With Friends Like These...

I was getting some advice about where to take Olivia for a nice Valentine's Day dinner from some friends and coworkers, and I thought I would share a few of the ideas they gave me (names have been omitted):

- Get a Whopper from Burger King and cut it into the shape of a heart

- Take her along on a ski trip and once we get to the top of the mountain, "drop trou' and pee a big heart in the snow" (they were trying to convince me to go on their ski trip this weekend - that didn't work.)

- Buy her a gift certificate for cosmetic surgery (by the way this one was from my coworker who has never met or seen her)

The sad thing is, I don't know if they were joking or not.

I have to admit though, I got some pretty good ideas other than that. A bunch of restaurants that we haven't been to but sound like they would be good. So I have to give some credit where it is due.

By the way I know Valentine's Day was three days ago but we are "celebrating" it this weekend due to "scheduling constraints".

On a separate note, another "fly" has "dropped". A few days ago I heard that the girl I went to high school prom with (and a friend since childhood) got engaged. I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog, we haven't really kept in touch since college, but congrats anyways Julia! Seems like yesterday that we were all playing board games in your basement or our families were camping together.

As far as the Illini go, the TV situation for last night's game against PSU was a travesty. It was scheduled as an ESPN+ game, which usually means they show it on the U. But no, they were showing the Bulls game on the U. So they moved the Illini game to their sister station "MeTV", channel 23 for those without cable. For those with Comcast cable (me me me), tough luck. How dumb is that, I can see the game if I don't have cable, but not if I do have cable? Even stupider was that I saw an ESPN+ game showing on WYCC (normally channel 56), Iowa against Purdue. Seriously, who wants to watch that game? Oh well, I guess I'm not as mad because the game didn't end up being that close. Just amazes me how an Illinois fan can't watch an Illinois basketball game in Illinois even when they are the #1 team in the nation (for only the 3rd time in 100 years of history).

One last thing, I'm sure everyone who grew up in a grade school remembers playing a game called "Duck, Duck, Goose". All you do is get everyone in your class to sit in a circle, then one kid walks around the circle tapping everyone in the circle on the head in order while saying "Duck, Duck, Duck....", until he picks someone and says "Goose", at which point the "goose" has to get up and chase the kid around the circle, and try to tag him before he makes it back to the vacated spot.

Anyways, one day I was talking to Olivia about that game for some reason, and she told me that when she was growing up in Minnesota, they played that game, only they didn't call it "Duck, Duck, Goose". What, pray tell, did they call it? Get this - these wacky Minnesotans called their version of the game "Duck, Duck, Gray Duck".

You can imagine my reaction to this, a healthy mixture of hilarity and incredulity. Duck, Duck, Gray Duck??! Who says that? I refused to believe her at first, but she seemed pretty serious, so eventually I halfheartedly conceded the possibility that she was not messing with me. Still, I couldn't really picture a kid going "Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, GRAY DUCK!!" and everyone in the room thinking this was normal.

So yesterday, for some reason the topic of childhood games came up in conversation with my coworker, and I decided to tell him about Olivia's "duck duck gray duck" experience. And he absolutely REFUSED to believe me. He was so adamant in his disbelief that he did a Google search for "minnesota gray duck" or something like that, just to prove me wrong.

And sure enough, there were actually articles specifically written about how Minnesotans are the only ones who say "gray duck" instead of "goose" in that game. Ho-larious. I guess Olivia was right all along. I just had to share that with everyone who reads my blog. And if any of you still don't believe me, do a search and find out for yourself.

Now that I think about it, this would make a good blog topic on its own. When you grow up in different areas, at different schools, it's interesting when you guys know of the same jokes, stories, etc., except with weird little variations. I can't think of that many examples right now, but maybe if I can compile a list of good ones someday, I will devote a blog to it.