The Most Beautiful Girl In The Room (In The Whole Wide Room, Ooh) 9:41 AM

Tonight, we had a softball game. Last week was my first organized base/softball game in quite a few years, and I did fine. I played RCF (Right-Center Field) and went 1-3 with an infield hit and a run scored. This week, I had experience. Plus also, there was another variable.

I saw the hottest chick I have ever seen.

Now, when I say that, I probably don’t mean it literally. You know when you meet a girl, and she’s so strikingly beautiful that you think “Wow, this is the hottest chick I’ve ever seen”? That happened. She was wearing one of our team’s shirts and sitting behind me on the bleachers. I turned around to introduce myself, and noticed her ridiculous attractiveness. I tried, as men do, to keep it cool and not totally wig out. I think I did a decent job. We conversed a bit, but not enough for me to really learn anything of consequence about her, including whether or not she has a boyfriend (or girlfriend?). There wasn’t a lot of time to talk, as we had a game to win. She hit behind me,

1. Ray (the 45ish skinny athletic guy)
2. Nick (tall French guy, bearded)
3. Sunny (the short, stout, very good softball playing female)
4. Jack (my friend who brought me to this team)
5. Me (me)
6. Maria (The Most Beautiful Girl In The Room)
7. Glen (A guy I knew already, bearded)
8. Jackie (of the visibly softball-playing variety)
9. Chris (Manager, probably 35 or so)
10. I can’t remember the rest of the order

so we had a couple of “moments”, including her hitting a double while I was on first. I went 3-4 (I’m the only left-handed hitter on the team, by the by), drove in 2 runs and scored once. I was pleased. Oh yeah, and we won 13-8. For great justice.

Softball is such a fun experience already, but throwing the Most Beautiful Girl In The Room in there made it absolutely fantastic. I hope to see her next week. She probably has a boyfriend, as hot chicks are wont to do, but there’s a glimmer of hope.

Of course, I feel like a 14-years-old girl for even thinking about it this much. I should go fix a car or work with some wood or something.

I bet when she’s on the street (depending on the street) she’s definitely in the top 3.

- Mike “Obviously Obsessed With Flight of the Conchords” Lee-Thompson

Post Scriptum: This kind of thing (the “meeting a girl, and she’s so strikingly beautiful that you think ‘Wow, this is the hottest chick I’ve ever seen’”) has happened 3 or 4 times in my life, and this is the second time it has happened with a girl named Maria. Weird.

A Joke 9:40 AM

"A blind man and his guide dog enter a bar and find their way to a bar stool. After ordering a drink and sitting there for a while, the blind guy yells to the bartender, “Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?”

The bar immediately becomes absolutely quiet. In a husky, deep voice, the woman next to him says, “Before you tell that joke, you should know something. The bartender is blonde, the bouncer is blonde and I’m a 6’-tall, 200-lb. blonde with a black belt in karate. What’s more, the woman sitting next to me is blonde and she’s a weight lifter. The lady to your right is a blonde, and she’s a pro wrestler. Think about it seriously, Mister. You still wanna tell that joke?”

The blind guy thinks a moment and says, “Nah, not if I’m gonna have to explain it five times."

A Bit Of A Downer 9:40 AM

I got some disappointing news today in the form of finding out that a girl I was starting to really like at work has a boyfriend. Now, I know what you’re going to do - you’re going to evoke the timeless words of Lex Luthor (Smallville version) and say “A boyfriend isn’t a husband, he’s an obstacle”, but I don’t know this girl very well, so I’m just gonna drop it. It’s not like I was madly in love with her or anything, but it’s never the most fun thing to find out, especially at the beginning of an 8-hour work day.

I don’t think this will fan out the flame that is my recent upswing in general mood, but it certainly puts a damper on things. Tomorrow is softball practice, which will be great. I really enjoy playing a reasonable facsimile of baseball.

Max's Trivia Night 9:39 AM

I play trivia every Thursday night at Max’s, which is the best bar in Baltimore (check out the massive tap list at maxs.com). It’s a live trivia game with moderators and teams and stuff, not one of those cheap computer things they have at places like Buffalo Wild Wings. The format is as follows:

Round 1: 1 category, 10 relatively easy questions, usually two choices (e.g.

Round 2: 1 category, 5 increasingly difficult questions, increasing in points

Round 3: One topic, 10-15 answers (e.g. Name the 10 top-grossing movies of 2009, Name the 10 highest selling cars through the Cash for Clunkers program)

Round 4: 5 categories, self-ranked 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 points, and one Current Events question worth 25 points

Round 5: Final question, everyone wagers everything

We usually have a team of 4-8. I like smaller rather than larger, because with too many people it gets cluttered and it’s hard to choose an answer if no one is sure.

Last night, the second category was “Utensils”, and my first thought, which I immediately vocalized, was “Spatula City” (a commercial in the Weird Al movie UHF). As it turned out, that was the 4th question. I was happy.

We didn’t win. The last question was “GM went bankrupt, becoming the 4th largest corporation to do so - what are the top 3?”, which is pretty tough. It’s always fun, and made more fun by the excellent selection of beers at Max’s.

I may try to document all the questions on here, but writing down all the questions may be tough. The trivia heads have a website at quizamajig.com, which has some samples.

Intro Time 9:50 AM

So, this is not my first attempt at a blog, but the spirit has moved me to try once again. I don't know if this will be at all interesting, but I've been feeling more and more like I want to get some brain thoughts into text form, so here we are.

For your information, the username in the URL is pronounced like an English speaker who didn't know Spanish would pronounce it: "el-TOMP-so" ([ɛl.'tʰamp.soʊ] for the linguists). It's partly inspired by "El Barto" but mostly by the fact that the standardized tests in high school didn't have enough spaces for my name, so when I got the scores back, I was "Michael Lee-Thompso". I've definitely come to appreciate the "-o" ending on things since taking Latin, since a lot of words that end in "-on" in English end in "-o" in Latin (e.g. -tion words, the name "Jason", et al). The title of the blog is a phrase I often use to start a conversation topic with someone.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a 25-years-old man who lives in Baltimore, MD. I'm from a combination of northern IL and WI. I just moved in to a place where I'm living by myself for the first time ever, so that may be one impetus for this blog.

Let's see what happens.