One Party, Two Aced One Liners
I'd meant to write about this on Saturday morning or afternoon (whichever came first) but got sidetracked by how comfortable my bean bag chair was and in doing wedding prep stuff. It was all good and we're in pretty decent shape for a Saturday launch at this point. Still plenty of things to take care of but the vast bulk of things have been dealt with.

Anyway, there was a birthday party for TT, one of my old housemates, little sister to one of my best friends, current housemate to her older brother and one of my other best friends and it was just an excuse for the gang to gather and have a good time. And we did have a good time.

There was some good grubbing, some good music, alot of chatting, some razzing of me because of the pending wedding. P didn't make it out because she wasn't feeling well and wanted to stay on task working on wedding stuff.

There were even some fire dances in the street with two of the folks, TT being one of them, swinging lit doohickeys on chains or straight torches. I did shoot some video and will post it when I get the chance to edit it some. Its pretty cool stuff but it needs some louder music.

Anyway, over the course of the evening, I'm lucky if I get one good laugher punchline in. Something that's off the wall, out of left field (hmmm, off the wall and in left field? sounds like Fenway Park) but not on Friday. On Friday I had two damned good lines, one of which was caught on the video and my friend, Darcy's reaction to it.

The first came while Johnny was expounding on the "best damned" bean dip he'd ever had, coincidentally made by Darcy. He dragged a chip through it and left a deep furrough (furrow?) down the middle. For some reason, we started talking about what it was. Johnny wondered out loud what it meant and I said it was foreshadowing. It took a second for that to hit and then he nearly fell over laughing. Perhaps its not quite as funny out of the context but please be assured that it was the funniest thing I'd said in a while up to that point.

And during the fire dancing in the street, before the police came to shut things down and just before the neighbor Kilroyed over the wall to ask us to quiet down, I got my other off-the-cuff remark in that made Darcy spill her drink. It was while TT and her pal, who's name is totally escaping me although she was quite attractive and mysterious, were just getting into their second round of twirling. Its audible on the video too. I said "The first rule of the Fire Club is, you do not talk about the Fire Club" and Darcy commenced to convulsing with laughter and moments later said it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard and that I'd better have gotten that on tape.

There were a couple of other moments where my humor flew above people's heads (who hasn't seen Scarface? come on now, its true comedy gold and yes Mark, the chainsaw in the shower scene I alluded to was from Scarface). It was fun and damned if I didn't enjoy the heck out of myself. One of the best parts was pedaling home afterwards, a little buzzed, happy and glad to have such an excellent group of pals to chill out with. Without them I would have likely blown the taco stand that is Santa Cruz long, long ago.

Oh yeah, I also met one of TT's pals from way back who's a Gracie disciple, the family that began the Ultimate Fighting Championships and then dominated it for years. Their style is Brazilian Jui Jitsu and there are a couple of local dojos that I've been wanting to get into to get some workouts in to see if it works for me.

Sweet Wedding Bounty News
I've only become aware of this in the last few weeks but apparently its customary for the bride and groom in a wedding to get each other a gift for the wedding. And no, coming out of the honeymoon suite buck naked with a big red bow around your phallus doesn't really count.
P couldn't contain her excitement to give me mine early so I got mine last week. She had a San Francisco Giants Louisville Slugger made just for me with my full name (spelled correctly!) burned into the end of the wood. Its a serious hunk of lumber that feels really quite nice to hold, swing and gaze upon.

But it leaves me in a slight conundrum of what to get for my soon to be wife? Anyone got any input on this? It needs to be readily available, cool, unique and suited for her. Actually, I just had a couple of cool ideas that I might look into. But please, let me know if you've got some ideas as well.