Functionally ReTodded

(Sorry about the jumping around here, but this is going to be a more train of thought post than a minute by minute recounting of events).

Let me start by saying that I used to be quite the curmudgeon when it came to Christmas. Some folks would say that I still am. But I am much better than I used to be, and I continue to get better about the holiday every year, thanks in large part to my wife and daughter.

But one thing I always do enjoy about Christmas is the evening at my wife’s sister’s house with our extended family and friends. There is nothing like it. We all eat and drink too much and then have some good quality fun while doing a while elephant gift exchange.

The day started with me cooking a 16 pound turkey on the egg and my brother-in-law doing a 9+ pound leg of lamb on his. Although his leg took a little longer than he thought it should to cook, it was still the best leg ‘o bambi I’ve ever had.

Here’s the turkey:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/640×480turkey.jpg

And here’s the lamb:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/640×480leg.jpg

My turkey was amazing as well, and I spent two hours hearing how great it was. I love the feeling I get knowing that people are eating and enjoying the food I’ve prepared.

The evening came to a head when I got the humping dog for a white elephant gift and someone got a can of that GLH / Ron Popeil spray on hair.

My brother in law, while a tad follically challenged, has never been vain about his hair. He started cutting a head-shaped template out of a gift box, apparently to try out the hair in a can for fun.

I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in a long time. Just look at these photos:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/640×480sprayhair.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/640×480sombrero.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/640×480egad.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/640×480yikes.jpg

After that, my jackass nephew beat me one out of two in NCAA football 2005. I beat him as Princeton over Harvard, but he beat me (again) as UGA over Auburn. It kills me that I can’t beat him despite my thousands of hours of training. I will continue to try and eventually will be consistently good enough to beat him without uttering the phrase “DAMMIT!! I can’t remember what L2 does!!”

There’ll be more to come, but I just couldn’t go another minute without posting the above pictures.

God bless you, Ron Popeil…

Over the last several weeks, it seems that the women I know have been gone every other night to some sort of ornament exchange or cookie exchange or something like that. Really. I have never been able to figure out why they have so many. I mean, when it comes right down to it, they never end up wanting to go, they usually bitch about having either nothing to wear or not liking what they have to wear, and then they complain about being tired from being so so busy.

(This is not an attack on women in general or my woman in particular. Bear with me. The story is coming).

Anyway, after hearing about these events for a while, a decision was made. A local pizza delivery store proprietor decided to host a “beer exchange” party at his house Saturday night, and the idea was simple. Invite a dozen guys, everybody brings beer, charge everyone 15 bucks a head for a steak, then watch the Falcons game, shoot pool, play poker and generally have a good time.

(Before I go on, I want it stated for the record that this is not meant as attack on anyone, but just a re-telling of events that transpired).

Our host decided that we should do some big manly steaks, so I suggested going to Wilkes Meat Market to get some steaks. Ribeyes are 15 bucks a pound out of the case, so I suggested that we should buy a whole ribeye for 9 bucks a pound and have it hand cut. Our host being the deal seeker he is thought this sounded like a good idea.

We bought a 16 pound Ribeye and had it cut into ten beautiful steaks about 1.5 inches thick and wonderfully marbled.

A side note here. I am amazed that you can tell a butcher “I want ten 1.5 inch steaks” and get just that. No tape measure. No nothing. Just eyeballed cuts. I randomly measured three of the ten and they were 1.5 inches. EXACTLY. Not 1/32 of an inch off. How is that even possible?

Anyway, we began discussing the cooking of said meat. It had been suggested (in jest and in honesty) that my brother in law and I cook the steaks on our Big Green Eggs. There are several folks in the neighborhood that own them (four of the twelve guys at the party had them) and many others have sampled from the ceramic cooker’s bounty.

Our host said “no, that’s okay. I’ll cook them on the gas grill.” A few snide remarks were offered, followed by apologies, then I offered to do the sear at my house, pack the meat up and take it to our host’s house for finishing.

This was accepted and I did just that. Here are a couple of pictures of the meat and the sear and the final result before they hit the gas grill.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/smallDsc06397.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/smallDsc06404.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v445/markbacker/smallDsc06403.jpg

Anyway, we bought our beer and headed over to the house.

I offered to cook the steaks on the gasser and they turned out about as well as they could have…from a gas grill. But they were missing the flavor they get from my egg, and it made me sad.

So I said out loud to a fellow egger at the table, “these things are about a four out of ten,” to which I receieved a “hey Berger, why don’t you just fuck off” from our host. While it was my right to bitch, it was also his right to call me on it. No harm and a couple of laughs were had by all.

Anyway, while eating my steak I opened my third beer, which was a 24 ounce Schlitz Malt Liquor. That alone should tell you where this evening ended up.

The game started and I shot a couple of games of pool and, for a brief spell, I was awesome. It was like drunk bowling. There’s a window where you can do no wrong. My window closed after I got cheated by an un-named Texas Longhorn. When shooting pool, is it okay to move in the way balls anywhere you want so that you can get a clear shot? No. I didn’t think so.

I lost, sat down at the bar and started talking football and other guy crap.

This went on for a while, then it got to be time to sit down for some poker. My first (or second) hand resulted in three of the seven guys at the table having two pairs. The guy to my right had something small, the Longhorn to my left had fours and sixes, and I had fours and sevens. Longhorn said “I win,” and took the money. I sat there for about 20 seconds then said “I had fours and sevens…I won.” He said I shoulda said something sooner. Laughs aplenty and no pot for me.

35 bucks later, the game ended with a fellow Auburn guy winning a nice 40 dollar pot. That led my brother in law to slide his money into the Tigers’ pile and say “you took everything else tonight, here’s a tip for your efforts.”

This is where things get fuzzy. I had brought a 12 year old bottle of Couvossier (I don’t feel like looking up the correct spelling) as a joke, and it got opened. Next thing I know, it’s being passed up and down the bar and we’re hitting it like Carl Spackler cannonballing with Ty Webb over some new sod. Actually, I could have been the only one drinking it. I have no idea.

This went on for a while, and then we left. I remember the ride but not the time. I left my cooler and the lid to my potato casserole dish, so I was obviously a little distracted.

We got home, my step-dad and I walked inside (apparently) and we went to bed in our respective bedrooms. Now, I don’t even remember him being in the car on the way home, so this is all conjecture.

And, before you ask, no, I didn’t drive. My brother in law was driving and is apparently WAY more responsible than I am.

Anyway, I (apparently) went to bed about 1:30am, and awoke to the wife setting a glass of water, three tylenol and an alka seltzer on the table next to me. Then came the question.

“What were you doing downstairs at 4 in the morning?”

Ummm….what?

“In the dining room. The lamp was knocked off the table and walls all dinged up. What were you doing?”

Ummm…I was downstairs?

I also noticed about that time that I was wearing the tshirt and sweater I had worn to the party…and nothing else. If you don’t sleep al fresco, it’s always a bit disconcerting to wake up that way.

It became clear that I might have been looking for the restroom, but confused due to the umm…state that I was in. I have never been a wandering pee-er in the past, but you can never be sure…can you?

I spent the rest of the day in that state of confusion and anxiety that follows a night like that. I feel oceans better today. Of course, it would be nearly impossible to feel worse than I did yesterday.

We never did find any “evidence” of the purpose of my wandering, so that’s good I suppose.

I told the wife that I can’t wait until the holidays were over so this sort of stuff doesn’t happen anymore. That’s got to be it…right? The fact that it’s the holiday season?

Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. I hope you haven’t lost too much respect for me.

I’m reading ESPN this morning when I stumbled across the story where Kobe Bryant said he’d like to sit down with Shaq and apologize to him for “involving him in my troubles.” Bryant also says that he thinks December 25th “sounds like a good day to me to kind of talk to him and tell him I never meant in any kind of way to bring any of his personal business out.”

You see, after Kobe’s world fell apart because he couldn’t resist banging the crazy white towel clerk at his hotel, he needed an out. He bought his wife a four million dollar ring and got some tattoos that said how much he loved her, but he needed to do more to attract attention away from himself.

So he told the media that he should have done what Shaq always did, just pay the women to shut up. Kobe also alleged that O’neal had paid upwards of one million dollars in this way as hush money over the years.

Shaq has denied it from the beginning, but that’s not really the point.

It’s no secret that a large number of the NBA’s “stars” are not exactly star-worthy. Good players or not, guys like Kemp and Bryant and Iverson and the entire Blazers team are just not very nice or good people. If the league will tolerate it, what do I care?

But the real issue is this. Kobe’s Lakers will play Shaq’s Miami Heat on…that’s right…December 25th.

So the real motivation for Kobe here is not to mend fences or admit he was wrong to involve any other person in his own little pit of woe. It is to find some sort of way to keep the 340-pound Shaquille and his teammates from beating the ever-loving shit out of Kobe for 48 pain-filled minutes on Christmas Day.

I can’t tell you the number of ways that Kobe Bryant makes me sick. Despite his slick talk and his nice diction, he’s nothing but a cheater and a liar and a punk. I hardly watch any NBA games because the league and most of it’s players sicken me, but I’ve had December 25th circled on my calendar since the day after Shaq signed with the Heat.

That’s the day that Shaq will take a million dollars or more out of Kobe’s punk-ass.