Saint Craptrick's Day

Wow. Last night got a little weird.

It was pretty tame at the bar, I was kind of expecting things to be a little more...festive.

It was the two year anniversary of me realizing one of my life-long dreams of getting to throw a scumbag through a window. Remembered fondly.

While it was less than ideal, it sure did bring some crazy weirdo lames out of the woodwork.

Let me give you the dossier on my (least) favorite:
Dude
Black weird curly hair
One large black earring
Johnny Cash shirt
Confusing jeans
Timberlands
Very ugly and oddly placed forearm tattoo
Overheard quotes:

"Man, chicks are SO DECEIVING!"
"Yeah man, that's right, FUCK college. Makes you stupid. Schools make you IGNORANT!"
"Yeah man, I have like booze back at the place, any thing you bring would be chaaaaasers. Rock and roll, man. Rock and roll"

So that was my night.

Also BASKETBALL, SPRING TIME, birthday planning (not actually happening), car shopping (not so much either)

Got my first birthday gift yesterday (from myself) - a new baseball glove! I was way too excited about this. It's rubber banded right now. I can smell it.

I have included a picture of Evel Knievel because he is my hero and I want an Evel tattoo.

Holler.

You Lucky Drunks

I don't drink. I have never been drunk, and no real desire to be drunk. That being said, there are some things I miss out on being the handsome teetotaler I am. I've compiled a list of the top things you lucky drunks get that I do not.

This looks fun.

Excuses "In my defense, I've been drinking." Being drunk is a surprisingly good excuse for many behaviors I personally have no justification for. Remember the time that guy went through that window? Or maybe I was hitting on an ugly girl, or maybe I threw a bunch of glasses and plates into the trash can at the end of the bar. No, I was sober, but somehow I'd be a little more off the hook had I had a few too many.

Variety You know what my choices are when I go to a bar? Soda or water. I guess I could have some iced tea if they have it, or one of the mixers they use for your infinitely customizable alcoholic beverages, but really it's soda or water. You have beer, wine, cocktails, alcohol straight - it's a buffet at even the crappiest of dive bars. Think of me next time you are trying to choose which IPA to drink and I'm stuck with watered down diet coke or diet coked up water.

The world is your oyster! Your oyster that will give you a hangover and new STD

Something else to be a snob about Wine snobs, beer snobs, booze snobs - all snobs. Somehow this snobbery goes over better than my early-90s hardcore music snobbery, or my book snobbery or my famous sci-fi trilogy snobbery. I'm trying to be a rootbeer snob, but this just doesn't have the same gravity as someone who only drinks Chilean wine or local microbrews.

Gin, Whiskey and Scotch Drinking these spirits would go so well with my carefully cultivated persona. Sipping a nice glass of Whiskey after a long day would give me so much more credibility over cracking open a Diet Pepsi or refilling my Britta.

Mutual drunken acceptance There's just something odd about the sober guy. I understand this, I find most non-drinkers off-putting. There are things I just can't do. Drunk girls think it's creepy when a sober guy talks to them. I get left out of some of the drunken, shared reverie.

Drinking games A lot of drinking games are stupid and embarrassing, but being the competitive guy I am, I'd love to be able to show off my throwing-a-ping-pong-ball-into-a-plastic-cup-half-full-of-warm-beer-and-floor-dirt skills. But you won't let me! I am not allowed to play if I am not drinking said floor-dirt beer. Alas.

Credibility I feel I just lack a certain credibility with no drinking tales or feats or preferences on my resume. No I don't know which wine will go well with your salmon, no I don't have the rite of passage puke story, no I have no idea how many beers I can drink. Also, as a fledgling writer, I am definitely lacking one of the key skillsets most great writers share - crippling alcoholism.

Privacy You guys never have to answer the question "why don't you drink, Tony?" No, I am not in recovery, no my parents aren't alcoholics, no I am not scared of becoming addicted, no I didn't have a bad experience, no I'm not some creepy religious zealot - I just don't drink.

I am glad I don't drink, and have no REAL desire to do so, but these are the reasons I am a little jealous of you who sip the spirits out there.

So, there you have it, drunks. Be glad you have these things, enjoy drinking just a little more for these reasons next time. Have one for me.

Weekend Rodeo Roundup

An extra weekend day. Always great. Except when you work on holidays. Then it's less great.

Friday
Friday's have gotten a little routine for me. Work late and take it easy. That has been the plan the last few weeks. Meh.

Saturday
Holidayday. Barbecue, meat, yard games, watching sports. Everything you'd expect from the Memorial Day weekend Saturday. It was fun. Nothing too wild, met some grownups I didn't know, which always makes me a little anxious - even if I had no reason to be. I didn't have to impress these grownups or anything, it still always makes me a little nervous though.

Sunday
Monster Dragon. Went to the track to watch some Harness racing on Sunday. It had been a while since I had been to a track. I always forget just how terrifying some of the people who go to watch horses race each other are. I always enjoy myself though - I love gambling. Went up and met the guy who announces the races, he was certainly "quirky".

Monday
Bonus blog day. Monday I worked, because I didn't have off like most people. But I did cut out early. I went to my sister's place to take care of her EIGHT cats. That's too many cats for non-crazy people to have. Half are temporary to be fair, but still. The kittens were adorable, as to be expected. Went to a barbecue after that, watched the Flyers lose. And now here we are on a rainy Tuesday that feels like a rainy Monday. And this whole thing is boring as sin. Sorry readers. I'll be back later with a little TART slash DOAH. Maybe.

GAFABP

Friday it is. Friiidaaay. You know that beep beep beep trucks make when they back up? Well there's this cherry picker across the street that makes that noise whenever it moves. Which is a lot. All day. On to the bad advice!


Dear Tony,
I lived in a shithole apartment for a few months and was forced to move out because my landlord wouldn't fix anything and the roof fell apart. I've been in a legal battle for ten months trying to get the money he owes me and it's been quite difficult. The court system has failed me and I feel very alone and in the dark with the whole thing. I am scared I will never get my money, but I need it desperately. What should I do?


Well no-name, I know what you are thinking - that I am going to say you should burn his house down. And you'd be right. Burn his house down.

Good luck with that,
Tony

Dear Tony,

Now that LOST is over, I don't know what to do with myself. I feel so sad and lonely. Previously a highlight of my week, Tuesdays are now another bleak day of the week. How can I overcome this post-LOST depression?

Lost Without Jack

Dear LWJ,

Burn his house down. Wait, what? Shut up.
First off get better at making your signature a funny acronym. Points for cleverness though. My advice would be to scan the TV listings for Tuesday nights. Find a sci-fi show about an island that will run for six years and watch that instead. That should help.

Short of this I would find some friends. Preferably a handsome doctor who yells a lot and will be willing to completely change his philosophy 180 degrees within a six year span, a ne'er do well charming redneck, some Koreans, an ageless manscara'd guy, an affable fatso with a penchant for quoting Star Wars and fried chicken, some one dimensional females, a smoke monster, a creepy bespectacled man, some demigods, a statue foot and some black guys (don't worry, they won't hang out for long (what! Lost is racist, not me!)) and start a book club with them. I recommend Lovely Bones to start with. It worked for Oprah.

I hope this helps,
Tony

Weekend Rodeo Roundup

Well, another weekend in the books. I was looking forward to this one because I had a pretty hellish week last week. Turned out pretty well.

Friday

Friday was pretty tame, worked way too much, got my car back, got dinner with my sister, played too many video games. Glad to have the car back, even if they forgot a piece I have to go back and pick up. It is kind of jarring to see my dash without that little glowing light of shame that was my check engine light for so many months.

Saturday

Saturday was a good day. We headed down to CBP to tailgate for the Phils-Red Sox game. Tailgating isn't usually my bag. Being the teetotaler I am, tailgating usually means "sit around and sweat" - but I had a good time. The game was a little disappointing as a Phils fan, but we had great seats and great company. Also, the Flyers winning earlier in the day made the loss a little easier to swallow. Finished up the day at a beach party at the local bar that was the expected shit show. Good times.

Sunday

Sunday was basically for one thing. The Lost finale. We had a mini lost party with dharma soda and food and cupcakes. Good looking party.



Nice spread, eh?

Ok - my thoughts on the finale. A good sci fi vehicle has two elements, excellent characters and excellent sci fi. This show had both, and the writers obviously felt the characters were the important part. I felt this was an ending for girls and not boys. They left the island and her mysteries intact and brought together the characters for their goodbye. That's their prerogative and I can respect that. As far as a finale based on characters and relationships I thought it was a good one. I personally would have enjoyed more sci fi, but hey, I'm a nerd.

My bone to pick with the last episode is also a nerdy one. Great sci fi is basically regurgitated classics. Classic stories told on space ships or mysterious islands. Replace gladiator swords with light sabers and medusa with smoke monster, bam. Recipe for success in my book. In the classics, the better a character, the better his death. If you're awesome you die an awesome death, at the hands of a worthy foe. The reason the Iliad is a tragedy is because Achilles dies at the hands of a bitch instead of the badass Hector. So with Lost, I was expecting something good for fake Locke/Man in Black/Smoke Monster. Darth Vader goes out to the most badass man in the galaxy in an effort to save his son. Locke/MIB/SM gets SHOT IN THE BACK BY A WHINY PAIN IN THE ASS GIRL. So upsetting. He deserved better. Maybe if it were Hurley or Ben that shot him I would have liked it better. Although, them going straight old school with the rainy cliff face off was awesome. Jack yelling LOCKE!! was gold. Nerd rant over.

Well, all in all a pretty solid weekend after a pretty crappy week. Let's get going on a good week today, shall we?

Weekend Rodeo Roundup

So, let's see how this goes.

Friday

Friday I worked. I'm always busy Fridays, trying to finish up as much of the accumulated work from the week as I can. After work I cleaned my apartment to prep for the arrival of some new tenants. My ex is traveling Europe. The two cats we got when we were together are coming to stay with me. Bonk and Skeletor Dirtbike.
Much cleaning was accomplished. 5 bags of trash and some novelty vacuuming later, I called it.
After that, went up to the bar to revel in the Flyers' miraculous victory.

Saturday

Went out for a typical egg heavy breakfast. Did some shopping and went to the park. The park was great, Phillies on the handheld radio, lemony booze drinks concocted in sippy cups, injury inducing cartwheels, photographs, Willow climbing, it was a good Saturday.

After that the cat delivery went down. My ex brought them by and they were unhappy about the change of scenery. Lots of angry mews and hiding.



Skeletor hid beside the sink, and meowed angrily if you found her. She doesn't like losing hide and seek.



Bonk hid above the washing machine, she likes being high up.

We let them settle in and went out for the most delicious Mexican food I ever had with our already drunk friend. Five dollars were added to the tip for his behavior.

Sunday

Went to lunch with a friend in a surprisingly trashy neighborhood.

Stumbled upon a massive flea market. They were mostly shutting down, but not before I could pull down a stupid haul of trivial crap. I scored some Alf, NKOTB, Street Sharks and Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. Also found some ridiculous baseball suction cup player head things and a comic book about Mike Tyson.

Then, we went to meet my sister's new stray cat kittens. They were kinda creepy and awesome.
A little more hanging out, another Flyer's game, another trip to the bar and I was ready to call it a night.
Bonk is the mischievous sort, and mostly nocturnal. It's tough to make it through the night without her getting into something. But, I'm a heavy sleeper and figure I should be able to ignore most of it. Early this morning, around 5:45 am, I heard a pretty significant commotion at the foot of the couch I was sleeping on. I thought someone was in my apartment. I wake up and turn just in time to see Bonk leaping and scrambling from atop my lamp. It's a paper square, I don't even know how she got that far.


This is the lamp she tried to stand on

Well in my sleepy haze I see this go down and reach out and try to catch her as her horrible footing gave way and she dove toward me. She scratched the hell out of me and the lamp went timber-ing into my bike. Thanks Bonk, good morning to you too.

Code Blue

My mind was boggled and my ghast was flabbered twice at dinner this weekend.
To set the scene: Lovely Lady and I are feeling peckish. She's got a hankering for the mussels of the bar we go to too much.
It's dinner time on a weekend, so we suspect the place will be a shit show. It is, but we find a seat at the bar. We are seated between the loudest man who ever lived and a mind numbingly boring couple which consists of a pandering boyfriend and his fake wine snob girlfriend.

The LMWEL is like an infomercial pitch man, shitty movie dad and Dick Vitale rolled into one. He's there with what I assume is his son, just aggressively talking at him the entire time. Everything is shouted and everything is advice-y. Not good times.

The couple is just a typical lame-o couple. The girl orders some wine, the bartender brings her a glass. She tastes it. The 'tender asks her how she likes it and before rendering her verdict she needs to know what it is. He tells her it's some whatever white wine from Chile. Ooooh yeah I like it, she responds. Then she lectures her boyfriend on the quality of Chilean white wines, but the crappiness of Chilean reds. BLAH BLAH SNORE SNORE. If this girl had gotten a Franzia and he told her it was a Chilean white she would have said the same crap - she asked what it was before saying if she liked it. People are dumb. Wait, I'm supposed to show, not tell. I think I did both.

Unfortunately, enduring those two bookends was only the beginning of the human car crash.
Older couple, enter stage right. They look around for a seat, not finding one they manifest destiny eminent domain our corner of the bar. Reaching over an eating Lovely Lady to order and drink Chardonnays with ice. We have our food at this point. The slightly more manly half of the couple pulls up a chair for his blushing bride at the corner of a bar. Which, as we all know is NOT A SEAT. The place their icy goblets in such a place that whenever they want some they have to literally reach over Lovely Lady's muscular platter. Getting frustrated we dip out to make a phone call and take in the air (read: smoke a cigarette). We announce our intentions. The old fella didn't understand our announcement and asked Lovely Lady if we were leaving. She courteously responds with a definitive 'Nope.' Our 1/4 eaten food, personal effects and Nope were not enough to convince him, he turns to me - "You're NOT leaving?!?!"
No, sir, we are not (paraphrased).
At this point in the retelling I really want to admire this fellas stick-to-it-iveness. Kudos.
Within moments of getting outside we take a break from our bitching about the horrible people inside to notice he was, indeed, not dissuaded. He set up camp in Lovely Lady's seat. Baffling. Creepy, shitty, rude old dude is now talking and leaning and carrying on all over our dinners.
We come back in, he gets up, makes some corny joke and goes back to leaning on Lovely Lady's chair. We couldn't believe it. Lovely Lady was too creeped/grossed to finish her meal. We necessarily switched to drinking. Well, she did.

Those three sets of insanity finally made their way out and we joked and laughed with the bartenders at the sheer craziness that our night had been to this point. 'People these days...' and all that.

Then came in some younger couples. Mid 30s. The last couple to arrive comes in toting a baby in a baby carrier thing. Great, we'll have to deal with a shrieking baby. So they come in, great their friends and blow my mind. They plop their baby down - ON THE BAR. Baby on the bar. Where it stayed for the next hour and half while the parents joked and drank with their friends. Baby on the bar.
I of course texted my friends about the craziness going down. Funny responses: 'Body shots!' and the command 'Spin it!'

I am glad I am not horrified, but amused. People are crazy, rude and self centered. The least we can do is laugh at them. Not our place to straighten em out, but to laugh at them in the comfort of out-of-earshot and blogs.