Holiday Catch-up #2

Christmas day was great, as always. Most importantly, I think people liked the gifts I bought them, which seems like the important thing as an adult. I won't list what I got, but I am now a member of the iPod nation. I will not walk around with it all the time. For that matter, I got a bluetooth headset, and will not be wearing that all the time. If you see me wearing a headset when I'm clearly not talking nor planning to talk to anyone anytime soon, punch me in the face. Actually, do that for anyone.

The next day we made our annual pilgrimage to Mt. Pleasant to make a donation to the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. Soaring Eagle has made the switch to being a cashless casino, which is total bullcrap. Now when you cash out of a slot machine, instead of dumping grubby quarters into your bucket, it prints a little barcode ticket that you stick in the next machine. It still makes the noise- the speakers play a little *plink-plink-plink* sound as it prints your ticket. Daniel pointed out that even when it's only giving you 50 cents, it still plays several plink sounds- which makes you think "Don't patronize me!" It's much cleaner this way, but you almost long for that nasty black buildup on your fingers by the end of the day. Plus, without handling the coins it all goes much faster. I lost money faster than ever before- I dropped a Hamilton in one slot and was out of money in about 45 seconds! The day was almost a total bust until Daniel made his last move. On his last $1.50, made the maximum bet on a $0.50 slot, and won $100. Jerk.
We drove to Elkhart on the 29th, and nothing interesting happened until New Year's Eve (unless you count Purdue absolutely rolling over and dying against Maryland. I'm going to hear about that when I get home). We continued our new tradition of bowling in the New Year, and it was a blast. I was on fire for the first game- I rolled a 137, which may be my highest score ever (unconfirmed). I had 2 strikes, and 3 spares in a row. Woo-hoo! My second game was allright, and then it was all downhill from there. I outright stunk the rest of the night, but it was a good time.
So today I'm watching football. After opening up bowl season 0-3, the Big 10 has won 2 today, and if Michigan gets their act together in the second half they could end up at 0.500. Fun fact! By blowing the Insight Bowl, Minnesota was on the wrong end of biggest comeback in bowl history. Who lost the prior biggest bowl comeback? That's right, Purdue! I was in attendance as for the 2000 Outback bowl as Purdue blew a 25-0 lead to lose to Georgia 25-28. I guess that's a good record to not hold.