Half birthdays and sick days

I had never celebrated my half birthday until last week, to tell you the truth I never actually knew when it was, but now I'll never let a March 16 go by without suspicion of everyone and everything around me. Heather planned a surpise party, I thought we were heading out for a relaxing dinner at the Summer Shack and a whole group of our friends end up walking in the door and sitting down for dinner with us! We ended up moving downstairs for bowling at Kings, my second time ever with the normal size non-candlepin setup. Good times.

Unfortunately Heather and I seemed to be cursed on "holidays", because I felt myself coming down with something near the end of dinner and I knew it was going to be evil. By about 11 pm it had evolved into the worst stomach flu & fever nightmares I can remember having. I wouldn't wish my Thursday night through Saturday on anyone. But thanks for the pre-flu party!

Observations from a 48 hour sickness:

- 12 hours in front of the NCAA basketball tournament on a pull-out sofa bed in a delerious state due to a high fever makes time pass in a very very bizzare way.

- Two straight 12 hour stints on a pull-out sofa bed in front of the NCAA tournament with a high fever eventually makes your back hurt. A lot.

- Two straight 12 hour stints in front of the NCAA tournament doesn't burn you out, it actually makes you want even more NCAA tournament.

- Red Gatorade is better than blue Gatorade.

- Jello is highly underrated.

- An all-toast diet makes you appreciate good jam.

- The Applebees shrimp commercial with those two nitwits playing the Gilligan theme not only convinced me never to spend my money in Applebees again, but almost caused me to turn the tv off entirely. Almost. I saw (or otherwise registered from my limbo half-sleep) that damn ad at least 25 times.

- Indiana has the best warmup pants in the history of college basketball. The program must have inherited them from either the local hospital or a circus.

- College coaches wearing sport jackets in their university's color sometimes looks good (North Carolina) and sometimes doesn't (Tennessee, Alabama). But it's always cool.