Caliente Pocket!

When speaking to a crowd (do my parents and Steph count as a crowd?), you should try opening with a joke. So here goes:

What has two eyes, two arms, two legs, two ears and accidentally brought two coats to work on Friday? ME!

Wow that was a pretty effective joke. I can see everyone here is now loosening up, we're all kind of jiving and on the same page. Did I just say jiving? No seriously though I brought two coats to work on Friday. I wore one and after I hung it up at my desk, I realized I had also carried one in. Hey-you can't put a price on that kind of flakiness.

Okay this was a pretty solid opening. On to some announcements:

- Two very big announcements for our group: ALoyd and Sharda are engaged and will forever be joined as Shloyd. Also Gordo actually found someone patient enough to marry him! I kid, I kid, Gordo. Gordo and Tracey are also engaged. Fantastic news all around! Congratulations, you four! May I offer one suggestion? Double wedding!

- Giant Eagle just lowered the price on their rotisserie chicken to $4.99, and I can think of no reason why I shouldn't buy one of these every single day. My life is sad.

- You guys, for 10 years-10 YEARS-I have been sitting...hoping...patiently waiting for my time to come. For my friend to return to his rightful place in the sun. I'm sure by now you know I'm talking about my friend...Flannel. Flannel is back, baby. Take a look around you. IT'S BACK. You can't fight it so don't even try. Just embrace it. Love it. Take it into your arms and feel how soft and comfy it is. How it makes you want to snuggle up in front of a fire or drink hot chocolate with marshmallows or chop wood. I've wished for this for so long, and now it's finally here: Flannel. Is. Back. In. Style. Yay!! Thank you, fashion gods!

- Um...who watched "The Office"? Okay seriously-that episode was freaking amazing. The rehearsal dinner speeches made me so uncomfortable, I was literally hiding under my blanket. Then Andy's accident. Then the wedding. The greatest half hour of television ever! When they stopped the organist, and Dwight went up and pressed Play on the iPod, and I heard "Forever" start, this was my exact reaction: "This show is fucking brilliant." Then I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and at the same time, I cried like a little girl. The Maid of the Mist scenes were beautiful. The whole thing was just perfect. Especially Michael's genuine emotional response to Pam and Jim actually getting married. It was only on the screen for maybe 3 seconds, but it was beautiful. If you missed it, go back and find it. It's really lovely. I love you forever, Office!

- Speaking of television, Flash Forward, anyone? I decided to record it "just in case", though, I was really expecting to watch one episode and let it go. Then the one episode decided to be THE MOST AWESOME EPISODE EVER! Dammit, Flash Forward. Why are you so good?

- The big news is that we are leaving for Las Vegas on Thursday! 2.5 days. I keep forgetting about it, though. And by that I mean that it's literally all I think about every second of every day for the past 3 weeks. John is going. For you old schoolers, you know him as Shop Dungarees and one of the funniest m-effers in the world. We are going to Vegas. Just the two of us. No I'm kidding, obviously, even though that's what he keeps telling people at work. That makes for a comfortable working environment. A big group of us are going including John and his wife Leah. The only problem with John going is that since we see each other every day, we talk about Vegas every day, and all it does is rile us all up for the trip and then we just become useless. Well, more useless than usual. We actually tried to play craps at my desk last week. Finally I was like, "We have a problem."

Between last week and the week prior, I had 3 Hot Pockets for lunches. On Friday, while I was eating my Lean Pocket, this conversation happened:

John: I'm concerned with the number of Hot Pockets you're eating this close to Vegas.
Keith: What do you mean?
Me: He wants me to be gambling with my money-not with my health.

We all laughed. Two hours later, I got a horrible stomachache that lasted for 2 days. Let this be a lesson to you all: Jim Gaffigan is right about Hot Pockets.