Nikki turned 2 years old today. She was so cute. We brought her to church and she was a good girl, well behaved and quiet. Then after we went to Applebee's and bought her some shoes. She has a tendency see a toy, ususually a stuffed animal or doll and she won't want to let go of it. On more than one occasion she's gone into a store and tried to run out with something.

There was a British or Scottish lady sitting behind us and she struck up a conversation with Nikki. Nikki was very polite and when the lady said "I have to go," Nikki stuck out her hand to shake hands and say good bye. Alison got the biggest kick out of that as did the old lady.

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It's nice having a kid with manners when you're out in public.

I had also been pondering the effect of movies on certain stores. For example, after we ate at Applebees, we went ot K-mart because it was in the same parking lot. Now realize that Kmart has been having a hell of a lot of problems, bankruptcy among them if I recall correctly. Also bear in mind that Tom Cruise in Rainman said, "Kmart sucks Ray." That little phrase I think pretty much sent the stock into a dive from which it never recovered. I could be wrong, because, I'm not a financially trained individual with intimate knowledge of how the stock market functions,but I suspect there's a relationship.

Remember when Pulp Fiction came out? Remember the conversation between Samuel Jackson and Travolta in the car about the "Royale with Cheese?" They went on a lengthy banter about the food at McDonalds. When asked about the Whopper, Travolta replies "I dont know. I didn't eat at Burger King." He said it with a hint of disdain. It could have been factual that maybe there wasn't a Burger King in Amsterdam that he could get to, but I suspect that the public perceives this as Burger King is not as good as McDonalds. I've always perceived to to be such, much as I perceive Coke to be better than Pepsi.

But look at the problems that Burger King has gone through. There was talk at one point about Warren Buffet buying them. They have been plagued with crappy ad campaigns. Granted the "Are you Herb?" campaign was about as crappy as you can get and it did occur before Pulp Fiction came out.

But only recently had Burger King altered their logo and come up with a new corporate symbol, "the King". Now that they've glomed onto the Simpsons and Transformers have they gotten better stockwise.

Now maybe the snake story remains unproven, but whoever started that rumor chose Burger King, as opposed to McDonalds. In any case, I'm never letting my kid play in a ball pit.

It was all good. I got there an hour early and lost $100 on Wheel of Fortune. Last time I was early meeting friends at a casino, I dropped $100 into a $5 slot machine and won $1800. I then gave my friend who was late $100 for being late.

But I am getting tired of losing money. I haven't gambled in forever. It seems that since Alison and I got married, we don't seem to win anymore at slots. When we were dating it seem pretty consistent that we could always win back what we spent on dinner and a movie and still come out ahead. That hasn't happened for us in a long time.

Nowadays, the only way we gamble is if a friend from out of town is visiting and wants to go to the casino, and even then our cap is $100.

So anyway, Kevin comes and we go eat at Fatburger because this joint he picked doesn't serve food. So Ruel, Tim, Todd, Ian, David, and Kevin's ex all show up. It only takes a few beers and a couple of shots of Jaeger to get Kevin yakking. I didn't know this but when Kevin gets drunk, he has a tendency to wander off. We were all still drinking and wondering where he was.

I wish I could have drank more, but I'm such a lightweight. I haven't been falling down wasted in over 12 years. I'm at that point where I teeter between a good buzz and a bad headache.

I think it was good fun though. It is nice to hang out without any students around.