Most importantly I got to enjoy appetizers and drinks with friends and loved ones at the local Ram Restaurant and brewery, we got stuffed on fried squid and loaded waffle fries and had fish and chips and pulled pork bombers plus some weird fried picked chips and sampled everything they had on tap from hefeweizen to pale ale to red ale to golden lager to porter, plus some really tasty 12 year old Johnny Walker.

My haul this year was fantastic, I got the new Gwar CD, John 5's (previously of Marilyn Manson) solo instrumental guitar album (pretty trippy, imagine Manson Primus and some generic arena metal band merging altogether and there you have it...) Mint copies of the original 80s Warrior Trilogy and Blood Of Kerensky Trilogy Battletech novels, an ounce of After Dinner pipe tobacco from the local Tinderbox (Air cured Virginia and Burley tobacco with slight caramel and vanilla flavor), a Heaven Cognac Cigar (cigars aren't my cup of tea but hey it's celebration bitches!), a bottle of Chimay Grande Reserve Trappist Ale and this...

A hand carved meerschaum pipe straight from Turkey, it's like a dragon saber-tooth cat monstrosity thing morphing out of an eagle, smokes like a dream can't wait to color it up from dun to rose to brown over the years.


(meerschaum slowly absorbs the nicotine and oils from the tobacco and gradually changes color, here's an older more well used meer for comparison, they slowly turn yellow and the rim of the bowl starts turning pink which my shitty cell phone camera failed to capture from any angle but whatever, over the years that pink will seep through the entire piece and then it will start the process over and starting turning brown.)


All in all I feel very loved and thankful I was able to enjoy the day with people that I care about. If ya'll were there I would have bought yous guys a round and a shot!

Thanks!