Birthdays and Billiards

Okay, so for the past three weeks I've been planning a big surprise birthday party for Ben. I know he reads this blog from time to time so I didn't want to post anything about it until now.

Diamond 8 pool hall was the venue, and while I was hesitant to have the party there because we never play pool, I was glad I chose it after everything was over. We had a great time. I'm mostly amazed that so many people were involved and not a single person slipped up around Ben...he had no clue!

Those responsible for keeping him home and in his street clothes before it was time to get him to the pool hall fed him (and themselves...um, Mike) drinks to keep him from being suspicious, so he was a bit buzzed when he arrived, but not too bad. It seemed like everyone had a good time.

We kept busy with a pool table that was reserved for us throughout the party, plus we all took part in a few rounds of darts (Carly and I had our collective asses kicked BADLY, which totally surprised me), and video games.


The pool hall has karaoke every Friday night at 9:30, and Ben's been saying for a while now that he wanted to participate in a bit of karaoke, so things worked out well. I know Dave is an avid karaoke guy, so he broke the ice and everything went on from there. Tradition in our group has Dave opening the show singing "Secret Agent Man", and no one likes to break tradition.

Ben's 31st birthday certainly did NOT go unnoticed. Friday night was his third birthday celebration for this year, and seeing as how that apparently wasn't enough, we all gathered at Sandy's last night for tacos, Wii, cigars, and a very close game of Trivial Pursuit. I'm so pissed because no matter what team I'm on, or how "on" I am in the game I haven't won a single round in a very long time. I'm not blaming anyone...not even myself. It's just terribly frustrating to lose so many times by such a small margin (1 question). Maybe I should just embrace my losing streak and stop thinking about it so much. I enjoy the game tremendously, and I love playing it with friends even more.

Anyway, I hope this was a memorable birthday for Ben. We all wanted to go above and beyond just having people over to the house to sit around and bullshit. I like planning parties for people. And hey, the man deserves everything we did for him and much more. We'll have to see what my broke ass can whip up for him next year. Heh.

The End.