The day: Thursday, December 18th, 2008.

The location: South Lawn of the White House, Washington, D.C.

The more specific location: On the walkway running around the National Christmas Tree (who knew there was a national christmas tree?), between the tree delegates from Ohio and Missouri. It was snowing. Actually, it was probably just sleet, but snow, I'm told, is totally romantic, and you weren't there, so take my word on it when I say it was snowing.

The cast: Kim, Karen, Me.

The prologue: Plan was hatched about a week earlier over the phone. Kim and I were going to fly to DC to visit Karen, and we would all drive back together. Kim likes trees. Kim really really likes Christmas Trees. Thus, it was decided that we would go and see the NCT at the White House on Thursday night, where I would propose. Obviously, Kim wasn't part of this conversation. Second choice for the location was the Lincoln Memorial... Monument... big statue. After all, nothing says romance like an old beardy man. However, input from female advisors resulted in the abandonment of this particular strategy.

The story: Karen takes pictures of everything. Thus, it was no surprise when she asked me to take a picture of her and Kim in front of the tree. It was even less of a surprise when she told us to pose for one together. It was a bit more surprising when she told us to pose for a second. I was just about ready to chicken out, because there were 400 freakin' people around the stupid tree, which didn't do much for my nerves, which were already shot.

Anyway, I sneakily dropped to one knee and pulled the ring box out of my pocket while she wasn't looking. Then she looked. And her jaw dropped. Then she said, 'No!'... really really loudly. I assumed people all around probably looked over and saw some loser on one knee with a ring and assumed he'd be jumping off the... whatever bridge people jump off in the Greater Washington metropolitan area.

Of course, being persistent, I decided not to take this as her final answer. 'Will you?' I asked.

She said yes (naturally), and the scene devolved into much passionate kissing and 'ohmigod'-type conversation. Only about six people out of the 42,000,000 who were in the immediate area even noticed, which was pretty awesome, because I was definitely not in the mood to be applauded by strangers.

Then Karen said she had a surprise, and pulled out a bottle of Veuve Cliquot - the good stuff - and cups. From her purse! However, the champagne was not consumed until much later because there were lots of armed White House guards around who looked like they'd shoot first and check for open containers later.

... and you should too.

1) If your bumper sticker says "Jesus is my co-pilot", you should pull over and let his ass drive, because you suck at it. Blessed are the meek, for they shall realize that the left lane is for passing, and get the fuck out of my way.

2) I waited way too fucking long to see Team America: World Police. Yeah, it was pretty much just South Park with puppets (they even used the montage song from the "pizza... french fries.." skiing episode) but it was hella funny. And they hate Pearl Harbor too, which is always good. Perhaps most importantly, I finally have some context within which to place Mike McCloud's cries of "durka durka!"

3) If you're one of the people jumping on the "Michael Vick deserves to die" bandwagon, take a moment to think for yourself. Go ahead, it won't hurt, promise. You don't even really have to think for yourself- I'm gonna do it for you. Anyway, everyone is pissed off because he killed some dogs to amuse himself. Fine, it's a horrible thing to do. Now, Florida's bow-hunting deer season starts this month (g'head, ask me how I know). People from all walks of life (okay, a bunch of rednecks) will go out into the woods and kill some deer to amuse themselves. In the course of their lives, the really good hunters will kill or maim a lot more animals than Michael "worst person in the history of the world" Vick ever did or will. What's the difference? Is the line between "okay to kill for fun" animals and "not okay to kill for fun" animals just whether or not it will fetch your slippers? Go on, think about it. When you realize I'm right, you too can enjoy the privelege of being shouted down at social gatherings by all the people who missed the logic train.

4) Rock of Love is about a hundred times better than either of its predecessors, Flavor of Love and I Love New York. Obviously, it's better than New York's show because it features only one closeted asshole, and not thirty. I can't quite put my finger on why I like it better than Flavor, though. I don't really like Bret Michaels any better than Flavor Flav, although the lack of giant neck-clocks is a plus.

5) I really need to buy a Wii. Not just because they kick ass, but because when people look back on this decade in twenty years they'll talk about the Wii the same way people now talk about the NES, and I don't want to have to stand around like a dumbass with nothing to add to the conversation. Plus, I really want to play 007: Goldeneye again, and I can't figure out how to make the PS-controller-knockoff PC gamepads I have work for GE properly.

6) If there's a recent innovation that I can't really get my head around, it's the digital camera. Sure, it's a great idea and everything, but unlike almost any other consumer electronic product on the market I can't really figure out how to use one. I can, you know, take a picture, and shit, but they all have about 8 million modes like double-expose and night vision and whatever and these all confuse the hell out of me and seem to be pretty useless.

7) Somebody who will remain nameless the other day was explaining how their significant other has no car, and does not appear to be purchasing one anytime soon. This, of course, is causing some consternation to the other half, who has to ferry his/her ass around all the time. Then the person mentioned that they had just spent $1100 on an LCD TV. For $1100, you can find a car that runs sporadically and still have enough money left over to order everyone a round at a sports bar with fifty TVs. Or, alternatively, to buy a normal fucking television. It ain't like a Betamax... it still plugs in to the same cable outlet and gives you pretty much the same image... and then you can drive your own ass to work.

8) My poker game has suffered considerably since leaving the Kissimmee-ish part of town where I used to live (with Grim). Actually, it hasn't, but the results have. Winter Springs and Oviedo are, of course, full of old people, and old people play poker just about as slowly as they drive. Most of these old people clearly use reading glasses - only instead of putting them on like a normal person, stick them on top of their combovers/bald scalps/VFW caps, and stare intently at the cards on the table despite clearly being unable to tell what they are. If you've watched me play poker, you know I get bored very easily and start doing very stupid things. So, now that it takes twice as long to play ten hands as it did before, my (somewhat improved over the last two years) level of patience is exhausted pretty quickly, and I do something silly like call somebody's all-in with ace-six offsuit.

9) On the other hand, Winter Springs is pretty ok. All the service employees speak English reasonably well (except possibly the deaf guy who was inexplicably manning the drive-thru at Checkers' last month), and none of the neighbors have tried to kill me or broken into my car or anything, which is always a bonus. Also, the new neighbor likes to smoke pot on his balcony, which for some reason considerably enhances my smoke breaks. I don't think it's a contact high thing so much as the fact that I genuinely like the smell of reefer. I have no idea why.

10) Dunkin Donuts at 11am, while tasty and suitably artery-clogging, just ain't the same as Waffle House at 3am. Perhaps it's because I eat it alone in front of the TV instead of with a variety of drunk people plus really drunk Valada and/or D'Angelo, but I think it might just be that all the staff their have all four limbs intact. Stumpy added a certain something to every meal she served us, whether it was the look of horror on Dustin's face as she balanced his hash browns on her dibber, or the constant stream of cigarettes she was happy to bum me because I always tipped really well.

11) You shouldn't promise a list of twelve things unless you've already thought of all twelve.

12)....

Dear valued customer:

Congratulations on your acquisition of a brand new Kim! We are certain that your new Kim will bring you years of happiness, and to keep your Kim at its best, we suggest that you follow these guidelines for the care and handling of your Kim.

1) Never, never leave your boxers lying around. Kim's programming incorporates the newest generation of "NeatFreak! (TM)" software from Sun Microsystems. NeatFreak! may cause your Kim to become angry, and possibly dangerous, when confronted with common household objects which are out of place. Items such as underwear and cups not placed on coasters are particularly likely to result in system malfunctions including yelling, screaming, flipping out, and occasionally sulking.

2) Do not decorate your home. If your home is already decorated, remove all non-essential fixtures prior to delivery of your Kim. Kim's sophisticated Feng Shui functionality will do all of your decorating for you, and dispose of all previously installed/hung decorative items. Please note that Kim's decorating style is factory preset. Do not attempt to alter the layout and/or decoration of your home during or after the Kim's decorating subroutine has begun. This may result in total system failure. Besides, trust us, your apartment looks way better now.

3) Kim comes with a large variety of accessories and features. The majority of these are not built into the Kim unit, but are packaged separately. We strongly advise all Kim owners to find first-floor accomodations, or to hire professionals to move your Kim. Damage to, or destruction of, any Kim accessories may cause severe dysfunction in the main Kim unit. Additional Kim accessories may be ordered directly from Kim's Mom (TM), and are also available through Bed, Bath and Beyond and other fine housewares distributors.

4) Kim is programmed to activate at an early hour. Kim will automatically reset according to daylight savings time (not valid in all time zones). Light sleepers may wish to consider keeping Kim in a separate room to ensure a full night's rest.

5) Kim does not come equipped with an on/off switch. Kim is programmed to activate itself as needed. We are working on a firmware upgrade that will allow you to suspend your Kim's operations temporarily. In the meantime, your Kim may be deactivated in an emergency using generous quantities of alcohol. Please note that we do not recommend this procedure, and it may void your warranty.

6) Kim will often ask for things. Common requests include Taco Bell food, a puppy, beer, hugs, "kissies", and so on. While your Kim is largely self-sufficient and does not require these things to function, you may see an improvement in the operation of your Kim if you choose to fulfil these requests. You may even choose to surprise your Kim with Thai food or jewelry as a preventive maintenance technique.

7) Your Kim was designed to interface with conventional cable television. As such, Kim is only capable of selecting the following channels:- E!, VH-1, Lifetime, Comedy Central, and local network affiliates. Please do not attempt to "teach" your Kim about other channels. These inputs will be ignored. Also, Kim is not programmed to operate cable/satellite boxes equipped with DVR. We highly advise that your set your desired recordings yourself.

8) While your Kim comes fully equipped with a drivers' license (not valid in all states), we recommend that you not allow your Kim to drive. Kim's software is designed to avoid driving except in case of emergency, and your Kim will refuse to drive except under the following conditions: a) she is the least drunk; b) your legs are broken; c) you threaten to leave the radio on a sports talk station.

Again, we wish to thank you for choosing a Kim. Properly handled and maintained, your Kim will provide you with years of faithful service. Your Kim will even prove to be a loving companion and in some cases will reduce or remove entirely your need for human companionship. Remember, Kim is the top of the line; like a Ferrari, it may occasionally require professional help, but is undoubtedly the sexiest thing on the road. Or anywhere else.

I like talk radio. I dislike crazy right-wing assholes. Therefore, I can only really listen to sports talk radio.

There are two sports talk stations in Orlando- 740 and 1080. 1080 is ESPN and is much, much better.

There's really only one reason why- when I go to Dunkin' Donuts, ESPN has Colin Cowherd on. Colin is funny, has good guests, and shuts the hell up and lets them talk when they're on.

740 (Fox Sports) has Jim Rome on. I do not like Jim Rome. Here's why:

1) He comes up with a joke (generally non-sports-related), and repeats it thirty-eight times in a row. Generally, he only stops repeating whatever joke he's doing when his producer tells him he has to take a commercial break.

2) His interview technique consists of asking annoying questions, reinterpreting the answer, and then dropping the name of someone who'd be pissed off if he heard the quote Rome has just made up. For example:

Rome- "So, Ronny, how did you feel about that helmet-to-helmet hit on Larry Jones last week?"

Ronny- "I know the officials threw the flag, but I definitely thought it was a clean hit. I don't think he deserves the fine, Jim."

Rome-"You heard it here first: the NFL Director of Officiating, Mike Pereira, is gay. I really wonder what Commissioner Paul Tagliabue would say if he heard Ronny starting that kind of rumor."

3) He refers constantly to "Nocal" and "Socal" as if everyone in the world knows or cares where and what the fuck these places are. I know they mean Northern California and Southern California. It's still gay. His show is syndicated in something like two hundred markets. He needs to shut the fuck up about all Cals.

4) He likes to play irritating celebrity quotes thirty-eight times, just like everything else. A few days ago he had gotten hold of an incredibly annoying soundbite of Lesley Visser laughing. Lesley Visser's laughter sounds like a small donkey being castrated and tickled simultaneously.

He then proceeded to tell knock-knock jokes one after the other and have one of his assistant shitheads play the soundbite after each one. It wasn't even almost funny the first time. It was, unsurprisingly, slightly less funny the twelfth time. I don't know what it was like after that because I drove my car into a concrete wall just to make it stop.

5) He got fired from ESPN for goading (former NFL QB) Jim Everett into beating the shit out of him live on ESPN2. He did this by (shock!) repeating the same goddamn joke forty times. (He called Everett "Chris" repeatedly, presumably pretending to confuse him with female tennis player Chris Evert).

You have to be a complete and utter waste of neurons to get fired from ESPN. Rush Limbaugh, Stephen A. Smith, and Jim Rome are the only on-air personalities I can think of who ESPN canned. I rest my case.

6) He holds something called "the Smackoff" on his show. Basically, this is an excuse for regular listeners/callers to talk shit about each other('s teams, mothers, wives, cars, hometowns) on nationally syndicated radio. The entrants are invariably unfunny and repetitive, just like Rome. Still, when they're talking he isn't and that is invariably a good thing.

In conclusion, Jim Rome is an asshole. Poke him in the eyes if you see him on the street.

Because even a reformed nerd needs to flex his pocket protector sometime.

1) F-Zero, Super NES: more sway factor (you know, when you lean right because you think it'll make your car/character/plane go right too) than any other game before or since. And really good music. And because it was the first thing I was better at than my brother.

2) 007:Goldeneye, Nintendo 64: The best multiplayer game, ever. Brilliant (for the time) graphics, sublime sound, terrific gameplay with one player or four, and the unforgettable yelling of, "UNCLE BENNY!!!"

3) Fallout/Fallout 2, Windows: The only time in my life I ever shut myself in my room for two weeks because I couldn't turn off the damn computer. Bad graphics, slightly repetitive combat, but a brilliant storyline and hilarious conversations with in-game characters.

4) Metroid Prime, Gamecube: The only game that ever actually scared me.

5)  John Madden Football/Madden NFL, Super NES to PS2: Great games, one and all, and maybe one day they'll figure out how to make the flanker streak less unstoppable.

6) Destruction Derby, PS: my first glimpse at the future (back then) of video games. The game itself wasn't that much to write home about, but fun for about an hour.

7) Joe Montana Football, Sega Genesis: The only reason I'm such an awesome fantasy football manager, because if it wasn't for this game I still wouldn't understand football.

8) Grand Theft Auto 3, PS2: A million tiny games rolled up into one big one, absolutely seamlessly. Vice City and San Andreas are better, obviously, but this one was a giant leap forward over anything else.

9) Elite, BBC Micro and a dozen other systems since about 1985: None of you will ever have heard of this, but it was a truly awesome game. You flew around a galaxy bigger than any game environment you'll ever see, even today. The GTA of its day.

10) Killer Instinct, Super NES/Arcade: I used to stand around in front of this game after running out of coins to play it in the arcade dreaming about having a Killer Instinct arcade machine in my house. When it came out on the Super NES I think I cried.

10. Estranged- Guns and Roses

9. The Chain- Fleetwood Mac (the song is kinda crappy, really, but it includes the best guitar solo ever, beginning 3:03 into the song, in case you want to go listen to it.)

8. Shut Up and Smile- Bowling for Soup

7. American Pie- Don McLean

6. Kashmir- Led Zeppelin

5. Enjoy the Silence- Depeche Mode

4. One More Time Around- Queensryche

3. Midlife Crisis- Faith No More (I would put FnM's Theme From Midnight Cowbody here, but it's not a "song", per se, since there aren't any words)

2. Nine Inch Nails- Closer (not just because they say "fuck" a lot, but because it revolutionized industrial music and synth-rock. AND because they say fuck a lot)

1. U2- Hold me, Thrill me, Kiss me, Kill me- Because I've probably heard it more times than any other song, and yet I still like it.

Oh, and if anyone has advice on contesting a ticket, I need some.

1) Office Space

2) Snatch

3) The Shawshank Redemption

4) A Fish Called Wanda

5) Clerks

6) Reservoir Dogs

7) Memento

8) That Thing You Do (shut up, it doesn't make me gay)

9) Transformers: The Movie

10) Labyrinth

Feel like I  missed something? Point it out!

Yep, 8 gig. That's the size of the music folder. 2,498 songs... 9,045,863,256 bytes, or 8.42 GB, to be exact.

-disclaimer- all of this shit was downloaded legally from licensed providers or ripped from CDs I own. Seriously.

I'll share some of the highlights (and lowlights) with you:

-First song I put on this computer: For Whom The Bell Tolls, only by the Bee Gees instead of Metallica. Whoops.

-Second song? Dammit (Blink-182).

-Last song... er... I Want You by Savage Garden. What? It was playing in Wal-mart just now and it's fucking catchy.

-14 remixes of the in-game music from Streets of Rage 2 on Sega Genesis. Remember that?

-Puccini's Nessun Dorma, as performed by Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli. It was the theme song for the 1990 World Cup and it was in The Sum of All Fears, too.

-If I were Gay, by Stephen Lynch. It's pretty damn funny.

-Six different songs about pirates. Arrr.

-nine songs by Panic! At the Disco, just because they have an awesome name.

-Eddie Izzard's HBO special Dressed to Kill, which is the second biggest file at a whopping 77mb.

-The biggest is AK1200s remix of A Tribe Called Quest's Once Again, which is three freakin' hours long. You'd think I would have noticed that before.

-The smallest is the music from Apidya, a weird Amiga game from like 1991, where you were a bee and you flew around shooting other common yard bugs with a big laser. It's a MIDI file and it's only 8kb. And it sucks.

-The smallest actual song (like with words and stuff) is the theme from Only Fools and Horses, which is a freakin' hilarious British TV show that I advise you all to watch the next time your cable box decides you should only get PBS.