Jack Didley's VIP Ouroboros

Though a few people 'liked' my Facebook status that was akin to the title of this post, I fear that not many of you are familiar with the ouroboros. It's the ancient snake-eats-tail symbol that's been interpreted as everything from the Wheel of Time to the phoenix to the cyclic nature of existence. I became most familiar with it via the [Title of Show] show, or t[ToS]s. By the end of this post, you'll understand our current relationship with the great ouroboros.

The only "nightclub" that we've experienced since moving to Eastern Washington is a local gem known as Jack Didley's. While locals have a hard time NOT hearing about how cheap drinks are at JD's on the radio (seriously, most specials are $1), our very first experience at the club was when Annie insisted that we go enter their Halloween costume contest. I won the male division. Annie won the female division. For winning, each of us were given $25 cash and a certificate for a free VIP party for 18 people at JD's in the following 90 days. So, we had 2 VIP parties to use. Had it not been for them forcing us to come back with these VIP party passes, I'm not sure that we would have ever returned. We're just too old to club in a 'small city'...

Though it took a few weeks to actually contact them, I was able to snag the heavily sought-after Ultra VIP seating area for last Friday, the 13th, in order to celebrate Annie's upcoming First Annual 29th Birthday Party. Since we depart for Tahoe this Friday, this past weekend was our last weekend in WA in 2013. I made a Facebook event, invited everyone who's profile said they were near 'Richland, WA', and said that the first 16 people that RSVP would get wristbands, while the rest that want to come would have to hang out on the dance floor with the other peasants. (We ended up bringing everybody we knew in the VIP area, because nobody gives a fuck at JD's.)

The very-classy Ultra VIP lounge's center-piece was, fittingly, a stripper pole. Nothing like eating a fancy Frost Me 'fetti cupcake-cake off of a stripper pole (with Woodford Reserve horse racing napkins):

Merry Birthday, Annie!

Well, some time around 1am, the mic guy (he's not the DJ, he's really just worthless and walks around yelling inaudible things into the mic all night) cleared the dance floor (and the elevated levels of stripper poles) for a dance-off. As the current King of JD's, I felt obligated to participate. I climbed to the top, danced the shit out of that place, and was asked to come back for the Finals, an epic battle of the sexes.

Then, it was the ladies' turn. Let's be real, for a minute. This was the saddest group of dancing ladies I've ever seen collected on a small stage. They all looked either roofie'd or rolling on E, humping the stage or the mirrors or the poles like a pack of horny chihuahuas. A few looked like they had itchy butts and were trying to drag them across the stage in order to scratch themselves. I cheered loudly for a particularly rhythm-deficient chubby girl, knowing she would be easy pickin' when it came to the final. Through a sad chorus of cricket chirps, a female finalist was selected. (Seriously, if you're the guy that came with a lady dancing on stage, it's your responsibility to cheer for her. Don't leave her up there in shame at an awkward silence.)

Then, it was time for me to shine. Rob vs Didley's Skank. Though she tried to woo the audience with her stripper moves, she had no chance against my ability to gyrate and shimmy every part of my body. She even tried to get up on me (slapping me in the face with her desperate flailing), but she was no match. The crowd voted, and the noise level made the decision quite clear. The King shall remain in his throne. I've heard that I looked very similar to this:

Annie made sure to point out afterward that it was not just our VIP section going crazy, the whole club loved it. One of the girls in our party even commented, "Even our boyfriends are cheering for Rob." Never underestimate my ability to not care at all how I look in public.

And what did they have for the winner? A VIP party for 18 people at Jack Didley's! (Where was the $25 this time?)

So, every time I go to Jack Didley's now, it's for a VIP Party. Also, every time I go to Jack Didley's, I win a VIP Party.

...and the snake eats its tail,
~RoB

P.S. The bartender at Didley's was the second person I've spoken to since meeting them as Miley Cyrus, and both people had no clue who I was, dressed in boy clothes and looking all normal...

Whiskey Madness

Today, I'm hoping to take a couple of friends back to my favorite stop on the Bourbon Trail, Wild Turkey.  I finished The Trail last month, and though I'd go to just about any of them again, Wild Turkey was definitely my favorite.  It's massive.  It feels the most scientific because of the scale of its mass production, and honestly, I always thought Wild Turkey was crap bourbon.  It turns out that I was very unfamiliar with their full line of spirits.  Anyway, planning today's adventure reminded me that I never posted about the bracket we set up for comparing all of the whiskeys my group of friends had been drinking lately.

There have been 6-8 of us that have been touring distilleries and drinking all varieties of whiskey (primarily bourbon), and we've been purchasing bottles along our travels.  Saturday night before the Super Bowl, Annie and I hosted the Michigan @ Indiana (1 v 3) Mens' Basketball Game at our house.  Since it was going to start late, we decided to skip all of the food and instead compare all of our favorite bourbons over the past few weeks at the same time.  It didn't take long before I made a bracket, set up a way for anonymous voting for each pairing, and lovingly dubbed it 'Whiskey Madness'.  We set the bourbons up against each other to see who would come out on top.  Here's what it looked like at the beginning, a lineup that The Bourbon Trail's Twitter account would eventually dub "Murderer's Row":

Following were the contenders:  Woodford Reserve, Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, Four Roses Single Barrel, Bulleit, Angel's Envy, Blanton's, Russel's Reserve Single Barrel, Russel's Reserve 10 year, Knob Creek, Kentucky Spirit, Stranahan's Tennessee Whiskey, Russel's Reserve Rye, Chivas Scotch, Jameson, and Trader Joe's Bourbon.  I wish we could have had Elijah Craig's 12 Year or Basil Hayden's, just to round out representation from the western side of the state, but I hadn't even finished the Bourbon Trail yet.  In the end there was one:

I had never had Blanton's before that night, and it's definitely the most distinctive of the bourbons I've tasted.  It's the easiest one to do a blind tasting and confidently state, "This one is Blanton's."  So, it was interesting to watch it walk to the Finals.  However, the most expensive (I think?) and what showed up being heralded as the best bourbon eventually won:  Wild Turkey's Kentucky Spirit.  Here's the Whiskey Madness bracket:

By the end of the night, I had learned several things.  Though KY Spirit won, I was really happy with how our bottle of Russell's Reserve 10-year faired.  It fought some stiff competition to make it to the quarterfinals. I was also happy to hear how much everybody liked plain ol' Woodford Reserve.  That's been my go-to for mixing since we moved here, and it's nice that, under the scrutiny of the Madness, one of the more popular comments was 'I forgot Woodford was this good'.

After posting both the lineup and the eventual winner, I was impressed at the Bourbon Trail and Wild Turkey's quick responses via Twitter:

So that was cool.  Thanks, Twitter!

Happy Drinking,
~RoB

P.S. Why didn't the Trader Joe's Bourbon show up in any of the pictures?  Because you shouldn't drink it.  That's why.  You're welcome.

P.S.S. No we're not professional tasters or anything, so what does our opinions matter, but I will defend that I actually work in the wine industry and am considered to have a good palate in that field.  Regardless, you like what you like, so take our results however you want.

Cocktails

I love wine.  I had a fling with tequila between the summers of 2007 and 2008, but wine has been my only long-term relationship (with alcohol).  The closest thing I've ever come to drinking cocktails were Tequila Sunrises (during that bout with tequila) and the Jack-n-Cokes I get every time I'm at a bar.  They're simple, sweet, and alcoholic.  Who could ask for more!

This year for Annie's birthday (the day the Maya calendar supposedly ended), we fought through a blizzard to take The Art of the Cocktail at The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe.  Only our group of 4 (us and her parents) and 2 other guests actually made it to the class, so we did it at the bar of the Manzanita instead of in the Living Room Restaurant.  There we had their two top bartenders giving us the secrets behind their most popular drinks.  I got pretty drunk... I think it was the altitude.  We took the recipes home, tweaked them to our tastes, experimented with friends, and now I'll list the recipes for the 4 cocktails that got us through the holidays.

We bought all of the tools necessary to make these cocktails, like a cocktail shaker, jigger, & strainer.

Since I'm using a jigger, all of my proportions are in ounces, but yours could just as easily be in tsp or Tbsp or shots or whatever you want.  That's the convenience of proportions, so I'll just leave them as such.

Annob's Sidecar (this makes 2)
1 Cointreau
2 Simple Syrup (if you want less sweet, make this 1)
2 Lemon Juice
4 Brandy
Shaken and strained into two dry martini glasses, or in our case, a wine glasses.
(If you're feeling fancy, use 1 orange for 1 lemon and drop a spiral of orange peel in the glass.)

Annob's Moscow Mule
2 Vodka
~6 Ginger Beer (usually I split a can/bottle between roughly two drinks)
Stirred with a cinnamon stick, leaving the cinnamon stick in the glass.

Annob's Margarita
1 Cointreau
1 Lime Juice
1 Orange Juice
2 Simple Syrup
3 Tequila
Shaken and strained into a salt- or sugar-rimmed glass.

Annob's Keeneland Breeze
2 Bourbon
2 Cointreau
6-8 Ginger Ale

It's shameful for us to take any credit at all for these classic/standard drinks, but we did play with the recipes we were given.  You could order a Sidecar, Moscow Mule, or Margarita at just about any respectable bar, and who knows, maybe they'll be better!  Keeneland Breeze is a cocktail from the Keeneland horse-racing track in Lexington.

As far as the cocktail recipes are concerned, all fruit juices are fresh-squeezed.  Lime and lemon juice are completely interchangeable.  You can even replace the orange juice in the Margarita with lime.  Cointreau can be replaced with Grand Marnier with little distinction in taste.  I just like to keep Cointreau around for when I make buttercream.  The cheapest Brandy you can find works for the Sidecar, we use Christian Brothers VS (the same brand I use in my Sangria).  You can use the cognac of your choice, as well.  We use Bulleit Bourbon and Absolut Vodka.  I've used 1800 Reposado for my Tequila in the past, but currently we're using Espolon Reposado.  Goslings is the standard Ginger Beer, but I'm really digging Regatta for its extra fresh-ginger spiciness.  It might be too much for some, though.  Finally our simple syrup is just half sugar and half water.  No boiling required.  Just use warm water, shake it up, let it dissolve for a few seconds, shake it up again, and drop it in the fridge to remove the cloudiness.

I'll be honest, I hated vodka until I discovered the Moscow Mule.  Also, we bought a muddler to work on things like lemon drops and mint juleps, but we focused on these 4 drinks instead.

Cheers!
~RoB

TBOX 2012

Two weekends ago, Annie and I took a trip up to Chicago to visit with one of her close friends from college, as well as participate in the annual Twelve Bars of Xmas (TBoX) bar-crawl throughout Wrigleyville.  (When you click on that link, you can find me in that blurry picture right below the tendons in Heat Miser's right wrist while he pours cereal into the audience.  I'm the dark afro with reindeer antlers on.)  The weather sucked driving up there, but we got there Friday afternoon and decided to pre-party for the bar crawl with red wine and tequila and Jack Daniels.  I've made better decisions...

The crawl started around 8am on Saturday the 8th at The CubbyBear, across from the Chicago Cubs' ballpark.  The line in front of that bar was an absolute zoo; a great foreshadow of the day.

TBOX is effectively a drunken holiday parade on Clark St.

One big thing about TBOX is that you're supposed to look ridiculous.  Straight from their website:  "People need to be STARING at you the minute you leave the house."  I feel like I succeeded in that, since I used blinking LED Xmas lights and red/green pompoms to make a ridiculously ugly sweater.  I also had pink-bunny, footie pajamas on, as well as antlers.  A spectacular moment happened before we even got into the first bar.  An old man pulled up to the stop light, rolled down his window, and shouted "what's going on?", to which someone in the crowd yelled back, "a birthday party!"

The first bar & opening ceremonies were boring.  The guy who created TBOX and organizes it now had a really long, indulgent sing-a-long that he composed and it was super awkward.  It seemed as though he didn't have many friends in real life, so he was going to milk today for all that it was worth.  We left in the middle to get our drink on, but not before getting a green bracelet.  The first bar we went to was Bar Celona.  It was empty, so getting drinks and using the bathroom was easy.  I don't drink beer, so a bar-crawl means that I'll be drinking a bunch of liquor.  There were deals on Jagermeister shots all day, so that was what I was going to choke down so that the day didn't cost $500.

TBOX is all about stickers, as well as their theme, which was TBOXopoly this year.  So, at each bar you got a sticker that said 'you landed on...' and there was a royal court walking around passing out stickers that looked like money with their individual faces on the bills.  Annie and I even had bright pink 'Virgin' stickers that had to be signed by one of the royal court after we kissed/got kissed by them.  (Again, the underlying theme of these folks having poor social lives and needing this bar crawl.)

Thank you, Annie's friend, for hosting us!

I got antsy and progressed by myself to Rockwood Place for a shot and a sticker before meeting my group at the Hofbrauhaus, called Uberstein for some reason.  At this point, Annie was already trying to slow me down by making me drink water in between shots of Jager.  We walked across the street to get into Exedus II Lounge, which I started to freak out about because it wasn't on our TBOXopoly boards.  If I was being challenged to hit at least 12 bars on the board, I had no time to waste at other bars.  Apparently Exedus was one of 3 bars participating in TBOX that weren't on the board, so at least we got stickers.  The back corner of this bar was ridiculously dark, so my Xmas lights were shining bright.

At this point, hunger was affecting my drinking, so Annie and I actually took off to go find pizza at Dimo's.  I ate a ton there, getting a dollar off my second round for being fat.  Annie thoroughly enjoyed the Mac-n-Cheese pizza, and our friends eventually met us there.  We had heard how ridiculous the lines were getting at most of the bars, and we could see that the Blarney Stone didn't look too bad from the windows of the pizzeria, so that is where we headed next.  This ended up being the most-crowded room of the day.  Plus, the single bartender was an old Irish asshole that only served people right in front of him.  (I understand that it was a zoo, and that he could get away with that, but you should really walk along the bar and try to get to everyone.  People were starting to throw shit at him when we decided to just leave.)  At least this pub felt the most authentic.

From there, we decided to head south and find the shortest line, which was to Rookies.  As I look back on the day, Rookies was probably my favorite bar.  This is sad, since it's a Michigan State bar.  They did a fantastic job at controlling numbers that went in so that once you were in you were comfortable.  It was easy to get drinks, the live DJ was playing good music, and there was plenty of room for drinking and dancing.  We stayed there for several drinks, but eventually moved on as our group was getting drunker.  In fact, our group split in half at this point, since Annie and her friend ran off ahead while the rest of us waited for someone to make their way out of Rookies.  I eventually ran off to find the girls, but the rest of the party never came.  Oh well...

I found Annie and her friend at Fiesta Cantina, and we all ran upstairs.  Once we got drinks, we hovered around an empty stripper pole, which was used several times by drunken sorority girls (I wasn't complaining) before we decided to progress to the next bar.  I'll be honest, this is the line in the sand.  This is where things get hazy.  I know most of the events that occurred from here forward, but they may be out of order, or just plain made up.  You can see the number of bars that we had already hit at this point.  I tried to text Annie every time I took a shot, but I lost track by Rookies...  You've been warned!

We found ourselves at Nisei Lounge, where we were lucky enough to meet up with one of my friends from college.  That is, unless Nisei Lounge doesn't have two dartboards in the back.  If it doesn't, I'm not sure what bar we were at.  We left here to return to Clark St. and hit up Deuces, Irish Oak, Mullen's, Vines, and eventually Yak-Zies.  (You're very welcome for combining those into one sentence, since this is already getting too long.)  I really liked Vines, and I would like to visit there once when it wasn't a shit show.  They were even smart enough to have bathroom attendants, so it wasn't absolutely disgusting in there.  At one of these bars, we ran into 4 people dressed as toy soldiers.  After the fact, I was told that they looked like they were from Babes in Toyland, but at the moment, all I could do was sing songs from The Nutcracker loudly at them while making robotic toy soldier motions.  I was not the only one singing in our party, for the record.

Doing shots of cereal is another big thing at TBOX.

At Yak-Zies, my friend from college reunited with his group of bar crawlers.  This bar felt exactly like Elephant & Castle, which was one of my favorite pubs from bar-crawling San Francisco during St. Patty's Day.  It was very comfortable, very spacious, very easy to get drinks, and they had food, which was becoming a necessity again.  At one point, a taco truck pulled up outside, and Annie begged me to bring her food from it, but the nice gentleman at the door said he couldn't allow me to do that since they serve food.

I only needed one more sticker to finish my 12 bars (and Annie only needed 2), so we left our friends at Yak-Zies and ran to Trace.  [If you're doing the math, we had actually already been to 13 bars, but the first bar didn't count and neither did Exedus.]  For our sakes, I don't think we drank at Trace, but we quickly found our way to Raw Bar.  They didn't have any stickers left, but they did have amazing oyster shots with vodka, which we gladly partook in.  This was another bar that I would like to visit while sober.  We finally found ourselves at the northern-most bar of the day, Full Shilling.  This is where shit hit the fan for my female companions.  This is the bar that they remember least, and it's also the bar where they barely took a sip of the beers I bought them.  All they wanted was water.  Lots of water.  I felt like I still had my wits about me, but events that followed might prove otherwise.

We finished, but Annie would not finish those beers!

We were handed red bracelets to match the green bracelets we were handed to at the first bar.  (Remember those bracelets from the first bar?)  These bracelets signified that you had completed a TBOX bar crawl!  Happy with our success, we decided to swing back to Yak-Zies to pick up our fellow partiers.  We only actually got one person to go back out with us, and our first stop was Big G's Pizza.  For some reason, they had stickers, which we gladly accepted, but I was more interested in 3 more slices of pizza.  Also, we ran into the toy soldiers again.  I sang again.  I also finished their half-drank bottle of water after they left.  Could I be more obnoxious?  Annie and our friends decided to sit there for a minute to watch the Heisman ceremony, but I couldn't sit still.  From what I recollect, I stood up and said, "I have to go" and ran off to continue bar crawling on my own.

Annie's completed board, which wouldn't make it home with us

I got to check out Rockit Burger Bar, CubbyBear (again, but this one counted), and Sluggers before meeting them back at Casey Moran's.  I, technically, should have never seen Sluggers, but I walked in the door that they were reserving for the exit.  I had no clue, since nobody stopped me.  It wasn't until I gave up on the crowd and walked back outside that I saw the huge line to get into that bar.  Bernie's had also shut their doors and weren't letting anybody else in.  I remember being very angry at Bernie's.  I also have the slightest memory of reaching into my bunny pocket to find change for a homeless person and pulling out golden, chocolate coins instead of money.  (Most of us found these in our pockets the next morning.  Where the fuck did we get these?  Full Shilling?  Drunker than I thought...)  I gave the chocolate coins to the homeless man anyway.  I pray it was somebody just dressed homeless, since that's a dick move.  Casey Moran's would become home base for the rest of the night, and where we hailed a cab from to take us home, but I wasn't finished.

When I met up with everybody once again at Casey Moran's, I realized that my college friend, who had missed part of the crawl for a birthday party, hadn't finished collecting all the stickers for his TBOXopoly board.  Well, I was a self-proclaimed expert at this point, and I dragged him down the road in the search for stickers.  We went into one really fancy bar that, for the life of me, I cannot figure out which one it was.  We also hit up Dark Horse and Black Sheep, but I was just hunting for stickers.  I think we collected his last sticker at Nisei Lounge (a reappearance for me), and we celebrated with a round.  On the way back to find Annie, I swung in to Merkle's for a round in memory of Granny (who had her funeral at Merkle's Funeral Home in Monroe, MI, in June.)

We time-traveled back to Casey Moran's where I couldn't find Annie.  I remember having an overwhelming fear that Annie and her friend had gone home without me.  I had memorized addresses and cross streets, so I wasn't worried that I'd never see them again, but I do remember being worried.  It turns out they were on the other side of the wall dancing.  I got dragged over to their side of the bar, and I would never see anybody on the other side of the wall again.  I don't remember anybody leaving, but the next thing I knew that side of the bar was closed and they were gone.  Oh well, dancing and water was the name of our game. I also had one other college friend that was headed there at 10pm to meet us.  (What time did we start?)

By the time the new guy joined the party, it was an utter shit show, all parties included.  I ran off to try and collect my first friend who was wandering the streets looking for his lost jacket.  I got to see some spectacular text messages that were passed:  "Abe wow Itzel is: hooatsky earth brute."  Finally, just before 11pm, Annie and I hit a wall.

And it was a big, fast wall that we hit...

We walked outside and hailed a cab back to our friends place, having just left her at the bar.  We managed to get into her apartment.  I had to strip down out of the bunny suit at the door and head straight to the shower, because I was disgusting.  Annie immediately passed out on the airbed.  I, I'm told, came out of the shower screaming at her to drink water, fearing she was dead.  Then I passed out, too.

We woke up at a reasonable hour the next morning, but I think I was still drunk.  Our host had apparently brought someone home with her.  [Awkward palm tree.]  The three of us (sans extra guy) ate at a cool place nearby.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet up with one of my closest friends in Chicago since he and his wife had consumed too much alcohol the night before, also.  Once Annie and I sufficiently had our shit together, we got into our cars and headed back to Kentucky.  The weather driving home sucked.

Your weather sucks, Indiana,
~RoB

P.S. I'm pretty sure that my college friend who got really drunk and lost his jacket had this Red TBOX present on at one time, having found it beside the road, and eventually ditching it since it smelled:

Now it sits in front of Wrigley field.

P.S.S. I'm still unclear how I ended up with a purse strap (no purse) around my right wrist (go back to that last reindeer photo).  It looks like no purse anybody in our party was carrying...

To Jail or the Hospital?

I've made a friend in Lexington that I have a strange connection with.  I wouldn't consider us very close, and we haven't really spent that much time together, but we have similar personalities.  He's an asshole in the same way that I am.  We're both smart, dirty-minded, and quick to add our opinions about things.  Usually in the form of a pun or sarcasm.  The biggest difference is that he's cheap.  I don't really have any money, but I'm still not cheap.  Well, he's moving to California this week.  So, we wanted to give him a night out on the town before he left us.

I've actually been having stomach issues over the past couple of weeks, which actually forced me to go to a clinic at one point.  Because of this, I haven't been drinking lately.  Thankfully.

This was roughly the same group of people that drank heavily for St. Patrick's Day, and we all know how that turned out.  The cheap friend who got everyone kicked out of my favorite bar in Lexington, The Penguin, is the same guy that I described at the beginning having the same personality as myself.  I don't know if he felt he had to live up to his last performance, or if he just doesn't have a limit switch.  The mantra we decided on before going out was: "nobody goes to jail, nobody shows their tits".

Shots were had at the first bar.  Shots were had at the second bar, a tequila bar.  Drinks were flowing as soon as it hit midnight, since their house margaritas got quite cheap.  At one point, sparkly eye shadow was brought out and applied to my eyelids, with the ring finger of the girl who owned the makeup, since that's, apparently, the appropriate way to apply eye shadow with your fingers.  I was notified by this same girl that the superpower that matches my personality would be invisibility, since I wouldn't have to wear pants.  So true.

We progressed onto The Penguin, which was tempting fate in the first place.  The first thing that was ordered was another shot.  This time, it was a shot called The Cody.  It's whatever the bartender feels like pouring into the glass.  Apparently, our bartender just got divorced, 'cuz he was on a mission to fuck somebody's life up.  From what the largest person in our group could see, the bartender poured in Jagermeister, Bicardi 151, Gin, Everclear, and a few other un-identified liquids, a recipe that bear-man drunkenly repeated for the rest of the night.

Like I said, I haven't been drinking lately, and I wasn't really keeping up with the crowd tonight, but I decided to suck it up and try this concoction.  As I was shooting it, my body stopped me about 1/3 of the way.  I couldn't finish it.  It was the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth.  I've never bitched out on a shot.  I assure you, you would have also.  Within minutes, the 3 people that were able to put their shots down were nice and drunk.  Then the night got interesting.

Drinks were still flowing.  Dueling pianos were... dueling.  The bar is great fun, which is why I like it so much.  It was great to enjoy it as a fairly sober customer, this time.  Fishbowls were purchased, over-enthusiastically.  Dancing was had.  Cider was flowing.  Before long, everybody in my party was just about blackout drunk, aside from one other girl, who lost her house keys at the tequila bar and got at least one drink/shot behind in trying to find them.  So, I just got to enjoy the cheap guy getting handsy with another girl in our party.  Drunken ramblings.  Big smiles.

We've all been there.  We know things can't go this hard for this long and not start to make a turn for the worst.  The cheap guy started getting a little too handsy.  Although the girl that was dancing with him didn't mind, she wasn't really coherent enough to really make that call herself, so we started playing all kinds of games to calm down that situation.  The lights came on.  It was roughly 2:30am.  The bar had emptied out at some point, and we were going through the motions of collecting our party and our possessions and heading to the door.

The cheap guy, at this point the drunkest person in our party, was starting to get obnoxious.  He was calling everybody in the party the same name.  He made a turn for the bar, which we all started to be wary of, since we figured he would mouth off to the bartender and get booted out of here.  Instead, he got served.  I'm told that he actually told the bartender that he was Bruce Wayne, asked one of our friends to confirm that, and still got served.  Love this bar.

I was on my way out as he started yelling at the bartender and at our group of friends.  Something about getting laid tonight, just with less class.  I just peaced out, and left other people to deal with him.  At dinner, I notified everyone that I held no responsibility to anybody except Annie, even though I was going to be mostly sober for the night.  I look through the window, and I see the majority of my group dragging the drunk cheap guy out, slightly against his will.  They got him outside, he's still running his mouth, albeit mostly incoherently, and he's making it more and more difficult to keep him moving out of the range of the bouncers.  One friend managed to get a trash bag form The Penguin staff before departing.  We managed to drag him down the block a few store-fronts before things really got interesting.

He managed to get a hold of a parking meter and start hanging on for dear life.  He wouldn't budge, regardless how much he was begged or physically nudged.  Then it became apparent that he was having trouble with motor skills, and the shortest girl in our party, who was primarily holding him up, started asking for help.  The whole party got together and convinced him to sit down on some steps.  Our largest friend, bear-man, a 6-foot-something bear of a man, was sitting next to him.  We all huddled up and set plans for cabs and money and getting everyone home safely.  We turn around, and scrawny, drunk, cheap guy is strangling the also-drunken Crossfit monster.

I managed to drag drunk cheap guy off and rest him up against another parking meter.  The party split at this point, since bear-man decided that if he hung around any longer he was going to have to show the skinny drunk guy how bad the decision to try and choke him was.  Short girl begged me not to leave her holding up drunk guy by herself, but the rest of the party went to make sure bear was ok and going to get home ok.  Drunk guy started losing his grip on the parking meter, and short girl couldn't take any more weight, so I told her to drop him.  Maybe busting his knees or his head would wake him up a little.  She didn't like the idea, but since I wasn't going to help, she didn't really have a choice.  Down he went, face down, sprawled out on the sidewalk.  And that's where he laid, un-phased and still mumbling.

That's when the cops pulled up to The Penguin.  They talked to the bouncer, and one cop turns toward us.  We have no time.  Drunk guy is going to jail, and he will not cooperate with us.  So, I screamed at him to stop running his mouth.  I dragged him into a little, dark doorway leading into a closed store.  I roughly flipped him over, picked him up, threw an arm over my shoulder, got the short girl under the other one, and we started scurrying away.  As soon as we stepped out from the doorway, the cop was about 3 feet to our right.  We just started walking away from him.  Granted, it looked more like 2 people holding up a stiff in the style of Weekend at Bernie's.

"You guys going far?" said the cop, now right behind us.  "Nope, just around the corner," the short girl quickly replies.  On cue, and almost over-top of the correct response, drunk guy turns his head to clearly pronounce, "To Jail!"  I almost punched him out.  I sure as hell wasn't going to jail.  Our Weekend at Bernie's charade continued up another block, around the corner, up another block, and off of Main St.  The cop was apparently satisfied enough with our handling of the situation.

At some point, short girl's husband, over-excited drunk, came back and tried to hail us a cab.  It stopped, looked back at drunken, half-dead Bernie between us, and sped off.  We got skinny, drunk guy about one more block before he started actin' a fool.  He decided that he needed to fight me this time.  It was almost comical.  I just held onto him tight until his fit ended.  At one point he whined, "Why am I so weak right now?"  I'm not sure sober he would have had much more leverage.  I should probably continue on calling him scrawny, drunk guy.  He finally gave up, and we realized that we had only made it about 3 blocks in roughly an hour.  No cabs were going to take us home, so the only option was for me to get my car and drive us home.  My car was probably 6 blocks away.  Maybe more.  Dragging him there would probably take us all night, since he continued to get worse.

The last crosswalk we were in, he gave up and we just dragged him to the next parking garage.  I made sure everyone was ok with the idea, and ready to handle him, then I took off sprinting toward my car, by myself.  I was parked just past the courthouse, with the large fountain and bright lights illuminating its steps.  I ran to my car, pulled out of the garage, followed the labyrinth of one-way streets, and finally pulled up in front of the parking garage I left them.  I got out of my car and stepped into pure pandemonium.

I saw over-excited drunk running around in the parking garage waving one hand over his head clutching the large garbage bag and holding the other hand over his crotch.  "I'm gonna piss myself."  So I left him to find short girl, holding Humpty Dumpty on the ledge as he's vomiting up shredded chicken and alcohol.  Her mascara was tear-streaked and smeared to the sides of her face as if she were wearing a Bat Girl mask.  (Later, she admitted to getting overwhelmed when she realized that if he tried to attack her, she had no choice but to hurt him severely, since she wasn't capable of holding him off like the last two guys did.)  She notified me that a few cops have passed by, and each time they just held his head up and pretended like he was fine.  We let him puke and drool and slip in and out of consciousness until he seemed to have the bulk of what was coming out of his system.  We were at the base of the stairs to this parking garage.  Randomly, other drunken people would come by and either ask us if we were ok or make some comment about how they've been there.

Over-excited drunk shows back up with a bag of pee, only to comment on how he should have saved the bag for pukey-face.  A few times, drunk guy would yell "RUN!!" to a passerby.  One tough guy decided to turn around and get all, "from what? You?"  We had to politely ask him to please forgive him and give us a break.  I can't remember quite what happened, but I do remember the drunk guy exclaiming, "I can't control gravity" as he tipped forward off of his wall and landed in his pile of puke.

We decided this was the best chance to drag him to my car.  We did, getting puke all over each other, and we threw him in sideways.  He refused to pick up his legs, and told us just to break them.  I was happy to, since I was fed up, and I started shoving and maybe even kicking.  Drunk guy yells, "I don't trust him, he's going to kill me!"  Wife climbs in on the other side and asks drunk guy if he trusts her.  He did, so she yelled, "Get in the Fucking car!!"  It felt like 8 hours, but we were finally in the car, and we were heading home.  Over-excited drunk was nervous that he had never seen someone this drunk before, but I told them I would tell them what to watch out for since he was crashing at their house.  (At Michigan, the rule-of-thumb is that you don't take someone to the hospital until they shit themselves.  Probably not the best metric, but it hasn't backfired on us yet.)

I pull up to their apartment, get out of the car, walk toward his door, and the wife starts screaming, "he's not breathing."  At that point, Annie calls my cell phone.  She's made it home with drunk girl that got felt up, via a taxi that was taking drunken bear home, but realized that I have the only house key, since I have the car.  As this conversation is happening, I have pulled open unconscious drunk guy's mouth, pulled his tongue forward from blocking his breathing, stuck my finger into his throat to do a throat sweep (darn right I'm American Red Cross First Aid / CPR / AED certified!).  I punched him in the chest a few times, it's hard to do chest compressions when I'm on the phone.  "Get back in the car, we're going to the hospital.  Annie, we have to go to the hospital, I think drunk guy stopped breathing."  "Well, can you swing by and give me a key, Angel is going crazy?"  (Really, Annie?  I'm about to drive someone to the emergency room, and your drunk ass wants me to swing by with a key so you can take a nap?)

So we're heading to the hospital.  Over-excited guy is drilling me on what's going to happen to him, and if he will get in trouble.  I explained that they could charge him with public intoxication, but that it rarely happens.  However, if he decided to start swinging at a doctor, or if his flailing injured a nurse, then his ass was grass.  Somehow, drunky heard us and started begging for this not to go on his record.  Wife, who was slapping him in between frantically yelling his name and checking for breathing, mentioned that he actually looked like he was coming to.  In order to avoid incidents and potential criminal charges, the husband and wife team vowed to stay up with him all night and make sure he was ok.  Drunk guy was calling us all by the same name still, but he changed it to the name of over-excited guy, so maybe he was coming around.  I busted a U-turn.  They decided they could call the ambulance if necessary.  Phone call, "...bring me keys..."

We pulled back up to their house, we carried him inside the house, and he even asked us to let him go up the first flight of stairs himself.  He managed, but only because the couch is right in front of the steps at the top.  Straight forward, down on the couch.  Phone call, "... bring me keys..."

Drunk guy decides he needs the bathroom and gets up himself.  I explain to the couple about what positions to keep him in, most importantly not to let him pass out on his back.  How to check for breathing, etc.  Phone call, "...bring us keys..."  I'm on the stairs, about to leave, wishing them luck when Boom! the drunk guy falls in the kitchen, straight onto his head, no hands out to break his fall.  Fuck him, I did my part, so I left.

I drove home.  Not a single phone call.  I figured they gave up and broke a window.  I pulled into my dark driveway, and they weren't sitting at the front or back porch.  I walked up to the back porch, opened the screen door, and started to unlock the dead bolt.  From behind me, I hear moaning, see beings start to lift themselves up from the ground, and zombie toward me, arms outstretched.  Turns out it was Annie and the girl that got felt up, who had passed out in our back yard.  Felt-up girl passed out on top of the picnic table.  Annie on the ground.  (She later found a bunch of bug bites on her legs.)

I was still revved, so I offered to drive felt-up girl home, who was starting to look on the sober side herself.  It had, at this point, been about 3 hours since I had last seen her.  Annie stumbled inside, set down her bottle of water, and stumbled off toward the bedroom.  I drove felt-up girl home, windows rolled down to suppress the puke smell permeating the car, and I returned home.  I grabbed the pet stain and odor remover from under the stink, and I cleaned the interior of the car.  I went back inside and stripped down my absolutely disgusting clothes, dropped a line on Facebook, and jumped in the shower to get all of the puke out of my hair, off my skin, and out of my sense of smell.  Finally, at roughly 5:30am, I fed my dog breakfast, and I passed out beside a deep-sleeping Annie.

The next day, between hashing things out with Annie and meeting everybody except scrawny, drunk guy and felt-up girl for Sunday dinner, a full picture of the night developed.  The group not stuck with scrawny, drunk guy ended up at a pizza parlor.  It's likely they were actually eating a pizza on the steps of the courthouse as I went sprinting by to pick up my car from the garage I had parked in at the beginning of the night.  (There have been many jokes about me pulling a scene from Scrubs and stopping to enjoy pizza with them while leaving the married couple to deal with drunk guy themselves.)  The water bottle Annie had at the end of the night was from the pizza place.  That group got to see two guys get into it at the pizza place after one accused the other of cutting.  They also had a random incident with a lost, drunken person, but without a doubt, had a calm, pleasant night compared to us.

The couple that had to stay up all night with drunky didn't appear to have any more major incidents.  We had apparently gone through the worst of it together.  There was one moment where his face got stuck to the inside of the trash bag that he was drooling into, and they had to help him not smother himself.  There was also a pretty spectacular moment where he had his pants around his ankles and his head buried in the toilet when he exclaimed that he was going to get laid tonight.  His odds weren't really in his favor.

One person said something that really nailed the whole night down for me.  We were inches away from losing drunk guy to the police.  Hell, if things got really crazy and I ended up going to jail, I would have had sparkly eye shadow on for my mug shots.  Plus, Annie made it clear that, though I said I only claimed responsibility to her, she was the person that I took the least care of.

What age does your group of friends have to be before nights out on the town don't create blog posts this long?
~RoB

P.S. Nobody went to jail, nobody showed their tits.  Not for lack of trying.

WDW Day 2: Drinking Epcot

Though we finally got to sleep at 2am after our first day at Disney World, Annie sprung out of bed ready to get to Epcot as soon as it opened.  I wasn't having it.  Though she wasn't totally thrilled at the idea, we agreed to meet at Epcot at 10:30am, just before the World Exhibit opened.  This gave her the chance to run back to Animal Kingdom, buy a shirt she was considering, and ride Expedition Everest a couple more times.

This was my first encounter with what would become the Achilles' heel of Disney World:  the bus system.  Though I was out waiting for the bus by 10am, which seemed reasonable since Epcot was across the street, I don't think I actually got to Epcot for over an hour.  (Oh, and though Epcot was literally across the street, it was the World Exhibit part of Epcot, which means the entrance was on the other side, and it took forever to get to.)

Epcot is the only thing that I remember about Disney World when I went there in high school.  There are a bunch of different countries represented by a little neighborhood of shops and eats that are supposed to feel like you're in that country.  They were even worked by people who were brought over from that country.  It was mind-blowing for sheltered, white trash, young ~RoB, who was much less educated about the rest of the world when he was 16.

We started in Canada & the UK.  It was too early to drink, and I don't drink beer, so it was primarily looking at things to buy.  Annie wanted a London Olympics shirt, but we didn't buy it until we came back at the end of the night.  There were Highland games for the release of Brave, but it was swarming with little kids, so we skipped it.  Somehow, cornhole was considered a Highland game.

We were walking through a shop in France when I noticed a bunch of wine bottles lining a counter.  Granted, it was maybe 11:30am at the latest, but who doesn't want a little French wine to get through their day at Disney?!  The man behind the counter was asking the man in front of us in line how he planned to spend the day.  The guy responded, "I have 4 kids dragging me around."  Then he walked out with his full glass of Champagne to find those 4 kids.  They sounded wonderful.  Upon looking into it, we realized that there was a World Wine Walk where you could drink wine from the different countries as you travel through.  We signed up, and we drank the French wine.  I convinced Annie to get some French pastries from the bakery, but they sucked. Don't get 'em.

It was hot, so we liked to stop in all of the museum-things to see art and the like, since they were extremely air conditioned.  Morocco was just, eh.  Japan was better. They had this whole exhibit about how Japanese legends and ancient gods have influenced video games and cartoons.  Taiko drumming rings throughout the pavilion.  Annie did a Sake tasting and also got some sushi.  We skipped 'merica, cuz we're pretty well-traveled there.  Italy was the next stop on our wine trail.  It was also when shit started to hit the fan.

We drank the Italian wine.  This was probably the most disappointing of the countries, because the old lady behind the counter was bitchy.  However, we realized we needed some food asap, cuz things were slowly getting drunk, between the heat and the alcohol.  We found the Tutto Gusto Wine Cellar, sat down and drank wine and munched on some light food.  It was all really amazing.  One of the highlight meals of the trip.  Stumbling back from the bathroom, I realized that everyone around me was pretty red-faced.  Apparently, the only way to experience Epcot is to drink it. And to start early.

On to Germany. We actually enjoyed the German wine, and now we have our eyes open for Spatlese. I also got a lesson on the German wine-making region from the lady behind the counter.  Annie got beer, too.  China didn't have alcohol, but it did have a shitty, frozen-food version of a steamed pork bun.  We really miss living beside Oakland's Chinatown, because we got addicted to those damn little buns.  Who knows how much MSG we consumed in our last year there.  Anyway, China did have another cool exhibit about the life-size army of statues that one of their emperors was buried with.

Finally, Norway for the viking boat ride, and Mexico to drink in their new Tequila bar. At some point, it started to rain.  So, being sturdy, outdoors-y people, we took the opportunity to walk to the other side of the park, Future World, and ride some of the rides while people were evacuating or hiding.  Only a few things stick out.

Mission: SPACE was probably the most fun. More because they ask you to leave at least a dozen times if you have motion sickness issues.  It ended up being the best simulator I've been in.  The Seas with Nemo was uber disappointing.  Living with the Land was an interesting look at sustainable farming and research performed there.  And, of course, we had to do Soarin', since Annie loves it.  It's the exact same as the one in California.  I think we finished with Spaceship Earth.  I remember really disliking that ride the last time I was there.  However, the new interactive movie they create for you at the end made the ride totally worth it this time.  Annie tried to upload it onto her blog, but the link is broken, so here it is:

Annie apparently broke the camera on her side, but my face is classic.

Now you see why it took so long to publish this post, it's damn long,
~RoB

Birthday Party: Part 2 - Nightlife

At this point, my birthday was almost 3 months ago.  That's how pathetic my blogging has become.  But dammit, I led you on, so here's the rest of the story.  The celebration of my birthday this year began with a wine crawl.

After dinner, Annie and I returned home, only to be picked up by two of our friends and dragged downtown to a club.  We started at Hugos.  The dance floor was smaller than I expected, but in general, there was more room than I'm used to at a bar.  I got a little drink on, a little dance on, and I apparently took pictures with strange men (note:  not a gay bar).

I don't know these guys. Not sure why he's touching me, but that last guy is Pitbull.

See, it's the same person.

I was wearing what I previously referred to as my 'lucky shirt' (it did nothing for me at the horse races, so it's now just a shirt).  I decided I needed to start unbuttoning to show people how cool my shirt was.

I was taking off my shirt. Annie was trying to stop me.

If you recognize that shirt, then you probably hung out with me in New Jersey for the summer of 2007.  Other than that, only one person has recognized it.  It happened at my favorite Champagne Brunch in L.A.  The guy who recognized it knew the people that produced the webseries, took a pic of me wearing it, and shook my hand.  Here's the show:

Anyway, we then progressed to Skybar.  The name sounded very cool and L.A.  However, it was just a lounge.  I continued to dance, even though I was the only one.  I continued to drink, too, though I was not the only one.  I'll probably never go back to Skybar, but I'm not upset for trying it out.  It was really cool to see how busy downtown Lexington gets at night on the weekends.  It's the most people I've seen walking around downtown since moving here.

The night ended, conveniently, at the iHop that's pretty much across the street from our house.  Downside:  there was a pretty long wait to get a table.  It was almost 3am.  Apparently, all drunken Lexingtonians had the same thought in mind.  We all wanted to eat so that we woke up the next morning.  I love me some stuffed french toast from iHop, so I was gonna wait however long it required for me to stuff them into my face.  Annie may or may not have zonked out while sitting in the booth.

Since my life is awesome, this wasn't quite the last interesting thing to happen.  Some bitches sitting behind Annie and our friend decided to stand up and tell us to stop pounding on the booth.  The girl that I was sitting next to, part of our crew, is about 6'6" and looks like she could kick all of our asses.  She asked me to let her out of the booth so that she could single-handedly fuck up this whole group, but I wouldn't.

Those bitches are lucky I didn't want to end my birthday party in jail,
~RoB

St. Patrick (Swayze) Day

I don't drink beer.  Therefore, I don't drink green beer.  The common college student would presume that I'm therefore excluded from the national college holiday of St. Patrick's Day.  That college student would be wrong.  It's just more dangerous for folks like me, who have to stick exclusively to Irish Whiskey.

In college, I always had something going on.  During the weekdays, I'd actually go to class on the holiday.  I rarely missed class.  I'm one of those people.  The one time it fell on a Saturday, I managed to have 3 separate obligations.  One included lecturing middle-schoolers on nuclear weapons, so I knew it my duty to not show up all stinky and staggery.  Annie did not find herself in these obligations, so I regularly saw her at about 11am on St. Patrick's Day every year, just as she was about to pass out for the first time of the day.  Not that I didn't let loose a little come nightfall, but everybody was either way too drunk (think how drunk you'd have to be for me to say that) or everyone was starting to hang over.  Like 4th quarter at a football game.

I like to think that people think of me carrying around a bottle of peppermint schnapps and a bottle of chocolate syrup all day (my infamous Peppermint Patty shots).  No, that was just at night.  And it was really hard to catch up to everyone.  Now that I'm done with college, I've managed to spend the last two St. Patrick's Days making up for lost time.  Last year, I had such spectacular moments as:  laying down on the platform of a San Francisco subway station, wandering off to find mozzarella sticks at a diner by myself (and not telling anybody), and my green shirt / vest combo.

This year, though again on a Saturday, I managed to have some commitments.  I started the day by teaching Zumba.  Then, I went off for a few hours at the tasting room of the winery where I work now.  I was notified that a group of friends was going to be meeting at my place for dinner before hitting the town, and I managed to get home just 45 minutes before the crew showed up.  I had made a pan of pastitsio for Annie and I to consume before drinking, but it turned into a good dinner to have on hand for a group of people.  We drank wine, and started with some shots of Jameson, and then we called a cab and headed to downtown Lexington.

We started at Molly Brooke's Irish Bar.  It was way too hot in there.  A little too crowded, and a very unenthusiastic group.  Glad we started there, instead of finishing.  We then walked down to McCarthy's Irish Bar.  The place was a little roomier.  I believed I danced with the waitress upon entering, which is probably the best way to greet me somewhere.  This place was better, it was easier to get alcohol, but our plans were to progress to check out more bars.

I'm pretty sure that we walked past Rosebud (a really cheap bar) and past the bar that Annie and I have regular'd since moving here, Cheapside.  We made our way to Chase Taproom.  Things were starting to get messy here.  This bar was better than the last in terms of space.  I felt like our group made up half of the customers upon entering.  I remember buying a beer for a guy sporting a Lehigh Rugby jacket, after their upset of Duke.  Plus, he was big, so I figured it'd be nice to have him on my side if the night got out of hand. My favorite memory was when a typically tight-lipped, cheap friend of ours staggered out to the front door to sloppily ask the bouncer which bar we were at.

From there we moved on to Penguin Dueling Piano Bar.  I had no clue where we were, and I was a little offended that we were being asked to pay a $5 cover.  We were in Lexington.  I had just moved here from California.  Fuck covers.  However, we paid, and they shoved me inside.  I was transformed to a drunken Rob paradise.  It was fairly empty and extremely easy to get drinks.  There was plenty of room for dancing, and the dueling pianos were amazing.  Again, I had no clue we were going into a dueling piano bar.  I had tried on several occasions to go to a dueling piano bar, but it never worked out.  This was my first time, and it was so much fun.  Unfortunately, things just got drunker.  At one point, I was dancing with some chick, when I spun myself and slammed my drink into a dude.  It hit the ground and shattered, to which the dude said, "You know I'm a bouncer, right?"  So, I quipped, "It's OK, I'm a good person."  Classic.

They cleaned it up, and I think I tipped the person who cleaned it up.  I felt bad.  I also realized that I should probably cut myself off, since I had a full shift at the winery the next day.  I looked into my wallet and realized that I burned through all of my cash.  So, I found Annie and told her I wanted.... needed to go home.  Right now.  She said to wait like 10 minutes and we'd all leave.  That was, apparently, unacceptable.  So I walked out.

I ended up walking a little over 3 miles home, in the rain.  I absolutely hate it when drunken friends walk home.  I've actually heard that it's more dangerous to walk 1 mile drunk then to drive 1 mile drunk.  So many bad things can happen to a staggering fool, and I feel especially anxious about girls who disappear from a party.  But I'm a hypocrite, and we should all know that from over a year of this blog.

I made it home, but not without a little effort.  I believe I peed on the Ashland Estate.  I also slipped and fell down a small hill on the wet grass between the Shriner's Hospital and my neighborhood, since there is no sidewalk.  I woke up the next morning to find my car parked in by a friend who needed to take that cab home.  I also got to play that fun morning-after game of "Oh, that's where my shorts ended up." "Ahh, there's my watch."

All in all, the bars got better as the night progressed, and so did the stories.  The tight-lipped, cheap friend ended up passing out at a table at Penguin.  Then waking up and vomiting into a trash can until the bouncers could kick the whole crew out.  Spectacular.  There were some drunken texts and calls trying to find me, but I was having trouble seeing my iPhone in the rain.  (I'm lying, the rain had nothing to do with my inability to use my phone at that point.)

Once again, I made it to work on time, and I woke up feeling great.  Almost too great... again,
~RoB

Royal Wedding - Day 1

Annie and I took off to Omaha, NE, to participate in the wedding of one of my favorite people ever.  He's the groom in the pic below (not to say that his new wife isn't just as amazing as he is).

All of these fancy cartoons are taken from the groom's blog.

The trip started with an invitation to the rehearsal dinner.  (Technically, I guess it started at 3:45am when the taxi picked us up to drive us to SFO.  After all, we had 2 cities to touch down in before we would eventually make it to Omaha [though we were on the same plane throughout].)  I guess checking into the hotel happened before the rehearsal dinner, as well.  We took a shuttle from the airport to the wrong Hilton.  Why the fuck are there two different Hiltons in downtown Omaha?  We also received a gift bag when we checked in, which excited Annie so much that she hasn't stopped talking about it.  Seriously.

Moving on.  I had never heard of general riff-raff being invited to the rehearsal dinner (or anybody outside of the actual rehearsal), but I'm glad they did it.  It was the first opportunity to meet people and family, and it was a good introduction to the high taste and classiness that the wedding would be.  We discovered that there were only a handful of people that we knew, and only 1 or 2 that I knew well (the groom was a friend of mine from U of M).  So, I had to come out of my shell a little and try to be social.

There was way more food than I expected, and it was really good.  (I ate just before going so that I wouldn't be a ravenous monster.)  The red wine was Flowing, with a capital 'F'.  Anytime somebody walked by, your glass was filled.  I probably drank something like 10 glasses.  After a slide show, we all congregated to the bar, and the Jack&Cokes started to make their appearances.  Then there was talk of progressing onto the next bar.  Which led to more and more bars, until we closed the bar at our hotel and I finally returned to the room with an already sleeping Annie.

Notable moments were:

Giving the bartender at some dive a $10 tip after keeping a tab open.  Alcohol was cheap, and we drank alot, so it was a fair tip.  However, he walked out from behind the bar to approach me as I was walking out, shake my hand, and thank me for the tip.  This is why I tell Californians that they have no fucking clue how nice we are in the Midwest.

A fight broke out at one bar right next to us.  The crowd splitting the multiple guys apart ended up pushing us into the bar.  We pushed back, and one of the groomsmen jumped in front of the groom in an attempt to shield him.  (Way smarter than my "punch him, pussy" cat calls.)  It was just this side of ridiculous, but the craziest part was the drunken redneck yelling "I'll fucking kill you, faggot!"  Who the fuck says the word 'faggot' anymore?  In my head I pictured him spelling it 'faget' or 'faggit'.  We were also surprised that they let him sit back down and continue drinking.  I guess it makes sense not to kick everyone out so that they can kill each other in the street.  Or maybe that's just how things roll 'round here.

Great Facebook statuses when I woke up:  "Alcohol is so cheap!" In Nebraska, True.  "What bar number is tjis?"  Fair question, but asking the same thing 12 minutes later is a bit obnoxious... and a sign that things are going downhill.  "Crazy dex happening in rhe 5040s. Come lisson!"  This was the last thing I communicated before passing out around 2am.  I thought I could hear some wild sex going on in my hallway.  I apparently thought we should all congregate outside of the participants' door and enjoy it together.  Note:  drunken texts are funny and between two people.  Drunken facebook statuses are funny and between 1,000 people.  Try to keep that math in perspective next time, drunken ~RoB.

Magically, a hotel shuttle arrived outside of one of the bars as we were all about to stagger home.  I have no clue who was in a right enough mind by that time of the night to make it happen, but kudos to them.  There were way more of us than the shuttle should transport, so the Super Groomsman (who shielded the groom) and I were going to walk back.  It would be an opportune time to start burning off the alcohol before taking off to nappy, nappy land.  They ended up shoving our whole party onto this little shuttle, which probably wasn't smart by any means.  I stood the whole way back.

My attempt at taking a pic turned into a fairly accurate representation.

Those people still going strong made our way to the hotel bar just before last call.  We ushered out a bride and groom, still in full wedding reception garb, cuz everybody within 4 states was getting married at our hotel in Omaha over Labor Day weekend.  Anyway, by this time there was a half dozen of us, including a girl that had fallen out of the shuttle onto the pavement at the Hilton, only to return in sweatpants and a renewed enthusiasm for drinking.  I had promised the Super Groomsman that I would still walk around with him before hitting the sack, but whiny messages from drunken Annie sent me up to my room with the groom when he finally decided to call it a night.  I found out the next day that the Super Groomsman managed to stay out an hour past that point, and he eventually returned to his room "smelling like a homeless person".

It had been a while since I've hit the hard alcohol, and Day 1 in Omaha was way more fun than I had prepared for!
~RoB

(Day 2 to come.  Day 3 is summarized in my last post.)

St. Patty's Day in San Francisco

Let me start off by saying that I was never one to go over-the-top in my participation in St. Patrick's Day.  I don't drink beer, and I was really good about going to class to learn, not to make a drunken fool of myself.  However, this was my first year since turning 21 that I was not a college student.  It was time for me to let my hair down and party with everyone else, which I certainly managed.

I started by bringing a dozen mini-cupcakes to work.  I ordered them from one of my favorite cupcakeries from the SF Cupcake Challenge.  Annie and I each took a dozen to work, so we split an order of Peppermint Patty cupcakes and Guinness & Bailey's cupcakes.  I meant to take a picture of how cute they were, but I ate them too fast.  Peppermint patties do have a close place to my heart on St. Patty's Day, since I used to roam around with peppermint schnapps and chocolate syrup and make people get on their kneees for peppermint patty shots.  That kind of debauchery hasn't happened in years, though.

Skip ahead to the end of the work day.  Annie and I met at home, grabbed a bus to BART, and took off into the city.  We didn't have any specific plans, but we had heard that parts of the city get crazy, and we were just going to join the crowds.  We knew that we wanted to go by the Irish Bank, since it would be the epicenter of the Irish foolishness, but we didn't really expect to wait in line to get in only to wait for drinks while touching 30 other drunken frat boys.  And we didn't.  It was indeed crazy, so we walked around the corner to our first pub of the night, Rickhouse (though I called it Mickhouse until looking it up today).

Rickhouse: Irish flag means it's legit!

They had some crazy Irish whiskey concoction, so I ordered two, grabbed Annie a Guinness, and we found somewhere to stand while listening to Irish folk music.  Our bartender, though arguably drunk himself, had the cutest little Irish gettup on, complete with a bow tie and suspenders.  We finished and decided to progress somewhere else.  We got in line and walked into another Irish pub across the street.  It was so dense with people that we immediately walked back out.  (I'm gonna count this as the second place in our pub crawl, even though we didn't drink anything.  We drank enough later to make up for it.)

Annie had once played trivia at a place called Elephant & Castle, so we used our Smartphones to wander in that direction.  There were points where we thought of just following drunken groups of people, in hopes of catching up on the festivities, but they always walked too slow or got sidetracked.  Elephant & Castle is probably my new favorite bar, since it was huge and, for some reason, made me feel like I was back at Michigan.  (Not that it matters since I rarely go to the bar.)  Here's where things got interesting.  I just went for straight Jameson on the rocks, and Annie and I did shots of Jameson.  This place had March Madness on, so we were able to check up on scores and watch UCLA finish off State ('If you can't get into college...').

We might have done more shots, I'm not sure, but we then took off to find the Royal Exchange.

Royal Exchange Block Party

Apparently, the Royal Exchange gets a whole street blocked off (not just alleys like the Irish Bank).  It must have already been too much for SF denizens, because cops were there lining the streets.  Oh well, it looked fun, even though we couldn't find anywhere to get a drink.  We instead walked across the street to Embarcadero Center and found a bar on the 3rd floor where Annie once watched a Michigan hockey game.  (Strange that Annie sounds way more like an alcoholic at the end of this.)  What was important is that we ate here, but also drank more whiskey and beer, respectively.

Finally, our bar crawl ended at a place called the White Horse, where we found our roomie!  I got Jack on the rocks (I was sick of Irish whiskey), but I feel like people kept rotating drinks around so that I wouldn't realize that I wasn't drinking much of it.  I had a crazy craving for Mozzarella Sticks (good ol' Midwestern boy comes out), and took off by myself to find a diner.  The diner across the street was closed, so I went off to find another.  I remember walking in one diner, where there was a line, asking for something to sign my name on (meaning get on the wait list), but responded to the funny faces I was getting by leaving.  I eventually found a diner, ordered mozzarella sticks, and enjoyed them with ranch and a strawberry shake.

Somehow, when I walked outside, Annie and our roomie were there.  There might have been some texting involved.  They dragged me off to BART.  Here's how that went:

This is what I felt like.

This is apparently what I looked like (complete with a vest to look like a Leprechaun).

And these pictures pretty much sum up the rest of the BART ride (except our roomie got digits from a drunk guy playing mandolin [who also plays fiddle]).

Our roomie's friend was sober and picked us up at the BART station in Oakland to drive us home.  I may have offered to blow him in repayment of his transportation services...  Oh.  Though I don't remember it, Annie claims that at one point I was laying on the platform on my back, sprawled out, at the Powell St. BART Station.  If so, that's simultaneously disturbing and embarrassing (albeit awesome).

Hope you don't remember your entire St. Patty's Day either,
~RoB

P.S. Made it to work the next morning on time.  I felt great when I woke up.  Almost TOO great...