Just Plain Chips

After the football game Steph and I rode over to her house. I just chilled out on the couch with ice on my knee (which was hurting from basketball and hockey) and watched football. Steph was in the kitchen fixing a few things that I was not allowed to see. Thankfully I am lazy enough to appreciate that situation. After she was done with her stuff she gave me the last part of my birthday present, which was a bag of M&Ms candies. The special part was that she had ordered them online in custom colors: maroon and gold. (for those of you who don’t know the significance, those are the colors of my alma mater)

Finally, after she had finished making her surprise she also made some garlic potatoes and we went to a friend’s house for a barbeque get together. A bunch of people were there and my buddy had cooked up some steaks and burgers. We all just chilled out while watching the Notre Dame/Michigan State game (a friend’s brother played at Notre Dame, so she’s a big fan). When 8pm rolled around we turned to the Minnesota/Colorado State, which was the first Gopher football I’ve been able to watch this year. The Gophs scored pretty quickly in the first quarter, so the night started off pretty well.

I got a couple of presents at the party. A couple of friends gave me two books. They are the Worst Case Survival books. Some of the situations that they describe are pretty outrageous, but fun to read about. Another guy gave me a “fake ID” that he had found while hunting that morning. It’s a Montana drivers license of a guy that looks kind of like me at a quick glance. We all had a good laugh about it. My friend from Wisconsin gave me a “present” of not burning my gold Minnesota Gopher hat. What a guy. Plus a couple of bday cards. I have great friends.

After dinner the singing of “Happy Birthday” commenced as Steph brought over the cake that I had no idea she had made. My dad had suggested that my friends put on a ton of candles and then laugh at me when I can’t blow them all out. It’s true, ever since I was probably two years old I have never gotten all of my candles out. Sometimes I just don’t blow right, or don’t have the breath, but usually it’s because I’m laughing too much. Luckily Steph only put in two candles, one shaped like a “2″ and another like an “8″. I made sure to get both of them out. Of course, right when I closed my eyes to make a wish the Gophers scored a touchdown–what great timing.

I did have a couple of beers while at the party, so I made sure to fulfill that requirement of the BBBBB. You’ll see why that’s an interesting fact later. The night was still young, we all had full bellies and were looking forward to bowling.

Before I continue on with the narrative, I suppose I should interject with a few of the nice things people did for or bought for me.

On Friday night Steph took me out to MacKenzie River Pizza downtown. It is a really nice pizza place that I don’t often go to because of the price. So Steph and I each got our own deepdish pizzas. I got mine with Italian sausage, green peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes, she had a pizza called the Sequoia with basil pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, avocado (instead of artichoke hearts) and sliced toasted almonds. It was quite good.

After dinner we headed to the crappy movie theater in town, Campus Square 8, to see Hero. Wow, what a film. You just never know what to expect when it isn’t some cookie cutter American director behind the camera. The movie was beautiful, completely different than what I expected, and surprised me a few times. If you liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at all I am quite confident that you will like this as well. It isn’t as much action, but still so good and just different than films we’re used to seeing here.

One thing that surprised me was the role they had for Ziyi Zhang. We (in the West) have really only seen her in Crouching Tiger, where she had a major role. (and to a lesser extent as a bad-gal in Rush Hour 2) From my experience with CTHD and what I consider her powerful performance I think of her as a nearly-leading lady with crazy kung-fu skills. It was odd to see her in a minor role with only a tiny bit of action.

So tasty dinner was my first present (I took Steph to the movie), along with a couple of bday cards I had received that day but didn’t open until Saturday. Then when I woke up on Saturday I walked out of my bedroom and on the main room table was a wrapped box with a card on it. Wow, what could that be? It turned out to be from Eric, my roommate. He had gotten two bottles of BBQ sauce from my favorite BBQ restuarant in town. The place is called Bar 3 BBQ and is owned and run by a guy on my hockey team. My favorite menu item is the pulled pork slathered in the house BBQ sauce. I have often thought about buying some bottles (they sell them, obviously) but they are a bit more expensive than stuff at the grocery store. So now I have two bottles, it was a great present.

When last we heard I was sore from hockey and heading towards a tailgate party before the MSU Bobcat’s football game. Well, it didn’t quite work out the way I wanted it.

First I was running late from hockey and trying to take a quick shower. Then I got a phone call (a wonderful birthday wish from my parents), then some people we were meeing to go to the game with weren’t ready. Rrrr, it all added up to not even making the kickoff or first touchdown of the game, let alone the tailgating before hand. Oh well.

The game itself was mostly fun, as are most football games in an outdoor stadium. Though we actually missed the best plays of the game while heading to the game. The defence made an interception and then the offense turned the opportunity into a touchdown. That’s pretty much the only thing that went right the whole game for the Bobcats. They missed at least 2 short field goals and really couldn’t get anything done. I was pretty happy that I don’t have anything invested (emotionally) in this team, it could be a long season. Since we missed the tailgating Steph and I had to pony up for some overpriced, not-that-good concessions food. Even my old standby, the big soft pretzel, wasn’t that good, it wasn’t all that soft!

I said that the game was mostly fun. It would have gone a long way towards “completely fun” had the weather cooperated or had I actually brought appropriate clothing. Before too long the sun started dissappearing behind gigantic clouds and the wind started to pick up. It had been a beautiful morning so I had stupidly only prepared for a beautiful day: I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and open toed sandals. When the rain started falling in the 4th quarter, Steph and I decided we had had enough of watching a football team we really didn’t care about and headed for home.