The South shall rise again

i'm down in columbia south carolina. on one street corner, there were two large BBQ places right next to each other. When I say large, I mean LARGE. And one of them had a giant pig standing up out front holding up a giant sign. Granted, this was not a live pig, but it got the point across that it was a bbq place...and I could smell the bbq from a block away.

a block away from the office we are working in, a confederate flag is hung atop a flag pole in front of the state house. granted, this is not on top of the building itself, but i'm not in the union anymore.

I'm in a different place than I'm used to and everything here has either the word "fried" or "steak" in it. It's amazing. It's not the ideal place to be when you are trying to get fit right before a wedding but what can you do.

In case you don't know what I reside presently in SC, I'm at trial with the case I've been working on for the last 2 years. All things considered, I'd prefer to be down here at this stage. Why? Well,

1. After 2 years, actually being at trial means this case will go away soon and I might have a life that involves weekends and not having to say to people when trying to make plans "So long as I don't get called into work."

2. Working down here has been a lot more relaxing that working in DC...probably because I don't have to wear a tie, have more streamlined work to do and projects don't just get dropped on me out of nowhere.

3. We're working in a conference room that has 5 of us in it and 2 TVs that we watch CNN during the day and sitcoms and Law & Order at night. All bitch work like copying gets outsourced to a copying company on the 2nd floor. We're on the 17th floor and have a view of downtown Columbia. Not the greatest city to have a view of, but there are no 17 floor building in DC, so it's fun. Plus they have these rad counters that have refrigerated drawers so we have plenty of cold bottled water.

4. Everything I do is paid for. All meals are expensed, dry cleaning and laundry are charged to the room and I don't pay that, drinks are usually with people who make a lot more than me, so I don't pay it and we go out to really nice restaurants.

But all of this honeymoon ends Sunday when we gear up to actually go to trial. It starts Monday and will be a total shit show very soon. I'll be here anywhere for 1 to 4 more weeks...until the wedding.

So that's what I've been getting myself into. I decided while I'm down here that one day I'm going to decorate my house with the items that I think i see out of the corner of my eye. You know, the things that make you do a double take. Like when you think you see an alligator crawling out of a plant and do a double take but it turns out it's own overgrown leaves? Yeah, that kind of thing. I'm going to build half an alligator and have that bitch be crawling out of a plant. People will come over and say "Oh, i thought that was just the leaves but it turns out it's an alligator climbing out of a plant" and then I'll say "yeah. sweet, right?" Then the person will likely leave and not allow his or her children to associate with my children.

But that's been happening a lot to me lately. I think I'm seeing things that seem highly illogical and do a double take only to realize that it was not in fact what I thought I saw. Maybe I'm just tired or my eyes have gone to shit because of all the staring at computers I do. Or maybe those things are actually there when I first see them but some matrix shit makes it turn back to what the blue pill tells me it should be.

The Wire's final episode airs on HBO Sunday night. I was watching some clips on youtube yesterday and trying to be careful not to watch anything from the final episode until some asshole posted a comment that gives away something in the finale. I was pretty angry...actually, not so much angry as I was really upset that this was brought to light. It's a show I really like, so finding out about anything in it before it happens really takes away from the enjoyment. I started watching the show a year ago and made a point to only watch from the beginning. I had watched 2 episodes of season 4 before I decided to watch the entire series and I knew something that took away from the finale of that season...I was really looking forward to this not happening again, but now it has and it sucks.

HBO started putting the new episodes out on demand the Monday after the latest episode would air on Sunday, meaning each new episode is available 1 week in advance. I had made it this far without having anything spoiled until this piece of shit on youtube. So now I think i know what happens, but I hope it happens early so it doesn't take away from the full episode.

As a disclaimer, there are people who read this who are currently only on seasons 3 or 4, so please don't post any comments about what might have happened or what happened, etc. Don't ruin it for them please.

well, i had this time to shotaholler to all of you. Sorry if this lacked the traditional shock value of stupidity, but I just needed to kill some time and thought i should help people get through their friday