The Gift That Keeps On Giving Till It Kills You

First there was coronavirus. Then murder hornets. Now a year's supply of ice cream in a month every month. A generous Christmas gift has blessed our humble home of two with five pints of Salt and Straw ice cream for the remaining 12 months of our lives. At the end of which we presumably turn into an ice cream. Or a cholesterol embolus. And if we are going to go down gorging, we may as well provide an objective* measurement of our gorging.

 Each month we'll provide a break down of that month's 5 unique Salt and Straw ice cream flavors with our official vote on its quality, worthiness, and general testament to the need for its existence on this planet.  Which will be recorded as a ten point score. For me, my 10/10 best in life ice cream is Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream with S'mores a close runner up. For Liz, her 10/10 is Haagen-Daz's Dulce de Leche with Tolenti's Egg Nog a reasonable sub in a pinch. And away we go, December's offerings...!

 

- Cocoa with Peppermint Patties

Me: Good solid chocolate. Tasty peppermint patties. As billed. I'd eat it.

7/10

Liz: I liked it. Good peppermint flavor. Good chocolate. I'd eat it.     

7/10

- The Great Cookie Swap (vegan)

Me: Barf. Pass. 

No/10

Liz: Good, but not worth the fat.

4/10

- Gingerbread Cookie Dough

Me: Very cold. Probably great for those who love gingerbread. Maybe just decent for everyone else. And yet here I am eating two bowls of it in a row. Maybe I love gingerbread? 

6.5/10.

Liz: Maybe a 6. 

6/10.

- Almond Brittle with Salted Ganache

Me: First bite was "wow, this is pretty amazing." Then I had a little bit of the salted ganache, and was like, "wow that was pretty amazing." Then after about a dozen more spoonfuls I said to myself, "you know, for an ice cream flavor leading with 'Almond Brittle' in its name I sure don't taste much in the way of almond brittle." Then I found some almond brittle and, friends, no thanks. I mean, if you love almond brittle and wish it was thrown in large chunks into a frozen dessert, this may be for you. But not me. Too hard and cold. And almondy. And salty. 

6.5/10     (just Salted Ganache: 8.5/10)

Liz: This one's good, but I feel like I've had better Salt and Straw flavors. I don't usually go for ice cream flavors that, like, have a lot of stuff folded into them. Are you going to put this all down? Oh, I just got a really delicious bite of chocolate ganache. Oh yeah, that's really good chocolate. And, oh, here's a bite of almond brittle. 

7/10

- Dwanta's Teremania Spiked Eggnog

Me: It tastes like eggnog if it was frozen. Which is good, but also somehow... unremarkable? Uninspired? Pedestrian? Just boring. 

6/10

Liz: The booze isn't overwhelming, but more than I want in an ice cream. I mean the eggnog under layer is good, but I'd rather eat regular eggnog ice cream like Telanti Eggnog gelato** 

3/10

*By objective we mean entirely subjective. Opposite Day!

**This blog post in no way is intended to serve as an official endorsement of or advertisement for Haagen-daz or Talenti frozen desserts. It it intended, however, to be a wholehearted endorsement of Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream. Americone Dream 2024!

Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time

This Christmas there were no children. In that respect it was sad.

This Christmas, however, there were zombies. And in that respect it was awesome.

All I want to talk about are the zombies.

The board game, Last Night on Earth, is a relatively complex game based around the relatively simple concept of brain eating zombies wanting to eat your brains. You can either be the brain possessing heroes or the brain craving zombies. The heroes have the advantage of various guns, clubs, and special traits while the zombies have the advantage of being numberless and relentless.

Round 1. Team Hero: Adam/Ellen. Team Zombie: Scooter/Ashlee.
The first game was a disaster for the zombies of their own design. The goal for the heroes was simply: kill a lot of zombies. The goal for the zombies was simply: eat some brains and don't get killed too much. And the zombies did quite well at first eating their first brain only two or three turns in. Worried that the heroes were holing up at the police station setting up a rowdy defense the zombies then decided upon the unorthodox plan of a strategic retreat thinking that time would run down before the heroes could kill enough of them to win then game. It turns out zombies don't usually run away because zombies aren't very good at it. The game ended when after the heroes loaded up on a variety of weapons the zombies didn't know existed they then proceeded to hunt down and execute a sufficient number of the poor, defenseless fleeing undead to declare victory. It was mass zombicide; war crimes were committed. 


Round 2. Team Hero: Scooter and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Adam.
Second game involved finding gasoline and a fire source to burn out all the zombie spawning points. The heroes for whatever reason spent most their time collecting awesome weapons, however, and eventually the time ran out. It turns out gasoline is a little hard to find in a run down, zombie infested wasteland, and it doesn't help when the zombies proactively guard the gas station. Make up your minds zombies: do you want brains or petrol?


Round 3. Team Hero: Adam and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Scooter.
The objective of the third round was to escape in the truck after finding the keys and some gas. Despite finding both practically strapped with a bow wrapped tightly around their faces the heroes still had a difficult time getting all the gear to the truck. The zombies succeeded in eating a number of the heroes, but this coincidentally led to their undoing because it turns out for every human you eat another one rises up in its place. Or more exactly in the middle of the game board right where the blasted truck is. Despite their being a dozen zombies on the truck with them -- and the corpses of a few of their friends -- the heroes managed to make it out of town at the very last moment.



Round 4. Team Hero: Scooter and Ashlee. Team Zombie: Adam.
Last game all the heroes needed to do was find four towns folk and then hustle their butts out of town. They performed swimmingly. They all quickly bound together at the gun shop, loaded up on weapons and obscene amounts of dynamite that no one had previously known were available, and then proceeded to blow the every loving bejeesus out of the zombies. Along the way they quickly collected their needed townsfolk and simply waited for dawn when they'd all stroll casually out of town leaving the city nothing but a smoldering crater of zombie parts. Unfortunately it turns out the zombies had the trump card of trump cards and the very last turn played it resulting in one of the four townsfolk running off to join the circus or some garbage like that thus leading to zombie victory. Stupid, dirty, cheating zombies.



Just so my Christmas story isn't entirely about the evil reanimation of the dead, let me say that we also went to a terrible Christmas carol opera in San Francisco and then ate a month's worth of chocolate at Ghirardellis. It's what baby Jesus would have wanted.  


It's toe lickin' time!

A Christmas Gift of Errant Boxes

Merry Christmas! You'll get your presents when you get 'em.

The merry holiday has now come and past, and although the majority of it was spent sitting in a chair in the cardiac care unit (CCU) it was quite nice. Not because I had a great time with my nieces and nephews -- I haven't seen them in some time and am not sure they even still exist -- but because for once, for whatever reason, I felt a little grateful. Now I have always known I am blessed beyond merit, but infrequently have I felt it. I am not sure what to attribute it to but my suspicions are Wilford Hall's ghetto rooftop Christmas tree or BAMC's military issue eggnog. In either case I did not terribly mind working or being alone for the navidad. Plus how can you complain when your friends give you Lyme Disease?

Season sentiments aside, let's get to the point of Christmas and to the point of this post: presents. Man were they a disaster. Although Amazon and its various retailers did their jobs well, I, in my job as distribution center ring leader, did not. I barely got everything wrapped and boxed by the evening of the 20th, but did not make it to Fedex in time for the evening shipment thanks in part to the incredible complexity of stuffing a Mini Cooper with enormous boxes and partly because I may or may not have run someone over on my blind side. I'm pretty sure it was a roll of carpet. The boxes were shipped out successfully the next morning of course, but successfully to the wrong addresses. Adam and Ashlee got a Christmas surprise of other people's presents and my sister's family in Hawaii will be delighted to find out the box they receive sometime in February in fact needs to be immediately repackaged and reshipped. I am sure in every case, however, that their real present was hearing my voice over the phone on Christmas day. Mine, of course, was giving Lucca 11 lbs of candy legos. And possibly diabetes.

Christmas In Brief

Christmas came and Christmas went. Like most holidays it was enjoyable but unremarkable. Visited with family, completed a puzzle, saw some lights on some boats in a marina. I got a lovely watch and Lucca got Horny. I tried to surf by gulping sea water. We all had some pie.

The trip ended, as all family trips are required to end, with me forgetting an article of clothing behind. In this case it was my Aggie ring; which my mom sent back to me wrapped in a sock. Wrapped in another sock. Wrapped in a package. Packed in a box. Which was then stuffed in a chicken, stuffed in a duck, stuffed in a turkey.

Anyways, here's the pictures. Not much to look at. Move along people.

Prosecutors Will Be Violated

Sometimes we need to be protected, and sometimes we need to be protected from ourselves. Thankfully that is where the Vistana apartment management comes in: to ruthlessly wield the iron club of justice on all who would perpetrate wrong doing. Wrong doing in this case defined by a monthly one page handout.

Each month like so many apartment complexes the Vistana provides us with a newsletter of sorts consisting of a few entirely uninteresting articles on entirely random subjects, a couple quotes about nonsense, a recipe for those who get their recipes from newsletters, and an empty calendar for those who need to know when Christmas and Boxing Day are since these are typically the only kind of events that makes it onto the list. Enclosed with our newsletters, however, is frequently another slip of paper. Sometimes white, sometimes pink, suggestive of something fun, fun it is not. No, it is the monthly reminder of things not to do pending criminal prosecution and summary execution. Don't throw boxes down the trash chute! Don't have too many guests over! Don't let others through the parking gate without paying the parking bridge troll! Don't smile unnecessarily or yield the right of way! Don't let your pets! The list goes on and on.

A few days ago, perhaps fearing people were just throwing their silly newsletters away without at least perusing through its pages, they decided to be more direct. I came home to find a note stuck in the corner of my door. With Christmas tree clip art affixed to the bottom corner of it I thought perhaps they were having some sort of holiday social, but no, they were putting us on notice:

Christmas celebrators beware! Security cameras and informants have reported the disposal of Christmas trees in the loading dock trash containers! This is a grievous offense. Anyone caught disposing of trees anywhere in the building will be put to death.

This is of course a rough paraphrase. The actual penalty was specified as "a removal fee" but it turns out this means be put to death.

Don't get me wrong. I have mostly enjoyed my stay at the Vistana so far, by and large, and knowing the general good nature of the office staff I am inclined to believe their threats are mostly bellicose posturing. Nevertheless I fear the clap of storm trooper boots in the hall and often lie awake at night for fear of a knock at the door. I may not live for long, but the struggle to use the pool after 10:00 pm will go on forever!

Through the Prison Gates

Talking to some of my patients you'd think we're running a penitentiary at Wilford Hall. If I had a dollar for every patient begging me to let them go or who asked that I call the cops, FBI, OSA, CIA, etc I'd have, like, seven bucks. This is not because of particularly poor patient care -- I am inclined to believe we treat our patient's better on average than most hospitals -- but because our patients are out of their minds crazy. Delirious more specifically, but crazy nevertheless. Sometimes they try to bribe me, sometime they try to convince me through semi-coherent cookoo logic, and sometimes they just ask very nicely, but the universal statement always seems to be, "I shouldn't be here! Ahhhh!"

And how do I respond to these requests?

"Sir, would you like a BOOST?"

Actually we're instructed to talk them down which I am not sure has ever actually been scientifically shown to work, but it's what we do nonetheless. "Sir, why do you think the nurses are trying to kill you? They're sticking tubes in your penis, needles in your arm, and waking you up every few hours because they want to help you!" The restraints are good for you, ma'am.

In other news, this last week I won the lab lotto. Laboratory tests are ordered to confirm probable diagnoses and rule out improbable ones. Checking them every day is always a little like a scratch off ticket to see if we have just another case of pneumonia and diabetes or something much more exotic and rare, and a couple of days ago I won big. An insulinoma! Or at least I thought I did. The patient was hypoglycemic and with super high serum insulin and c-peptide levels but it turned out it was just a gnarly side effect of her floroquinolone antibiotic. Still pretty unusual and still quite a prize. I was excited. Now I am told I get to write up an ACP poster for it, whatever that means.

And here's our Christmas tree!


Happy New Year!

Let's Get Intensive

Back on call again. Still sucks.

I've realized, though, that for those whose only impression of "call" comes from Gray's Anatomy and Scrubs, being on call is a hazy, ill-defined concept, and reality's blurred. My repeat assertions that "it sucks" have surprisingly done little to clarify the matter. The truth is, aside from the casual sexual encounters with coworkers, there is not much in common between the real world and the world of make believe. As an example, an average call in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU):

• 0530, Wake up, realize it's a call day, grimace.
• 0600 - 0630, Drive to the hospital in silence. This is likely the happiest I'll be all day today.
  
• 0630 - 0635, Arrive at the hospital and change into scrubs that I have found and scavenged throughout the hospital on previous non call days. Sometimes they fit, sometimes they're stained, sometimes there're huge unexplainable holes in 'em.
• 0635 - 0830, Begin pre-rounding on my old patients. Pre-rounding consists of recording a slew of vital signs, lab values, consult information, nursing reports, radiographic data, drip rates, machine settings, and then, finally, talking to the patient for 5 minutes. Thankfully many ICU patients are on ventilators and do not have much to say.
  
• 0830 - 1200, Round with staff and fellows. Staff rounding consists of telling the staff physicians about everything I have just collected and then politely nodding while my co-interns do the same.
  
• 1200 - 1215, Run the board with the resident. Basically we find a big marker board and cover it with little check boxes of the things we have to do today.
  
• 1215 - 1230, Get lunch at the cafeteria to go. As the food choices are often some sort of fish, often pollock -- whatever the hell that is, and some odd mix of sides that do not go together I frequently find myself eating a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches. It turns out BAMC has the best grilled cheese sandwiches.
• 1230 - 1600, Work. Write notes, write orders, record more information, and repeat. Sometimes I accidently find myself talking to my patients which only puts off all the work I have to do.
  
• 1600 - 1700, Take sign outs. Around this time, while I am still going about my regular business, various other interns page me to come check out their patients for the night's cross cover. This is when I get to add more little boxes to all the previous boxes I had already checked off for the day.
  
• 1700 - 1730, T-cons and emails. If there's a lull in the work and we have not already had to admit any new patients, I just may get to take care of the other, non-ICU, work that builds up 24/7 year round. T-cons are things I need to call my outpatients back about and emails are typically incomprehensible military things I need to delete or poorly characterized tasks I have to take care of somehow, somewhere.
  
• 1730 - 1745, More sign outs.
• 1745 - 1130, Admit patients. Nightly we receive anywhere from 0 - 5 new patients from the ED. Typically it's around 1 - 3. Each individual patient seems to take me about 2 hours to fully work up, admit, and write a History and Physical (H&P) on. I would say I am slow but I honestly do not know how to go about it much faster without cutting corners. Or at least more corners than I am already comfortable cutting.
  
• 1745 - 2330, Cross cover. At the same time I'm admitting patients I also gotta take care of all those pesky check boxes!
  
• 2330 - 2350, Dinner. Hunger pains and hypoglycemia force me to momentarily stop or slow what I am doing to eat. Thankfully there're usually other things that can also simultaneously be done while eating. Like checking boxes for example.
  
• 2350 - 0200, More admits and cross cover.
  
• 0200 - 0205, Think about sleeping, but then do more admits and cross cover.
  
• 0205 - 0245, Take care of a crazy patient. Inevitably someone will completely lose their mind over the course of an evening and I get to try and persuade them not to. It seems restraints and tranquilizers are not in fashion these days.*
  
• 0245 - 0250, Think about sleep again, but then do more admits and cross cover. Maybe watch part of a show in an unconscious patient's room.
  
• 0250 - 0345, Code Blue. Someone is dying and it's my job to stop it! Or at least delay it for another few days or weeks till it inevitably comes about.
  
• 0345 - 0545, Admit again.
• 0545 - 0700, Finish whatever needs finishing, and pre-round on my old patients if there's time. Sometimes I eat a yogurt cup.
  
• 0700 - 0830, Check out with the CCU (Cardiac Care Unit) team. This is when I learn that despite working continuously for > 24 hours straight it just isn't good enough.
  
• 0830 - 1100, Check out with the MICU team and staff. This is when I learn that because I worked continuously for > 24 hours straight it's clear I did my best. Good game everybody, good game.
  
• 1100 - 1230, Finish whatever needs finishing again. Complete notes, complete H&Ps, and sometimes fall asleep at or on my keyboard.
• 1230 - 1231, Leave the hospital. My reward? The sensation that someone has thrown sand into my eyeballs. Whether cloudy or sunny, wet or dry, walking to my car is always a mildly stinging experience.
  
• 1231 - 1300, Drive home with music blaring and singing along. This is likely the happiest I'll be all day today.
  
• 1300 - 1530, Eat, shower, and go to bed.
  

Total time awake: 33 hours

Friggin' miserable.

In international news, President Bush. Guy can dodge bullets. Or at the very least well thrown shoes from close range. And Prime Minister al-Maliki? Way to step in where the Secret Service was not. Batting away gun shots -- err shoes -- with greatest of ease. I know I don't have moves as smooth as that. Would have taken both shoes square on the nose, back to back. No country would take us seriously afterward. Really, though, it seems global politics is going more and more the way of Austin Powers these days.

"Who throws a shoe? Honestly! You fight like a woman!"

In domestic news, we've got Christmas lights!



Almost looks respectable from this angle!



This angle not so much. It turns out I did not quite measure the required length of lighting very well. But, uh, it's the thought that counts?

*Not to suggest that they should be. Restraints and tranquilizers should only be used when absolutely necessary. Like when the patient has made you angry.

Christmas Present Apraxia

Although I am still fully in possession of all my faculties and still have complete control, it would appear, over my senses and motor function, it seems I just cannot wrap a good Christmas present. Despite some 26 years of practice now -- yes I started wrapping gifts just 5 months after birth -- my wrapping skills have improved only marginally, producing most recently this monstrosity:



The fact that the corners are not crisp, there is an overabundance of tape, the flap lengths are all uneven, and that I did not even cut enough paper for the whole project and so had to graft on not one but two extra appendages of wrapping paper are only partially disguised by my not so clever use of bows, poor lighting, and unusual construction patterns. Indeed this is the one skill I have picked up over the years. How to wrap presents so clumsily that it appears as if on purpose. Such a secret is what keeps our nation's postmodern artists fed, and it works for me. Occasionally, though, namely when the gifts are large and square, I do succeed in finishing a presentable product:



Not bad, huh? But then I go and produce something like this:



The wrapping job's ok, but I definitely had to resort to sticky notes as improvised gift tags. And as I ran out of scotch tape I had to resort to staples. Sarah's gift is now securely fastened to her shipping material. Actually I lie about the tape -- it's the one thing I do make sure I have an abundance of. And bows!:


Beautiful! I really don't know how I have failed to get better at this -- perhaps I simply just don't practice enough -- we need Christmas at least three times a year! -- but I have. Although it should simply be a matter of roughly measuring size, slowly cutting smooth lines, appropriately folding corners neatly, and taping conservatively in key areas, I cannot quite pick it up. I even managed to cut myself at one point with the x-acto knife -- someone will get a little extra love and blood with their present this year -- and I am still not entirely sure when or how. Whatever the case, Christmas wrapping makes me merry and my general lack of skills aside I am happy for the time being.

Next up: Christmas trees and Christmas lights. Let's pretend I don't have the ICU coming up in three days!

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

I have generally always felt that skiing and snowboarding were luxury items reserved for the landed elites when not otherwise engaging in polo, yachting, or a good fox hunt. Undoubtedly fun, but also undoubtedly expensive, and, as such, hard to defend in an already resource lopsided world. This was all before I smoked the crack pipe of winter mountain adventure, however, and now that I have I can more easily embrace self-indulgence. Skiing, it turns out, is not just fun, but very fun. Perhaps addictively so. I have and continue to rationalize my participation in such activities with the fact that costs have always been significantly reduced by free housing complements of Paul's family, but who am I kidding? I'm rich and I may as well not pretend otherwise.

The socioeconomics of skiing aside, my third and latest skiing trip the week before Christmas was notable for my final surmounting of the black diamond barrier. Last year I barely made it through blue-blacks -- bouncing my way down Frosty's Freeway on my back -- but this year I deftly descended a groomed black -- Cinarron was it? Cinnamon? -- with no problems. In my controlled chaos way of skiing at least. We also did two double blacks which sent me tumbling, but even when the tumble lasted the better part of a minute and involved several somersaults and an extended slide on my back it was a better experience than the accursed Frosty's Freeway. All my bravado aside, I cannot say I have ever felt a compelling need to constantly push myself to the limit with skiing, and so it was nice to ski joust and generally fool around on some greens and blues as well.

There was of course more to our trip than just skiing; we snowshoed as well! After paying heavy fees and acquiring the tacit approval of the mildly disgruntled majority we donned some shoes, Megan donned her ear flap cap, and we were off to see the waterfall. The waterfall never really materialized thanks to a thick blanket of snow, and Liz and Rachel had to turn back for sugar related issues -- it would seem Liz is a very stoic hypoglycemic --, and my snowman was a complete failure, but overall in the measure of most snowshoeing trips I'd say the trip was a success. Everyone had a good sweat at the very least.

And finally there was also much card playing. Specifically, the playing of Nertz. Normally card playing doesn't make for a very exciting subject to write about, but it is in this case because Drew and I were an unstoppable Nertz playing forced to be reckoned with. I imagine this was due more to Drew's prowess than my own, but I will nevertheless take equal credit for it. We rock. Undefeated. Booyah.

We also played some seemingly fabricated game involving player-selected famous persons -- or in our case mostly cartoon characters it seemed -- but as no one knew who El Cid was I don't want to talk about it. One fact I learned from the game, however, is that in some circles Xena: Warrior Princess was a show about lesbians. You decide!

Finally, finally, what truly set this ski trip apart from all the others -- aside from the lack of any in car brawls -- was our trip through northeastern New Mexico. More specifically it was the fact that we, or rather I, ran out of gas and our minivan puttered to a stop in the middle of nowhere just outside of Las Vegas, NM. In my defense I don't believe we passed a single gas station in the preceding hours before our unscheduled stop, but regardless an extra hour was added on to our trip in the acquisition of more fuel. We tried to get help from the local trailer home folk, but aside from a brief chat with a friendly Australian Sheepdog no help was to be found. This was probably for the best, however, as according to a cop Drew and Angie got a ride with the locals would have sooner sold us to coyotes than have sold us a gallon of gas. Oh wells, what're you gonna do?

My Photos

Rachel and Paul's Photos

The Story of a Pizza

Christmas is the season of giving. And the season of moralizing. In the spirit of one or the other I offer up this short tale.

I like myself some pizza. In fact I on average like myself some pizza about two times a week. It would seem that I also like regularity as I tend to alternate between two different pizza topping combos from the same Papa Johns every time I purchase (neither of which involves pineapple). Sometimes, though, things fall apart and the pizza people screw up my order -- but I don't mind because that usually means I get things for free. Just a week or two ago such an event took place and I arrived to find that they had for me a medium ham and green pepper instead of a medium pepperoni and green pepper. The obvious solution? Make a large pepperoni and green pepper and give them both to me for free. Yeah, it didn't make sense to me either, but who am I to repudiate their generosity?

The problem with sixteen slices of pizza was, however, that a typical medium two topping pizza lasts me two days, and although I do like pizza I don't like it for four or five days in a row. So my next task was to desperately try to find anyone I knew who was in town and happened to want a free medium ham and pepper pizza. It turned out that was absolutely no one. The few people I managed to contact quickly lost interest once ham was mentioned, but most people I didn't even get a hold of. So, worrying that I'd be forced to either throw the pizza away or eat it for five days in a row to avoid being especially wasteful, I turned to my neighbors. Thankfully for everyone involved I discovered my neighbors are not particularly picky people. Not only was a ham and green peppers pizza acceptable to them, but judging by their reactions no single act of kindness has ever compared with such a gift. Even a few days later they thanked me again for my charity. I'm pretty sure there's even now a framed picture of me hanging in their foyer. And it all didn't cost me a dime.

Which brings me to the moral of my story. Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country. Okay so I plagiarized a bit and my plagiarism doesn't necessarily make much sense, but, truthfully, that's the point. My lovely neighbors -- despite my informing them otherwise -- thought I was sharing greatly out of the pure kindness of my heart. I was simply trying to get rid of stuff I felt too guilty to throw away. The pizza guys probably gave me my pizzas for free because it cost them nothing and doing so prevented complaints. I like to think they just appreciated my business. Our perceptions are inaccurate and so our perspectives become misguided. Keeping a ledger of all the rights and wrongs that we perceive are done to us then does not lead to an economical assessment of relationships but only to an excessive attention to self and a blindness to all the blessings already bestowed. As whether others are being selfless or selfish we will probably most of the time never know, it's frequently a whole lot easier and likely happier to not even worry about it. Free, mysterious pizza from family or friends is usually best enjoyed with just a little gratitude.

The end.

And now for a picture of Matt Bonner.



Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!