Man, it's been a while since I last posted. A lot has happened over the break, so I'll try to cover everything.

Christmas

Christmas was good. I went over to my parents' place and brought Rock Band for when all the relatives got there. I got a good amount of loot, including a Blu-Ray player, which I certainly was not expecting. After presents, my dad began his day of cooking and we ate breakfast. Then people started to arrive and we started up Rock Band. Unfortunately, people didn't seem as interested as I'd hoped. A few people sang, but no one seemed to want to play any instruments. For dinner, we ate Mexican, because Andy was too pissed to eat the traditional Christmas Dinner. But I actually like Mexican food better than just about anything else, so it was good. Eventually, everyone left except for my dad and me, and he wanted to try out singing "one song" on Rock Band. After the song, he decided he'd do "just one more." This happened about four more times. I'm glad he got to try it out. After that, I packed up everything and left. On a side note, packing up my drum set is a huge hassle and I'll probably never do it again.

The Wedding

Ah, yes. After recovering from the previous embarrassment-ridden weekend, I decided it was time for more. I drove out to Lithopolis (?) to attend Chad and Tiffany's wedding. I arrived at the church just in time to catch up with all of my old Reid Hall friends. I hadn't seen some of the people since graduation, so I was very glad to get the opportunity. The ceremony was brief and we had about an hour and a half before the reception started. Most of the Reid Hall people decided to head over to the place immediately and we trucked over convoy style. Unfortunately, due to my poor parking spot (The church had room for about 10 people to park), I was at the end of the line and had to try to keep up with Beth. I think she might have hit 90 mph at one point and basically left me in the dust. However, we all made it safe and sound, and I would have GPSed the trip had I gotten lost.

We hit downtown C-bus with about an hour to spare, and parked in possibly the shadiest parking lot I've ever seen. The person in charge of the reception hall wouldn't let us in early, so we suddenly had some time to kill. Naturally, people decided to go to a bar. We walked about a block to a run-down looking bar, but it actually wasn't bad inside. People (aside from me) ordered drinks and chatted each other up and it was relaxing. Plus, since we were in Ohio, the bar was not smoky, which was excellent. We headed back over to the reception hall and picked up some food. I was horking starving, since I hadn't eaten all day. Finally, the wedding party arrived and dinner was served. The food was great, but then the dreaded dancing began. I don't know what the deal is, but basically, the more I don't want to dance, the more the ladies try to dance with me. I recalled that at Andy's wedding, I was literally dragged onto the dance floor by five girls, including Adam Larimer. This time, I was ready for the attacks. On three separate occasions, I was chased by one or more girls wanting to dance with me. Chased. Ordinarily, I would think that saying "no thanks" would be sufficient, but I think the presence of alcohol changed everything. If I hadn't backed away, there would have been another dragging incident. I think girls tend to think that I really want to dance and just don't have anyone to dance with, which couldn't be further from the truth. Or maybe they are just malicious. Either way, my aversion to dancing seems to be directly proportional to people's desire for me to dance. On the plus side, I did get a picture of Nate dancing with Maegan with my crappy phone camera. Eventually, we were kicked out of the reception hall (because our time was up, not because of misbehavior) and people went out to drink some more, but I headed home. I had a two-hour drive ahead of me and did not feel like staying out any later. I took my placemarker thing because it shows that spelling my last name must be harder than I thought.

New Years

Mike W., X-tina, and I drove over to Matt's parents' place for the annual New Years party. X-tina bought a lot of decorations and junk, including two plaz-tek (plastic) hats (fedoras?) which were pretty stylin'. Mike W. wore a matching black striped shirt, but I didn't have anything, so I just wore a WoW shirt. Works every time. It was good to see all of my former WoW guildmates again, meet Josh B.'s ladyfriend, and eat tons of snacks. They even had a fire going outside. Eventually, we headed downstairs, where about 10 people decided to do the numa-numa dance to the blasting music. Not sure where that came from, but it was funny. I made a special effort to hang around with Greg G., as he sort of has a nickname, the "King of Awkward." He did not disappoint, and said some things to Nicole and X-tina that I just had to laugh at. It was about time for the ball to drop, and we handed out the horns and confetti poppers. I have to say that this is definitely my favorite part of the night, because those horns make the most obnoxious sound I've ever heard, and I love it. When the clock struck midnight, I went crazy and tried to be as annoying as possible with the horn. I even tried manipulating the cardboard cone to distort the sound, and had pretty good results, though Nick Anderson made some pretty awesome noises with his. Eventually, Matt got fed up with it and blew his horn into a megaphone at me. X-tina told me to "behave" about three times during the night. I figured that was enough. We eventually headed home for the night after a great party.

Other Stuff

I met Nick and Jon Stollenmeyer and Brent for the first time. That was interesting and I enjoyed their stories about the meat market they worked at.

My Xbox got a red ring of death. I guess it was due for it. My hard drive is okay, but I'm still pissed.

And, of course, no break would be complete without the latest edition of the drycleaners' utter failure to spell my last name. It should be noted that I even spelled it out for the person at the counter, and this is the best she could come up with.