what are YOU thankful for?

it seems that mr nice guy has lost a little momentum here with the old interweb diaryblog cybernet. he apologizes, you see, he has a life. (HA! that was quite possibly the funniest thing i have written yet.)

so. actually. mr nice guy was contemplating all the things for which he has to be thankful this year. you see there comes a time in every man's life when he is an expectant father and he has read enough updike to know that it is futile to rage against his lot in life so he might as well pour himself a heaping glass of shiraz and appreciate the finer things. here, then, is mr nice guy's list of things he is thankful for:

1. he is thankful you didn't point out that he just dangled his participle
2. heaping glasses of shiraz
3. the fact that his employer actually forced him to take a day off from work. sure, i have to be in on wednesday AND friday AND saturday. but it is with great reluctance that i take even thursday off
4. that i have a beautiful wife who has so far survived nearly 4 months of agonizing pregnancy
5. that i have survived nearly 4 months my beautiful wife's agonizing pregnancy
6. cabernet
7. my one-eyed cat who has no depth perception and makes me laugh every time she tries to jump on the bed but misses because she has no depth perception
8. all 3 of mr nice guy's readers (not including mater nice guy, who is a given but shouldn't be)
9. malbec
10. netflix (specifically: the entire CANNONBALL RUN oeuvre, especially the distinguished work of jack elam)
11. grenache
12. the greatest invention of all time--trumping even penicillin, the wheel and breakdancing--by which, of course, i mean the ipod. sweet merciful moses is ipod the greatest thing ever or what?
13. cockfights
14. the fact that an old friend of mine just used the AOL instachat protocol to tell me that "at this moment, everybody has somebody that doesn't live at their house passed out at their house." mr nice guy is at once thankful that this does not describe his life BUT that at least it is still prone to happen somewhere in this world
15. old-timey murder ballads in 3/4 time
16. that he has all his fingers and toes and they all work and he can only hope for the same to be true of the wee little monster growing in his wife at this precise horrifying moment
17. i am going to go out on a limb here and say zinfandel

that's it, i am chronically out of juice (and for that matter, chronically out of chronic). good night.