Tuesday, Dec 23rd
1:25pm - Starting drinking beer at work. Bullshit about sports and stuff.
2:15pm - A prank Len and I pull on Carla goes sideways. Carla's not happy. It's still funny.
3:50pm - Meet Len at the old Scruffys. Order a beer. Call Carla. She's still not happy, and isn't meeting up with us now. We are highly amused.
6:25pm - Depart Scruffs after 5th beer there, go next door and buy train liquor.
7:10pm - Arrive at The Ivanhoe. Start consuming more beers with homeless-like people.
7:50pm - Leave Ivanhoe after 3 beers. I'm a case deep, Len's not far behind. And we haven't even left yet. Gnarly.
8:05pm - Wait in line for train. Len goes to Mickey D's. I order 3 filet-o-fishes, for some reason.
8:15pm - Train is boarding. I have consumed all 3 filets. I am unsure if this is safe. I can barely move. Len is laughing at me.
8:30pm - The train is supposed to depart. It doesn't. We go immediately to the drinking/snack area, where I am the first in line for beers. This is good.
8:32pm - The lineup is now out the door. I hand Len a beer, and he immediately gets in line while we make fun of each other and things in general. People are amused. I am basking in the glow of attention.
8:55pm - We have 4 empty cups at our table, and Len is in line again. The train still hasn't left. We are still entertaining. People love us.
9:30pm - We have 8 empty cups in front of us. The train still hasn't left. The drink salesman says he's closing at 10. We nearly riot. Drink guy isn't amused.
10:20pm - There are 6 people left in the drinking cart. The train finally leaves. We are out of liquor.
10:21pm - I remember that I brought booze with me. All is well in the world.
Wednesday, Dec 24th. Christmas Eve.
12:50am - The 6 of us have gone through all my vodka energy drinks, and a 1 liter bottle of Len's Vex. I tease Len about said "girly" Vex. I will eat my words later.
1:05am - Len goes back to his seat to pass out. Kid from Edmonton has brought out huge ipod speaker and we listen to loud music. Train attendant with curly hair (who I lovingly dub "Fuzzy Head") isn't amused. She tells us to keep it down. We laugh.
1:10am - Tim remembers he bought bottle of Carolans, and goes to get it. Tim is a hero to remaining crew.
1:20am - Carolans is gone. Tim convinces Australian girl to break into the drink/snack shop because she's tiny and can probably squeeze through. Midway into said squeeze, she is busted by Fuzzy Head. Fuzzy Head is angry, and wants us all to leave the drinking cart immediately. We refuse, and laugh at her. She storms off. We laugh heartily.
3:15am - Everyone finally disperses. Aussie girl is sitting in front of us, and is still talkative. I happily oblige, cuz she's cute. And I'm drunk.
3:16am - I remember Len still has a liter bottle of Vex left. I shake him awake and ask for it. He says no. I am shocked. Len reminds me about bugging him earlier. I apologize. This gets me nowhere. Len holds out for 2 or 3 more minutes, then finally coughs up the bottle. I am elated.
3:25am - The bottle is gone. Aussie girl is pretty drunk. I am too. We are unable to stay awake. This sucks.
4:15am - I'm woken up by lady across from me. The following conversation ensues:
Lady: "Can you tell your friend to turn his music down?"
Me: *shaking Len awake again* "Hey, hey...this lady here wants you to turn your music down."
Len: "Really? Well, tell her to quit fucking bitching!"
Lady: "EXCUSE ME?"
Tim, not sober enough to come up with anything wittier: "Uhh...he didn't mean that."
Lady: *Stare of Death*
Every 20 minutes until 8am: I wake up in pain due to uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. Len's music is super loud the whole time. I find this hilarious.
8:00am: Len goes for breakfast. He is forced to share a table with a couple who are done eating, yet sit there the whole time and stare at Len while he's eating. He's kinda freaked out. He refers to them as his "Breakfast Buddies".
8am-11am - I impatiently wait for the snack/drink store to re-open so I can continue drinking, while being surprisingly unhungover. Len watches his Lost DVDs in the drinking car, the only place on the entire train where you can plug stuff in. A guy sitting across from Len offers me some Crown when I go to talk to Len. I decline, more out of fear than anything. The scenery going by is amazing...frozen rivers, crazy mountain peaks...awesome stuff.
11am - I practically run to the drink store, to find this sign: "Out eating lunch, back at 11:30". My swearing is heard across the train, and the valley.
11:31am - Labatts Blue has made me whole again.
11:31am-2:45pm - Many beers are consumed. Creepy guy with the Crown is trying to convince kids to watch "The Aristocats" on his laptop, while hugging up on some girl he's fed a ton of Crown to. Len is more drunk than he should be. He finally admits his ginger ale is half full of rum, that he acquired from Crown guy.
2:55pm - A French Canadian guy announces over the speakers that "Ve are passing Mount Robson, ze highest mountain in ze Canadian Rockets". Yes, he actually said Canadian Rockets.
3:45pm - We are allowed one more beer each from the drink store before we're cut off. We have a litany of empty cups in front of us. Creepy guy tells us he put two sleeping pills in drunk girls drink, so she "doesn't go anywhere" when he's searching Jasper for coke. And I don't mean coca-cola.
4:15pm - Drunk girl is passed the fuck out in the corner. It's very odd.
5:15pm - Arrival in Jasper. We walk the few blocks to our hotel. It's not that cold out, probably -15 or so. We might just be warm cuz of all the booze, who knows. Snow-covered mountains all around us. Definitely a cool location.
5:45pm - To the pub for food/beer. They sell Pilsner by the bottle. This is a very good start. Len orders a burger with elk, bison, and deer in it. Seriously. I order the biggest chicken burger of all time. We consume so much food we can't even finish our beers. That's a lot of food.
6:45pm - Back at the hotel. Hangovers kicking in. I pass out, Len watches Lost DVD's and passes out.
11pm - I wake up. Len's still passed out. We've pretty much missed everything. Bars aren't open much longer. We can't go get booze from a liquor store. Restaurants are closed. It's about -183 outside. I wake Len up, who just snorts and demands iced tea. I spend all my change in the pop machine on iced tea and water. I settle in and watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on the Space Channel. Leave me alone, dammit.
Friday, December 25th. Christmas Day.
12:30am - Star Trek III - The Search for Spock. Apparently it's a movie marathon. I'm hungover.
3am - Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home. I'm oddly attracted to Vulcan women by this point, cuz they're the only women I've seen in the last 8 hours. I have no food, no beer, and no hope for any. All I have is Kirk and Spock. Is this really my life? Merry Christmas, dipshit.
10am - Wake up to a hindu banging on the door yelling "Service! Service!" One "Fuck off with your service!" and he's gone. Len is gone too. Odd. Not odd enough to stay awake, however.
10:35am - The door opens. I yell "HELLO!" cuz I think the cleaning hindu has let himself in. It's Len. He looks at me like I'm retarded. He's probably right. He went for the hotel breakfast, and now hates Aussies. Every employee at the hotel is Aussie (except for the cleaning hindu). And guess who was there for breakfast with him? His Breakfast Buddies from the train! Seriously.
10:36am - I'm back asleep approximately 9 seconds after he finishes telling me all this.
12:45pm - Exploring time! We decide to walk through the town and see what's open.
12:46pm - We stroll by Len's breakfast buddies. It's getting a little weird.
12:50pm - A restaurant close to our hotel is open! They have a beer sign outside! We decide to stroll on and see what else is open.
1:25pm - We stroll by Len's breakfast buddies.
1:50pm - The Mac's is open. A Cantonese alcohol-less restaurant is open. A Korean alcohol-less restaurant is open. That's fucking it. No pubs, no other restaurants, no strip clubs, not even the Pizza Hut. This town is deader than Heath Ledger.
2:01pm - There's still the first restaurant, at least. We arrive, hungry and beer-thirsty. As we stroll in, we're told (by a fucking Aussie, of course) "Sorry mates, we close at 2. We were only open for lunch.". Choke on a dingo and die, pesudo-foreigner.
2:10pm - Another convenience store is open closer to our hotel. I get a Salami sandwich and some Ruffles. Len got some other sorta sandwich, chips, and beef jerky. Yes people, this was our Christmas dinner.
2:20pm - Back at the hotel, we ask what time the bar opens there. "5pm", we're told. Tears roll down my face. Len steers me out of the lobby so no one sees me openly weeping.
2:22pm - Back in my bed in my hotel room, eating my tasty dinner. Guess what's on? Star Trek: Insurrection!
3pm - Finally, FINALLY something else is on TV. The comedy channel is showing a Comedy Roast marathon. Len's never seen the Flavor Flav roast.
3pm-4:45pm - We laugh hysterically at blatant racism. My favourite line (courtesy Jeffrey Ross) "Ice-T is so old, the first thing he bought with his record deal money was his freedom!"
4:45pm - I call the Jasper Park Lodge, the fancy 1000 dollar a night lodge up on the ski mountain, to see if they have bars open. Yes, yes they do. At least we have a fallback plan.
5:01pm - Hotel bar. Sweet, sweet bottle of pilly. Len orders Jager bombs. Dingo fucker says they're outta energy drinks. Jager shots it is.
5:05pm - Another pilsner.
5:45pm - Len says "Hey...there's some fuckin animals eating some shit over there". I look out the window. 3 elk are across the street eating grass poking through the snow. This is all sorts of cool. Only one thing could be cooler.
5:46pm - Another pilsner.
6:30pm - We're sick of being the only people in the hotel bar. Time to go outside. I walk right up to the elk, probably 10 feet away. They act like your average female and completely ignore me. Whores.
6:32pm - We decide to go explore again, to see if anything has opened up in the last 4 hours.
7:15pm - Nothing has.
7:25pm - Stop at Mac's so Len can buy smokes. Call cab to go to Jasper Park Lodge and their booze.
7:30pm - It's a 15 minute drive, but only 15 bucks to get there. Good deal. As we approach our hotel, Len says, with his typical tact "Oh hey, watch out up here...there's some fuckin caribous or some shit on the road". That was awesome. As we continue, the driver explains that Jasper has been super busy at Christmas every other year, and usually everything is open. This is the first year he can remember it being so Ledger. Just our luck.
7:45pm - I give him 20, cuz I'm nice to white people. I mean, taxi drivers.
7:46pm - Jesus fuck. We walk into, basically, our version of CHRISTMAS HELL. The first thing we hear is kids singing Christmas carols. We see a choir, led by a guy playing the piano. A fucking choir! Are you kidding me? We walk around a bit, and stumble across people that wipe their asses with money (not the coins, that would be weird). This huge, cavernous room is full of couches and tables full of people happily enjoying their Christmas. Len gave me one of his all-time best "What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into??" looks. He looks so annoyed that I think he's actually scared he might hurt someone. I don't blame him, cuz I am too. Not even booze can make this go away, unless I break the bottle and jam the shards of glass in my eyes and ears. Curse you, Jasper!
7:49pm - We stumble around until we find the bar. A nice waitress asks for our orders. "Caesar", I reply. "Mountain sized?", she asks. "That's sounds delightful!" I DID NOT say. I just grunted and nodded, while trying to cover my ears.
8:01pm - Huge caesars arrive, with a big prawn on top. Sweet. Can't taste the booze, but that's hardly surprising.
8:35pm - We're looking around like welfare cases at The Boathouse. It's obvious we don't fit in, we're not welcome, and we probably can't afford the drinks here anyway. We just talk amongst ourselves and try not to actually look at anyone. It's not hard, actually...there wasn't one decent woman in this entire cavern.
9:15pm - Even louder, non-Christmas music begins. An actual parade of Lodge employees strolls though single-file, all holding different types of foods on trays. Turkey guy? Check. Chocolate volcano guy? Check. Attractive women? Nyet. Len and I look at each other, even more horrified than before.
9:30pm - We can't help but laugh at the predicament we're in. We traveled on a train for a whole day to avoid Christmas, and we've ended up stumbling into a fucking scene right out of a Christmas movie. And we didn't even leave. We were THAT desperate for booze. Going through the long list of degenerate shit I've done in the name of alcohol...putting up with that for 2 hours might actually top the list.
9:45pm - We ask for the check.
9:50pm - It arrives. 2 ceasars, 4 beers...58 dollars. Nigga what? The ceasars were 14 dollars. EACH. FOURTEEN DOLLARS. You know what? Fuck Christmas.
10:20pm - Back at the hotel bar. More sweet Pillys, more Jager, some food. Guess who's in the bar. Len's breakfast buddies. He's getting seriously creeped out.
11pm - Bar closes. I'm not done drinking. I'm allowed to take beers to my room. Sweet. I have to pay 4.50 a beer. Not so sweet. I pony up for 6, hand the dingo fucker the 27 bucks (!), and waddle back to the room.
11:05pm - Bob Saget roast. "Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen walk into a bar. They say to the bartender "We'll have two Ass Hurts" and the bartender says "Well how do you make an Ass Hurt?" They reply "First, Bob Saget hands you a chocolate milk that he has just made. Then, you wake up three hours later lying on your stomach with your pajama pants pulled down around your ankles."
Saturday, December 26th. Boxing Day.
1am - Beer's gone. Sleepy time.
3:35am - Woke up from a nightmare. Stupid Dexter books.
10am - Awake yet again, start to get our shit together.
11:15am - Back at the restaurant that closed at 2 the day before. Ask for a beer. Dingo fucker doesn't know what kind of beer they sell. What the fuck?
11:45am - Get the fuck outta there and go find a real bar.
Noon - Find a real bar. The Whistle Stop Pub. Awesome layout.
1pm - Blissfully enjoying our last Pillys in Jasper.
1:30pm - Get to train station. Can't find train ticket to go home. Uh oh. Len laughs at me, and points out that he can't believe I lost it because I'm usually the responsible one. Apparently not this time!
1:35pm - I'm informed I have to buy a new ticket. 91 bucks. Guess I was pretty drunk when I got off the train originally, and forgot it. Oops. Len laughs at me again.
2pm - Score a group of 4 seats that face each other, so we can put our feet up when we sleep. Len's idea, and a great one at that.
2:25pm - Guy who made me buy new ticket runs up to me and tells me that he's really sorry, and my original ticket was in their safe the whole time. There's no time to get a refund there since the train leaves in 5 minutes, but I should be able to do it in Vancouver. Uh, okay.
2:30pm-5:30pm - I enjoy the insane scenery until it gets dark. Never seen anything like it. Extremely cool.
6pm - Find out that every bathroom on all the comfort-class cars are out of order. To use the bathroom, we have to walk back though all the cars, through the dining car, and use the bathroom in the first sleeper. All of us have to. This leads to lineups.
6:15pm - I barely hold on until it's my turn. I absolutely destroy said bathroom.
6:45pm - I get in line again.
6:55pm - I attempt to absolutely destroy bathroom again. As I get comfy, the train stops. The power stops. The fan stops. There is no noise. If I carry on my path of destruction, everyone waiting outside will hear this happen. I can't exactly hold it, so I very carefully destroy the bathroom. 3 emergency flushes, so not to offend all the turd burglars outside. Stupid train.
6:55pm-10pm - Variations of the above occur 3 more times. Len laughs at me every time. Great friend he is.
10pm - We arrive in Kamloops. I joke to Len that the train takes 9 hours from here, but a bus is only 4. If we got off now and jumped on a bus, we'd be home by 2am and could sleep in our own beds. If only I knew...
Saturday, December 27th. Fuck Whalley Day.
12:30am - We're still in Kamloops. Colour us unamused.
6:45am - Train stops just outside of Abbotsford.
9:45am - Train is still just outside of Abbotsford. Freight trains are stuck in front of us. As such, we are stuck as well. We are supposed to be arriving in Vancouver right now. We are highly annoyed, since our sleep was less than pleasant.
10:40am - We actually move!
12:10pm - Arrival is Surrey railyard. Train stops dead.
12:25pm - We are informed that the train "cannot navigate the yard", so they are sending buses to deliver us to the Via Rail station downtown. I'm 9km from home at this moment. The Via Rail station is 25km past my house.
1:15pm - The buses finally arrive, and...they load all the baggage onto the buses first.
1:30pm - They finally let us off. Len and I refuse to get on the bus. We're right beside the Patullo Bridge, in Lower Whalley. We decide to call a cab.
2pm - No cab arrives. Len's phone dies.
2:15pm - We decide we have no choice but to walk out to the skytrain.
3pm - We have walked 3.9km to the gas station on King George. We're soaked from all the wet snow. I want to use the phone to call someone, ANYONE, to come get us. I'm informed they don't have a phone at this station, and they won't call me a cab. Assholes. We're told to go to the skytrain station.
3:05pm - The entrance to the gas station is a LAKE. I'm actually informed later that the station was closed for a few hours because cars couldn't make it through this lake. Len and I have to navigate this thing to get to the skytrain. We try walking in the snow around it...and it turns out that was a part of the lake too. At the same time, we step into water than comes up close to my knees.
3:06pm - We're officially fucked. We're cold, soaked, and exhausted. We still have another kilometer or so to the station.
3:20pm - Arrive at the skytrain. No taxis are there. Len decides he isn't coming out for Lisa's birthday cuz he's soaked, and is gonna go home. He hands me the 50 cents change from buying his ticket, but I tell him to keep it "in case he needs to make a phone call".
3:22pm - Standing on the platform, I say to Len "After all this, watch now...the train will be not working".
3:23pm - "This is skytrain control...the train is not working."
3:30pm - A train arrives. I get on. Len is waiting on the platform to go the other way.
3:40pm - My train finally leaves. Len is still standing there.
3:50pm - There are no taxis at New West station. Nor are there any payphones.
3:55pm - Arrive at 22nd St. Skytrain station. Go to use phone. Realize I have no quarters. In fact, I have two toonies. The payphone doesn't take toonies. I have to buy a skytrain ticket for 1.75, to get a quarter. I call my dad. The call fails, and the phone eats my quarter.
3:57pm - I finally stop yelling "JESUS FUCK WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH THE FUCKING WORLD!" over and over.
3:58pm - I buy another skytrain ticket to get another quarter, to call my dad...who tells me he's snowed in and can't drive. I consider crying. Luckily, I'm too tired/wet/awesome to cry.
3:59pm - I look to my left. My saviour is there. The 101 bus home. No one sits around me. Wonder why.
4:20pm - I arrive home. I collapse in the doorway. My journey is complete.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
I hate Trevor Linden
I don't really hate Trevor Linden, but I'd probably be a whole lot more alert and a whole lot less hungover if the Canucks could have used their brains and retired his number on a WEEKEND. Instead, they pick a wednesday, and now my thursday is completely useless. Thanks Canucks...you bastards.
So, how hungover is Tim? I was walking from metrotown skytrain station to the bus loop, and I happened to look down and glance at my feet. Yes, I can actually still see my feet, assholes. Anyway, I look down, and what do I see?
A brown shoe. And a black shoe.
I shit you not, I was so fucking out of it I put on two different-coloured shoes to wear to work today. Nicely done, retard. And, of course, this would be the ONE day that a hot girl decides to sit across from me. And notice my attire. And stifle a laugh. I guess it was a good thing though, because she couldn't resist and had to ask what the deal was...if I knew hot women would talk to me about unmatching shoes, I woulda pulled that shit years ago! Anyway, I had to tell her I lost a bet. Go Tim. How original.
So, I'm sitting here at work drinking tomato juice and laughing at my own retardedness, and a (very dim) lightbulb turns on in my head. The hamster starts running on his wheel. Pick any shitty analogy you like. Anyway, I know my co-workers and boss will tease me about this when they notice, so I think "Hey! If I just take my shoes off and walk around in socks all day (like everyone else does here), I can hide my unmatching shoes and no one will notice!" Good idea, right?
No. I take off my shoes, and...guess. Fucking guess.
Yup, you guessed it. Two different-coloured socks. One grey, one black.
I'm not looking forward to the trip home.
So, how hungover is Tim? I was walking from metrotown skytrain station to the bus loop, and I happened to look down and glance at my feet. Yes, I can actually still see my feet, assholes. Anyway, I look down, and what do I see?
A brown shoe. And a black shoe.
I shit you not, I was so fucking out of it I put on two different-coloured shoes to wear to work today. Nicely done, retard. And, of course, this would be the ONE day that a hot girl decides to sit across from me. And notice my attire. And stifle a laugh. I guess it was a good thing though, because she couldn't resist and had to ask what the deal was...if I knew hot women would talk to me about unmatching shoes, I woulda pulled that shit years ago! Anyway, I had to tell her I lost a bet. Go Tim. How original.
So, I'm sitting here at work drinking tomato juice and laughing at my own retardedness, and a (very dim) lightbulb turns on in my head. The hamster starts running on his wheel. Pick any shitty analogy you like. Anyway, I know my co-workers and boss will tease me about this when they notice, so I think "Hey! If I just take my shoes off and walk around in socks all day (like everyone else does here), I can hide my unmatching shoes and no one will notice!" Good idea, right?
No. I take off my shoes, and...guess. Fucking guess.
Yup, you guessed it. Two different-coloured socks. One grey, one black.
I'm not looking forward to the trip home.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bus follies, Part 22
Loud people in public drive me nuts. On the busride to work today, an asian guy sat next to me and was talking so fucking loud to the woman next to him, I had to turn up the volume on my ipod. That led to him tapping me on the shoulder insistently, and this gem of an exchange:
Him: 'Whyyy is yo music so loud?'
Me: 'Why is your voice so loud?'
Him: 'I not loud. Yo music loud. Velly annoying.'
Me: 'If you weren't fucking screaming at the person next to you, I wouldn't have to listen to it at such a high vol--'
Him: 'My language spoken like dat! Not loud! Cantonese spoken like dat!'
Me: 'Buddy, you're not the only cantonese-speaking guy on this bus. Are any of them fucking screaming at each other? Only you, bud--'
Him: (Screaming again): 'Not loud! Not loooooud!!'
Asian guy across from me: 'Shut. Up. You're a disgrace to our people'.
Me: 'Yea, you're a disgrace to your people.'
Him: 'Not loooud! 'Fuck you! Fuuuuck you!'
He got thrown off the bus for causing a disturbance. Seriously, is Cantonese supposed to be yelled at each other instead of spoken? What kinda shit is that?
Him: 'Whyyy is yo music so loud?'
Me: 'Why is your voice so loud?'
Him: 'I not loud. Yo music loud. Velly annoying.'
Me: 'If you weren't fucking screaming at the person next to you, I wouldn't have to listen to it at such a high vol--'
Him: 'My language spoken like dat! Not loud! Cantonese spoken like dat!'
Me: 'Buddy, you're not the only cantonese-speaking guy on this bus. Are any of them fucking screaming at each other? Only you, bud--'
Him: (Screaming again): 'Not loud! Not loooooud!!'
Asian guy across from me: 'Shut. Up. You're a disgrace to our people'.
Me: 'Yea, you're a disgrace to your people.'
Him: 'Not loooud! 'Fuck you! Fuuuuck you!'
He got thrown off the bus for causing a disturbance. Seriously, is Cantonese supposed to be yelled at each other instead of spoken? What kinda shit is that?
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Next Trip
I guess that was a misleading title, cuz I'm not actually referring to my "next trip". I'm referring to...the trip after the trip after the next trip. Here's my schedule:
1. Friday-monday: Vegas. Helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon. I might die, which makes the rest of this stuff sorta outta the question.
2. Dec 23rd-26th: Jasper, via 20 hour train ride, with Len. The train sells booze. We might get thrown off before we get there. If this happens, it will be Christmas in a bar in Blue River. Or Valemount. Or something.
3. The real purpose of this blog. From May 10th-28th I'm will be in....
Wait for it...
New Zealand! And the Cook Islands!
I just booked the whole thing, and got a pretty good fucking deal on it, if I do say so myself. It's gonna rule. I'm ridiculously hyped, as you can probably tell.
Now, I just have to convince people to come with. If I can't, it's all good...I'm cool with goin myself. If I can, it'll save me money on hotels. So, if anyone wants to go to the land o' Kiwis and hobbits, let me know!
1. Friday-monday: Vegas. Helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon. I might die, which makes the rest of this stuff sorta outta the question.
2. Dec 23rd-26th: Jasper, via 20 hour train ride, with Len. The train sells booze. We might get thrown off before we get there. If this happens, it will be Christmas in a bar in Blue River. Or Valemount. Or something.
3. The real purpose of this blog. From May 10th-28th I'm will be in....
Wait for it...
New Zealand! And the Cook Islands!
I just booked the whole thing, and got a pretty good fucking deal on it, if I do say so myself. It's gonna rule. I'm ridiculously hyped, as you can probably tell.
Now, I just have to convince people to come with. If I can't, it's all good...I'm cool with goin myself. If I can, it'll save me money on hotels. So, if anyone wants to go to the land o' Kiwis and hobbits, let me know!
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Boston, part 1
Boston, how I love thee. You are a source of endless entertainment, cheap beer, and towns that are prononuced nothing like the way they're spelled. Billerica? Brickah. Concord? Conkid. Marlborough? Mallbro. I don't get it either. I used to think they had the coolest accents ever...but 6 days in New England changed that slightly. I'll get to that laydah.
After a nice flight and efficient transit trip from the airport to Watertown, I arrived at the complex where Jess supposedly worked. I was a little confused because the complex was really nice, and Jess is...well, a bitch. Why would a company that could afford all this hire a guy that can't even fly a kite without falling down multiple times? A guy who burned his lip eating a hot dog off the searing metal pole he just cooked it on? As I considered all this, I heard 'BITCH!' coming from behind me...apparently I was in the right place, somehow.
Jess dropped me off at his building, gave me a key and directions to the liquor store (across the street!), and went back to work for the rest of the day. After a trip to the store for a 6.99 case of Natty Light (best beer ever!), I sat around his place for a while and chilled. Jess had recently moved to Boston to take a job at the nice-complex place, and they were nice/rich enough to put him up in a sweet condo for his first few months there. And pay his rent. Average rent? 1735 a month. I hate him. The place was super nice...so nice that I felt kinda ridiculous walking through the lobby with my 7 dollar case of beer. Obviously it didn't stop me though. After Jess got home, we headed downtown with his buddy Jeremy and had a few beers in a pub attached to Fenway Park, then called it a night pretty early.
August 28th will live in infamy. The perfect storm of weird shit that went down is almost too ridiculous to believe, and it could only happen to Jess and I. We've been to a lot of places together, and no place ever defeated us quite like...Rhode Island.
It started innocently enough. Jess went to work, and I was going to go check Harvard out...but I only got as far as the pizza place a couple of blocks away. Jess got off work, and we headed south. Before we left, I asked him if I should bring the spare keys he had given me for the building/apartment. He said there was no need. No big deal, right? Yea, we'll see.
First stop was Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. The stadium is incredibly nice, maybe even cooler than Qwest Field in Seattle. But the highlight is the CBS Scene restaurant at the stadium...it was unbelievable. 4 floors, and a stairwell down the middle with a massive wraparound TV screen covering the whole 4 floors, all around it. It was awesome.
After that awesomeness, we headed further south to Providence, Rhode Island. Parked, went to Tim Hortons, which are everywhere in New England for some reason, and went for a walk. The downtown was seemingly deserted...we didn't see much of anybody. After walking for a bit, we could hear what sounded like a really loud TV, so we went to see what it was. We walked around the corner, and BAM...like 200 people are sitting/standing around watching an old movie being displayed on the side of a brick building. It was extremely odd...everyone was silent, looking at us like WE were the weird ones. Sorry, we don't watch movies in parking lots at home, hippies.
After exploring some more and not coming across many people, we headed down to where we knew some bars were. There were 2 next to each other...one had a lounge singer outside, belting out the hits (and misses), and getting yelled at by some drunk chick...so we went to the other one, a brewpub. Had a couple beers, chilled for a bit...then headed back to the car to go home.
This is where shit went sideways.
Walking back from the pub, we stop to watch some (legal) girls rollerskating, and Jess says 'Fuck, I can't find my keys.' I think he's kidding for a minute or 2...then, uh oh. He really doesn't have them. We go back to the pub, and ask the bartender. Nope, no keys. We look around, no keys. We retrace our steps all the way back to the Timmy Ho's, which is closed. Jess bangs on the window to talk to the one chick still in there...she tell him nope, no keys, without even looking.
Whore.
Maybe he left them in the car, right? He said he's done that before. It was the only other logical place to check. Obviously, we can't get INTO the car, so Jess called AAA and spent 60 bucks to join on the spot. AAA guy shows up, pops the lock, and...no keys in the car. Joyous. We retrace our steps again...movie weirdos, pub...nuthin. The Tim Horton's was being renovated, and there were construction workers inside...the AAA guy banged on the door till one of the guys came over, and Jess explained the situation. He checked the whole place...no keys.
Jess didn't want to leave his car there, because it was parked on a metered street and would have been towed in the morning. And we couldn't stay the night there, cuz Jess had to work the next day. So the only solution he could come up with was....to get it towed home. 100km, back to Boston.
Oh don't worry, it gets more odd.
While waiting on the tow truck, a car pulls up in front of us, and tries to parallel park in front of Jess....and backs right into his car. Jess just threw his hands up in the air and yelled 'SHE JUST HIT MY CAR!' So, she gets outta the car...and she's hot. Her friend is too. She apologizes profusely, and disappears. Luckily there was no damage.
Approximately 40 seconds after they walk away, the tow truck shows up...a flatbed tow truck. There is no way for the guy to load the car onto the flatbed, because the broad just parked in front of him. So he had to call ANOTHER tow truck to angle it out. Right as that tow truck shows up...the girls come back to their car, and up to Jess. 'I'm sooo sorry about hitting your car. I totally want to buy you and your friend a drink. We're gonna be at that cafe right there, and you two should totally come over there and have a drink with us.'
This never happens to Jess, or I. Like, EVER. Hot women don't offer to buy us drinks. It's unthinkable. Of course, that went down the tubes with 2 comments.
Jess, with a shocked/defeated/stupid look on his face: 'Bah. I'm married.'
Tow truck driver: 'They don't have time, I'm towing them to Boston!'
Thanks, assholes.
Anyways, I asked them if they could move their car so the tow truck driver could get the car out...they agree to move it, and say AGAIN that we should come to the bar. I just about said Fuck This Shit! and went with them...but let's face it, I'd screw it up for sure and be left all alone in this fucking ghost town. So, I went with Jess. Second tow truck towed the car to a parking lot where first tow truck (flatbed) loaded it on. We jumped in and headed back to Boston with Joey the Rhode Island tow truck driver. Along the way, we were given a hilarious Rhode Island history lesson...Providence used to really suck, till the downtown was spruced up a few years ago. People from Massachussetts apparently suck, because they're all 'big drinkahs'. And he used to be the tow truck king of RI, until AAA came in and took all his business. His AAA hate was quite epic, and funny considering he got the job to drive us back to Boston from....AAA.
After getting lost on the way back (Joey had been there 'a million times', but didn't know how to read street signs), and stopping so Jess could get cash, we finally get back to the building and drop the car off in the parking lot. Jess pays Joey the 150 bucks for the glorified cabride home, and the misadventure is over. Right?
Not a chance.
Jess has no keys to get into the building, or his apartment. And I didn't bring the spare set, cuz Jess said there was no need. Oh, the irony. There's an 'in case of emergency' phone number on the wall, so Jess calls. They route the call to the maintenance lady, who says she'll be right there. In 40 minutes. She lived on the other side of town in Lynn, and had to come all the way over to Watertown to let our stupid asses into the building and apartment at 1am. Then drive 40 minutes home. And she had to be back at work at 6am. Needless to say, she was not a happy man-looking woman when she arrived, but she let us in.
So Jess has spent 210 bucks so far, and he now has a car in the guest parking lot of his building, and no keys to drive it to work in the morning. I have...well, blue balls cuz those broads were hot. And Joey the tow truck driver had 150 bucks and probably got lost on the way back home.
Story over? Nyet.
Wake up in the morning, Jess cabs it to work, and starts calling Honda about making him a new key. It's a fancy key with a chip in it, so it's not cheap. 125 bucks for the key, and 500 for a new immobilizer, to be precise. And it was going to take a WEEK! Since he didn't seem to have a choice, he was gonna go forward with that.
Until his phone rang.
It was his apartment building calling. They received a call from the Union Street Brewery, in Providence, RI. Apparently they found a set of keys, and called the # on the building keycard.
Motherfuckers! We went back to that fucking pub TWICE and asked about them, and they said they didn't fucking have them. Since Jess was at work and he had no car to get back there (obviously!), he sent his trusty hungover friend down there on the commuter rail. Fuck.
Bus to rail station: 30 minutes. Train to Providence: 75 minutes. Time in Providence to retrieve keys: 12 minutes. Train back to Boston: 75 minutes. Bus back to apartment: 30 minutes. Total time? 222 minutes of my life I will never get back.
To make it worse, my ipod died 20 minutes after I left, and there was a Red Sox game that night so coming back was fucking hell. The train was sardine-style, and I had to stand the whole way.
So, it's official. Jess and I HATE Rhode Island. Hate is too mellow of a word. I hope the state dies in a fire. I hope they take it's statedom away and demote it to a county. It's not even a fucking island. What kind of retard lives in a place called an island that's not even an island? Oh yea, the kind of retard that can't see keys sitting right in front of them until the next fucking day. The kind of retard that watches a movie in a fucking parking lot.
In case you missed what I'm trying to say here...Fuck Rhode Island.
I will continue the Boston misadventures in my next blog. They will include...calling the cops, Jess getting high roller drunk, casinos in the middle of nowhere, Fenway hilarity, and much much more. Stay tuned.
After a nice flight and efficient transit trip from the airport to Watertown, I arrived at the complex where Jess supposedly worked. I was a little confused because the complex was really nice, and Jess is...well, a bitch. Why would a company that could afford all this hire a guy that can't even fly a kite without falling down multiple times? A guy who burned his lip eating a hot dog off the searing metal pole he just cooked it on? As I considered all this, I heard 'BITCH!' coming from behind me...apparently I was in the right place, somehow.
Jess dropped me off at his building, gave me a key and directions to the liquor store (across the street!), and went back to work for the rest of the day. After a trip to the store for a 6.99 case of Natty Light (best beer ever!), I sat around his place for a while and chilled. Jess had recently moved to Boston to take a job at the nice-complex place, and they were nice/rich enough to put him up in a sweet condo for his first few months there. And pay his rent. Average rent? 1735 a month. I hate him. The place was super nice...so nice that I felt kinda ridiculous walking through the lobby with my 7 dollar case of beer. Obviously it didn't stop me though. After Jess got home, we headed downtown with his buddy Jeremy and had a few beers in a pub attached to Fenway Park, then called it a night pretty early.
August 28th will live in infamy. The perfect storm of weird shit that went down is almost too ridiculous to believe, and it could only happen to Jess and I. We've been to a lot of places together, and no place ever defeated us quite like...Rhode Island.
It started innocently enough. Jess went to work, and I was going to go check Harvard out...but I only got as far as the pizza place a couple of blocks away. Jess got off work, and we headed south. Before we left, I asked him if I should bring the spare keys he had given me for the building/apartment. He said there was no need. No big deal, right? Yea, we'll see.
First stop was Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. The stadium is incredibly nice, maybe even cooler than Qwest Field in Seattle. But the highlight is the CBS Scene restaurant at the stadium...it was unbelievable. 4 floors, and a stairwell down the middle with a massive wraparound TV screen covering the whole 4 floors, all around it. It was awesome.
After that awesomeness, we headed further south to Providence, Rhode Island. Parked, went to Tim Hortons, which are everywhere in New England for some reason, and went for a walk. The downtown was seemingly deserted...we didn't see much of anybody. After walking for a bit, we could hear what sounded like a really loud TV, so we went to see what it was. We walked around the corner, and BAM...like 200 people are sitting/standing around watching an old movie being displayed on the side of a brick building. It was extremely odd...everyone was silent, looking at us like WE were the weird ones. Sorry, we don't watch movies in parking lots at home, hippies.
After exploring some more and not coming across many people, we headed down to where we knew some bars were. There were 2 next to each other...one had a lounge singer outside, belting out the hits (and misses), and getting yelled at by some drunk chick...so we went to the other one, a brewpub. Had a couple beers, chilled for a bit...then headed back to the car to go home.
This is where shit went sideways.
Walking back from the pub, we stop to watch some (legal) girls rollerskating, and Jess says 'Fuck, I can't find my keys.' I think he's kidding for a minute or 2...then, uh oh. He really doesn't have them. We go back to the pub, and ask the bartender. Nope, no keys. We look around, no keys. We retrace our steps all the way back to the Timmy Ho's, which is closed. Jess bangs on the window to talk to the one chick still in there...she tell him nope, no keys, without even looking.
Whore.
Maybe he left them in the car, right? He said he's done that before. It was the only other logical place to check. Obviously, we can't get INTO the car, so Jess called AAA and spent 60 bucks to join on the spot. AAA guy shows up, pops the lock, and...no keys in the car. Joyous. We retrace our steps again...movie weirdos, pub...nuthin. The Tim Horton's was being renovated, and there were construction workers inside...the AAA guy banged on the door till one of the guys came over, and Jess explained the situation. He checked the whole place...no keys.
Jess didn't want to leave his car there, because it was parked on a metered street and would have been towed in the morning. And we couldn't stay the night there, cuz Jess had to work the next day. So the only solution he could come up with was....to get it towed home. 100km, back to Boston.
Oh don't worry, it gets more odd.
While waiting on the tow truck, a car pulls up in front of us, and tries to parallel park in front of Jess....and backs right into his car. Jess just threw his hands up in the air and yelled 'SHE JUST HIT MY CAR!' So, she gets outta the car...and she's hot. Her friend is too. She apologizes profusely, and disappears. Luckily there was no damage.
Approximately 40 seconds after they walk away, the tow truck shows up...a flatbed tow truck. There is no way for the guy to load the car onto the flatbed, because the broad just parked in front of him. So he had to call ANOTHER tow truck to angle it out. Right as that tow truck shows up...the girls come back to their car, and up to Jess. 'I'm sooo sorry about hitting your car. I totally want to buy you and your friend a drink. We're gonna be at that cafe right there, and you two should totally come over there and have a drink with us.'
This never happens to Jess, or I. Like, EVER. Hot women don't offer to buy us drinks. It's unthinkable. Of course, that went down the tubes with 2 comments.
Jess, with a shocked/defeated/stupid look on his face: 'Bah. I'm married.'
Tow truck driver: 'They don't have time, I'm towing them to Boston!'
Thanks, assholes.
Anyways, I asked them if they could move their car so the tow truck driver could get the car out...they agree to move it, and say AGAIN that we should come to the bar. I just about said Fuck This Shit! and went with them...but let's face it, I'd screw it up for sure and be left all alone in this fucking ghost town. So, I went with Jess. Second tow truck towed the car to a parking lot where first tow truck (flatbed) loaded it on. We jumped in and headed back to Boston with Joey the Rhode Island tow truck driver. Along the way, we were given a hilarious Rhode Island history lesson...Providence used to really suck, till the downtown was spruced up a few years ago. People from Massachussetts apparently suck, because they're all 'big drinkahs'. And he used to be the tow truck king of RI, until AAA came in and took all his business. His AAA hate was quite epic, and funny considering he got the job to drive us back to Boston from....AAA.
After getting lost on the way back (Joey had been there 'a million times', but didn't know how to read street signs), and stopping so Jess could get cash, we finally get back to the building and drop the car off in the parking lot. Jess pays Joey the 150 bucks for the glorified cabride home, and the misadventure is over. Right?
Not a chance.
Jess has no keys to get into the building, or his apartment. And I didn't bring the spare set, cuz Jess said there was no need. Oh, the irony. There's an 'in case of emergency' phone number on the wall, so Jess calls. They route the call to the maintenance lady, who says she'll be right there. In 40 minutes. She lived on the other side of town in Lynn, and had to come all the way over to Watertown to let our stupid asses into the building and apartment at 1am. Then drive 40 minutes home. And she had to be back at work at 6am. Needless to say, she was not a happy man-looking woman when she arrived, but she let us in.
So Jess has spent 210 bucks so far, and he now has a car in the guest parking lot of his building, and no keys to drive it to work in the morning. I have...well, blue balls cuz those broads were hot. And Joey the tow truck driver had 150 bucks and probably got lost on the way back home.
Story over? Nyet.
Wake up in the morning, Jess cabs it to work, and starts calling Honda about making him a new key. It's a fancy key with a chip in it, so it's not cheap. 125 bucks for the key, and 500 for a new immobilizer, to be precise. And it was going to take a WEEK! Since he didn't seem to have a choice, he was gonna go forward with that.
Until his phone rang.
It was his apartment building calling. They received a call from the Union Street Brewery, in Providence, RI. Apparently they found a set of keys, and called the # on the building keycard.
Motherfuckers! We went back to that fucking pub TWICE and asked about them, and they said they didn't fucking have them. Since Jess was at work and he had no car to get back there (obviously!), he sent his trusty hungover friend down there on the commuter rail. Fuck.
Bus to rail station: 30 minutes. Train to Providence: 75 minutes. Time in Providence to retrieve keys: 12 minutes. Train back to Boston: 75 minutes. Bus back to apartment: 30 minutes. Total time? 222 minutes of my life I will never get back.
To make it worse, my ipod died 20 minutes after I left, and there was a Red Sox game that night so coming back was fucking hell. The train was sardine-style, and I had to stand the whole way.
So, it's official. Jess and I HATE Rhode Island. Hate is too mellow of a word. I hope the state dies in a fire. I hope they take it's statedom away and demote it to a county. It's not even a fucking island. What kind of retard lives in a place called an island that's not even an island? Oh yea, the kind of retard that can't see keys sitting right in front of them until the next fucking day. The kind of retard that watches a movie in a fucking parking lot.
In case you missed what I'm trying to say here...Fuck Rhode Island.
I will continue the Boston misadventures in my next blog. They will include...calling the cops, Jess getting high roller drunk, casinos in the middle of nowhere, Fenway hilarity, and much much more. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
4OTF
I was given the opportunity to write a guest post on an MMA site, www.fourouncestofreedom.com. It's an MMA blog about an aspiring cage fighter, which has recently decided to change their format a bit and cover more mainstream MMA news. It's a part of the Rudius network, which alsos hosts pages like www.tuckermax.com and philalawyer.net. It's a pretty hardcore MMA article, so if you don't follow the sport closely you'll likely have no idea what I'm talking about...but I wouldn't be a good writer if I didn't pimp my work, right?
Anyways, check it out, let me know what you think if you're so inclined.
EDIT - I'm now the full time writer for the site.
http://www.fourouncestofreedom.com/
Anyways, check it out, let me know what you think if you're so inclined.
EDIT - I'm now the full time writer for the site.
http://www.fourouncestofreedom.com/
Thursday, October 16, 2008
DC, part 2
Here we go again.
So I woke up after a blissful yeungling-induced sleep in the comfiest bed ever. It's 9:30am, DC time. I'm super excited to go check out this city...for about 3 seconds, till I realized it's only 6:30 where I'm from.
4 hours later, it was time to see DC!
I took the metro into town, and got off at the stop that looked to be in the middle of the stuff I wanted to check out. Exit metro, go up the stairs...and I guess I was right. I am literally in the middle of eeeverything. To the left is the Washington Monument. To the right is the Capitol. In front of me is the Natural History Museum. Behind me...well, there are some asian tourists that are yelling 'Tayka pickcha! Tayka pickcha!' at each other...they're everywhere, folks.
My guidebook said it was a 2.2 mile 'beautiful grassy expanse' between the monument and the Capitol. The 2.2 miles part was correct. But beautiful grassy expanse? Try massive dustbowl with some semi-dead grassy patches. I haven't seen a lawn that unkempt since I saw these naked Icelandic bitches at www. hairyicela...what, too much info?
Where was I? Oh yea, DC. My first goal was to go to the Natural History Museum in front of me to see some dinosaurs! I figured it would be kind of anticlimactic, since I get to reside with a living, breathing dinosaur...but it was still cool (Just kidding dad!). It's a pretty sweet museum, actually. Some massive dinosaur skeletons, the Hope Diamond, a few other things. I spent an hour or so meandering about, then headed over to the Air and Space Museum. It was gigantic...it holds the capsule from an Apollo space mission, at least 15 full-sized planes from various eras, blah blah. I'm a weirdo though, cuz my favourite part of the whole museum was...the McDonalds.
It was, without a doubt, the biggest Mickey D's I have ever seen in my life. Over 1000 seats. One thousand. No joke. Serves 15,000 people a day. It has like 20 'lanes' where they rifle you through quicker than a fucking gas chamber lineup. Employees SCREAMED at you to keep moving. It was crazily militant, yet absurdly efficient. I can't imagine what they would do if you tried to get picky with your order....'You want extra pickles? Here's your fucking extra pickles!' as the Hamburglar violates you in the pooper and humiliates you in front of everyone. So yea...it was intense. Nice place though. And I have an overactive imagination, apparently.
After that, I walked up to the Capitol (which was pretty awesome), then into another museum, then took the metro back to the monument. It's...a big penis in the sky. Woo. One thing I should note is that every museum in DC is free, which is a bonus. And they're absolutely massive, so there were no lines at all. DC has tourism down to a science...I've never seen such efficiency anywhere else. This was a plus and a minus, though. I had scheduled 4 days to see everything I wanted to check out...after 4 hours though, I had already covered 80% of it. So, after all that efficiency...I figured it was time to get drunk. Duh. This is me we're talking about.
I was gonna go find 2 or 3 of the pubs I had heard so much about, but...I still had 3 days to kill in this place. I figured a nice, relaxing night with a case of beer in a hotel room never hurt anyone. In other words...I did the exact same thing that I did the night before. Yeungling, huge TV, dope hotel room...and Comedy Central. They had a Bob Saget roast on, and I nearly died laughing. It was awesome. It was so funny, I watched it twice. The 2nd time was actually funnier cuz I was drunk and forgot half of the first viewing...go Tim.
***Side note - Barack Obama just said something hilarious on CNN, and I wanna share it with you:
'My greatest strength? My humility. My greatest weakness? I might just be too awesome.' ***
Aaaand we're back.
So after Saget and Stamos were verbally raped, I was just watching random comedy stuff and chillin...till I heard what might be the funniest line I've ever endured. It's totally retarded, and you might not find it that funny at all...but after 12 yeunglings (times 2!) it was incredible. Here goes:
'I don't date girls from China. Why? Cuz that's a huge red flag!!'
'And I'm racist.'
Funny? Yes? No? I laughed again as I typed it, so it's funny. It's my blog, dammit.
Ooookay. So I watched some Hannah Montana for a while, then passed out. Don't tread on me, that show is funny. After another retardedly comfy sleep, I had to check out of my dope hotel and go check into another. When I originally planned the trip, I had planned on DC for 2 days, and Baltimore for 2. When I found out Baltimore was Compton-like, I changed it up. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good deal at hotelopia anymore, so I ended up at a Radisson a couple of miles away, in Crystal City.
After checking out the Pentagon for a bit, I checked out the hood around the new hotel. Down the street was a little shopping center, with these establishments, in order from left to right:
Thai Restaurant. Check cashing place. Strip Club. 7/11.
I have never, ever seen a strip club directly next door to a 7/11 before. Naturally, I had to go in and see what 7/11 strippers look like, right? Hell no. 20 dollar cover at 2pm on a monday kinda killed that idea. Bullshit. So I went to a sports pub for shitty service and expensive beer. 15 minutes to get acknowledged...and there were maybe 7 other people in the bar. Needless to say, I didn't last long. Crystal city so far was...odd. I was fed up with Virginia for the moment, so I took the metro back to DC and went to find a bar I had been told about. It's called the Brickskeller.
The Brickskeller is heaven for beer drinkers. They sell 1000 different beers. 1000. A different one for every seat in the museum McDonalds. They hand you a binder/menu, and you choose. It was epic. I tried a few different types...some good, some not so good. After a few hours it started to get busy, so I headed out and went to check out the Foggy Bottom area. Went to a couple of other bars, nothing too special. Headed back to Crystal City early, got beer from the Gentleman's 7/11, ordered pizza, and bet on approximately 12 baseball games. Drank said beer, lost 10 of the 12 fucking bets, and passed out on the uncomfy adjustable bed. Fucking Mets.
Last day in DC. I was gonna head to Baltimore for the day, but I was incredibly lazy, and taking the train seemed too complicated. Looking back, it was retarded...I totally should have gone up there...but I had ZERO motivation that day for some reason. I dragged my ass back to the sports pub up the street reluctantly, but received a completely different reception. A ridiculously hot waitress served me right away, the food was awesome, and she even came back and sat with me and bullshitted for a while. She gave me a free Stella too, cuz 'Canadians are awesome'. Because I'm so witty and charming, my responses to her questions usually involved drool, grunting, and staring at her tits...but I'm sure she's used to this kinda thing. And I repped the country like a fucking hero. I stood on guard for thee. By thee, I mean her boobs.
After all that hard work...I went and took a nap. I still hadn't seen the White House and I was leaving at 10am the next day...but I had zero desire to be a tourist that day. My hotel had a bar, so I went down there and watched some baseball for a while...before I knew it, it was midnight and I was unsober. 7/11, more comedy central and Hannah Montana...yea, it was a complete waste of a day. And don't hate on Miley, she's witty. Like me!
In the morning, I learned a new traveling lesson.
Lesson 454, Subsection B, part IV: It might seem cool to charge your drinks to your room at the hotel bar, but you quickly lose track of the numero of the cervezas that you...uh, drinko. The 90 dollar bill that awaited my checkout was not exactly awesome, considering a case of beer was 7 dollars across the street. Again...Go Tim.
Anyways, I headed out on the metro to check out the White House before I headed up to the airport. I got there and...it's the White House. You can't really get anywhere near it. The guards are cranky. There are weirdos all over the place, even at 7am on a wednesday. Go figure. So, onto the airport, then...
Next stop....Boston!
So I woke up after a blissful yeungling-induced sleep in the comfiest bed ever. It's 9:30am, DC time. I'm super excited to go check out this city...for about 3 seconds, till I realized it's only 6:30 where I'm from.
4 hours later, it was time to see DC!
I took the metro into town, and got off at the stop that looked to be in the middle of the stuff I wanted to check out. Exit metro, go up the stairs...and I guess I was right. I am literally in the middle of eeeverything. To the left is the Washington Monument. To the right is the Capitol. In front of me is the Natural History Museum. Behind me...well, there are some asian tourists that are yelling 'Tayka pickcha! Tayka pickcha!' at each other...they're everywhere, folks.
My guidebook said it was a 2.2 mile 'beautiful grassy expanse' between the monument and the Capitol. The 2.2 miles part was correct. But beautiful grassy expanse? Try massive dustbowl with some semi-dead grassy patches. I haven't seen a lawn that unkempt since I saw these naked Icelandic bitches at www. hairyicela...what, too much info?
Where was I? Oh yea, DC. My first goal was to go to the Natural History Museum in front of me to see some dinosaurs! I figured it would be kind of anticlimactic, since I get to reside with a living, breathing dinosaur...but it was still cool (Just kidding dad!). It's a pretty sweet museum, actually. Some massive dinosaur skeletons, the Hope Diamond, a few other things. I spent an hour or so meandering about, then headed over to the Air and Space Museum. It was gigantic...it holds the capsule from an Apollo space mission, at least 15 full-sized planes from various eras, blah blah. I'm a weirdo though, cuz my favourite part of the whole museum was...the McDonalds.
It was, without a doubt, the biggest Mickey D's I have ever seen in my life. Over 1000 seats. One thousand. No joke. Serves 15,000 people a day. It has like 20 'lanes' where they rifle you through quicker than a fucking gas chamber lineup. Employees SCREAMED at you to keep moving. It was crazily militant, yet absurdly efficient. I can't imagine what they would do if you tried to get picky with your order....'You want extra pickles? Here's your fucking extra pickles!' as the Hamburglar violates you in the pooper and humiliates you in front of everyone. So yea...it was intense. Nice place though. And I have an overactive imagination, apparently.
After that, I walked up to the Capitol (which was pretty awesome), then into another museum, then took the metro back to the monument. It's...a big penis in the sky. Woo. One thing I should note is that every museum in DC is free, which is a bonus. And they're absolutely massive, so there were no lines at all. DC has tourism down to a science...I've never seen such efficiency anywhere else. This was a plus and a minus, though. I had scheduled 4 days to see everything I wanted to check out...after 4 hours though, I had already covered 80% of it. So, after all that efficiency...I figured it was time to get drunk. Duh. This is me we're talking about.
I was gonna go find 2 or 3 of the pubs I had heard so much about, but...I still had 3 days to kill in this place. I figured a nice, relaxing night with a case of beer in a hotel room never hurt anyone. In other words...I did the exact same thing that I did the night before. Yeungling, huge TV, dope hotel room...and Comedy Central. They had a Bob Saget roast on, and I nearly died laughing. It was awesome. It was so funny, I watched it twice. The 2nd time was actually funnier cuz I was drunk and forgot half of the first viewing...go Tim.
***Side note - Barack Obama just said something hilarious on CNN, and I wanna share it with you:
'My greatest strength? My humility. My greatest weakness? I might just be too awesome.' ***
Aaaand we're back.
So after Saget and Stamos were verbally raped, I was just watching random comedy stuff and chillin...till I heard what might be the funniest line I've ever endured. It's totally retarded, and you might not find it that funny at all...but after 12 yeunglings (times 2!) it was incredible. Here goes:
'I don't date girls from China. Why? Cuz that's a huge red flag!!'
'And I'm racist.'
Funny? Yes? No? I laughed again as I typed it, so it's funny. It's my blog, dammit.
Ooookay. So I watched some Hannah Montana for a while, then passed out. Don't tread on me, that show is funny. After another retardedly comfy sleep, I had to check out of my dope hotel and go check into another. When I originally planned the trip, I had planned on DC for 2 days, and Baltimore for 2. When I found out Baltimore was Compton-like, I changed it up. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good deal at hotelopia anymore, so I ended up at a Radisson a couple of miles away, in Crystal City.
After checking out the Pentagon for a bit, I checked out the hood around the new hotel. Down the street was a little shopping center, with these establishments, in order from left to right:
Thai Restaurant. Check cashing place. Strip Club. 7/11.
I have never, ever seen a strip club directly next door to a 7/11 before. Naturally, I had to go in and see what 7/11 strippers look like, right? Hell no. 20 dollar cover at 2pm on a monday kinda killed that idea. Bullshit. So I went to a sports pub for shitty service and expensive beer. 15 minutes to get acknowledged...and there were maybe 7 other people in the bar. Needless to say, I didn't last long. Crystal city so far was...odd. I was fed up with Virginia for the moment, so I took the metro back to DC and went to find a bar I had been told about. It's called the Brickskeller.
The Brickskeller is heaven for beer drinkers. They sell 1000 different beers. 1000. A different one for every seat in the museum McDonalds. They hand you a binder/menu, and you choose. It was epic. I tried a few different types...some good, some not so good. After a few hours it started to get busy, so I headed out and went to check out the Foggy Bottom area. Went to a couple of other bars, nothing too special. Headed back to Crystal City early, got beer from the Gentleman's 7/11, ordered pizza, and bet on approximately 12 baseball games. Drank said beer, lost 10 of the 12 fucking bets, and passed out on the uncomfy adjustable bed. Fucking Mets.
Last day in DC. I was gonna head to Baltimore for the day, but I was incredibly lazy, and taking the train seemed too complicated. Looking back, it was retarded...I totally should have gone up there...but I had ZERO motivation that day for some reason. I dragged my ass back to the sports pub up the street reluctantly, but received a completely different reception. A ridiculously hot waitress served me right away, the food was awesome, and she even came back and sat with me and bullshitted for a while. She gave me a free Stella too, cuz 'Canadians are awesome'. Because I'm so witty and charming, my responses to her questions usually involved drool, grunting, and staring at her tits...but I'm sure she's used to this kinda thing. And I repped the country like a fucking hero. I stood on guard for thee. By thee, I mean her boobs.
After all that hard work...I went and took a nap. I still hadn't seen the White House and I was leaving at 10am the next day...but I had zero desire to be a tourist that day. My hotel had a bar, so I went down there and watched some baseball for a while...before I knew it, it was midnight and I was unsober. 7/11, more comedy central and Hannah Montana...yea, it was a complete waste of a day. And don't hate on Miley, she's witty. Like me!
In the morning, I learned a new traveling lesson.
Lesson 454, Subsection B, part IV: It might seem cool to charge your drinks to your room at the hotel bar, but you quickly lose track of the numero of the cervezas that you...uh, drinko. The 90 dollar bill that awaited my checkout was not exactly awesome, considering a case of beer was 7 dollars across the street. Again...Go Tim.
Anyways, I headed out on the metro to check out the White House before I headed up to the airport. I got there and...it's the White House. You can't really get anywhere near it. The guards are cranky. There are weirdos all over the place, even at 7am on a wednesday. Go figure. So, onto the airport, then...
Next stop....Boston!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
D to the C!
Terrible title. I'm white, I should know better. This is gonna be short too. Anyways, for those of you that didn't know, your fearless fatty decided he needed to go somewhere over the summer...and he decided upon Washington, DC and Boston. Boston should be obvious to anyone that knows me...Jess got a killer job there, and had an even more killer place to stay...so I just had to check that out. DC was sorta decided for me....see, a direct flight to Boston was 540 bucks, even outta Seattle. My brilliant research found me a flight that went Seattle-DC-Boston-Vancouver for 419 bucks. Kinda hard to turn down, right? Exactly.
As a warning to the newbies...I change tenses a lot, from past to present to past, seemingly at random. Learn to love it...it's part of my charm.
So...I'm not gonna lie to my loyal readers...DC's rep scared me. I'm gonna be real wit y'all, yaknowwhatimsayin? I've heard the crime rate there was through the roof, and it wasn't at all safe. I'd like to let everyone know the truth about Washington DC, and I hope you tell anyone that might be considering a trip. There is NOTHING to be scared of. I was amazed. The subway is incredibly safe...every tourist monument is beyond safe...even the nightspots are super-safe. You have absolutely nothing to worry about. Don't buy into the hype like I did.
So...you're not gonna get killed in DC, we got that covered. However, people...you might fucking die of boredom.
************
Some of my trips start with a bang, some with a whimper. This one was on the whimper side. My bus was 2 hours late getting to Seattle (as usual), so I checked into my hotel right around dusk. I wasn't gonna sit there all night being something stupid like sober, so I walked up to the gas station for sweet Miller Lites and gross food...after a beer at the Bull Pen Pub baby! Go back and read about the last hockey trip...we have history there. I asked...they didn't have Milo's jacket.
After that I returned to schedule, grabbed the necessities at the gas station, and ventured back to the hotel. And also managed to pick up a creepy black dude tailing me on the way home. The road wasn't exactly well-lit, so I had 3 choices...run like a girl, turn around and ask him why he was following me, or...run like a girl. Despite my better judgement (and cuz I run slower than wet cement), I just stopped dead, turned around, and stared at Jerome.
He immediately crossed the street. Being huge rules sometimes!
Back at the hotel, I drank my 6 Miller Lites (and 2 tall cans...full disclosure), and passed the fuck out. 6:49am flights suuuuck.
Get up, get out, get rollin...first flight is dope. Land and connect in Minneapolis, MN. Jess says it doesn't count as a new state if you don't leave the airport. I want to agree...but I also wanna tell people I've been to Minnesota. Readers, I could use your imput here. All 3 of you. Except you Juhl...no one cares what you think.
Burn!
Anyways, I landed in Baltimore around 4pm, and arranged the SuperShuttle to my hotel in Arlington. 55 miles away. And 47 dollars. I'm dumb for showing up on a weekend, cuz the commuter train is 7 dollars...but it don't run on saturdays. Go fatty. Anyways, I get on my nice comfy SuperShuttle...and so do 9 other women, all over 40. NINE of them. Holy awkward. They discuss menopause and all go AWW in unison at weddings we drive by and do many other annoying fucking things...till I finally get to my hotel, 2 hours later. Yes, two. I did see many embassies on the way though, so it's not all bad. So now, I'm in Arlington, Virginia. My hotel room is nicer than 2 outta the 3 apartments I've lived in. 700 sq ft, kitchen, 45 inch HDTV on a stand that turns between the couch and the bed...I hate to sound like a 13 year old girl here, but OMG it was totally cool. Normal price? 200 a night. Tim's magical internet research price? 63 bucks. Hells yeah, bitches. Travel agents ain't got shit on me. Word. Sorry, just reppin the DC lingo, ya heard?
Okay, so where was I? Oh yea...so what kinda exciting shit did I get up to that night? It's Tim, he obviously offended jews and got his dreidel kicked, or thought the "sistas" would love him and ended up "broke and violated". Right?
Nyet.
I bought a case of Yuengling, bet on baseball, and chiiilled. Side note...Yuengling? Not a Chinese beer. Microbrewery, from Philly. I've heard about this shit for years, and always thought it was chinastyle. Nope. Pennsylvania. I feel dumb now. Good shit though.
Back to your regularly-scheduled programming.
So, I'm half drunk, watchin Jeopardy...cuz it validates my brilliance. Last category is "Hip hop" and Alex actually reads out "classic" lyrics like "It's like this and like that and uhhh" and "It's Hot in Herre"...don't tell me thats not funny. Best part?
"The final jeopardy category for our PLAYYYERS!"
Fuck you, you had to be there. It ruled.
This is long enough and I'm outta booze and entertainment, so I'll continue with the rest of DC tomorrow.
As a warning to the newbies...I change tenses a lot, from past to present to past, seemingly at random. Learn to love it...it's part of my charm.
So...I'm not gonna lie to my loyal readers...DC's rep scared me. I'm gonna be real wit y'all, yaknowwhatimsayin? I've heard the crime rate there was through the roof, and it wasn't at all safe. I'd like to let everyone know the truth about Washington DC, and I hope you tell anyone that might be considering a trip. There is NOTHING to be scared of. I was amazed. The subway is incredibly safe...every tourist monument is beyond safe...even the nightspots are super-safe. You have absolutely nothing to worry about. Don't buy into the hype like I did.
So...you're not gonna get killed in DC, we got that covered. However, people...you might fucking die of boredom.
************
Some of my trips start with a bang, some with a whimper. This one was on the whimper side. My bus was 2 hours late getting to Seattle (as usual), so I checked into my hotel right around dusk. I wasn't gonna sit there all night being something stupid like sober, so I walked up to the gas station for sweet Miller Lites and gross food...after a beer at the Bull Pen Pub baby! Go back and read about the last hockey trip...we have history there. I asked...they didn't have Milo's jacket.
After that I returned to schedule, grabbed the necessities at the gas station, and ventured back to the hotel. And also managed to pick up a creepy black dude tailing me on the way home. The road wasn't exactly well-lit, so I had 3 choices...run like a girl, turn around and ask him why he was following me, or...run like a girl. Despite my better judgement (and cuz I run slower than wet cement), I just stopped dead, turned around, and stared at Jerome.
He immediately crossed the street. Being huge rules sometimes!
Back at the hotel, I drank my 6 Miller Lites (and 2 tall cans...full disclosure), and passed the fuck out. 6:49am flights suuuuck.
Get up, get out, get rollin...first flight is dope. Land and connect in Minneapolis, MN. Jess says it doesn't count as a new state if you don't leave the airport. I want to agree...but I also wanna tell people I've been to Minnesota. Readers, I could use your imput here. All 3 of you. Except you Juhl...no one cares what you think.
Burn!
Anyways, I landed in Baltimore around 4pm, and arranged the SuperShuttle to my hotel in Arlington. 55 miles away. And 47 dollars. I'm dumb for showing up on a weekend, cuz the commuter train is 7 dollars...but it don't run on saturdays. Go fatty. Anyways, I get on my nice comfy SuperShuttle...and so do 9 other women, all over 40. NINE of them. Holy awkward. They discuss menopause and all go AWW in unison at weddings we drive by and do many other annoying fucking things...till I finally get to my hotel, 2 hours later. Yes, two. I did see many embassies on the way though, so it's not all bad. So now, I'm in Arlington, Virginia. My hotel room is nicer than 2 outta the 3 apartments I've lived in. 700 sq ft, kitchen, 45 inch HDTV on a stand that turns between the couch and the bed...I hate to sound like a 13 year old girl here, but OMG it was totally cool. Normal price? 200 a night. Tim's magical internet research price? 63 bucks. Hells yeah, bitches. Travel agents ain't got shit on me. Word. Sorry, just reppin the DC lingo, ya heard?
Okay, so where was I? Oh yea...so what kinda exciting shit did I get up to that night? It's Tim, he obviously offended jews and got his dreidel kicked, or thought the "sistas" would love him and ended up "broke and violated". Right?
Nyet.
I bought a case of Yuengling, bet on baseball, and chiiilled. Side note...Yuengling? Not a Chinese beer. Microbrewery, from Philly. I've heard about this shit for years, and always thought it was chinastyle. Nope. Pennsylvania. I feel dumb now. Good shit though.
Back to your regularly-scheduled programming.
So, I'm half drunk, watchin Jeopardy...cuz it validates my brilliance. Last category is "Hip hop" and Alex actually reads out "classic" lyrics like "It's like this and like that and uhhh" and "It's Hot in Herre"...don't tell me thats not funny. Best part?
"The final jeopardy category for our PLAYYYERS!"
Fuck you, you had to be there. It ruled.
This is long enough and I'm outta booze and entertainment, so I'll continue with the rest of DC tomorrow.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Bus Stories
I'm all out of trip stories until I get back from Boston, and I'm in a writing mood for some reason...so I thought I'd just write about a couple of my bus misadventures over the last few months. Most of the weird shit that happens to me either happens in another city, or on a trip to/from work on public transit. For those that disagree with this...waking up on the living room floor is not "weird" to me anymore. I've accepted this as an every-weekend thing, and you should too dammit.
Bobblebody
So I'm sitting there on the bus minding my own business, listening to something lame on my ipod most likely (go Shedaisy!)...and I notice the guy beside me is...swaying. He's standing up, holding onto the pole...and he's sorta leaning back and forth with the motions of the bus in an extremely over the top kinda way. At first I think he's faking it, trying to entertain someone...but then I actually look at his face. This mofo is asleep. Standing up. Holding onto the pole, and flopping around like an ugly hippie salmon. This is kinda funny, but not overly unusual for public transit...so I go back to doing my crossword. A minute or so later...
CLUNK. I feel like I just got hit on the dome with a frying pan.
After the initial OWWWWWTF!!, I look up to see ballet-hippie saying something to me...yup, he's apologizing. This douchebag...no, motherfucker...no, something meaner! was fucking swaying away, and he leaned over far enough to fucking headbutt me! At first I just rubbed my head in amazement, but I got mad reaaaaally quickly.
Dipshit: "Dude, I'm so sor-!"
Me: "What the fuck is that matter with you?"
Dipshit: "I'm really sorry man. I guess I fell asleep, and when the bus turned the corner..."
Me: "Are you fucking retarded? You ever heard of staying awake when you're standing up? I can't believe I just said that to another human being!"
Dipshit: "I'm sorry man, I've been up since early, and I just can't stay awake, and..."
Me: "RED BULL, ASSHOLE. Try it, I did. Everyone on here got up early to go to work too, you don't see them swaying around like they're autistic!"
Dipshit: Dude, I'm sorry, I..."
Me: "Get the fuck away from me. GO. NOW! *pointing at the back of the bus* NOW! And get a fucking helmet."
I stood up, and he realized I was muuuch bigger than him. He practically ran to the back.
My head hurt for a long time. Bastard. There is a slightly more humorous part to this though...it occured a couple of weeks later. Bobblebody got on a few stops after I did, and the only seat left on the bus was, coincidentally, beside me. He came down the aisle, and halfass-attempted to sit...I just said "Don't even fucking think about it retard"...and as quickly as he attempted to sit, he got right back up and went to the back of the bus. Didn't say anything, didn't look at me, nuthin. I OWN THIS PANSY. I think the best part was, a few stops later, he did manage to get a seat...I looked back, and he was swaying away in the aisle, his whole upper body bobbing back and forth. The fucking idiot couldn't even sleep right while he was SITTING DOWN. Hippies these days.
Lucky Lager Bad!
Every couple of weeks, my boss is nice enough to grab some beer for us to drink at the end of our shift on fridays. Kam (other tracer) is, as my boss puts it, a "high maintenance brown guy", so he always wants MGD...he doesn't like anything else. Sometimes my boss obliges, other times he gets shitty beer just to mess with him...cuz he knows I'll drink anything. This particular week, he grabbed Lucky Lager.
If you don't know what Lucky is...well, I'll try to describe it with as much racial sensibility as possible. Basically, it's what the First Nations people in BC primarily drink....so much, that it's become associated to them. It's "native beer". It's not terrible or anything, it's just...well, cheaper than most beers. I'm just gonna lay it out here...if you drink Lucky, it's pretty much assumed that you have a drinking problem. Sorry Two Buffalos, paleface say Lucky bad...I apologize for my people. I like your beer...that's all that matters, right?
Please don't kill me.
Anyways, Kam attempted to drink one, but couldn't even get halfway though it. That left the whole case for me and my boss. After a few, I had to run and catch the (early) bus, so my boss gave me "one for the road". I arrived at the bus stop, and there was absolutely no one around...so I thought I'd crack the beer and finish it quickly before the bus came. I don't normally take this bus, but it was pretty early so I figured not many people frequented it. Yes, I was in public, and yes the bus stop is on a busy street...but there's no sidewalk, so foot traffic is rare. And cars whipping by at 70 kph aren't going "Hey, fatty's got a Lucky!" Well, unless their last name has an animal in it...anyways, that's a whole other story.
So there I am, enjoying my (ghetto) beer...when 6 people just show up outta NOWHERE. They must have been hiding behind the tree or something, cuz they seriously appeared outta thin air. Suddenly, I had 6 witnesses to my bus stop Lucky. And none were giving me an approving look. 'A unanimous look of disgust' would cover it, actually. David Blaine and his friends just show up outta nowhere and ruin my serenity. I need to pay more attention, apparently.
The best part was...2 of the guys were native.
"I think that's a Lucky!" one said to the other, loud enough for me to hear.
I actually laughed at that. What are the chances? To top it off, there's no garbage can at the bus stop....so after I shotgunned the thing, I couldn't even get rid of the evidence. I had to put the bottle into my backpack, which got me a few more choice stares.
Yea, I don't take the early bus anymore...even if I get off early. I wait. As long as it takes. Across the street, behind a building...so they can't see me. That, and so I can enjoy my Lucky in peace dammit.
That'll do, donkey.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Reno/Cali with 2 bitches, part 2
Yea, I took way too long to write the finale of this thing. So long that I might forget details of it, which would suck. Well, I have Old milwaukee and Lady Gaga to help me remember...so, let's roll bitches. If any of you have a problem with my tardiness:
I thought so.
3 hours sleep isn't much fun. Instead of sleeping till 3 minutes before checkout like normal people, we were up at the crack of 9am. I blame Jess, although I'm not sure why. After lollygagging for a while, we went to grab the rental vehicle...and they upgraded us to an SUV. Sweet...or so we thought. Something was wrong with it, but we couldn't figure out what for a while. It kept lurching to the left for no particular reason. Not exactly fun when you're driving through the Sierra Nevadas.
We stopped for gas after an hour or so, and they sold some odd energy drink I've never had before. Jess and I bought one each, and started reading the label after our purchase. It actually said on the bottle that the thing could kill us...somethin about heart attacks and fat people. I was impressed. I shotgunned mine, cuz that's what the cool kids do, and got a pretty scary buzz off of it. Jess got high too and decided the vehicle lurch was fun to tease Jim and I with. So...my heart is on overdrive, I'm nervous and twitchy....and Jess is laughing and trying to kill us. I'd like to say that's abnormal for us...but sadly, it's not.
I shoulda taken the fucking bus. If I'm gonna die, I wanna do it with a beer in my hand at least...not the Oh Shit Bar of a Hyundai Eggroll. Or whatever they're called. Luckily though, my homie Karma was along for the ride...
Once the vehicle (and my heartbeat) levelled out a bit, it was smooth sailing to Rogers. We didn't actually know his address, and his development was so new it wasn't even on the map yet...but our educated guess worked out pretty damn well and we only missed by 2 blocks.
*SIDE NOTE*
An 18 year old girl just called me "dollface". On the internet. Sadly, this was the highlight of my night.
*TANGENT BITTERLY OVER*
Anyways, the rest of the day was pretty lax. We just chilled and got re-acquainted with Roger and Marg and the world's 2nd coolest dog, Pepe. Jess, however, wasn't feeling so hot. Apparently his energy drink took a little while longer than mine to kick in...cuz he thought he was having a heart attack for a while. Who knew heart attacks could be so funny?
On the way back from a beer run, Jess mentioned that very few people in his neighbourhood took care of their lawns. Roger's response caught me off guard:
"Um, that's cuz no one lives in most of them. A lot of them were foreclosed upon".
I hadn't even considered that till he said it. Apparently the whole area was pretty hard-hit by the mortgage crisis. Reason 452725871 I'm glad to be Canadian.
After a nice relaxing day of beer (Natty Light, bitches!) and a night on the world's comfiest couch, it was onto to San Fran the next day. The plan was to check out the city for the day, and go sailing the next morning. I had been to San Fran once before, but it was in November. After 10 minutes there, I remembered why I travel in the fall...there were people everywhere. We had to wait like 45 minutes for a cable car in hurricane-style winds. After wandering around for a while, we went to the top of the Marriott (the 4574th floor or some shit), and had a couple of beers. The view was pretty good and all, but I wasn't going anywhere near the window. Tim + heights = poopy pants, remember?
Onto dinner we go. We went to a nice seafood restaurant down on the water on the other side of the bridge. Normally dinner wouldn't be worth mentioning, but....this one definitely was. I don't even remember what Roger or I had, but Jess and Jim had clams, this I do remember. Onto the hotel...Jess and I were hyped about game 6 of the Sharks/Stars series, but we couldn't get it on the TV in the hotel. We streamed it on his laptop for the first period, but that got old quick...so we went to a bar across the street to check it out. We were an hour from San Jose, and I was wearing my Stars jersey. I wasn't expecting anyone to actually care, but the hate I received in the bar was almost heartwarming.
Oh yea, Jim stayed behind in the hotel...he wasn't feeling so good. Can I get foreshadowng for 1600, Alex?
4 of the first 5 games in the series had gone to overtime...and this one was no different. OT started at 10pm...Nabokov made an unreal save to keep the Sharks in it in the first OT. Onto the 2nd...and the 3rd....and the 4th!?! It was well past midnight when the Stars FINALLY finished the Sharks off. It was awesome. The bar wasn't too happy, but it was a helluva good game and a lot of fun to watch. Oh, and I don't think we were too sober.
So we wobble back to the hotel and settle down for the night. There were only 2 beds in the room, and 4 of us, and we're not the cuddly types...so I slept on the floor by the patio door, and Jess slept on the floor near the bathroom. After a couple of hours, I awoke to a strange gurgling noise. I brushed it off as my imagination, but then I heard it again....coming from above me. I sat up and looked at Jim...he was still asleep (I think) on his back...gurgling. Mount McCock was about to erupt. He finally woke up, sat up, and raced to the bathroom.
And kicked Jess on the way. Glad I slept near the door.
Magically Jess woke up, and we all got to listen to Jim fucking UNLOAD on the bathroom. He didn't make it near the toilet...he just lit up the whole room. Over and over. Finally, mercifully, he stopped. There was no noise for a minute or so....till Roger (who we thought slept through the whole thing) made a super loud puking noise.
Luckily for us, he was kidding. But it was damn funny.
Jim emerged from the shitter after 15 minutes or so, fully defeated. It was epic. I hadn't laughed that hard in a while. Fuck, I'm laughing about the look on his face right now, and this happened 3 months ago. I know it's kinda cold to laugh about...I guess you had to be there. Jess was laughing too. Does that make it better?
The best part of it all? So, the guy's got food poisoning from seafood...he feels terrible, he smells terrible, and he doesn't wanna move. What was on tap for the day, you ask?
Yup...SAILING! On the Ocean! Where it smells like seafood!
We drove down to the dock and got aboard the boat. It was 30-somethin feet long, with a cabin below. And it had sails n stuff. That's the best I can do to explain it. I know more about menstruation than I do about sailing, okay? (screw you, I had sisters that wouldn't shut up about it!). Here's me looking studly (yet clueless):
Jim's beached on a bunk below deck moaning in his sleep:
and Jess....well, Jess is dumb.
So...Roger pretty much had to do all of this himself. Okay, here's proof this Roger person I keep talking about actually exists...and that I like Pacifico:
As we got on the boat, he told us that it was super windy today, and "probably not safe to sail" and that "a boat sunk yesterday". Suuuure Roger...you're just trying to scare us...we're not gonna fall for that. Yea...till we saw this about 15 minutes into the trip:
Yes...that's actually a sunken boat. That wasn't scary at all. Honest.
The plan was to sail to Alcatraz, under the Golden Gate Bridge, and around the bay for awhile before we headed back. The wind was so crazy, we only made it as far as Alcatraz. Everytime we attempted to go towards the bridge, we...ended up back next to Alcatraz. This happened at least 10 times. I know now Alcatraz Island like the back of my hand.
In 6 hours of sailing, I managed to:
1. Drink 12+ Pacificos.
2. Almost get thrown overboard many times.
3. Get stuck underneath the steering wheel.
4. Make us do some really fast standing circles while I was wedged under said wheel.
5. Get a killer sunburn.
6. Pee all over everywhere when Roger thought it'd be funny to lurch the boat back and forth while I was doin my bizznass in the can.
7. Blow an airhorn inside the cabin where Jim WAS peacefully sleeping.
8. See a boathouse turned into the Taj Mahal on water.
I can't believe we survived the trip. All I can say is...sailing fucking rules. Seriously people, if you ever get the chance you should try it. Especially if you have Roger with you, cuz he knows what he's doing or something. If it wasn't for him, the other 2 would have had to use me as a floatation device and I'd be under the protection of Greenpeace right now. Thanks Roger!
After all that fun, we headed back to Sacramento and chilled out for the night. More Natty Light, and a great dinner. Jim and I had a super early flight, and Roger was once again nice enough to drive us to the airport. After an easy 2 hour flight...I had to go to work. Joyous.
EPILOGUE - For those of you that don't know, Jess and Jamie got married August 2nd. Roger and Marg came up to attend the wedding, and it was decided that the Sacramento trip should become an annual tradition. I'm only too happy to oblige. If Roger and Marg are willing to put up with our stupid asses once a year, I will do my best to try and make Jim throw up for as many years in a row as possible. Once again Roger and Marg, thank you for the hospitality...it was (and will be) much appreciated.
Jess has now moved to Boston for a kickass job. Normally it's a bad thing when one of your best friends moves across the country, but for me it's actually awesome. I now have a place to stay in one of the coolest cities on Earth, he's 5 hours closer to Iceland, and we WILL go to the moon! He's in Belize right now with Jamie. I hate him.
I'm going to Washington DC, Baltimore, and Boston in 2 weeks. Blogs will follow, if I survive the trip. DC has a bar with 1000 beers, Baltimore is "urban", and Jess and I are gonna drink New England to it's knees. You do the math.
I thought so.
3 hours sleep isn't much fun. Instead of sleeping till 3 minutes before checkout like normal people, we were up at the crack of 9am. I blame Jess, although I'm not sure why. After lollygagging for a while, we went to grab the rental vehicle...and they upgraded us to an SUV. Sweet...or so we thought. Something was wrong with it, but we couldn't figure out what for a while. It kept lurching to the left for no particular reason. Not exactly fun when you're driving through the Sierra Nevadas.
We stopped for gas after an hour or so, and they sold some odd energy drink I've never had before. Jess and I bought one each, and started reading the label after our purchase. It actually said on the bottle that the thing could kill us...somethin about heart attacks and fat people. I was impressed. I shotgunned mine, cuz that's what the cool kids do, and got a pretty scary buzz off of it. Jess got high too and decided the vehicle lurch was fun to tease Jim and I with. So...my heart is on overdrive, I'm nervous and twitchy....and Jess is laughing and trying to kill us. I'd like to say that's abnormal for us...but sadly, it's not.
I shoulda taken the fucking bus. If I'm gonna die, I wanna do it with a beer in my hand at least...not the Oh Shit Bar of a Hyundai Eggroll. Or whatever they're called. Luckily though, my homie Karma was along for the ride...
Once the vehicle (and my heartbeat) levelled out a bit, it was smooth sailing to Rogers. We didn't actually know his address, and his development was so new it wasn't even on the map yet...but our educated guess worked out pretty damn well and we only missed by 2 blocks.
*SIDE NOTE*
An 18 year old girl just called me "dollface". On the internet. Sadly, this was the highlight of my night.
*TANGENT BITTERLY OVER*
Anyways, the rest of the day was pretty lax. We just chilled and got re-acquainted with Roger and Marg and the world's 2nd coolest dog, Pepe. Jess, however, wasn't feeling so hot. Apparently his energy drink took a little while longer than mine to kick in...cuz he thought he was having a heart attack for a while. Who knew heart attacks could be so funny?
On the way back from a beer run, Jess mentioned that very few people in his neighbourhood took care of their lawns. Roger's response caught me off guard:
"Um, that's cuz no one lives in most of them. A lot of them were foreclosed upon".
I hadn't even considered that till he said it. Apparently the whole area was pretty hard-hit by the mortgage crisis. Reason 452725871 I'm glad to be Canadian.
After a nice relaxing day of beer (Natty Light, bitches!) and a night on the world's comfiest couch, it was onto to San Fran the next day. The plan was to check out the city for the day, and go sailing the next morning. I had been to San Fran once before, but it was in November. After 10 minutes there, I remembered why I travel in the fall...there were people everywhere. We had to wait like 45 minutes for a cable car in hurricane-style winds. After wandering around for a while, we went to the top of the Marriott (the 4574th floor or some shit), and had a couple of beers. The view was pretty good and all, but I wasn't going anywhere near the window. Tim + heights = poopy pants, remember?
Onto dinner we go. We went to a nice seafood restaurant down on the water on the other side of the bridge. Normally dinner wouldn't be worth mentioning, but....this one definitely was. I don't even remember what Roger or I had, but Jess and Jim had clams, this I do remember. Onto the hotel...Jess and I were hyped about game 6 of the Sharks/Stars series, but we couldn't get it on the TV in the hotel. We streamed it on his laptop for the first period, but that got old quick...so we went to a bar across the street to check it out. We were an hour from San Jose, and I was wearing my Stars jersey. I wasn't expecting anyone to actually care, but the hate I received in the bar was almost heartwarming.
Oh yea, Jim stayed behind in the hotel...he wasn't feeling so good. Can I get foreshadowng for 1600, Alex?
4 of the first 5 games in the series had gone to overtime...and this one was no different. OT started at 10pm...Nabokov made an unreal save to keep the Sharks in it in the first OT. Onto the 2nd...and the 3rd....and the 4th!?! It was well past midnight when the Stars FINALLY finished the Sharks off. It was awesome. The bar wasn't too happy, but it was a helluva good game and a lot of fun to watch. Oh, and I don't think we were too sober.
So we wobble back to the hotel and settle down for the night. There were only 2 beds in the room, and 4 of us, and we're not the cuddly types...so I slept on the floor by the patio door, and Jess slept on the floor near the bathroom. After a couple of hours, I awoke to a strange gurgling noise. I brushed it off as my imagination, but then I heard it again....coming from above me. I sat up and looked at Jim...he was still asleep (I think) on his back...gurgling. Mount McCock was about to erupt. He finally woke up, sat up, and raced to the bathroom.
And kicked Jess on the way. Glad I slept near the door.
Magically Jess woke up, and we all got to listen to Jim fucking UNLOAD on the bathroom. He didn't make it near the toilet...he just lit up the whole room. Over and over. Finally, mercifully, he stopped. There was no noise for a minute or so....till Roger (who we thought slept through the whole thing) made a super loud puking noise.
Luckily for us, he was kidding. But it was damn funny.
Jim emerged from the shitter after 15 minutes or so, fully defeated. It was epic. I hadn't laughed that hard in a while. Fuck, I'm laughing about the look on his face right now, and this happened 3 months ago. I know it's kinda cold to laugh about...I guess you had to be there. Jess was laughing too. Does that make it better?
The best part of it all? So, the guy's got food poisoning from seafood...he feels terrible, he smells terrible, and he doesn't wanna move. What was on tap for the day, you ask?
Yup...SAILING! On the Ocean! Where it smells like seafood!
We drove down to the dock and got aboard the boat. It was 30-somethin feet long, with a cabin below. And it had sails n stuff. That's the best I can do to explain it. I know more about menstruation than I do about sailing, okay? (screw you, I had sisters that wouldn't shut up about it!). Here's me looking studly (yet clueless):
Jim's beached on a bunk below deck moaning in his sleep:
and Jess....well, Jess is dumb.
So...Roger pretty much had to do all of this himself. Okay, here's proof this Roger person I keep talking about actually exists...and that I like Pacifico:
As we got on the boat, he told us that it was super windy today, and "probably not safe to sail" and that "a boat sunk yesterday". Suuuure Roger...you're just trying to scare us...we're not gonna fall for that. Yea...till we saw this about 15 minutes into the trip:
Yes...that's actually a sunken boat. That wasn't scary at all. Honest.
The plan was to sail to Alcatraz, under the Golden Gate Bridge, and around the bay for awhile before we headed back. The wind was so crazy, we only made it as far as Alcatraz. Everytime we attempted to go towards the bridge, we...ended up back next to Alcatraz. This happened at least 10 times. I know now Alcatraz Island like the back of my hand.
In 6 hours of sailing, I managed to:
1. Drink 12+ Pacificos.
2. Almost get thrown overboard many times.
3. Get stuck underneath the steering wheel.
4. Make us do some really fast standing circles while I was wedged under said wheel.
5. Get a killer sunburn.
6. Pee all over everywhere when Roger thought it'd be funny to lurch the boat back and forth while I was doin my bizznass in the can.
7. Blow an airhorn inside the cabin where Jim WAS peacefully sleeping.
8. See a boathouse turned into the Taj Mahal on water.
I can't believe we survived the trip. All I can say is...sailing fucking rules. Seriously people, if you ever get the chance you should try it. Especially if you have Roger with you, cuz he knows what he's doing or something. If it wasn't for him, the other 2 would have had to use me as a floatation device and I'd be under the protection of Greenpeace right now. Thanks Roger!
After all that fun, we headed back to Sacramento and chilled out for the night. More Natty Light, and a great dinner. Jim and I had a super early flight, and Roger was once again nice enough to drive us to the airport. After an easy 2 hour flight...I had to go to work. Joyous.
EPILOGUE - For those of you that don't know, Jess and Jamie got married August 2nd. Roger and Marg came up to attend the wedding, and it was decided that the Sacramento trip should become an annual tradition. I'm only too happy to oblige. If Roger and Marg are willing to put up with our stupid asses once a year, I will do my best to try and make Jim throw up for as many years in a row as possible. Once again Roger and Marg, thank you for the hospitality...it was (and will be) much appreciated.
Jess has now moved to Boston for a kickass job. Normally it's a bad thing when one of your best friends moves across the country, but for me it's actually awesome. I now have a place to stay in one of the coolest cities on Earth, he's 5 hours closer to Iceland, and we WILL go to the moon! He's in Belize right now with Jamie. I hate him.
I'm going to Washington DC, Baltimore, and Boston in 2 weeks. Blogs will follow, if I survive the trip. DC has a bar with 1000 beers, Baltimore is "urban", and Jess and I are gonna drink New England to it's knees. You do the math.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Reno/Cali with 2 bitches, part 1
Here we go again. It's time for another trip blog...it's actually long past due, since this trip was 2 months ago. But anyways, here we go...more wacky adventures of the manatee, the hobbit, and the dumbest smart guy in the world. I'm sure you can't figure out who's who.
Not long after the original Disappointment trip, Jess and I came across uber-cheap flights from Bellingham to Reno. It seemed like a good bachelor-party-style trip for Jim, Jess and I. From what I had heard, Reno's a lot like a few women I know...cheap and dirty, but fun in small doses. The idea floated around for a few months, until it finally came to fruition. We decided upon 1 night in Reno, then a train ride up to Sacramento to visit Jess's Uncle Roger (see the Mount Killafatty/Yosemite blog for more on Roger...he's awesome). Roger had also arranged a trip to San Francisco to go sailing. His wife won't sail with him anymore due to an unfortunate water entry on her part...so we were his next victims. It sounded like a lot of fun...and it was.
As usual, shit went sideways before the trip even started. I went over to Jess and Jamie's after work, cuz they live closer to the border than I do. The plan was for Jim's mom to pick us up and drive us to the Bellingham airport. This didn't make a lot of sense, cuz Jim insisted that we meet him and his mom at his place. Downtown. 36.1km further away from the border than we already were *thanks google maps*. But Jim insisted that his mom "gets lost in the suburbs easily", so she couldn't pick us up at Jess's. On the way to the border. I even came up with a great plan...Jess and I could take the bus right down to the last highway exit before the border...we could literally meet them ON the highway.
Nope, too complicated. Come on, this is Jim we're talking about. Simplicity? Outta the window for you!
Anyways, we went out for dinner, then back to their place for a few drinks. Jamie got smashed offa 3 drinks and spoke of inappropriate stuff all night (let's just say I've never heard a teacher use the word 'cock' that many times in one night outside Mugs N Jugs) while Jess and I stared at her in disbelief. Believe me, if I had a tape recorder, I woulda played it at their wedding...it woulda ruled.
After that hilarity, and a good sleep, we got up early to start our trek downtown. Right before we got to Jim's, Jess got a call from Amtrak...our train was canceled. WTF? This train goes from Chicago to San Francisco. Magically, it was stopping in Reno now...right where we wanted to get on the fucking thing. They "kindly" offered a busride in exchange, but we managed to get a one-way car rental for much cheaper...so screw them.
Jim's mom eventually arrived...and she's funny. Anyone that makes fun of Jim is cool with me. She set me up for some good lines too:
Jim's mom: "Jim, you're sure talkative today...normally you don't say a lot when you're with me."
Tim: "Really? We're gonna need you to hang out with us a lot more often then."
After a stop for lunch (or in my case, beer) in Blaine, it was onto the ghetto Bellingham airport. Jess and I found hilarity here last time, and this time was no different. Our plane was on time, but parked at least 200 feet from the gate. Why is this funny? Umm, we were going to Reno. Half the patrons of said plane were over 70 years old. The pre-boarding announcement was something along the lines of :
"Seniors, people traveling with small children, and people requiring a little more time getting on the plane can come up now for pre-boarding."
I'm not shitting you...at least 80 people got up all at once and walked/rolled/crawled up there. But since the plane was so far away, it turned into a 200 foot-long handicapped parade on the tarmac. Wheelchairs in the front, canes in the middle, and straight up slowpokes in the back. The sight of it was awesomely funny, but got old realll quick. It took us another half hour to get anywhere near the plane. And getting off the fucker? Yea, that sucked too.
Finally, we were in Reno. I had heard so much about this place, and I couldn't wait to check it out. It's...well, it's unique. After checking in at the hotel and dropping our shit off, we went in search of dead hookers and tentacle porn.
(For the record, I have no idea what tentacle porn is...but it made me laugh the first time I heard it, so it works. As for the dead hookers...I was taking creative license with the whole "hookers and blow" thing. It's my blog, live with it.)
We found beers quickly, and checked out our hotel and the 2 connected to it. After a couple margaritas, we decided to venture out onto "the strip". All I can say is....wow. It's the fucking hood. We stopped at a couple of small casinos for beers along the way, and made fun of the locals. We only saw a couple of people getting arrested that time. Eventually it was back to the hotel for more booze, and...the buffet! No, it was not my idea assholes. Anyways, they had a seafood buffet for like 15 bucks, and I was determined to clean out a small seafull o' critters. I think I ate the legs of approximately 9 shellfish...while drinking 3 beers at the same time. Here, just for yourself:
I really thought I was gonna die after the buffet. I actually had to go back to the hotel room and take a shower, I was so fucked up. Well that, and I smelled like a hastings resident that's misplaced her douchebag.
Yea, it wasn't pretty.
So after all that, it was gambling/drinking time. Jim was on fire at the tables...it was sickening. I've never seen one person catch that many blackjacks in one night. He was lucky as fuck. In the meantime...Jess was fucking shitfaced. And hilarious. Here's some examples:
(In Circus Circus) "Guys....guyyyyyys...we gotta get outta here right now...there's way too many hot 14 year old girls in here!"
"Okay guys...I'm engaged, so I obviously can't touch any women here...so it's up to you to pick them up and fuck them! But...I get to watch!"
Pointing at the cops arresting some people : "RENO 911! REEEENO 911!!!!"
At some point, we went back to the hotel room...probably to get changed or something. Jess had his laptop with him, and he youtube'd the retarded country songs we drunkenly sang in the car in Disappointment at 5am. Jim was shocked and disgusted, rightfully so, at Jess and I SCREAMING
I'm a God fearin' hard workin' combine driver!!!
Hoggin' up the road on my a p-p-p-plower!!!
Chug a lug a lugin' 5 miles an hour!!!
On my International Harvester!!!
...yea, it was high comedy. We weren't sober. Here's Jess singing (I think?):
He was so drunk at one point, he actually theorized that a margarita would sober him up. Here, see for yourself:
And, I shit you not, IT ACTUALLY DID. I have no idea how that worked...but he slurred less, was more awake, and lasted another 3-4 hours after that. Go tequila?
After hours and hours of booze and gambling, we were close to done for the night. Around 3 something AM, we went to the deli to get food. Jim and I got ours and sat at a table back out in the walkway area. There were still people everywhere. Randomly, 2 guys start yelling at each other, like 10 feet from us. One pushes the other...and that guy throws a punch. Slick guy ducked it, grabbed onto him, and threw him down. For some reason, I yelled out "JUDO THROW! TWO POINTS!" which made everyone, including the guys IN the fight, look at me. Oops. Luckily, they had better things to do, and continued fighting. Jess RAN outta the Deli, yelling "FIIIGHT!", which was pretty funny. After a couple more judo throws and a couple punches, one guy quit and walked away. The whole thing probably lasted 90 seconds. It was awesome.
What could top that? At least 5-7 minutes after the commotion...security showed up. 2 small female security guards. They looked around, looked at each other...and just walked away. They didn't ask anyone anything. Apparently this is a regular occurance in Reno. I love this place!
After a nightcap margarita, where Jess and I stared at the hottest blond chick in the entire world (who was most likely an escort, but we didn't give a shit), we passed out around 5 somethin.
As usual, if I'm forgetting anything...Jess or Jim, fill me in and I'll add it in the next entry.
Here's an additional pic, just for fun. He comes outta the can on his phone...I come out with 2 beers. If that doesn't describe us well, I dunno what would.
Not long after the original Disappointment trip, Jess and I came across uber-cheap flights from Bellingham to Reno. It seemed like a good bachelor-party-style trip for Jim, Jess and I. From what I had heard, Reno's a lot like a few women I know...cheap and dirty, but fun in small doses. The idea floated around for a few months, until it finally came to fruition. We decided upon 1 night in Reno, then a train ride up to Sacramento to visit Jess's Uncle Roger (see the Mount Killafatty/Yosemite blog for more on Roger...he's awesome). Roger had also arranged a trip to San Francisco to go sailing. His wife won't sail with him anymore due to an unfortunate water entry on her part...so we were his next victims. It sounded like a lot of fun...and it was.
As usual, shit went sideways before the trip even started. I went over to Jess and Jamie's after work, cuz they live closer to the border than I do. The plan was for Jim's mom to pick us up and drive us to the Bellingham airport. This didn't make a lot of sense, cuz Jim insisted that we meet him and his mom at his place. Downtown. 36.1km further away from the border than we already were *thanks google maps*. But Jim insisted that his mom "gets lost in the suburbs easily", so she couldn't pick us up at Jess's. On the way to the border. I even came up with a great plan...Jess and I could take the bus right down to the last highway exit before the border...we could literally meet them ON the highway.
Nope, too complicated. Come on, this is Jim we're talking about. Simplicity? Outta the window for you!
Anyways, we went out for dinner, then back to their place for a few drinks. Jamie got smashed offa 3 drinks and spoke of inappropriate stuff all night (let's just say I've never heard a teacher use the word 'cock' that many times in one night outside Mugs N Jugs) while Jess and I stared at her in disbelief. Believe me, if I had a tape recorder, I woulda played it at their wedding...it woulda ruled.
After that hilarity, and a good sleep, we got up early to start our trek downtown. Right before we got to Jim's, Jess got a call from Amtrak...our train was canceled. WTF? This train goes from Chicago to San Francisco. Magically, it was stopping in Reno now...right where we wanted to get on the fucking thing. They "kindly" offered a busride in exchange, but we managed to get a one-way car rental for much cheaper...so screw them.
Jim's mom eventually arrived...and she's funny. Anyone that makes fun of Jim is cool with me. She set me up for some good lines too:
Jim's mom: "Jim, you're sure talkative today...normally you don't say a lot when you're with me."
Tim: "Really? We're gonna need you to hang out with us a lot more often then."
After a stop for lunch (or in my case, beer) in Blaine, it was onto the ghetto Bellingham airport. Jess and I found hilarity here last time, and this time was no different. Our plane was on time, but parked at least 200 feet from the gate. Why is this funny? Umm, we were going to Reno. Half the patrons of said plane were over 70 years old. The pre-boarding announcement was something along the lines of :
"Seniors, people traveling with small children, and people requiring a little more time getting on the plane can come up now for pre-boarding."
I'm not shitting you...at least 80 people got up all at once and walked/rolled/crawled up there. But since the plane was so far away, it turned into a 200 foot-long handicapped parade on the tarmac. Wheelchairs in the front, canes in the middle, and straight up slowpokes in the back. The sight of it was awesomely funny, but got old realll quick. It took us another half hour to get anywhere near the plane. And getting off the fucker? Yea, that sucked too.
Finally, we were in Reno. I had heard so much about this place, and I couldn't wait to check it out. It's...well, it's unique. After checking in at the hotel and dropping our shit off, we went in search of dead hookers and tentacle porn.
(For the record, I have no idea what tentacle porn is...but it made me laugh the first time I heard it, so it works. As for the dead hookers...I was taking creative license with the whole "hookers and blow" thing. It's my blog, live with it.)
We found beers quickly, and checked out our hotel and the 2 connected to it. After a couple margaritas, we decided to venture out onto "the strip". All I can say is....wow. It's the fucking hood. We stopped at a couple of small casinos for beers along the way, and made fun of the locals. We only saw a couple of people getting arrested that time. Eventually it was back to the hotel for more booze, and...the buffet! No, it was not my idea assholes. Anyways, they had a seafood buffet for like 15 bucks, and I was determined to clean out a small seafull o' critters. I think I ate the legs of approximately 9 shellfish...while drinking 3 beers at the same time. Here, just for yourself:
I really thought I was gonna die after the buffet. I actually had to go back to the hotel room and take a shower, I was so fucked up. Well that, and I smelled like a hastings resident that's misplaced her douchebag.
Yea, it wasn't pretty.
So after all that, it was gambling/drinking time. Jim was on fire at the tables...it was sickening. I've never seen one person catch that many blackjacks in one night. He was lucky as fuck. In the meantime...Jess was fucking shitfaced. And hilarious. Here's some examples:
(In Circus Circus) "Guys....guyyyyyys...we gotta get outta here right now...there's way too many hot 14 year old girls in here!"
"Okay guys...I'm engaged, so I obviously can't touch any women here...so it's up to you to pick them up and fuck them! But...I get to watch!"
Pointing at the cops arresting some people : "RENO 911! REEEENO 911!!!!"
At some point, we went back to the hotel room...probably to get changed or something. Jess had his laptop with him, and he youtube'd the retarded country songs we drunkenly sang in the car in Disappointment at 5am. Jim was shocked and disgusted, rightfully so, at Jess and I SCREAMING
I'm a God fearin' hard workin' combine driver!!!
Hoggin' up the road on my a p-p-p-plower!!!
Chug a lug a lugin' 5 miles an hour!!!
On my International Harvester!!!
...yea, it was high comedy. We weren't sober. Here's Jess singing (I think?):
He was so drunk at one point, he actually theorized that a margarita would sober him up. Here, see for yourself:
And, I shit you not, IT ACTUALLY DID. I have no idea how that worked...but he slurred less, was more awake, and lasted another 3-4 hours after that. Go tequila?
After hours and hours of booze and gambling, we were close to done for the night. Around 3 something AM, we went to the deli to get food. Jim and I got ours and sat at a table back out in the walkway area. There were still people everywhere. Randomly, 2 guys start yelling at each other, like 10 feet from us. One pushes the other...and that guy throws a punch. Slick guy ducked it, grabbed onto him, and threw him down. For some reason, I yelled out "JUDO THROW! TWO POINTS!" which made everyone, including the guys IN the fight, look at me. Oops. Luckily, they had better things to do, and continued fighting. Jess RAN outta the Deli, yelling "FIIIGHT!", which was pretty funny. After a couple more judo throws and a couple punches, one guy quit and walked away. The whole thing probably lasted 90 seconds. It was awesome.
What could top that? At least 5-7 minutes after the commotion...security showed up. 2 small female security guards. They looked around, looked at each other...and just walked away. They didn't ask anyone anything. Apparently this is a regular occurance in Reno. I love this place!
After a nightcap margarita, where Jess and I stared at the hottest blond chick in the entire world (who was most likely an escort, but we didn't give a shit), we passed out around 5 somethin.
As usual, if I'm forgetting anything...Jess or Jim, fill me in and I'll add it in the next entry.
Here's an additional pic, just for fun. He comes outta the can on his phone...I come out with 2 beers. If that doesn't describe us well, I dunno what would.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Cape D, Finale
Okay, so it took me 22 days to write the final chapter. As stated many times before, I'm laaazy. Plus I finally got money in my poker account again, so I've been spending my spare time punching my desk and yelling incoherently at my monitor. I love poker.
Anyways, where were we? Oh yea, that mother nature bitch.
I decided I should go to bed just after the rain started. I was fairly buzzed, but not buzzed enough (or dressed appropriately enough) for a rain party. I got into my tent, got all curled up and comfy, and promptly fell asleep. At some point in the next couple hours, I was awoken by:
A) Gale force winds;
B) An avalanche of water being dumped on my tent;
C) The side of my tent hitting me in the face:
D) ALL OF THE FUCKING ABOVE. Welcome to hurricane season in SW Washington, Tim.
My el cheapo Walmart tent was obviously not made for hurricanes. Actually, I think it might have collapsed if someone just ran by it really quickly. I wasn't thinking about that when I bought it though. I was thinking "What's the bare minimum I can get by with, and still have a shitload of money left over for as many Keystone Lights as possible?". Nice work, fatty. I was paying for my single-mindedness now. I awoke, in the fetal position, to...hell.
The tent had basically imploded. All 4 sides were now perilously close to my face. The fly was still attached, but was blowing more than Jenna Jameson in her prime. Whenever it flipped up, a not-so-nice spritzer of rain would enter through the mesh. And hit me in the face. I had puddles of water all around me, and my sleeping bag, clothes, and bag were all soaked. My hair was soaked. I guess it could be compared to being in the womb, but the water was colder and I'm pretty sure I wasn't gonna get breasts to suck on when I finally escaped.
My first thought was "Hooooly shit, if I wasn't in this tent right now, I wonder how far away it'd be from here?" My second thought was "How the fuck did I sleep through this for this long? It looks like a rain abortion in here." My 3rd thought was in sync with my first words..."JESSSSS!!! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS FUCKING SHIT!"
He was awake too, unsurprisingly. He yelled back something I couldn't understand cuz the wind was too loud. Our tents were like 10 feet away from each other, and we couldn't even hear one another. Do the math there, champ. Shit was fucked up! I decided I had to get the fuck outta there, ASAP. I got dressed in 0.28 seconds, and got outta my tent.
And it blew away.
My first thought came true in about 2 seconds. Even though my sleeping bag, backpack, and various other shit was in there, the fucking thing took off like a missile. Luckily there was a big bank of trees about 5 feet from where my tent was originally located, so it blew into them. I chased it down and pulled it over to the picnic table. Proving that I'm smart at least SOME of the time (ya know, other than deciding camping in hurricane season was an awesome idea!), I popped one of the poles out, put it around the leg of the cemented-in picnic table, and re-attached it to it's peg. Luckily, it held.
I've been outside for about 45 seconds at this point, and I'm straight up soaked. Jess emerges from his tent, which has a shitload of water inside as well, and we load all our shit into the rav 4. After 3 minutes, I feel like I've taken a shower with my clothes on. The wind is cutting right through my wet clothes, and I'm colder than Luc Bourdon is right now.
Hoooleee shit that was a terrible joke. If that offended anyone...sweet!
Anyways, the next words out of bitch's mouth were golden: "Fuck it, let's grab a beer". We did so, and decided to drink it in the only warm, dry, and unoccupied place we could think of.
The bathroom.
Yup yup, we ran across the street, and drank our beers in the heated shitter. It was 4:10am. I used the heatblower thing to try and dry my shoes, to no avail. We laughed about our situation, and tried to come up with a suitable solution. All we could come up with was "let's drink beer and sit in the Rav 4". So...that's what we did.
We sat in the car for 7 hours, and got completely smashed. We drank a whole bottle of baileys, and a shitload of beer. We could only get 2 radio stations...the christian station, and a country station. So we alternated between betting how many lines into a song "Jesus" or "The Lord" would be said...and we sang country songs. Do you have any fucking idea how fucking funny country music is at 7am, after a bottle of baileys? "International Harvester", by Craig Morgan, could be the funniest drunk song of all time. "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk", by Trace Adkins...not far behind.
By the time the girls got up at 11am (it had stopped raining around 8:30), the first thing Jess slurred to Jamie was "Woman, we'rrre drrrunk. Drrrive us to town for brreakfast! Now!" We were so drunk they wouldn't even eat at the same restuarant as us. They dropped us off and went up the street. After our drunken lunch, we staggered out and up to where they were. After a couple blocks we hear "HEEEEEY" from behind us...and a fat girl was chasing us. I'm used to the fat girl love by now, so I thought she just wanted an autograph or something...but she was holding my jacket. Oops...it was our waitress, chasing us down to give it back. That was actually really nice of her. She had a big heart...figuratively and literally.
After arrival back at the site, the girls started talking about where they could shop. I told them to go to Astoria, but they didn't think anything was there. I dunno where the hell it came from, but I told them about the Astoria walmart, and said they could get tonsa cheap shit there. They thought that was a great idea, so they buggered off to the Astoria walmart.
Why is this funny? Cuz there is no Astoria walmart.
Jess thought it was hilarious that they actually bought the story and went to find it, but it turned out waaaay better than that. While Jess and I had a nice nap and watched a couple movies in the nice warm yurt, the girls went on a wild goose chase for an imaginary walmart. When they got to Astoria and couldn't find it, they asked a lady, who filled them in on the lack of a walmart...but she told them there was one in Longview, which was "only 20 miles away". This lady was seriously retarded, cuz Longview is at least 90 miles from Astoria. But the girls didn't know that...so they drove all the way there for Walmart.
And it was closed. Easter sunday.
Needless to say, they were not amused with Timmy when they got back. FIVE HOURS LATER. Hey, we had a good nap....at least someone enjoyed their time!
After sitting around for a while, we decided to go to town for dinner. The McDonalds in Long Beach has an air hockey table! This shit was on! I whooped Jess like cyclones whoop Myanmar, and ripped a huge hole in the crotch of my jeans while celebrating a goal. Dammit. After that, we went to buy more booze, but the town liquor store couldn't sell hard stuff after 8pm or some shit. What the hell? It's America. Part of it's charm is that you can get blasted on 2 dollar ghetto swill at anytime of the day. BS.
We were outta firewood, so we went to the store to grab some...and that was closed too! However, there were 5 bundles of firewood that just happened to be sitting in front of the store....was it free? We didn't know. After sitting there and debating it for a couple minutes, Melissa (you know it was you!) said we should just grab it. I was peer-pressured into volunteering...and I committed a felony. Or a misdemeanor. Or something. I grabbed 3 bundles, stuffed them in the car, and I had committed my first real crime (other than drinking in public). I'm not gonna lie folks, it felt good. Damn good.
After the best fire ever, everyone passed out pretty early. Jess and I ditched the whole tent idea. He slept with Jamie in the yurt (rat bastard), and I decided to sleep in the Rav 4. Round peg...square hole. I didn't exactly fit too well. Jess and Jamie thought I was up all night drinking, cuz they kept hearing cans opening on the patio of the yurt, where the cooler was. Nope. That fucker Steve, the one-eyed dorito-stealing raccoon douchebag, systematically bit a hole in every single one of my remaining beers during the course of the night. One last pimp slap from mother nature for disrespecting and underestimating her.
Thanks a lot, bitch. And I don't mean Jess.
Anyways, where were we? Oh yea, that mother nature bitch.
I decided I should go to bed just after the rain started. I was fairly buzzed, but not buzzed enough (or dressed appropriately enough) for a rain party. I got into my tent, got all curled up and comfy, and promptly fell asleep. At some point in the next couple hours, I was awoken by:
A) Gale force winds;
B) An avalanche of water being dumped on my tent;
C) The side of my tent hitting me in the face:
D) ALL OF THE FUCKING ABOVE. Welcome to hurricane season in SW Washington, Tim.
My el cheapo Walmart tent was obviously not made for hurricanes. Actually, I think it might have collapsed if someone just ran by it really quickly. I wasn't thinking about that when I bought it though. I was thinking "What's the bare minimum I can get by with, and still have a shitload of money left over for as many Keystone Lights as possible?". Nice work, fatty. I was paying for my single-mindedness now. I awoke, in the fetal position, to...hell.
The tent had basically imploded. All 4 sides were now perilously close to my face. The fly was still attached, but was blowing more than Jenna Jameson in her prime. Whenever it flipped up, a not-so-nice spritzer of rain would enter through the mesh. And hit me in the face. I had puddles of water all around me, and my sleeping bag, clothes, and bag were all soaked. My hair was soaked. I guess it could be compared to being in the womb, but the water was colder and I'm pretty sure I wasn't gonna get breasts to suck on when I finally escaped.
My first thought was "Hooooly shit, if I wasn't in this tent right now, I wonder how far away it'd be from here?" My second thought was "How the fuck did I sleep through this for this long? It looks like a rain abortion in here." My 3rd thought was in sync with my first words..."JESSSSS!!! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS FUCKING SHIT!"
He was awake too, unsurprisingly. He yelled back something I couldn't understand cuz the wind was too loud. Our tents were like 10 feet away from each other, and we couldn't even hear one another. Do the math there, champ. Shit was fucked up! I decided I had to get the fuck outta there, ASAP. I got dressed in 0.28 seconds, and got outta my tent.
And it blew away.
My first thought came true in about 2 seconds. Even though my sleeping bag, backpack, and various other shit was in there, the fucking thing took off like a missile. Luckily there was a big bank of trees about 5 feet from where my tent was originally located, so it blew into them. I chased it down and pulled it over to the picnic table. Proving that I'm smart at least SOME of the time (ya know, other than deciding camping in hurricane season was an awesome idea!), I popped one of the poles out, put it around the leg of the cemented-in picnic table, and re-attached it to it's peg. Luckily, it held.
I've been outside for about 45 seconds at this point, and I'm straight up soaked. Jess emerges from his tent, which has a shitload of water inside as well, and we load all our shit into the rav 4. After 3 minutes, I feel like I've taken a shower with my clothes on. The wind is cutting right through my wet clothes, and I'm colder than Luc Bourdon is right now.
Hoooleee shit that was a terrible joke. If that offended anyone...sweet!
Anyways, the next words out of bitch's mouth were golden: "Fuck it, let's grab a beer". We did so, and decided to drink it in the only warm, dry, and unoccupied place we could think of.
The bathroom.
Yup yup, we ran across the street, and drank our beers in the heated shitter. It was 4:10am. I used the heatblower thing to try and dry my shoes, to no avail. We laughed about our situation, and tried to come up with a suitable solution. All we could come up with was "let's drink beer and sit in the Rav 4". So...that's what we did.
We sat in the car for 7 hours, and got completely smashed. We drank a whole bottle of baileys, and a shitload of beer. We could only get 2 radio stations...the christian station, and a country station. So we alternated between betting how many lines into a song "Jesus" or "The Lord" would be said...and we sang country songs. Do you have any fucking idea how fucking funny country music is at 7am, after a bottle of baileys? "International Harvester", by Craig Morgan, could be the funniest drunk song of all time. "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk", by Trace Adkins...not far behind.
By the time the girls got up at 11am (it had stopped raining around 8:30), the first thing Jess slurred to Jamie was "Woman, we'rrre drrrunk. Drrrive us to town for brreakfast! Now!" We were so drunk they wouldn't even eat at the same restuarant as us. They dropped us off and went up the street. After our drunken lunch, we staggered out and up to where they were. After a couple blocks we hear "HEEEEEY" from behind us...and a fat girl was chasing us. I'm used to the fat girl love by now, so I thought she just wanted an autograph or something...but she was holding my jacket. Oops...it was our waitress, chasing us down to give it back. That was actually really nice of her. She had a big heart...figuratively and literally.
After arrival back at the site, the girls started talking about where they could shop. I told them to go to Astoria, but they didn't think anything was there. I dunno where the hell it came from, but I told them about the Astoria walmart, and said they could get tonsa cheap shit there. They thought that was a great idea, so they buggered off to the Astoria walmart.
Why is this funny? Cuz there is no Astoria walmart.
Jess thought it was hilarious that they actually bought the story and went to find it, but it turned out waaaay better than that. While Jess and I had a nice nap and watched a couple movies in the nice warm yurt, the girls went on a wild goose chase for an imaginary walmart. When they got to Astoria and couldn't find it, they asked a lady, who filled them in on the lack of a walmart...but she told them there was one in Longview, which was "only 20 miles away". This lady was seriously retarded, cuz Longview is at least 90 miles from Astoria. But the girls didn't know that...so they drove all the way there for Walmart.
And it was closed. Easter sunday.
Needless to say, they were not amused with Timmy when they got back. FIVE HOURS LATER. Hey, we had a good nap....at least someone enjoyed their time!
After sitting around for a while, we decided to go to town for dinner. The McDonalds in Long Beach has an air hockey table! This shit was on! I whooped Jess like cyclones whoop Myanmar, and ripped a huge hole in the crotch of my jeans while celebrating a goal. Dammit. After that, we went to buy more booze, but the town liquor store couldn't sell hard stuff after 8pm or some shit. What the hell? It's America. Part of it's charm is that you can get blasted on 2 dollar ghetto swill at anytime of the day. BS.
We were outta firewood, so we went to the store to grab some...and that was closed too! However, there were 5 bundles of firewood that just happened to be sitting in front of the store....was it free? We didn't know. After sitting there and debating it for a couple minutes, Melissa (you know it was you!) said we should just grab it. I was peer-pressured into volunteering...and I committed a felony. Or a misdemeanor. Or something. I grabbed 3 bundles, stuffed them in the car, and I had committed my first real crime (other than drinking in public). I'm not gonna lie folks, it felt good. Damn good.
After the best fire ever, everyone passed out pretty early. Jess and I ditched the whole tent idea. He slept with Jamie in the yurt (rat bastard), and I decided to sleep in the Rav 4. Round peg...square hole. I didn't exactly fit too well. Jess and Jamie thought I was up all night drinking, cuz they kept hearing cans opening on the patio of the yurt, where the cooler was. Nope. That fucker Steve, the one-eyed dorito-stealing raccoon douchebag, systematically bit a hole in every single one of my remaining beers during the course of the night. One last pimp slap from mother nature for disrespecting and underestimating her.
Thanks a lot, bitch. And I don't mean Jess.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Disappointment, Take 2
I dunno if you've ever experienced nature's fury. I have, and let me tell you, it's not sunshine and puppies. I have no quarrel with nature...I happen to enjoy it very much. Mother nature, however, seems to have a vendetta against me. She uses her beauty and variety to suck me in, then kicks the everloving shit out of me. Since I don't enjoy misery alone, I usually end up sharing the misery with my friends. They can thank me later.
I know what you're thinking...what the fuck is fatty talking about? Is he drunk?
I'm talking about Cape Disappointment redux. Part 2. The encore. And, for the record...no, I am not drunk. This is my first beer. So eff off!
Since Jess and I had such a great time at Disappointment in October (see Road Trip With 2 Bitches, parts 1-3), we decided we'd go back in late march. It started off as a trip for the members of Jess's wedding party to meet and greet in a sea of booze and fire, but it didn't work out that way. Jim couldn't come, and neither could Jamie's bridesmaid. So it ended up being me, Jess, Jamie, her maid of honour Melissa, and their friend Janet. We could only get 1 yurt, so Jess and I gave it to the ladies and decided we'd tent camp at the next site. Good idea, right? $%&!!
Jess and I were taking his mom's Rav 4, and the girls drove down in Janet's car. We were goin on easter weekend and knew the border would be crazy busy, so we got off to an early start. Jess and I were up at 5:45 and at the border by 6:30...and there was already a monster lineup. I (brilliantly) decided we should go thru the duty-free, which meant we could skip a ton of the line. After a beer purchase we head back to the car, eager to get on the way.
Yea, right.
In the 10 minutes we were inside the store, the parking lot completely filled up. We couldn't move at all for 20 minutes...when we finally did, we were slotted into a lane (1 of 7) so traffic could be streamed back into the line more efficiently. We sat there for well over an hour, losing our minds from boredom, till we finally made it back into the line. Another 40 minutes or so, and we finally crossed the border. Total time? 2 hours, 20 minutes. Yes, that sucked! But...
The silver lining of all this? The girls decided the border wouldn't be that bad, and left a little bit after us. They arrived at the border about 45 minutes after we did...didn't do the duty-free thing....guess how long they were there.
GUESS!
2 hours? They wish. 3? Pishaw! 4? That's how long it took just to get TO the duty-free! If you guess 5.5 hours, you would be correct!
I believe the correct description of this is....AAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Men = resourceful and smart! Women, not so much!
Jess and I stopped for money (where Jess left his bankcard in the machine and walked away...there goes the smart man statement), and Jack In The Box for food. Jess had forgotten to load music onto a flash drive to listen to in the car, so he busted out his laptop in the JITB for a while to complete this task. The locals thought he had palsy or somethin, but...let's face it, he probably does.
Next stop, native liquor and walmart. Miller Lite! Jager! I should point out that I had misplaced my tent and camping gear, and had to purchase new stuff at walmart. Cheapest tent I'd fit in? Check. Shitty 6 dollar sleeping mat instead of air mattress? Check. Camping chair that can hold 225lbs? Che...wait a minute. Other camping chair that can hold 300lbs for 2 more dollars? Muthafuckin check!
After laying waste to the Walmart bathroom and noticing that this walmart was the epicenter of fat people in the state of Washington (I was svelte here!), we headed on our way. Upon leaving the I5, we were welcomed by some of the ugliest towns known to man, and a whole lotta clear-cut forests. Not the prettiest drive. But it was worth it, cuz around 4pm we arrived back in our adopted hood! Ilwaco! Long Beach! Cape Disappointment! Malt Liquor Energy Drinks, Bitch!
We set up our stuff, and went to call the ladies to see where they were. Quelle surprise! They were nowhere near the place yet. Jess and I played on the beach for a bit and chilled till the ladies finally arrived, long after dark. Fire was brought to life by the resident girl scout, and the ladies passed out fairly early after their exhausting day. Jess and I? Not so much. We decided to to go to the beach in the dark. Drunk. Big mistake. Jess swore up and down the strange cloud formation we saw in the sky was the northern lights, somehow. I kept telling him he was retarded, but he started into some nerdspeak lecture that almost convinced me. After 20 minutes he realized...it was a cloud. Just a cloud. Dumbest smart guy I know. Go malt liquor!
On our way back to the campsite, we...got lost. We couldn't find our path back into the park. We found an abandoned boat, and lotsa wood and grass...but no path. At first it was funny, but after 3 or 4 laps up and down the beach, it got a little weird. Eventually we just walked through the bushes, and emerged in the park...somewhere. After consulting park maps, finding nice showers, and laughing uncontrollably, we finally found our way back, eager to tell the girls of our idiotic adventure. But they were asleep. Denied.
People, never EVER let Jess mix drinks for you. He makes the worst jager bombs known to man. When the bomb's still brown AFTER you add the red bull, you fucked up! We both got totally smashed pretty quickly, and discussed everything from drugs to murders to family/friend criminal histories to animal abuse. We found it funny. The family 2 sites over, with their kid's tents totally within earshot...not so much. Those kids are scarred now. Oh, and Jess decided eating hot dogs right off the metal cooking pole was a great idea, and burned his lip. I laughed so hard I coughed on my keystone light. We stayed up drinking super late, and eventually passed the fuck out.
So far? Nature has been our friend. The deer Jess went berserk on during the first trip were out and about. Our raccoon friends were still around, but kept a low profile for the first night. The weather was good, if a bit cold. Everything this was too good to be true. And you know what that means!
Saturday started off nicely enough. Cold but dry weather meant a trip to the beach with the ladies. Jamie proved she's from the interior by asking such deep philosophical questions such as "What are shellfish?" and trying to dig for clams with a stick. You don't believe me? Here, see for yourself:
After the girls wrote their names in the sand and amused themselves for awhile, it was jetty time. Waves ate them, but not nearly as bad as the last time we were there. Nonetheless, they were amused (and wet). Next up, it was onto Long Beach for food and entertainment. Upon arrival, the girls wanted to pose with the same animal statues that we posed on the first time we came down here. There was a big sign that said "No climbing on animals", but the village idiot cleared that up for us pretty quick. Some kids on their bikes rode up, and palsy-boy said:
"Don't worry, the police station is across the street (points awkwardly across the street; almost falls off his bike), but (long pause), 98% of the time they don't care what happens. I know, cuz I've lived here for (counts on his fingers, another long pause)...11 years! Or 13. No, 11! Yea! Umm...bye!"
Welcome to small town America.
Next up was the awesomest museum ever. If you read the blog about the first trip, we were mesmerized by an execution machine. Insert a quarter, watch someone get...well, executed. Here, see for yourself:
How fucking cool is that?
There's no way we could top that, so it was lunchtime...and, true to form, Long Beach offered more hilarity. This was the sign on the door of the restaurant:
Does this even require a witty comment?
After grabbing some firewood, we headed back to camp. The raccoons were out in full force for the rest of the day/night. Jess gave them some baileys, but not very much (this becomes important later). Jess the f'n nerd did some homework, while the rest of us putzed about and did some drinking. Nightfall arrived. I had left a family-sized bag of doritos on the ledge of the yurt, and a fucking raccoon fucking shanghai'd it! No offence, people of chinese descent. Anyways, the little bastard took the bag under the yurt and ate the whole god damn thing. PIG. We fed them various stuff, and eventually gave them names. Steve was the broken-eyed dorito stealer. There was also Bruno, Cyril Sneer, and a host of others unworthy of names.
Everyone else passed out early, except me. Steve decided he was gonna steal diet cokes from the case next to me, which was fairly amusing...till be bit a hole in the side of one. He jumped about 3 feet in the air, screeched, and fucking took off. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and no one was there to share it with me. Too bad that little fucker got me back the next night.
Around 1am, the weather got much colder, and a light rain started to fall. I'm not sure what I did to deserve the impending destruction....laughing at raccoons? Leaving beer cans all over the place? Busting out the 6-years-past Bow Wow jokes on Jamie? Anyways, no matter what I did...I'll never forget what mother nature had in store for me that night. Nor will I ever forget how much fucking proverbial lemonade Jess and I made outta lemons in the aftermath.
Ya wanna read about it? Come back in a day or two (or 11), and it'll be here. Same fat-time, same fat-channel. Or blog. Or whatever.
I know what you're thinking...what the fuck is fatty talking about? Is he drunk?
I'm talking about Cape Disappointment redux. Part 2. The encore. And, for the record...no, I am not drunk. This is my first beer. So eff off!
Since Jess and I had such a great time at Disappointment in October (see Road Trip With 2 Bitches, parts 1-3), we decided we'd go back in late march. It started off as a trip for the members of Jess's wedding party to meet and greet in a sea of booze and fire, but it didn't work out that way. Jim couldn't come, and neither could Jamie's bridesmaid. So it ended up being me, Jess, Jamie, her maid of honour Melissa, and their friend Janet. We could only get 1 yurt, so Jess and I gave it to the ladies and decided we'd tent camp at the next site. Good idea, right? $%&!!
Jess and I were taking his mom's Rav 4, and the girls drove down in Janet's car. We were goin on easter weekend and knew the border would be crazy busy, so we got off to an early start. Jess and I were up at 5:45 and at the border by 6:30...and there was already a monster lineup. I (brilliantly) decided we should go thru the duty-free, which meant we could skip a ton of the line. After a beer purchase we head back to the car, eager to get on the way.
Yea, right.
In the 10 minutes we were inside the store, the parking lot completely filled up. We couldn't move at all for 20 minutes...when we finally did, we were slotted into a lane (1 of 7) so traffic could be streamed back into the line more efficiently. We sat there for well over an hour, losing our minds from boredom, till we finally made it back into the line. Another 40 minutes or so, and we finally crossed the border. Total time? 2 hours, 20 minutes. Yes, that sucked! But...
The silver lining of all this? The girls decided the border wouldn't be that bad, and left a little bit after us. They arrived at the border about 45 minutes after we did...didn't do the duty-free thing....guess how long they were there.
GUESS!
2 hours? They wish. 3? Pishaw! 4? That's how long it took just to get TO the duty-free! If you guess 5.5 hours, you would be correct!
I believe the correct description of this is....AAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Men = resourceful and smart! Women, not so much!
Jess and I stopped for money (where Jess left his bankcard in the machine and walked away...there goes the smart man statement), and Jack In The Box for food. Jess had forgotten to load music onto a flash drive to listen to in the car, so he busted out his laptop in the JITB for a while to complete this task. The locals thought he had palsy or somethin, but...let's face it, he probably does.
Next stop, native liquor and walmart. Miller Lite! Jager! I should point out that I had misplaced my tent and camping gear, and had to purchase new stuff at walmart. Cheapest tent I'd fit in? Check. Shitty 6 dollar sleeping mat instead of air mattress? Check. Camping chair that can hold 225lbs? Che...wait a minute. Other camping chair that can hold 300lbs for 2 more dollars? Muthafuckin check!
After laying waste to the Walmart bathroom and noticing that this walmart was the epicenter of fat people in the state of Washington (I was svelte here!), we headed on our way. Upon leaving the I5, we were welcomed by some of the ugliest towns known to man, and a whole lotta clear-cut forests. Not the prettiest drive. But it was worth it, cuz around 4pm we arrived back in our adopted hood! Ilwaco! Long Beach! Cape Disappointment! Malt Liquor Energy Drinks, Bitch!
We set up our stuff, and went to call the ladies to see where they were. Quelle surprise! They were nowhere near the place yet. Jess and I played on the beach for a bit and chilled till the ladies finally arrived, long after dark. Fire was brought to life by the resident girl scout, and the ladies passed out fairly early after their exhausting day. Jess and I? Not so much. We decided to to go to the beach in the dark. Drunk. Big mistake. Jess swore up and down the strange cloud formation we saw in the sky was the northern lights, somehow. I kept telling him he was retarded, but he started into some nerdspeak lecture that almost convinced me. After 20 minutes he realized...it was a cloud. Just a cloud. Dumbest smart guy I know. Go malt liquor!
On our way back to the campsite, we...got lost. We couldn't find our path back into the park. We found an abandoned boat, and lotsa wood and grass...but no path. At first it was funny, but after 3 or 4 laps up and down the beach, it got a little weird. Eventually we just walked through the bushes, and emerged in the park...somewhere. After consulting park maps, finding nice showers, and laughing uncontrollably, we finally found our way back, eager to tell the girls of our idiotic adventure. But they were asleep. Denied.
People, never EVER let Jess mix drinks for you. He makes the worst jager bombs known to man. When the bomb's still brown AFTER you add the red bull, you fucked up! We both got totally smashed pretty quickly, and discussed everything from drugs to murders to family/friend criminal histories to animal abuse. We found it funny. The family 2 sites over, with their kid's tents totally within earshot...not so much. Those kids are scarred now. Oh, and Jess decided eating hot dogs right off the metal cooking pole was a great idea, and burned his lip. I laughed so hard I coughed on my keystone light. We stayed up drinking super late, and eventually passed the fuck out.
So far? Nature has been our friend. The deer Jess went berserk on during the first trip were out and about. Our raccoon friends were still around, but kept a low profile for the first night. The weather was good, if a bit cold. Everything this was too good to be true. And you know what that means!
Saturday started off nicely enough. Cold but dry weather meant a trip to the beach with the ladies. Jamie proved she's from the interior by asking such deep philosophical questions such as "What are shellfish?" and trying to dig for clams with a stick. You don't believe me? Here, see for yourself:
After the girls wrote their names in the sand and amused themselves for awhile, it was jetty time. Waves ate them, but not nearly as bad as the last time we were there. Nonetheless, they were amused (and wet). Next up, it was onto Long Beach for food and entertainment. Upon arrival, the girls wanted to pose with the same animal statues that we posed on the first time we came down here. There was a big sign that said "No climbing on animals", but the village idiot cleared that up for us pretty quick. Some kids on their bikes rode up, and palsy-boy said:
"Don't worry, the police station is across the street (points awkwardly across the street; almost falls off his bike), but (long pause), 98% of the time they don't care what happens. I know, cuz I've lived here for (counts on his fingers, another long pause)...11 years! Or 13. No, 11! Yea! Umm...bye!"
Welcome to small town America.
Next up was the awesomest museum ever. If you read the blog about the first trip, we were mesmerized by an execution machine. Insert a quarter, watch someone get...well, executed. Here, see for yourself:
How fucking cool is that?
There's no way we could top that, so it was lunchtime...and, true to form, Long Beach offered more hilarity. This was the sign on the door of the restaurant:
Does this even require a witty comment?
After grabbing some firewood, we headed back to camp. The raccoons were out in full force for the rest of the day/night. Jess gave them some baileys, but not very much (this becomes important later). Jess the f'n nerd did some homework, while the rest of us putzed about and did some drinking. Nightfall arrived. I had left a family-sized bag of doritos on the ledge of the yurt, and a fucking raccoon fucking shanghai'd it! No offence, people of chinese descent. Anyways, the little bastard took the bag under the yurt and ate the whole god damn thing. PIG. We fed them various stuff, and eventually gave them names. Steve was the broken-eyed dorito stealer. There was also Bruno, Cyril Sneer, and a host of others unworthy of names.
Everyone else passed out early, except me. Steve decided he was gonna steal diet cokes from the case next to me, which was fairly amusing...till be bit a hole in the side of one. He jumped about 3 feet in the air, screeched, and fucking took off. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and no one was there to share it with me. Too bad that little fucker got me back the next night.
Around 1am, the weather got much colder, and a light rain started to fall. I'm not sure what I did to deserve the impending destruction....laughing at raccoons? Leaving beer cans all over the place? Busting out the 6-years-past Bow Wow jokes on Jamie? Anyways, no matter what I did...I'll never forget what mother nature had in store for me that night. Nor will I ever forget how much fucking proverbial lemonade Jess and I made outta lemons in the aftermath.
Ya wanna read about it? Come back in a day or two (or 11), and it'll be here. Same fat-time, same fat-channel. Or blog. Or whatever.
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