20 - brush teeth, fall asleep
12:20 - 7 - sleep
7 - 7:30 - get up, get ready, leave for work
8ish - get to work, leave for mtg
10ish - return from mtg
11:45 - leave for lunch mtg
12:45 - return from lunch mtg
2:45 - leave for another mtg
4 - return from that mtg
5:30 - leave work
6:30 - go to the gym
7:30 - qdoba
8ish - Lost finale

"That first step onto the street"

• It's absurd the Western Conference NBA playoff games start at 10:30 every night. That rules them out for me...I must be getting tired. I tried to spell absurd "ubsurd." That seems pretty bad.
• Another busy week at work. Thursday I have meetings with two of the larger local employers. That should be fun.
• One of my resolutions for the year is to read the Bible straight through. So far I have read 31 chapters of Genesis. I've got some work to do.
• Curb Your Enthusiasm makes me laugh hard.
• My computers all seem to run slowly. There is an unfortunate common element of this equation.
• Better Than Ezra's new album is different to say the least. "Party" would be the best one-word description that comes to mind. That's not necessarily a good thing. I'm still enjoying it. And it's #6 selling Album on iTunes right now. nice.
• "Big Whiskey and the Gru Grux King" are pretty sweet nicknames for the late Leroi Moore of DMB. I like "Berg" but it's nothing like those nicknames.

"Turn on the mystery"

My wisdom teeth were plucked from my mouth on Friday afternoon. I must say that Friday was a bit blurry in hindsight. They gave me four prescriptions, three of which said "may cause drowziness." So I slept about 15 hours after my surgery with about 30 minutes to an hour awake a couple of times. Thanks to Rogers for making sure I had my applesauce, pudding, ice cream, soup, and yogurt. All the liquidy foods a guy could want. Overall, I wasn't in too much pain over the weekend. I'd say I had a bit more discomfort in the past 24 hours actually, which is strange. I asked them to keep my teeth for me, so I could trade with Phil (per his request), but they apparently came out in pieces so they threw them away. Too bad. Overall, I wasn't too heavily medicated beyond the first 24 hours, but still felt kind of wierd at times.

This morning I was a bit hopped up on penicillin and extra strength tylenol when one of my co-workers passed me in the hallway and asked if I was headed to such and such meeting. "No, I wasn't invited. Thanks for rubbing it in," I responded. Hopefully, my John McCain-like cheek jutting out tipped her off that something wasn't quite right.

In other news, we apparently have a bird's next full of baby birdies living in our dryer vent hose. We'll get rid of those little tweeters though soon enough.

Movies watched while laid up this weekend:
Live Free or Die Hard - 6 of 10
Blood Diamond - 7 of 10
The Invasion - only could watch about 20 minutes before I was too tired. But I'm excited about watching the rest of that one.

"Know just when to fold"

Our freshman year of college, Lisa lived with her Mom in her Grandma's duplex just on the other side of Scatterfield off of University Boulevard. It was 2002...seven years ago...I remember a few things about her time in the duplex. We killed lots of spiders. Two or three every time I was over there. On halloween, a kid came by in a Harry Potter costume. Doing homework on Sunday afternoons on her mom's computer. Her mom cooking barbecued chicken. Spending the night there after tearing my ACL, since there was no way I was getting into my loft...

And sometime during that year, Lisa and I started cutting out the Papa John's coupons from the Andersonian and ordering our $6.99 large pizza on a weekly basis and watching Friends...and eventually Scrubs as well. Partially because of our love for pizza, I suppose, and partially because we didn't spend a ton of time together during the week throughout college, pizza night became a tradition. Something we both looked forward to every week. Papa John's and Scrubs. We kept this up and as we moved to Michigan it became Hungry Howie's, and we continued to have our pizza night. So tonight, in honor of Scrubs finale, we ordered our Papa John's and sat down to watch what was meant to be the last episode of Scrubs ever. This season has been a marked improvement over the last few and the finale was superb. The ending with Peter Gabriel's Book of Love playing over JD looking into the future made me smile...and made me happy to be young. To be able to look forward to the future. With family. With kids. And with friends.

And to pizza nights as well...they will continue with some other show taking the place of Scrubs. But I will always have a place for the show that we watched every year as we grew from kids into adults.

"Your protector's coming home"

It seems like nearly every Monday and Tuesday evening I feel very tired. Thursday's, on the other hand, I feel energized knowing that no matter how late I stay up, the next day is Friday, which is typically a very good day. Perhaps the best day of the week, due simply to the anticipation of the weekend to come beginning around 6 p.m. that night. Saturday is disappointing because you start to think that the weekend is halfway over and Sunday makes you wonder where all your free time went. Wednesday...the name of the day speaks for it self. (Although it does include NES which is my all-time favorite video game system.) And Thursday...well Thursday is OK, but it's no Friday. And that my friends is why Friday is the best day of the week.

So this was Monday. Rogers and I decided to celebrate Cinco de Mayo one day early (beat the crowd) by splitting a meal at Cancun and picking up some Dairy Queen. I also learned that today is Star Wars day...MAY the FOURTH be with you. Seriously, look it up on wikipedia...of course everyday is Star Wars day to somebody.

Things I've been watching recently:

• 2009 NBA Playoffs - if you're a fan of competition, that Bulls/Celtics series was sweet
• Scrubs season 8 - series or season finale on Wednesday? Rumor has it's only the season finale yet again. While this season has been better than the last few, the last few years of mediocrity has caused it to lose it's luster with me. It's fine for 20 minutes during lunch on Satudays.
• Lost - season finale in two weeks...always good and this season is no different.
• Survivor - Tyson was evil...but hilarious. "I'm looking forward to tonight's tribal council...I hope Siera cries a lot."
• The Hills - My hate for Spencer keeps me watching. It's sad.

"I wanna breathe that fire again"

I purchased Hot Fuss the summer of 2004 a few weeks after it hit the shelves. I'd heard Somebody Told Me on the radio probably two or three times and knew that was music I would enjoy. I remember blasting Jenny Was a Friend of Mine that whole summer. Man I loved that song. I think I had the short-lived, hood-won't open Acura that summer...While I thought the album was amazing, I kind of expected the Killers to ultimately go the way of some of my other impulse buys...enjoy the album for awhile and don't even bother with the follow-up (James Blunt anybody?). Little did I know that 5 years later, I'd be enjoying every song of a concert. The Killers continue to impress. While Sam's Town wasn't my cup of tea as much as the other albums, what a fantastic show in Columbus on that tour...Terrific. And Sawdust and Day and Age are more great albums -- Sawdust which is really just a collection of b-sides, yet a handful of some of their best songs mixed in. All this to say, a fun show in Indy tonight. I can only hope the Killers continue to impress for another decade or so. I think a nice collection of 7 or 8 albums would be enough to allow us to ride of in the sunset never growing tired of the music.