Reality and Reality TV

Quick post. Today at work they had a free lunch. Normally in engineering firms, the free lunch is accompanied by an hour long technical seminar about the latest and greatest....snooze (yep boring). Well one of the Architecture firms on this project (the British one that makes me giggle when talking to its employees) was hosting the lunch and insisted that everyone attend. Now I crack jokes about architects being flakes, etc, but this occurance totaly solidified their sterotype. The technical seminar consisted of watching the documentary "An Inconveinent Truth" done by Al Gore. I am thinking, "are you kidding, this is a movie, not a factual seminar that will help us make informed decisions". Okay, I won't go on about the pitfalls of the movie (in fact I left half way thru so I could do real work), but next time I recommend Borat or Super Troopers for the lunchtime matinee.

On a different note, my friend Farrell accidently proposed to his girlfriend of one month (ONE MONTH). He said something like, "yeah, I see myself married to you"....which his girlfriend took as "will you marry me as soon as possible". Actually the girl is a total adorable doll and you cannot help but love her (actually she is quite petite and I have the greatest urge to pick her up and put her in my pocket). Anyway, she is into acting and while scanning the open auditions for tv, she came across a new reality tv show. It is some kind of race to the alter thing where the network will organize and pay for their entire wedding in Vegas. She sent in an application and now they are getting interviewed! Hilarious, but not giving the "slow down buddy" signal we are trying to send.

Park View and Chicago

Okay the Friday, Saturday, Sunday of the Thanksgiving holiday break was full of events. Mostly consisting of shopping and sightseeing, but hey isn't that what is expected. My mother and I slept in (again) the day after Thanskgiving. We didn't hit the sales until 10am, but it was still beyond crowded out on the streets. We stopped in Macy's only to say we have been there. It was total chaos there with masses of people moving like a churning river. Luckily we did a quick in and out without loosing a limb or eye. We took a break from the shopping to catch the Broadway show Chicago. Granted it was a 2:00pm show on the day after Thanksgiving, but the theatre was only half full. The good thing is that our seats got upgraded (twice) to fill in the lower tier gaps. I would like to think that the theatre was only half full because the show SUCKED! Seriously, they had Huey Louis (from HL and the news 80's band) as the Billy Flynn lawyer. His dancing was like watching an old man listening to P-diddy and the voice must have been left in the dressing room. Plus, the overall dancing, singing, acting, etc in the movie adaptation was twenty times better. Afterwards, we checked shopped at street venders in SoHo and finished with night-time pictures of Times Square. Here is a picture of my mom taking pictures in Times Square.

Saturday was the best day overall. The weather was 60 degrees and sunny. We started with a bike rickshaw (pedicab) tour of Central Park. Here are some pics from our tour. We then ate at the swanky Boathouse cafe (express cafe where you can get two top quality meals for less than $15). Following the meal, we walked down the infamous 5th Ave. to window shop. Basically we took pictures of eachother in front of various storefronts. We stopped at Rockafeller center to visit the "top of the Rock" obeservation deck. What a view! Here are some pics of the park, the city (looking downtown/south), and the statue of liberty (small but noted) from the observation decks. Oh and a picture of my mom (I couldn't resist). On the way back to my apartment, we passed Studio 54 which is now an off-broadway theatre (I think). Oh well.

Sunday, I took my mom back to the airport. Here is a picture of us at the airport. We actually asked some of the armed guards to take the picture, but they said they couldn't because of their massive AK-47 guns (huge!).

Quit raining on my Thanksgiving parade

Day one of the Thanksgiving holiday adventures. I picked up my Mom from the airport Wednesday night. We woke up bright and early (who am I kidding, her flight was delayed until 2am, so we slept in) and headed over to Broadway to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The forecast predicited rain, and boy did it. It rained the entire day! The parade was pretty much a bust since you had to watch thru a sea of umbrellas. Also many of the floats, bands, and balloons had to cancel because of the rain and wind.

After we were soaked to the bone and frozen to the core, we headed back to my place to change for the Thanksgiving meal being hosted by Jeremy and Anna Hollembeak. My contribution to the meal was mac & cheese (any holiday meal for the Bose family is not complete without mac & cheese, seriously, we even eat it on Easter) and Lava cake. Lava cake is a little cupcake of choc cake with molten choc in the center. Well being the super (note said sarcastically) cook I am, I forgot to greese the tins and therefore the cakes were fused to the molds. Ooops, I guess it could be worse. My mother and I walked cross town to Jeremy & Anna's sweet apartment. Their place is decorated in the style of "grown up" where as my decor of boxes for tables screams "college student". Also in attendance to the meal was my old college friend Justin McAdam who drove in from DC. This guy (drunk or sober) is a riot. After a little coaxing and a lot of Jim Bean we got him to do the infamous magic and Pepe the puppit show. He later passed out (turkey booze combo) on the couch at 5pm. I cannot describe how good and plentiful the food was. Thanks again Anna for cooking. Right when we were about to start eating, I got a call from Marshall. He sounded groggy and I asked him if he just woke up. His response....."maybe". He was still sleeping off the day before Thanksgiving drinking bonanza. He finally showed up around 4:30pm (two hours late). Note this was the meal to make the introduction to my Mom (great first impression boy). I think he was a little embarrased about it and kept quiet the rest of the meal. The meal was finished off with Nose Flutes. Strange as it sounds, the were quite fun. The nose flute is a piece of plastic you press against your nose and lips. The only two people who could carry a tune were Justin (I hear he is a real expert) and my Mom.

Later, my mother and I left to catch the 8pm broadway show Rent. Wow! I recommend this show. The soloist in the "season of love" song (the popular one about minutes, hours, days, etc) gave me chills. As a whole it was quite touching and the audiance gave it an immeadiate standing O. I was told to watch Roger closely since that is the role Marshall is going to try out for. I can say he is the only character who sings like a rock star and not a broadway singer. Anyway, after wiping the tears away (yes cry worthy) I checked my phone to find four messages......all from Marshall. Within the next hour, he called twice more to see if I liked the show and to dish on Roger (he was totally checking his competition). Poor boy got blotto at Jeremy and Anna's (he had black outs after seven shots of Jim Bean in an hour). He later called again at 1am and 2am to ask the same questions. My Mom thought the calls were humorous (because he was wasted drunk) but the last time he called, she asked to get on the phone and ask him to let us sleep. So ends day one.

Comics, magic, and zombies

Where else but New York City would you have an insane Tuesday night. Farrell, Bethany, her sister, her sister's friend, and I caught a comic showcase at Carolines (51st & Broadway). Bethany's sister's boyfriend was taking part of the showcase. Sadly, in the group of 10, he was over shadowed by the big names in attendance. Not only did I recognize a lot of the comic (either TV shows or Comedy central specials) but the final two people were Jim Gaffigan and Darrell Hammond. I couldn't place Jim at first. Farrell was listing all the movies and tv shows he has been in, but it was the Sierra Mist commercial that made me go "ooooooh yeaaaaah, I recognize him". Darrell was super drunk! I mean couldn't get thru a set drunk. The bad thing is that he was an active drunk. I tried to get a good picture, but the fucker kept darting around. Oh well.

After Carolines, we went to a bar/theatre down on 11th & 1st ave to watch Bethany in a show. She was a "plant" which means (I had to have her explain this entertainment industry lingo to me) she pretends to watch the show but has heckling lines pre-arranged by the artist. The show was a "one-woman" thing. Basically the girl played funny songs on her guitar and transitioned between songs with the aide of the plants. Farrell and I were joking about us two being the only two people in the audience who were not plants. Seriously, everyone was in this show. I knew Bethany had an interaction with a homeless man actor because I helped her reherse her lines in the cab. I was really impressed with the homeless guy actor in the audience. He had the long, stringy, haven't bathed in six years hair and the homeless guy hearty laugh (heh heh heh). Much to my surprise, he was not a plant but an actual homeless guy!!!! Whoops. Didn't realize that until the homeless guy sketch was done with a different actor. Oh well, the show was really good. The singer's songs were either very funny or extremely uncomfortable (kind of like the new Borat movie). Her favorite topic of choice was her p*ssy (which I will refer to as "basketball" for the remainder of the post because that word freaks me out). The opening was a music video that actually was removed from U-tube (whatever that is). The title was "my basketball is magic", and the video had animated basketballs and unicorns (not a code word, actual unicorns) in the background. The rest of the songs were about strange festishes (one was dump on my face, pee in my mouth......okay it was funny in person but absolutely disgusting in writing), nicknames for her basketball, boyfriends, etc. The closer was an animated cartoon titled "if have no talent and want to be famous, kill someone famous". Yep kind of a rip off of Sara Silverman (notice the correlation of "Jeasus is magic" with "my basketball is magic") but still really funny in person. Worth the $5 and I hear she is taping for HBO next week.

After leaving the theatre, we ran into a crowd of zombies in the bar! Hey people it was before midnight so I was confused. Evidently they were filming a zombie movie or video at the bar after the show. Go figure. Maybe the show girl coudl write a song about zombie basketballs and how it would sound like a kid rubbing his hand over a balloon.

Washing the Karma down with Beer

One great thing about NYC is that friends are always coming into town. I met my friend Matt (from the Chicago Fleet Feet running group) out at a pub Friday night. He is on sabatical for work (seriously, they give him a five week vacation to go out and refresh himself). He traveled thru Italy and now the new England area. Here is a link to his blog that details his adventures: http://viaggio-italiano.blogspot.com/

Here is a picture of what Matt calls a crime against beer (serving a light beer in a Guinness glass).

Later I skipped out to Brooklyn to check out Farrell's place (oh and to drink cheaply). He made me do a beer run out there which turned out to be a wild goose chase since all the deli's were either closed or didn't sell beer. The "those couples" group (Farrell & Bethany and Marshall & Me) headed out to the divest of dive bars. One was bartended by this old lady and it only sold mini bottles of beer. The night ended when Marshall had to "take a walk" which basically meant he couldn't see or walk straight.

Saturday morning came quickly. I rushed out to East Harlem to join Phil in some community service. Actually, it is this organization called Publicolor and they do paint jobs (among other things) for inner city schools. There is much more to this organization but you get the idea. I figured I could even out the Karma scales by doing a good deed and then get rowdy at the game. Here is a picture of the wall I helped paint. The painting methods were interesting to say the least. You would be on a ladder with one foot balanced on a window sill, etc. One girl was standing on the shoulders of a guy. The question of the day is: how do you make a 6'-5" guy (Phil) taller? Answer: you put him on a ladder and give him a stick with a paintbrush taped to the end. Very humourous! We all had good laughs at the circ del sole acrobatics we were doing to paint in the most hard to reach areas.

With the good deed under my belt, I headed off to the Kansas State / Kansas (KU) football game. The bar (Central at 9th st. & 3rd ave.) was nice enough to give us the entire upstairs and a projection screen TV. The game was almost cut prematurely short when a birthday party showed up early. Sadly the game did not fall in KSU's favor, and we blame the excessive celebrating that must have followed after the Texas win. We did put our maturity aside and started making fat jokes about the KU football coach (hey if you saw him, you would understand). Afterwards, the crowd went to one of the oldest bars in NYC. It was some kind of Irish name like Mcfaddys, Mcfedricks, Mc something. It was awesome! The waiters were all old men who shoved people aside to get thru and could carry as many beers as a German maiden. The place only served light or dark beer. Seriously, I do not even know what kind of beer it was, but you just told the guy "light" or "dark". Oh and you have to order two at a time (that is a rule I guess). Anyway, with a table of 10 people, we had a massive collection of beers. Here is a picture (with Jeremy and Marshall in the background) of our drinking conquest.

Overheard in New York

I have heard of a hilarious webside called "overheard in new york". Here is the link:
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/
Basically, people write in funny or unusual conversations they overheard while in New York City. Here is my overheard moment during lunchtime yesterday. I was walking past a guy in a jogging suit and thick Brooklyn accent. He was on his phone and this is what he said, "man I was so tired, I told my boss I needed to schedule a power meeting with my eyelids". Note this is even more humorous when spoken with a Brooklyn accent.

Hey....I thought we would get Hugs

Ride the tide of purple pride. Still remember that phrase from college homecoming only because the sorority made us chant it for five days straight. We also made a song and t-shirt around it. Silly sorority girls. Anyway, another shot of college pride. A huge group of NYC KSU alumns took the train to New Jersey to watch the alma mata play Rugters in mens basketball. There was an estimate that 70 purple shirts showed up. As the visiting team, they of course they gave us seats waaaaaaay up in the back. Seriously, we were two rows from the top. Some friend or brother or something of a guy there said we were shown on ESPN only because there was this huge purple blob in the crappiest seats available. The whole gang (Sturgis, Ali, Marshall, Farrell, and Bethany) was there, so that made for a very obnoxious train ride out. Wait that was the booze. Evidently, you can drink on the train.......gotta love Jersey. Bethany and Marshall struck up a Mock-ya-ing-ya-bird duo which made us the most hated group on the train. Sad there was not a bathroom within a mile after we arrived at the station. I'll have to get the picture from Farrell, but Marshall decided to relieve himself on the Rugters sign. Due to the shear size of the KSU group in attendance, we were supposed to get a photo with the head coach Bob Huggins (hence a lot of huggie and hugs references all night) for the K-Stater magizine (that is if we won, otherwise he would be busy chewing the team out). We won and headed over to the designated area. When the coach appeared, he was hip to hip with some ESPN writer that all the boys recognized (okay writers never get recognized, so this guy must mean business). Sadly with ESPN on one hand and 70 fans on the other, Huggs walked right by without a pause. Oh well, time to drink.

After returning to Manhattan (NY not KS.....enough with the Wizzard of OZ jokes alright) we hit a dive bar located at the bus station that advertised beer, free hotdogs, skiball, and bikinis. The boys were disappointed that bikinis was actually a drink name. A few whiskey and 7's, and Marshall hit a high of 60 points on the skiball (honestly we didn't think it was humanly possible to get a score that low). Not much more excitement except for the homeless guy who tried to take my beer when I was in the restroom.

Round One: Lindsay - 1, Beeehatch - 0

Saturday night was filled with many celebration shots, but I have still managed to piece together the majority of events. The gang all met at the Ship of Fools bar Saturday evening to watch the Kansas State vs Texas college football game. Early in the first half, KSU tried to fake a punt and of course it went sour and was run back for a touchdown. Sigh. Typical of KSU this season since our defense is better at scoring and the offense has troubles getting the ball in when we are on the 1-yard line. We were still within reach at halftime, so it was looking better and better. There was a table of KU fans/grads nearby that kept routing for Texas (or more likely against KSU). We started chants like "you're on probation" and "guy on your drill team" (yep the tv showed the lone guy in spandex on their dance squad). That shut them up. Then third quater came around and we blew them away. Seriously, how exciting would it be for your barely bowl eligible team puts a hurting on with a 3 touchdown lead on the number 4 ranked team in the nation!!! The KSU crowd was going crazy at the bar. We kept singing the fight song and someone even got up on a chair to do the K-S-U chant (sooo haven't done that since college). My hands hurt the next day from the high fives and hugs all around. Fourth quarter was tense when we watched our huge lead shrink to next to nothing. With 20 seconds left, we needed a first down to keep possesion of the ball (because Texas only needed a field goal to tie and our momentum may not last into an OT). When the ref gave us a generous spot for the 1-down, the crowd erupted!

Time to celebrate. We headed further south on the Upper East side to a bar called Mo's Cantena (??) becase Sturgis's friend was bartending (= free drinks). They also had beer pong tables. Ali, Steph, her husband, and I all went over to the beer pong table to watch Sturgis and Joel play. They were up against a guy and girl team. The girl had a mouth on her and would not stop ranting at them (mostly belittling their pong skills, etc). Finally, the boys had enough and picked up their remaining cups and started drinking them after telling her "ooops, I guess we lose......you win". She yelled out to them "you f-ing p-ssys, you gonna forefit, huh, you losers!" Sturgis replied "you crazy bitch!". She then ran over to the other side, lunged at him, and took a swing. Now Sturgis is 6'-5", 275lbs, so she had some serious aggression. He caught her fist in the air and pushed her away (not shoved, just got her out of striking distance because he is a gentleman). He ended up pushing her back into me. No worries since I was just enjoying my full beer. She then yelled (more to rally support on her side) "did he just call me a bitch?" Before I knew it, I said back to her "yeah, you crazy bitch!" Ooops, she did not like that. She spun around and open handed slapped me across the face (then next morning I noticed she left a small finger nail cut on my cheek). There was a collective gasp in the surrounding crowd. The next part is according to Joel. He said I calmly turned around, set down my full beer, and then clocked the girl in the face. I punched the girl square in the face! She went down! Immediately, Sturgis and Joel grabbed me and her pong partner picked her up. She grabbed a drink and flung it at me yelling "oh you bitch, come back here, you going to run away, etc". Luckily the boys restrained me because I guess I was shouting back "oh you want some more, come on!" I asked Joel to get my beer and then I drank it (why waste beer on a crazy girl). The bouncer came by and told us that we had to leave. I semi protested saying that she hit me first. He said "yeah, that was a good shot, but we have a policy that both parties have to go". He escorted her out first and then gave us a five minute grace period so we wouldn't be on the streets together. Ali went around to my KSU friends and told them that we needed to leave because I "dropped a girl". Joel, his girlfriend, and I waited outside while everyone collected their stuff. When they exited, Ali and Sturgis lifted me up on their shoulders yelling "the undisputed lightweight champion". We celebrated with many shots at some other bar on 92 and 2nd before calling it a night. Okay, I am not a fighter, but I can't help be proud of the result of my one and only fight. He he he. Sad there are no pictures, but my friend Ryan said he would draw up an animation to accompany this post. Till next time......

Art and Hillbillies

Quick post. I went to a movie screening last night with Farrell and his new girl Bethany. It was a documentary called "Who the fuck is Jackson Pollock". Basically a truck driving, white trash, old lady bought a painting at a thrift store for $5. After she decided it was too ugly to keep (she wanted to give it to a friend be she also thought it was ugly) she put it in a garage sale. An art teacher stopped by and said that she may very well have a Jackson Pollock painting. Now this guy's artwork has recently sold for $150 million dollars!!! There is more to the saga (small town hillbillies against the elite WASPsy art community of NY) but I will not spoil it. The first line sold me. The old lady said "most stories start out with a once apon a time. Trucker stories start out with....you are not going to believe this shit." Ha ha ha. Afterwards we met the real life people at a mixer where they were proceeding to get hammered. Evidently, the old lady and her white trash kids drank whiskey water all day yesterday and were too drunk to do interviews.

All in the Family

Okay, this event happened Sunday as well, but I figured it is important enough to have a separate post. I am proud to announce the addition of a brother-in-law to my family. My older sister Angela called me bright an early Sunday morning (okay I was already up walking to the Marathon, but since Nebraska is a hour behind it was like 8:30am her time). I was in a panic at first thinking something happened to our parents (seriously, who calls that early on a weekend). Thankfully, she told me the exciting news that her boyfriend Brad X (whoa, don't know his last name, boy I am a horrible sister) popped the question early that morning. I guess it is okay that I don't know Brad's last name since he is sooooo smitten with my sister that he could probably be convinced to take her name! The engagement story is that he got the ring on Thursday. He is the type of guy who cannot bear to sit on it, so he wanted to propose on Friday. Too bad my sister had a horrible day at work and was not in an optimal "yes" mood. Saturday didn't fall into place either because she nixed his romantic dinner notions for a "why don't we order in". By Sunday, he pratically was bursting to get this off his chest. He woke up super early (like 5am) Sunday morning and went to Wallmart (side note, only in Nebraksa ah ha ha) to pick up some breakfast items. He then woke my sister up in bed (note, Mom and Dad if you are reading this, she is a big girl and therefore entitled to sleepovers with boys) and served her a delux breakfast. This was around 7am, so my sister was still a little groggy. She asked where he got the supplies for breakfast. When he told her he went to the store, she asked "so did you get the rest of the groceries". He then showed her the ring and asked the question. Hurrah!

Now being the vain and selfish person that I am, I am thrilled with the engagement becase: 1) it has been a while since the last Bose girl wedding and therefore will take attention off of my perpetual single status (no rush to find a boy and drag him off to my marital cave), and 2) also double the chances for production of a non-lindsay grandchild to calm the requests of the parents. Ahhh, thank you Angela, you have gotten me off the hook for the next five or so years!

I am awaiting the blog of the brother-in-laws that detail the strange (but funny) interworkings of my family. Here is one gem of a story. One Easter morning several years ago, my family was gathered around the kitchen table enjoying Easter brunch. The kitchen table area has large windows overlooking the backyard (no, not a farm people). Along came a little bunny rabbit hopping across the yard. He stopped and propped up on his hind legs and wiggled his cute little nose. In awe, I remarked "look isn't it perfect...it is Easter morning....and there is the Easter bunny". In an instant, my mom shouted "those bastards! they keep eating my flowers". She then dashed out the back door waving her arms like a mad woman trying to scare off the bunny. Ahh ha ha, gotta love my family. Now you all know where my quooky sense of humor comes from.

NY City Marathon

This post is mostly going to be pictures. I woke up bright an early Sunday morning (note the previous night Maria, Dan, Emily, and myself had over a bottle of wine each) to venture cross town to the NY city marathon. Talk about pounding headache. I thankfully packed a big water bottle of gatorade to help nurse myself thru the wee hours. I walked over to 61st and 1st Ave (just by the Queensborugh bridge). At 10:00 in the morning the place was already packed. The lead runners were not expected to pass by for another hour to 90 minutes. I wedged myself into a spot along the gate with a good view of those passing by. Within 30 minutes of arriving, the spot around me had amassed to 8 people deep (early bird does get the worm...or decent watching spot). I watched the wheelchair racers zoom by in their speedy chairs (they start 30 minutes before the runners and typically finish in half the time...super speedy). Pretty soon the women leaders ran by. Here is a picture of the lead woman and "rabbit" (pacer who will eventually drop out). They were a good 200m ahead of the womens' pack. Later (since the women pros are started before the general public) the men leaders came by. Here are some pics. Not to sound completely racist, but the lead group consisted of mostly black men (Kenya, Somoli, etc runners). The next pack of men were the "white guys". Amusing. Now I love watching the marathong because it is like an episode of extreme makeover house edition (fyi, I hate that show, but the emotional waterfall is the same). I saw a mentally challenged runner with a "spirit buddy" in tow. The buddy was two steps behind the runner with a giant banner that said "Go Doug!". Believe me the crowd went crazy when he passed by and you could tell the runner was having the day of his life (tears). Again, not to sound awful (but hey, why not) the best way to hear plenty of encouragement is to run near a disadvantaged person (ie mentally handicapped, one leg, giagantic hunchback, etc). I was in a race once, and the crowd around me started to go crazy with excitement. Being vain, I wondered if it was for me (even though I was in the middle to back of the pack). Nope, it turns out a midget (or little person to be totally PC) was zooming up the sideline. Totally flew by me (upsetting since my legs alone were taller than her). Okay back to the NY marathon. I could blame the excessive crowd on one man....Lance Armstrong. Hey, I wanted to see him run by also (oh and to show him the sign "Lance you can ride me anytime!", no not really). The lead runners always get a motorcade to signal someone important is coming so therefore clear the way. Well, Lance got a motorcade as well. He also had a huge entourage of people. Hey if I could run as fast as him, I would try to run nearby to get on the cover (second girl from the right partially cut off) of sports illistrated or something. I expected him to be in a bright yellow shirt because hey, he is the only guy who can really pull off that color. To my surprise, he was in dark forest green. If you look closely, you can pick him out in the massive group.

Wrap your wand Professor Snape

Chicago friends Dan and Emily and NY burb friend Maria came into town on Saturday. The reason for the reunion was a one-woman play starring their friend Bree Elrod (Novak...see the singing at sing sing previous blog post). The play was called "My name is Rachel Corrie". It consisted of journal entries, emails, letters, etc from the real Rachel Corrie. This girl was my age, but could write more profound meaningful prose than I could even imagine. She moved to Palestine and brought a different prespective to the holy land war. I will not spoil anymore of the play....you will just have to see it yourself. I will stay, it was quite moving (made old ladies in the audience cry) and Bree did a fantastic job. The subject matter was so emotionally draining, that we were all impressed she could do that play over and over again without committing herself. Afterwards, we hung around to congratulate her and confirm plans to meet up after dinner. While waiting, a tall distinguished man walked by and low and behold it was Alan Rickman!!!!! He was the director of the play, so it would make sense that he would be around. I have liked this actor since playing the Colonel in Sense and sensibility. Other movies like Love Actually and Harry Potter (professor snape) have further encouraged my afection. Luckily I behaved and did not rush him to "hump his leg" as Emily put it. Later Emily said Bree once went to his office, and an obsessive fan (hmm, no not me) sent him a gift basket with food, knick-nacks, and "wrap your wand" harry potter condoms! Ha ha ha!

Speaking with condoms, while walking to dinner, the four of us passed by a novelty store in the Village called "condomania". The place was full to the brim of different types of condoms, and even had blown up versions on display so you can see what they looked like (I personally found the triple color mood indicator condom a hoot).

We had dinner at a swanky (yet really reasonable) place called One Little West 12 in the meat packing district. I had always wanted to see that area, and now I can say it is cobblestones and warehouses. If you are a dessert fan, you MUST stop by this place. I recommend the carmel apple fondue (seriously Emily and I were debating scrapping the carmel out of the pot to finish off the dish). Later we met Bree's roomie Laura out at a wine/beer bar (okay yeah that is strange that it only serves wine or beer) in the East Village called "Marshall's Stack". Yep that made me think of Marshall and the fact he is away in Manhattan, Kansas enjoying Rock-a-belly (soooo jealous). Here is a picture of Maria (aka the NY native) looking at a map. Many many bottles of Champange and wine later, we were throughouly sloshed. Sadly Bree did not show (she also got sloshed but somewhere else), so we met up with my friend Phil at a bar I cannot recall (yep hazy sets in). We hunted out a pizza place (note Maria and I had pizza before the play at the place feature in Spiderman...whooo) and called it a night.

Fashon Faux Pas

This weekend excitement is enough to warrent three separate posts. Friday, I acted as the date to my old college roommate Jordan since his girlfriend would not get back in town until Saturday. We met some of his co-workers and other British people out at a bar on the upper East side. There are two things to note when drinking with Brits....1) the accent will prevent you from taking anything they say seriously, 2) they really know how to pound their booze. One co-worker told me the funniest story that I have to repeat in the blog. The "mate" of this British guy called him one day and asked if he could borrow a black tie for the funeral of his uncle (I guess in England, you wear a black tie to funerals). Being the nice guy that he is, he wanted to cheer up his friend. He therefore stripped down to his birthday suit and then put on the tie. When he heard a knock at the door, he flung it open and stood there in his manly pose (superman style). Turns out the friend had sent his sister to pick up the tie! He quickly did the cross the leg, throw the arms down modesty pose and jumped behind the door. He reached around and tossed her the tie amid her shocked gasping. Later that day, he got a phone call from his mate that went "what the f*ck was that all about, my sister will not stop crying, and I don't think it is about my uncle!" Ahhhh, good times (note the story is more humous when told in the Queen's English accent).

Halloween part Deux

Fortunately for me, Halloween fell on a Tuesday. This means I could celebrate it on the weekend as well as the week. The gang of Farrell, Marshall, and I headed out to the East Village for some Halloween entertainment. The annual NYC Halloween parade was happening in the West Village, so there were many interesting costumes on the train and street. There was a guy (assuming) in a full Chewbacca costume, several Rainbow Brights, goth band members (wait that may have not been a costume), etc. Our costumes were: Farrell - speed racer (the biggest hit of the night), Me - same red dress from Saturday night sans blonde wig (yes lame costume), Marshall - Crow makeup that he later washed off a the bar and the residue made him look more like Borat (he did shave his beard into a mustache). I will admit, there were plenty of girls in ho outfits (I mean seriously, you could see everything!). The sad thing is that for every hot girl in a skimpy outfit, there were 10 wanna-bes in the same thing but without the same effect.

We spoke with a group of four girls dressed up as slutty Teenage Mutant Nija Turtles. All three of us were able to name the turtles based on memory from our childhood. The girls were real teenages (or at least close to, since the oldest was 21). I guess "Shredder" in the group told them "hey they don't even check" or something at the door. We were all hanging out at Doc Holiday's bar waiting for the infamous "show". Evidently it is tradition that this bar puts on a costume contest that turns into an amature strip night. The girls get on the bar and start shedding costume pieces. Mashall said there were around 7 girls naked dancing on the bar last year. All around the bar there were signs posted that said "no photography, video, cell phones, etc" to protect (or encourage) the girls. When we heard show was not going to start until 2am, we tried to bar hop in the village to kill time. We stopped at a little taco joint that had the best Chicken taco I have had in a loooooong time. In the end, the bar hopping just ended up putting me to sleep (come on, I have work in the morning). Marshall and I called it a night while Farrell headed back to Doc's show. He said the show didn't live up to the hype (only one full nude girl and one topless one). The good thing is that he met a super cute and funny girl while there. We all met her last night at a movie screening for this British movie (starter for 10, I think) that will be relased in Feburary. She is awesome and I am now impressed with Farrell's skill! At the movie screening, we were totally "those guys" at the show. Everyone else were writers or such, and analysing the movie. Us four were in the back actually laughing at the funny parts. Come on people, have a personality!