SST: Fuzzy and Blue

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

Guess what my sister gave me for Christmas - I'll give you a hint:

You're right - a University of Michigan snuggie! I had my first chance to show off my fuzzy blue snuggie tonight at the Sugar Bowl party hosted by The Thirsty Lion pub in downtown Portland. I wish I had a better picture of it, but it was pretty dark in the pub, so the shot on the right will have to suffice. I blogged once before about the uniting power of Michigan football, and once again tonight I sat down at a table full of strangers and we instantly formed a bond due to our shared University of Michigan experience (except for the kid on the far left, who was an Michigan State fan - boo!).

I got a nice round of applause for the snuggie as I made my way to the front of the bar to pick up my prize from the halftime drawing - a $25 gift certificate to the selfsame bar. Between that and the waitress forgetting about my order and then comping my food and giving me a gift card for a free future appetizer, I made out like a bandit tonight.

This was a continuation of my recent winning streak, which is mostly connected to events at Yahoo!, some of which I have blogged about before. At the beginning of December we had our Yahoo! year-end party, which had a "Casino Night" theme. Poker chips were awarded for playing the various games, which could be redeemed for raffle tickets. I showed up near the beginning of the night and left before people had a chance to get too drunk, so I only ended up with four measly tickets (others told me they had accumulated twenty or thirty tickets).

After I got home from the party I got a text from a Brazilian coworker: "You just won the ipod touch!!!" I was really excited, but less than a minute later she sent me a second text: "sucker :-)"

I thought that was a pretty good prank, so I texted back: "hahaha" To which she responded: "sortudo" (Portuguese for "lucky"). At this point she had me confused, so I asked her in a text if I had really won, but she didn't respond that night.

The party fell on a Saturday night and I didn't happen to pass by the cubicle of the lady who organized the raffle until Tuesday. She stopped me and asked why I hadn't come by to pick up my prize earlier. She then handed me a shiny new iPod Touch.

I was totally surprised because I thought my Brazilian friend was just messing with me, so I went and asked her why she had texted me the word "sucker." "Because you suck. I wanted to win the iPod!" she said. I told her that in English the word "sucker" has the connotation of "I fooled you," and she said that she was not aware of that. She just thought it meant "one who sucks." Seems logical enough.

For most of my life I have never been the type to ever win anything, so this winning streak has been a welcome change. Even Michigan won tonight even though they played like crap. Maybe my winning streak rubbed off on them. Or maybe it was just the power of my snuggie.