The Downside of Up

I won a trip for two to New Orleans. Yay!

It's a taxable gift. Said tax is coming out of my next paycheck!

Ouch...

Today must be a good day.

Besides getting to eat the Fromage Fort I adapted from Alton Brown, today also marked a joyous announcement out of the Canadian hinterland:

The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets are recording a new album. Rockonomics seems to be the title of the future CD.

If you're unaware, I'm a mild fan of all things Lovecraftian (ask me about my thesis), and most things punk-ish. A quick glance at MySpace will inform you that the only reason I joined that bloody thing... was because the Thickets were on it. Their music is insane yet poppy; their ditty, "The Math Song," even won over my father (apparently math teachers love the Math Song).

I think what really makes me anticipate this disc was a comment from the band's leader, Toren:

"But we have a song in Middle Egyptian and I’m happy."

I'm hoping I shall be, as well. Until then... man, I hate waiting.

Man Walks on Bourbon Street

There's this book I'm fond of: The Onion's Our Dumb Century. The headline on the faux-Onion from 1968 reads "Holy Shit! Man Walks on Fucking Moon!" The article goes on to use massive amounts of expletives to describe the indescribable achievement of the first moon landing.

That's about my level of shock after tonight. Tonight was was the NCI holiday shindig. It was pretty fun; free alcohol is alway good, even if I barely knew anyone. The reason I knew so few? Well, it's a consulting firm, and I'm not a consultant. Nope, I'm the guy who makes sure everything's filed, and little hiccups are taken care of in HR. I'm low-level admin, and I'm new.

But I talked with fellow HR folk, smiled and ate and drank. Later in the evening, past when Steph and I had thought about leaving, one of the Important Folks gets on stage. It's time for the door prizes!

The first three prizes are $500 to a clothing store. To someone who's never spent that much on clothing at once, that's a big number. I didn't win one. I really didn't expect to. This company is huge, and it's home office is in Chicago. Odds were a bit slim, you might say.

Then they draw for the grand prize; but wait, the person who's name was drawn is absent. Apparently, she left early. Which is unfortunate, because the grand-prize was a two-night trip for two to New Orleans.

(You know where this is going, don't you?)

So they pull the next name... and there's a hesitation. And my breath catches. The man is looking at the piece of paper with a very familiar expression. It's the one people get when they don't know me, and see my name for the first time ("do I call him J.? Michael? Mike? J. Michael?"). It was followed by a similar expression, the one that indicates my last name looks simple, but could be pronounced too many possible ways.

After the pause, he announces "Michael Bestul"... And thus came the moment of "holy living fuck, I never win this stuff!" What made me smile even a little more was, right as I walked up to the stage, my fellow Human Capital folks cheered.

So. Yeah. Steph and I are going to New Orleans.