Dinner - For One

Sometimes shit just doesn't work out. Tonight I planned a nice homemade dinner for Jennifer, my girlfriend, and I, consisting of steaks and my world famous Spanish Rice with bell pepper, and I was even thinking of building a fire. We were also going to watch the Fiesta Bowl featuring the Texas Longhorns versus the Ohio State Buckeyes. I do not like Mack Brown, so I throw the Horns DOWN. Anyway, Jennifer's grandmother "GG" fell down again, so it got called off. I hope she gets better soon. I went ahead with the dinner and football watching party anyway!

After I got the text message from Jennifer, you will never guess where I went. Rob's! Had to get some pre-game in, and I got to play a very spirited series of foosball against Jerry. He won 4 games to 3, and a couple of the games went to overtime, so even though I lost it was still a lot of fun. Jerry, on more than one occasion, tried to get my mug filled too high with beer so that I would have to lean over to sip it, because picking it up would surely mean alcohol abuse. This is a reference to the incident a couple of weeks ago when Jerry kicked the table / trash can that holds our beers near the foosball table (while I was leaning down to sip the beer), and I played it up like "man you could have chipped a couple of my teeth." I even held my mouth and walked away from the foosball game, but I did not look back because I was laughing the whole time. Rob's waitress Jana, who didn't know that I was displaying my fine acting skills, jumped all over Jerry saying "you are so mean, you're not the person I thought you were!" Anyway, I never fell for the prank, but the buzz around Rob's was the excitement over the Texas game, and I ran into a couple of other people who do not like the Horns. Of course, in Texas, there were plenty of people who love the Horns, and they were not really happy with my blantant dislike for their team.

Theo and I throw down the Horns at Rob's

Zaul and Rick flip me off while throwing up the Horns

Then it came time to go home for the game and cooking. I threw down with a chopped up bell pepper, then mixed my spices together (chicken bouillon, cumin, paprika, garlic salt, pepper), along with 2/3 a can of tomato sauce, and covered the 1 cup of rice for a quick 15-20 minutes on medium. The Foreman grill got to handle the beef chuck steak, and then after getting pulled off the grill, I dusted the steak with a Cajun Creole seasoning. It was seriously one of the best steaks I have cooked on the Foreman.

Prep work is done, time for the actual cooking

The finished product!

Another great part to last night was the game! Holy cow, Ohio State pretty much lead the whole game, but at the end, with 16 seconds left, Colt McCoy throws a touchdown pass to win the game for the Longhorns. Moral to the story? When life gives you a dinner alone, use the Cajun Creole seasoning on your steak.

Dinner for one

Fantasy Football $$$, and a stuck car key

Hello America! Happy 2009. I know we all make resolutions around this time of year, and I have several. Stop smoking, drink less, exercise more, ... and expand my online presence. "No one cares about your online presence." I agree. So don't take any of this too seriously, and neither will I. This is just going to be about random funny stories, current happenings in my life, and the music that gets played when I have control.

This weekend was interesting, so here is the story. I went to Boomer Jack's http://www.boomerjack.com/BJG/index.html on Saturday afternoon for some 3:00 beers, and to pay off the winners of our fantasy football league. As the commissioner, I am tasked with holding onto almost a thousand dollars for 3+ months, and then handing it over to my friends who have taken my fantasy heart, thrown it on the ground, and stomped on it Wu-Tang steel-toe boot posse beatdown style. I went 5-9 this year and finished 8th out of 10 teams. Jeff, Jason (and Heather, his wife), and Roman finished in 1-3, so they got their money. We were also joined by Scott, who impressed us all with his wit and alcohol tolerance.

Jeff flaunts his 1st place money

Jason gets 2nd place, and some scratch

Roman collects his 3rd place scrilla

Ok so everything is going well, we watch the Arizona Cardinals beat the Atlanta Falcons, and we do our $20 ridiculous playoff edition of the fantasy football draft. I don't even know who I have other than Peyton Manning, and he is gone since the Colts lost later that same night. Anyway. So my homie Jerry shows up to Boomer Jack's, and eventually most of us made our way over to my home bar, Rob's Billiards. http://robsbilliards.com/ Pool was played, Heather talked smack about how great she was at foosball, and promptly got smashed 5-0 by my buddy Ray.

Now it is getting time for me to head home, so I invite Jason and Heather over to watch some Dexter season 3 on demand. I go out to my car, put my only key into the driver's side lock, twist it to unlock the door (which worked), ... and then the key got fucking stuck in the door. There is no unbalanced feeling like the sharp kick to the temple that is caused by anything that immobilizes your car. I panicked, and tried to pull the key out with all my might. I am literally bowing the door lock out away from the car. I invite Jason to give it a try. Nothing is working. We even hit the unlock button inside the car over and over, just in case that might make a difference. I ask my friend Bob from Rob's to come out and give it a shot. Nothing works. So I give up, and catch a ride back to my house with Jason and Heather.

The next morning I call Ray and ask him to give me a ride back up to Rob's so I can try to retrieve my only car key with (hopefully) the help of some WD-40 and needle nose pliers. After spraying the WD-40 right on the key grooves, and watching it gently slide into the lock, I go for the needle nose pliers to pull out the key and ... nothing. Financial panic kicks in as I had printed out a list of locksmiths before I left the pad, but I really did not want to give them any of my money. Ray decides to break out his travel kit of tools, and he selects the magical super air compressed full size pliers. He clamps on the key, pushes in and twists, and pulls the key out! Obviously the magic in that single set of pliers is greater than the evil that resides inside my driver's side car door lock. The weight lifted off my shoulders was so significant that I offered to buy Ray lunch at the Oasis http://www.theoasisrestaurant.com/ where he had the Chicken Diablo, and I had the Blackened Tilapia. Both were great, as the meal after getting your car situation fixed is always the bomb.

Moral to the story? Ray, on the left, is a good man to know if your car key gets stuck in the lock, and you should probably have more than one set of car keys. If you don't, maybe think about getting another set made.