Gig 'Em!

So we're in College Station, TX, home of Texas A&M. We ate dinner tonight at a Mexican Restaurant called Los Norteños. Luckily, we made it through dinner without being attacked by Sureños.

So far, we're having a wonderful time here in the Great State of Texas. The last time I was here--in 1999--I spent three days in Galveston at my uncle's house, an antebellum mansion that he and his psycho wife ran as a bed and breakfast.

That was easily the weirdest three days of my life. My uncle's wife introduced me to her daughter by saying "YOU BETTER NOT FUCK HER, JOHN. She's your COUSIN."

I should point out that this was shocking on a couple of levels. First, it was a surprise that she was my cousin, since my uncle was on his third wife and he had a habit of marrying with women with at least three children. There was never any "It's a Girl!" announcement cards, or baptism invitations, or anything like that. Second, she was thirteen.

Anyway, my aunt also pulled an AR-15 on Mike Shepherd, with whom I was traveling. She ranted at me because the rest of the family in California "ignored" them. We went out to dinner at a Benihana-style Japanese restaurant, where my uncle got shit-faced drunk and started saying the only phrase he knew in Japanese, which translated roughly to "Remember the Big One."

Good times.

So anyway, on this trip, people have been nothing but pleasant. The flight was totally smooth, and one of the stewardesses said to me as we were exiting the plane in Houston, "I hope your Raiders start playing better." I told her I was going to hold my breath. The weather's great, we have plenty of beer, and tomorrow we're hooking up with Dan's brother to smoke a brisket and watch some football. Sunday we're going to a sportsbar so we can watch the Raiders, because we're masochists.