Fragmented Fri - Five Posts in One Week? That's Unpossible!

• When I was starting to get the blogging bug again last week, I made sure to ask TopGun if he minded me writing about him, what with him being a Grey Man and all; his response was that he would be honored to be included in my ramblings. Poor, naive fool had no idea what he was getting himself into, did he?
  
  
• One thing I neglected to mention in last Friday's Shack-Fu-centric post was the conversation I had with him when I got back to Texas following my Virginia trip. I called him up to see how he was doing, since he had left out super-early that morning to drive from Quantico to Denton. When I asked if he was on schedule, he replied that he had been for a while, but now was having to make up some time. Anyone want to guess what had delayed him? If you said "saw an accident and stopped to help," then you've obviously either met Shack-Fu or read this blog before.
  
  
• Sometime during TopGun's first week at the house, I was talking about my roughhousing around with PigPen and Shack-Fu and the subsequent injuries and made a crack about how for some reason my best friends always try to kill me. He responded that I didn't have to worry about that with him, going on to explain that he only uses violence on those who deserve it. My response at the time was that PigPen would probably say that I did deserve it, but if the conversation had taken place just a week later, when I was fully comfortable giving TopGun a hard time, I would have instead used the first response that popped into my head at the time, cutting him off after the first half of his statement with a wounded "You mean we're not going to be best friends, TopGun?" with maybe some puppy dog eyes and a quivering lip thrown in for good measure. Hate to have missed that opportunity.
  
  
• In my jiu-jitsu class on Monday I managed to submit somebody twice, with two different submission moves, even. The first was a North-South arm triangle choke which has become sort of my go-to move from side control, and one of the few moves I can catch people in on a semi-regular basis; the second was a kimura, administered while he had me in half-guard, which was quite an achievement for me because I always mess up my arm placement when I go for that. Anyway, a nice little ego boost for me; always nice to feel like I'm not perpetually the lowest man on the totem pole.
  
  
• Midway through last week I got a text from TopGun asking me if I would call up an exterminator, as my roomie had had some extra protein in his cereal that morning courtesy of the ants which had infiltrated the box. After asking around, I decided to first try the liquid ant bait traps that Zinger suggested; within a day of setting them out, the kitchen infestation vanished. However, last night TopGun was assaulted by a couple in his room; apparently they know he was the one who ratted them out and were taking their sweet revenge on him.
  
  
• Saturday morning I was being my usual lazy self, lying in bed and wondering if I should get up or not, when I heard the front door open, followed by the sound of TopGun talking to someone else in the living room. Curious, I got up and moved towards my bedroom door, whose handle started to turn. By that point I had recognized the other voice, and so I whipped open the door just as PigPen was starting to stick his ginger dome in. Turns out he had been driving back from crashing at a friend's house, and was passing through Denton when he was struck by hunger and decided to come see if TopGun and I wanted to go grab some breakfast. Thank heavens I was awake; I'd hate to think what evil things might have befallen me otherwise.
  
  
• Figured I should share an example of TopGun's smartassery towards me so you don't all feel sorry for him for all the pot-shots I've taken at him so far. As we were driving to breakfast on Saturday, PigPen and I were talking about our rappelling trips* and PigPen was trying to remember who all went on our first trip. I said it was just him, Shack-Fu, and myself; he said he could have sworn there was a girl with us; TopGun piped up from the backseat "No, that was Todd."
  
  
• Shack-Fu gave me a call on Sunday afternoon, and when I asked how he was doing he said he was doing all right, although he was horribly sore. When I asked why he was sore, he responded "Oh, had a bit of a crash the other day." My first thought: not the Challenger! He then went on to explain that he had crashed his bike and scraped himself up pretty bad; when I told him what my initial thought had been, he responded that if he had crashed the Challenger, I wouldn't have been hearing from him, as he would have had to have killed himself.
  
  
• As I mentioned in my last post, despite only having known TopGun for a little over a month, I have felt unusually comfortable just being myself around him -- this, of course, has lead to me feeling compelled to explain to him several of my neurotic tendencies and try to prepare him for what storms may come. Honestly, I think I might need to just type up a pamphlet: "So You're Going to Be Todd's Friend: 10 Neuroses, Quirks, and Idiosyncrasies to Watch Out For.**" I'm sure it would come in very handy.
  
  
• Last Sunday I got a call from my old pal Papa Lightbulb, who I rarely get to talk to these days since his family moved to Houston. They were in town, and I had seen them briefly after church but hadn't gotten a chance to visit, so wasn't totally surprised to get the call, but wasn't expecting the question he asked: "What can you tell me about Red Tornado?" Seems his son had just gotten a Red Tornado action figure at the store, and had asked Papa L. to call me up for the 411 on the character, since he knew I had been the source of primo Green Lanter intel a few months back. I weighed the pros and cons of illuminating the Lightbulb boys on Reddy's convoluted history, but finally settled for "He's a robot who controls the wind, can fly and blast people," thus maintaining my place as "useful comic geek" and not "horribly pedantic ubergeek." And yes, we did visit about other things besides comic book characters after that; man, I sure do miss Clan Lightbulb.
  
  
• A few weeks back, TopGun let slip the date of his birthday to Slick (formerly MeiMei), and has regretted it ever since, as Slick has been pestering our resident Gray Man about how he wants to celebrate, and won't take "I'd rather just be totally ignored and not have anyone acknowledge my existence" for an answer.
  
  
• At the beginning of the month I travelled to Asheville, NC for the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) Annual Conference. Sounds thrilling, doesn't it? It was actually pretty cool in a way, since most of the other conferences I've gone to for work have not had a whole lot of relevance to my job, whereas this conference was directed precisely at people who do what I do. Kinda nice. Plus, while exploring the streets of Asheville one night, we happened upon a drum circle and a huge mosh pit of college kids dancing wildly to primitive beats; don't get to see much of that around here.
  
  
• The one down side to attending conferences is that they force me to try to get outside myself and meet new people, not exactly my forte. After my first night, I instigate the following texting conversation with fellow wallflower TopGun.
  

  Me: Now I remember why I hate going to conference: MINGLING.
  Him: I'm about to start a workout then just hang out. No mingling for me!
  Me: Just for that, I'm throwing you the biggest birthday party in the history of the Singles department. Mingle *that* bucko!
  Him: Hahaha! You clever bastard!

  Yes, this is definitely the beginning of a beautifully smartassed friendship***

*Okay, actually we were talking about Taco Casa, but that required talking about rappelling.
**Oh, who am I kidding? I could come up with at least 25.****
***Last weekend when TopGun and I were synching up our smartass natures to pester Slick, she looked at us and said "You guys just feed off of each other, don't you?" We both instantly went into wounded innocence "I don't know what you're talking about!" mode . . . I don't think she was fooled.
***Crap; I am now seriously thinking about what my list of 25 things would be. Thanks a lot, creativity-driven borderline-OCD, thanks a lot!

Fragmented Friday - Easing Back Into Blogging

It has now been over two weeks since I last posted, and even the posts I had done before that were quite anemic -- sad state of affairs, I know. I have no really valid excuse other than a hectic schedule and a lack of blogging motivation.

A few of the things that have been going on in the past couple of months

• A few weeks ago, Parkerite GMC got married, which led to a mini-Parkerite reunion. The bulk of the Poker Football League crew made it, as did Coronela and Little Man Stud, although Clan Flunky was unfortunately unable to attend, to the disappointment of all.
  
  
• I started taking Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes the last week in Februay at TXElite MMA here in town. Once again I tried to keep it a secret from PigPen so I could try to catch him off-guard with improved grappling skills, and once again I let the cat out of the bag sooner than I had planned. I'm enjoying the class a lot; it has a more informal structure than my karate and judo classes -- no bowing as you enter and leave, the instructor isn't "Sensei" but "Coach," etc. -- which actually makes it a much more inviting learning environment for me, and most of the guys there have been really cool, helpful, and encouraging. I've gone to MMA class a couple of times as well, and while I'm not as big a fan of the striking as I am the grappling -- the whole "have trouble seeing this far in front of my face without my glasses" affects punches and kicks much more than it does chokes and submissions -- it is a great workout, and I plan to attend it at least once a week. I've taken this week off because I hurt my shoulder a couple of weeks ago and wanted to give it a chance to heal up, but I plan on jumping back in next week.
  
  
• Two weeks from today I will be in Quantico, VA for Shack-Fu's FBI graduation ceremony; can't wait. There will be a few other Denton folk heading up for it as well, which is cool, so I won't feel quite so odd-man-out as I probably would have if it had just been me and his family.
  
  
• Tonight the Singles are hosting another Murder Mystery; the theme this time is "Murder Me, I'm Irish." Like last year, we had more people wanting to participate than we had roles, so I created 9 additional characters with clues, plus my own character who will serve as M.C./host. I will be playing Rick O'Shea, well known spiritual medium and host of the cable TV show "Bouncing Back from Beyond with Rick O'Shea." And yes, I plan to speak in an accent all night long, and no, I do not guarantee that it will be stable.
  
  
• I recently informed Li'l Brother that I was instigating a new policy; for every day that goes by without him returning my phone call/email/text/carrier pigeon/etc., he shall incur a penalty: 30 minutes worth of being practice dummy for my jiu-jitsu and MMA. After first being informed of the policy, he responded very quickly, but it's now been over a week since I left him a message which he has not yet returned, so it looks like I'm going to have to prove to him I'm serious . . .