My Birthday Party Weekend - Saturday

Well it started last night with the arrival of Jes, Brett, Rupert, Olivia, Dallas, Robert, Doug, Kevin, Jessica, Aaron and of course Chris who arrived on Wednesday. Most folks were up at 8am and I began to make breakfast, this morning was biscuits and gravy. I made 60 biscuits, 24 sausages and 4 cups on gravy. While we ate breakfast we watched the "classic" movie marathon flick Galaxy Quest. Everyone loves it and it's always fun to watch first thing in the morning (we normally watch on Sunday morning, but instead watched on Saturday morning).  During this time brothers Josh and Justin showed up. Of course if you read my blog you know Josh has come to previous movie marathons as well as being one of my besties. I meet Justin briefly while going to the movie theater that they both work at a few months back. We continued our friendship over facebook and this was Justin's first movie marathon.  They shared what little of the biscuits and gravy were left.

After breakfast and Galaxy Quest half of the folks went out for a walk, while the other half played some extreme bocce ball. We played for about half hour before it got too hot and everyone wanted to go back inside. The group who went for a walk were still gone so the rest of us got a fun game of Card Against Humanity going. We were well into it when the walking group got back. I gave up my spot in the game so I could prepare to make lunch. My buddy Jared arrived next and lunch was ready (sandwiches and chips).  The CAH game ended and everyone had some lunch.

While having lunch we started our second movie The Incredibles. It's one of my favorite Pixar movies and it seems to be a favorite of a lot of others. Next to arrive to the party were Jennifer and her husband Matt then my buddies Adam and Anthony. Soon after my bestie Will arrived.

When the movie was over Adam presented his short fan film / resume "SHIELDED". I introduced him and he went through the entire story on how this all came to be. It's a pretty amazing story, you can check it out HERE.

After we watched SHIELDED, we played a game of Celebrity. If you don't know what this game is I'll try and to quickly explain it. Everyone who plays writes down ( 5 to 10 ) names of a fictional or non fictional character on a piece of paper and those names go into a hat. There are three rounds, round one you can say anything to your team mates to have them guess who your are talking about. Round two you can say only one word to get your team mates to guess who you are talking about. And finally in round three you can't say anything, it then becomes a game of charades to get your team mates to guess the persons name. It's a fantastic game to play with a lot of people and at the time we had 19. Halfway through this game three more arrived, Luis, Jennifer C and her boyfriend Patrick. We got through round 2 of this game when I realized that it was 5:30 and I had to pick up dinner (El Pollo Loco) at 6. So Chris and I left the party and headed to El Pollo Loco.

When we got back with the food the folks were watching some Doctor Who. We figured they finished the game of celebrity but come to find out later that they didn't. I put out dinner and everyone dug in, El Pollo was a big hit. During this time my mood changed. I don't exactly know why but up until this point I was having the best time then one of my guest just rubbed me the wrong way with things they were saying and I got super annoyed. At this point there were just so many people and so much noise that I think it was partly sensory overload. Once dinner was over my buddy Will had to leave so we said our goodbyes.

Chris gathered everyone outside around my large garage and pulled most of the geek mob to the front and then brought me up front and rattled off a list of names; Chris,  Scott,  Rupert,  Luis,  Thomas,  Dallas,  Jes,  Robert,  Will,  Aaron,  Anne,  Nicki,  Jen,  Olivia,  Josh and Jennifer C.  and informed me that all of these folks contributed to this large gift that was in my garage. They opened the door to reveal the Gauntlet II stand up arcade game that was shipped to my brothers house a few weeks ago. I blogged about this and even played the game.  I was under the impression that Chris had purchased this for himself and was going to store it at my place, until he moved back to Cali. On Thursday he rented a truck and went to my brother's house to load up this system by himself. He then drove to my place and unloaded it in my garage. Chris has been working on this plan for months. I was totally oblivious to the entire thing... well done Chris and everyone involved for keeping this a secret from me.

Once back inside the shots started flowing. I put on Sandlot for those who were not drinking to enjoy. I had several shots in a row and then drank another three glasses of coconut rum and diet coke. I was feeling pretty great. Wasn't worrying about folks spilling drinks all over my hardwood floors or couch. By 9pm most folks were drunk and I was sobering up and not liking what I was seeing. The funk that start started during dinner sprung up again and all the spilling and disregard for my house started to get to me. Friends went missing, folks locking themselves behind close doors. Some of my friends were acting out of character (alcohol induced of course) and all these things combined started to annoy me. My day went from good to awesome to down right horrible.

I put on Dogma once Sandlot was over and everyone seemed to be having a great time, everyone but me. The host part of me was very happy that everyone was having a great time, I live to make others happy and this party was doing just that. But part of me is getting tired of always being the one who makes others happy. This is my birthday party.. I should be having the time of my life yet I wasn't and nobody seemed to care.

I went outside to get away from everyone and relax on my deck. Jared came out and joined me for a bit  which was great as he and I haven't really talked in a while and we got to shot the shit for a while. A few other friends came out and joined us.

A little before midnight I went out back again to find some friends out there lying on my deck looking up at the stars, though it was very cloudy. Midnight came and my friend Rupert said "Happy Birthday Kenny" and there was a few murmurs and a feeble attempt of a high five from the group lying on the deck. Needless to say I was disappointed. It kind of added insult to injury. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't that. More people started to come out and it started to get loud. I asked if they could keep it down, though my neighbors are pretty far apart it's so quiet out where I live that any sound is amplified. Unfortunately no one listened to me, so I asked again and once again I was ignored. I think that was the final straw. I got up, slammed the door behind me and headed inside, I had it, it was time for bed and to end this horrible night.

The day started out so great and then just took a nose dive. I swore right then and there that this would be the last party I would throw. I was disappointed in my friends and myself. All I could do now was go to sleep and try and salvage the weekend by having a great Sunday.