Axe Me Anything
I figured I may as well start a post while I’m waiting in a parking lot again. Our vet has gone back to pets-only-in-the-building protocol at least on Saturdays, so Jack is in there getting a booster. I just finished a week with some potential big new stuff and the long anticipated round of axe throwing.
Sure, there are the jokes. Sure, there are the filmed fails. For me, at least, it wasn’t made any worse by the addition of alcohol to the mix. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here previously, but both of us have been almost completely alcohol-free for almost two months. My only fail was a couple of beers at a concert back on Halloween; Eleanor's, the one night after she worked two straight days and just couldn't take the pain of it anymore. She's since discovered that the wine really doesn't do anything to dull the pain anymore, so she's been off it since. I accompanied the blades with Dr. Pepper.
Lasertron must've been losing business for team-building exercises to assorted bars and gyms offering this "service," so they've added a few lanes for the activity:
Not sure if that's a sanitizer or roach spray in that bottle.
After getting the hang (heh) of it, we settled into mostly games of "pirate tic tac toe," where four groups aimed for spots on a board, getting an X, O, Y or Z for hitting a square and stealing (hence the pirate part) any already-claimed one. This led to some interesting boards, as Rose Marie and Paul Lynde produced this rather interesting combination:
Yiddish axe-throwing. There was a baby with us, but fortunately for her, she wasn't an eight-day-old Jewish male.
I actually did respectably well at this. The easiest way to mess the game up is by throwing too hard, which usually results in it bouncing off the board (and occasionally richocheting back toward you;). I took it nice and easy and was able to come close to aiming properly. It also helped that you start the throw by holding it behind your head with a grip not far off from a dumbbell exercise I've done hundreds of times. So I came out alive and sober, which are good things.
From there, we proceeded to eat and indulge in the annual gift exchange. My contribution was the first gift off the board. Literally:
I found it at Record Archive a few weeks ago and thought it would be perfectly stupid for the occasion. I did check it out online before purchasing, since we had an unfortunate incident a few years back where somebody's kids won a NSFW Cards Against Humanity game, but this one seemed pretty tame. It even offers a money back guarantee: "If for any reason you are not satisfied with your Generic Game, just return it to your closet and we will cheerfully keep your money."
It was kept by the guy who picked it from the treasure trove. I was the last to go and could have stolen it or any of the other 12 gifts opened before me, but that seemed Scroogie, plus I didn't really need another coffee mug or blanket. So I took the last package on the table, which turned out to be an oversized stress ball. It's going to the office, since the cats would destroy it in seconds.
(Speaking of, I've been home since the second paragraph. Jack's vax went very quickly.)
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An oversized stress ball may help if I get into something I was offered the other day.
I was downtown Thursday afternoon, in an actual suit about to go into an actual courtroom for the first time in months. We wound up settling it while we waited, but then another call came in from an attorney I just settled another case with. Long story short, he's looking to place a case he just filed but found he had a conflict on. It would be a lot of work but significantly paid for in advance. I did a little looking into it while away with my lumberjack tools yesterday, and will talk to the people involved next week before deciding. Nothing ever came of the other two potential possibles I mentioned a couple weeks ago, so at least I won't have those and this tying up my time.
Also while waiting for my own case to be called, I marveled at how much time can be wasted over much smaller things. My own client was close to an hour late getting there, so when they opened the courtroom doors, one case at a time, I watched as no fewer than four lawyers marched in on a single case in Small Claims Court. Even assuming a cheap-for-this-market average hourly rate of $250 an hour and minimal preparation time, I watched $2500 go up in smoke on a case jurisdictionally limited to five grand. You don't need a lawyer in small or commercial claims court, although they are permitted, but I often advise clients to go themselves and spare themselves the expense if we've prepared in advance. The judges and hearing officers who do these things like to play TV judge ("Wapner," they'll always be to me, though "Judge Judy" seems to be more recognizable among the kids now;) and they seem to not like lawyers interrupting their auditions with objections and such.
Once done with all these weighty things, I headed back to the office and passed an odd sight:
This is the site of the former Buffalo Gun Center, which went out of business earlier this year with a spectacular sale, complete with balloons for the kids! This soon-to-be weed business is taking its place. I guess if you can’t shoot ‘em, stone ‘em.
As I learned in my four-hour seminar on the subject, the rulemaking for allowing the licensing of dispensaries and "lounges" is still in its infancy in New York, but it's hoped they will be up and running in 2022. Maybe by the time of next year's party we can include edibles and such in our gift exchange....
and if so, I strongly recommend we continue to do the axe throwing first;)
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