Hootie & The Blowfish

Good morning everyone.  I just peeked at the blog statistics a few seconds ago and it looks like this month is going to be the most viewed month in the almost 14-month history of 'Bikini Hill'.  Now if only I had something interested to write about...

When I last saw you, I was about to attend a hockey game in San Antonio on Friday night.  The contest was an American Hockey League (AHL) battle featuring the San Antonio Rampage and the Houston Aeros.  The quality of the hockey was outstanding except for the players' lack of ability to control the puck, so I'm saying that...  Yeah...  At one point I turned to my brother and said, "do you realize that with the NHL Lockout, this is the BEST hockey being played in the United States right now?!..."  Merp...  The Aeros beat the Rampage 2-1 for those of you keeping score at home.  It turns out that we went to the wrong game, as our contest featured ZERO fights, and the San Antonio fanbase was just CLAMORING for a fight.  It turns out that on Saturday night, there were several fights, one of which included penalty minutes totaling three-quarters of a period (that's 15 minutes for those of you keeping score at home) for one player.  I know this because I have friends who have season tickets to see the Rampage, and they were posting photos of the "teddy bear toss" at Saturday night's game.  You guessed it - Friday night DID NOT have a teddy bear toss, so somehow I feel slighted...  The Saturday night game also went to a "shootout" to determine the victor - Friday night, not so much...

The game being played in the car to and from the AT&T Center was my third-grade niece quizzing me on the names of the EIGHTEEN students in her class.  The neat thing about this game is that my niece kept naming the eighteen students in order (including herself) because she was seeing them IN HER HEAD in the order that they line up for lunch.  The sad thing about this is that my niece gets her lunch last EVERY DAY because the students are lined up alphabetically based on their last name.  Shouldn't it occur to her teacher at some point that it isn't fair to make the SAME CHILD get her lunch last EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN DAY?!  You can just imagine me sitting by her in the car as I was learning this, can't you?  "Why do you get your lunch last every day?"  Merp...  The most names that I remembered at once was ten by the way, and I had made the deal before that round that if I got ten kids right, the game would end...  :)

So jump back to Wednesday night, which is when my brother and I went to the bar that my dad manages to grab one beer after the family dinner at Rudy's Barbecue.  The fact that we spent about three hours at the bar is neither here nor there...  At one point we were 2 of the only 3 customers in the bar.  The bar is configured in a square, much like the bar on 'Cheers'...  Anyway, we are almost at the far right end of one side of the square, where going from left to right on your computer monitor, it's my brother, myself, then an empty seat.  Going up the next side of the bar is an empty seat and then a stranger, so we have basically the corner of the bar and two empty seats separating the stranger and myself.  I had played some music on the jukebox, and the song currently playing is the last song from a very popular album, which happened to be the highest-selling album of 1995 (I just looked it up).  This song WAS NOT on the mainstream playlist, but it's a very good slow song, so I quizzed my brother - "which band do you think this is?"  My brother is mulling over the answer to this question, and you can tell that he recognizes the voice of the lead singer, and that he just needs to listen to a little bit more of the...  "HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH!!!"... BLURTS OUT the stranger sitting near us...  "He has a very distinctive voice..."  That was quite possibly the worst moment of my brother's family's visit for me...  It's the bar that my dad manages, so I'm not going to say anything, and really, what could I say, but..., THIS ISN'T A FREAKIN GAME SHOW!!!...  I was asking MY BROTHER who sings this, NOT YOU...  Merp...  Goodness gracious...  :)  Anyway, the album is "Cracked Rear View" by Hootie & the Blowfish if you're looking for some good music to listen to today...

Here's a story from work last night that the doorguys should enjoy...  :)  So I'm working the back entrance, which includes watching the back staircase which leads to our rooftop bar, The Veranda.  A couple that I had met upstairs about an hour earlier was now descending the stairs, about to go home.  I am assuming that they were a couple because I had met them together earlier and they were holding hands as they approached me.  Well, after the girl hugged me for about the THIRD TIME, she hugs me AGAIN, while kissing me on the cheek and telling me that we should go out on a date, and this is while her other hand is holding the hand of the guy that she is with (you can't make this stuff up)...  At this point, I'm trying to figure out how to respond to her while making sure that the guy isn't about to PUNCH ME, and of course the side of my face that she's kissing is in-between myself and her date...  Merp...  (The word 'Merp' means "Ugghhh" by the way, for those of you who are new to the blog)...  Long story short, no one got punched, and off they went...  :)

And in other news, my decimated, struggling, playing with the third-string quarterback Pittsburgh Steelers, who currently sit at 6-5, coming off of a loss to the CLEVELAND BROWNS yesterday, are STILL the sixth-seed in the AFC freakin playoff hunt...  WOW...  (and merp...).  I bounced back on my football predictions with a 6-4 record this weekend and am now back to .500 (61-61-2) for the season.  We'll talk more about that later this week...

Have a great day and I'll see you again tomorrow!