New Monitor

Today, Gllen got a new monitor. He is in love with it. I questioned his love in comparison to his love for me. I gave him a hard time, in case he said the wrong answer. He told me, "If there was a bus coming and it was going to hit you or the monitor, I would push the monitor out of the way."

I made a squeak of protest. He started laughing and said, "Of course I'm joking! I would obviously push you out of the way." Then he hugged me.

I stared at him a moment and said, "I would push the bus out of the way. Option three." Then I started to walk out of the room. I was almost out the door when he finally comprehended my statement and said, "Oh...yah!"

Do You Believe in Magic?

I was bamboozled into going to a Magic Tournament (as Gllen reads this over my shoulder, he's already correcting me, saying "It's called a Magic Draft").

Gllen had advertised to me that Shane was having an Octoberfest keg at his house and tons of people were going, including extended friends and family from out of town. I expected to see lots of beer. I expected to find Gllen drunk. I suspected that I'd be the designated driver. I was not prepared for the Magic Tournament.

I arrived, fashionably late, cute as hell in a dress and heels from a previous party. As I pulled up in front of the house, I could see Kay peeking anxiously out the front door window. Perhaps she was worried that the police were going to arrive any second to shut down the monster kegger that had overtaken her home - at least, this is what I assumed she was feeling. You can imagine my surprise when I flourished through the door to find a quiet and somewhat reserved scene. A few people were playing Rock Band in the upstairs living room. A few people were mingling in the kitchen, watching Shane prepping food. Gllen was seated in the kitchen with Adam, hunched over a deck of Magic cards.

Oh, great, I thought to myself, he's going to be doing this all night. Little did I know. As I wandered towards the back porch, I noticed several tables, and more decks of Magic cards, and more hunched over fellows, muttering things like, "I cast my wolf of the dark banshee slayer..."

I flagged down Justen as he walked by, inquiring, "What is going on here?" He greeted me with an enthusiastic "Jazelle!" and happily explained that they were in the last legs of a Magic Tournament. He then gestured towards a gigantic white board where there was a complicated grid with player pairings. After detailed explanation of the rankings and who played what, he exclaimed, "Gllen is in the semi-finals!" Then he flitted away on a cloud of happiness.

Okay, I thought to myself, this doesn't seem to be the run-of-the-mill Magic game. Usually, a deck or two of Magic cards are brought out at random parties and I'll lose track of Gllen for most of the night while I socialize with those who aren't playing. In this case, EVERYONE was playing. I stared at the white board and did some mental math. So, it seemed that at least 10 rounds had already been played. In my rudimentary calculations, I figured maybe I'd be able to spend time with Gllen in a couple of hours, assuming he kept winning.

Some of the tournament losers had gone home to lick their wounds, others were immersed in the xbox. I didn't dare sit down next to Gllen, lest my presence be considered a bad luck charm. (Besides, I don't know anything about Magic, so its pretty boring for me to sit around and watch.) You may wonder why I decided to wait for Gllen. It was because in the two minutes I did talk to him, he hinted at the possibility of sleeping in his van - he had even come prepared with a blanket and pillow, safely stowed away in the back seat. Selfishly, there was no way I was going to allow that - I would end up worrying about him all night and never be able to sleep myself. Thankfully, Jesse arrived with his baby boy and I found the diversion I was looking for.

So the next hour or so, I was in the baby-haze. Either holding the baby, talking about babies, or staring longingly at the baby. But through this haze, I heard tiny snippets of what was going on around me:

"Gllen beat Adam!"

"The finals are going to be Gllen and Ryan!"

"Gllen won the first game in the finals!"

"If Gllen wins this game, he will be the Magic Champion!"

"Gllen won the tournament!"

Gllen won the final game and was crowned The Magic Champion. After 15+ games and 12 competitors, he earned his crown.

He eventually found me to tell me so. And then he told me again. And again. And it didn't stop for the rest of the night. As we were getting ready to leave, he said "The Magic Champion says 'drive me home'!" and then on the way home, he asked, "Did I tell you I won the tournament? I am the Magic Champion." Then we got home and he started making more demands like, "The Magic Champion says 'Open the door'." and "The Magic Champion wants McDonalds.", I didn't roll my eyes once, I swear.

This continued for at least a week. And even now, I still hear a thing or two about how I am dating the Magic Champion, aren't I so lucky?

Monkey See, Monkey Do

A couple of weeks ago, I awoke in the night to a Sasquatch standing over my bed and grunting. Rather than screaming with fear, I asked the beast, "What's wrong?" It whimpered out something that sounded like "charlie horse".

The past few nights, I myself and woken up with a serious cramp in my calf. Last night was no exception. Having suffered too many nights in a row, I told Gllen that I had been getting charlie horses in the middle of the night, and he exclaimed "Me too!". (On a side note, we had a discussion about how we deal with the charlie horse, where my remedy is to pull my toes back towards my knee until the muscle releases. He was unaware of this procedure and told me he usually just sits or stands up until it goes away. He's passive like that.) With new resolve, I told him, "We need to get some bananas."

This excited him to no end, (and not just because he could hollaback some Gwen Stafani to me). He tells me, in a secretive manner, "I've discovered a new way to eat bananas!" I wanted to know what he meant and inquired if it was a new preparation he learned, or some sort of ingredient combination. He wouldn't give. I was promised a demonstration once I returned with the bananas.

Upon my return from the grocery store, I handed Gllen a banana and he grinned from ear to ear. He asked me, "How do you peel your banana?" I shrugged, never having given it much thought. "Do you snap the top?" He asked. I was like, "yeah, of course." With an air of expertise, he said "There is a much better way." He took the banana and held it with the bottom up. He pinched the bottom of the banana, and the peel split in two and unfolded from the fruit. He explained "This is the way monkeys do it".

Unable to hide my mirth, I asked, "How did you learn what monkeys do?" He told me with sincerity, "I saw an online video" and bit into the banana.

Later when I visited him in his office, I told him that I had opened my own banana that way and it worked rather well. He excitedly asked me, "Did you notice that it makes a handle???!!!!"

Next thing you know, he'll be telling me how a stick is such a HANDY tool to capture and eat ants with.

Refreshing... Sort Of.

Yesterday I had a fierce craving for a Sprite. I don't know why - it just sounded so refreshing and crisp and delicious. Of course, I was too lazy to actually go to the gas station to get one, so I resorted to telling Gllen every time he walked through the room, "I want a Sprite!" and he'd walk by without much comment, onward to whatever errand he was on. After I declared for the sixth time "I want a Sprite!" he stopped, looked at me, and stated:

"I'm a Sprite. I'm whimsical, happy and magical."

I grinned and rolled my eyes.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and said "I'm about to perform magic right now and make smoke come out of my mouth."

He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and walked out onto the porch.

Celebrating 3 Years Today

Exactly three years ago, Gllen lured me over to his house for, what he considered at the time, a date. We had been emailing each other about music and we got onto the topic of Nintendo. When Gllen found out that I still owned the original system plus a bunch of games, he freaked out (with joy). I proposed that we battle each other in a tournament. He accepted. Gllen told me in an email: "I warn you, I'm a competitive little fuck when it comes to games. Be prepared for some shit-talking and whining." This is how he tried to woo me.

Our tournament was dubbed by Gllen as The Inaugural NES and BBQ Skillz Nerd-Off. I have no idea why there is BBQ in there, except that Gllen was obsessed with saying it at the time. (It turned out to be quite fitting, since my sister and I used to sing "Bar-ba-que!" to the melody of the Bowser AirShip levels in Mario 3 - You had to jump over flames and stuff - try it yourself.) I even questioned him about it and, to explain, he showed me an example of how he converses with others:

Me: BBQ
Me: i can't count that high
Mike: LOLCHA
Me: rofl mayo
Mike: LOLWTFGOURMAYO
Me: moyostard
Mike: mayobutter
Me: mayo cha
Mike: mallorca
Mike: IBIZA 200 BPM

Again, this is how he tried to woo me.

When he started speaking in full sentences again, we both discovered that in our youth, each of us had played the Little Mermaid game. When I mentioned that I still had the game, he said, "Umm... is this the disney little mermaid? The one where you shoot bubbles at fishies (sega echo-ish)? I played and beat that game at my grandparents house ALL THE TIME! I can't believe you actually have that! I have mad little mermaid skillz. Seriously, you might want to leave that one at home, you have no chance." He even "designed" a t-shirt for the Winner based on his mermaid skillz:

I responded by showing him the Loser shirt which he would be wearing:

And so began the brilliant repartee between the two of us that still continues to this day.

In the end, there was no winner of the tournament, because Gllen disqualified himself by being an incessant button-masher. And even though I wasn't thinking it was a date at the time, if you look at the dictionary definition of Date, then I guess it was "A particular point or period of time at which something happened or existed, or is expected to happen." So this is the place we mark as "The Begining" of our relationship.

Happy Anniversary.

In Theory...

Last night I was teasing Gllen about his dislike of Apple. (The fact that I own an iPhone is a sore spot for him. On several occasions when my phone has rung, he has made a snarky comment like "Your phone wants to play with you.") So, I was trying to imagine a scenario where he might be forced to become an Apple fan. I asked him, what would he do if Apple and Google merged?

He let out an indignant noise. "That would never happen."

"Just pretend that it did," I cajoled.

He started stuttering out sentences. "That's ridiculous... It's not even... So stupid... It's like suggesting Google would merge with..." He struggled for a moment, trying to come up with an analogy. Finally he stammered, "Fantastic Sam's."

The force of his comment hit me, and after a few seconds I started to giggle. "Fantastic Sams?" I laughed harder. "Why did you think of Fantastic Sam's?" Gllen starts to laugh. "Of all the company's you could think of, you came up with Fantastic Sam's? Gee, if someone said 'hey, name a company' I don't think I'd blurt out Fantastic Sam's."

We both laughed for a while. Gllen finally tells me that it was the most stupid company he could think of. A minute later he said, "Oh yeah. I thought of another one."

I raised my eyebrows and he soberly states, "Apple."

Dexterity

I accidentally ended up at the Circuit City liquidation sale yesterday and on impulse got all the necessities for Guitar Hero. Actually, I'm pretty pleased that the game and two guitar controllers only cost me $44.00. That's leet. Anyway - Gllen and I got it all hooked up and started to play the game. Literally, after 1 SONG his hand started cramping up. Let me point out that Gllen sits in front of computer all day has developed some serious carpal tunnel syndrome. So, the motion of playing the guitar buttons was really causing some pain in his pinkie finger.

I wanted to play the game, so I had to devise a solution: I grabbed two q-tips and a bandaid. Cut the bandaid in half. Created a splint on Gllen's pinkie finger with the q-tips secured by the two pieces of bandaid.

Gllen experimentally wiggled his finger and grinned. We played a song and afterward Gllen exclaims "It worked!"

Two minutes later he started complaining about his thumb hurting. I'll probably have to start giving him hydrocortisone injections in order to get him to play this game.

AKA Crypt

"Eww. No sunlight would suck."

He revises "Not live there. Just have an underground chamber. AKA a basement"

"So what you really want is a lair?"

"Yes."

Analogies

Gllen was telling me that he doesn't like super long hair on girls. I asked him why. He looked at me for about twenty seconds and finally said, "I don't know. It's just something I hate. Like nails on a chalkboard... Or rice in my Chipotle burrito."

Take Only What You Need

Gllen was preparing to leave for a night out at Dupont Haus. Knowing that he would probably spend the night there (libations were taken into consideration) he went to pack his things. I was a little confused as he reappeared from the bedroom without a bag. As he gathered his keys and hat, he adjusted his coat. I watched in dismay as he pulled from his inside pocket a ziplock bag containing a pair of socks. This was the entirety of his overnight essentials! A pair of SOCKS... and they were so important, he felt the need to seal them for freshness!

RIP Gears of War 2

Gllen and I had to say goodbye to our dear friend, Gears of War 2. During an accidental jostle of the XBOX, it suffered irreparable damage, officially known as The Ring of Death. All the king's horses and all the king's men were employed in the rescue effort. Mike from Hollywood Video lead the crusade, but no amount of sanding and buffing could revive the poor game.

Farewell, Marcus, Dominic and the rest of the Delta Squad. We are so sorry you will not be able to continue the war against the Locust Horde.

Persuasiveness

Gllen's advice on how to get Hollywood Video to repair the scratch damage on one of our personal video games: "All you gotta do is go in there and say, 'Clean this, Bitch. I'm a customer.'"