Item #1: Last month was my two-year wedding anniversary, and as Miss Manners would tell you, the traditional gift is cotton. Mrs. The Jim decided to stretch that to cover all forms of cloth, and she got my something I'd specifically requested: a football jersey.
As I've mentioned previously, I didn't follow sports as a kid, so I never really had any desire to own a jersey. I don’t know why I wanted one all of the sudden – I guess I just thought I needed something special for game day. Now, my favorite team, regardless of sport, is the alma mater. Maybe it's because that's when I started to follow sports, or maybe it's because of how much fun I had during college, but Texas A&M tops my list of athletics interest.
When making the request, I thought about asking for a #1 A&M basketball jersey, or maybe a baseball jersey from any one of a number of guys; however, I settled on the maroon #9 of my favorite football player: Dat Nguyen.
Dat was not the first Vietnamese-American football player, but he was the first one to ever play in the NFL. Needless to say, the name Nguyen stood out on a program. More importantly, though, he was seemingly a really good guy who was ALWAYS around the football. As a linebacker, he was slow, undersized, and short, yet he made plays. My buddies and I called him Shaolin, because we were sure he had special powers beyond mortal men. OK, maybe it was a bit lazy giving an Asian guy a nickname based on Kung Fu, but so be it.Now, I'm fully aware it's pretty lame for a grown man to want a football jersey as a gift, but I still think it's an awesome present. I'm looking forward to breaking it out next season, as my boys boldly strive towards another 4-7 season. (We pretty much suck these days.) It'll be even better once Mrs. The Jim gets out of school and gets a job, so we could actually afford to go to a game or two.
Item #2: One of my wife's friends from nursing school is getting married in August. As we all know, my last summer wedding was when I broke out my seersucker jacket. Once I found out about this event, I knew I needed to break out the jacket again; however, I'm not one to just stand pat. No, I'm always looking to improve.
After a bit of thought, I decided what I needed to put my summer wedding ensemble over the top: a bow tie!! So, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Brooks Brothers outlet store and picked up a classy blue-and-gold striped number. The wife was with me, but surprisingly enough, she was not as impressed as I. In fact, I believe she uttered the line, "I'm so embarrassed right now that I married you."Well, here's the problem: I still haven't figured out how to tie this thing. I mean, watch this:
Did you follow that? So far, the closest I can get is just a random assortment of cloth bunched near my Adam's Apple. I'm hoping I can figure it out through practice, but it's way more complicated than I realized.
Item #3: I'm still obsessed with my attempts to complete Lego Batman. I've only got 3.7% left in the game, but it's taking me forever to get through this last little bit, especially when I'm trying as hard as possible to avoid using the internet to cheat. (Alas, I've done so on some rare, difficult occasions.)
As a break from that task, I recently downloaded Mike Tyson's Punch Out for the old NES. I never owned a NES, so I don't have much experience with the game. Right now, I'm pretty much stuck on Great Tiger (who I can occasionally beat) and Bald Bull (who I can't even touch).One of the cool things about the Wii is that you can download a plethora of old video games for rather cheap. I've got Zelda (which I just can't figure out), and my wife has Super Mario 3 (she's a master of that one). Unfortunately, there's still one game that has been wrongfully omitted from their available titles: the pure majesty that is Pro Wrestling.
During high school, I used to drive out to the home of Will (The Official Best Man of The Jim) and just hang out. Often, we'd break out his old NES and play Pro Wrestling for hours. I loved playing Giant Panther, because he had the Iron Claw as one of his special moves. Will was far better at the game, and he used to love to use Fighter Hayabusa so he could kill me with the incredibly difficult Back Brain Kick. King Slender was super easy to use ... The Amazon was awesome because he would cheat and hit guys with a pipe ... seriously, I could go on like this for days. I loved this game!
I have looked everywhere for a place to request that Nintendo get off their asses and put this game out for download, but no such venue currently exists. This might require a personal letter to their head of development. Of course, I haven't been inundated with those Henry Kissinger ads for Dr. Pepper, so that may not be all that successful either.Until next time,
The Jim
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