Compare: I’m having fun making comparisons of these photos. Jenny’s smiling in both of them, but Jesse looks absent.
My friends Benjamin and Suzanne from Colorado got married back in October. I’m a bit late with the photos, but there are some fun ones here.
Don’t Lick The Penguin. Unless you’re the groom.
Suzanne, Benjamin, and I
James and I
The Ladies! Some days, I love being a bachelor.
I miss my new nickname. I’m going through Nebraska withdrawal.
I watched Fargo tonight. Good acting and directing. The Coen Brothers are moving up my list of favorite directors (see: No Country for Old Men). It’s a relatively short list so far, but they’re on it along with Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Peter Jackson.
George Lucas doesn’t make the list. George Lucas will never make the list.
I had a wonderful Thanksgiving week in Nebraska.
I left for Nebraska on Tuesday and arrived in the late afternoon. Jenny met me at the airport. Meanwhile, Phil was finishing his graduate classes for the day, returning home, and cleaning the shower before I arrived.
I enjoyed spending a lot of time with Phil and Jenny while I was there. They’ve been married for 1.5+ years now and I appreciated the opportunity to observe two of my friends and how they treat each other in the context of marriage. I saw a lot of respect, concern, grace, and love between them in their words and deeds. I’m impressed and very grateful to have them as friends.
The Nebraska vs. Colorado football game on Friday was an incredible game to witness. It was high scoring, and ended w/ the right team winning — Go Big Red! My favorite moment was watching Ndamukong Suh (Nebraska #93 Defensive Tackle) put the smackdown on Cody Hawkins (Colorado #7 QB) while returning an interception for a touchdown.
Many games of Carcassonne the board game were played while I was there. Though I was experienced with playing the game, I only won on one occasion and didn’t know a couple rules correctly. However, I felt justified on returning home and realizing that my rules were different due to their being rule changes made over the course of the game’s history. (Source)
My iPod broke. Today, I bought a new one.
Seeing other college friends was fantastic as well. Many people came over on Saturday night, hung out, talked, and ate soup.
Other things: mediocre Mexican food and superb conversation w/ Jesse and Tyler and Nail Bunny, free dinner at Lazlos w/ Phil, Jenny, and Ben when the server lost our order, espresso shots at a new coffee shop, meeting w/ Hank (Aaron) at B&N at closing time to purchase football tickets, chilling w/ Varv and Linda, and brunch w/ Erika and friends.
One of the biggest revelations of the trip was the realization that there are numerous, attractive, single females in the world who notice my existence and appreciate partaking in conversations. I need to do a better job of finding a more local variety.
I went on a media purge and binge today. Traded in a few used books I was done reading and three CDs I no longer want.
Picked up a few new things to replace the discarded ones. For books, I acquired Neil Gaiman‘s “American Gods” which I’ve heard good things about.
I’ve been on a bit of a Japanese culture kick the last couple of days. Yesterday, I bought two Utada Hikaru singles on Amazon MP3. Walter posted a few interesting J-Pop/J-Rock music videos yesterday as well. Today, I bought three manga volumes of Cowboy Bebop, two Japanese beverages (Calpico, Pocari Sweat), Pocky, and Hello Panda (“biscuits with chocolate cream”).
The local Hollywood Video was having a $3.99 DVD sale so I picked up The Namesake, The Departed, and Jet Li’s Fearless. I got Elizabethtown and Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the movie) at Half Price Books.
I’m trying to hide from the darkness lurking in the corners, but I can’t avoid it. Instead of turning on the lights, I turn on the HDTV, stereo, and PS3 to watch something besides my life. Or I play games on the Wii.