The most offensive conversation ever

I was walking out of dinner with some friends tonight when a couple guys with dorky helmets, white short-sleeved button downs and black pants peddled up to us on their sweet Schwinns. You know where this is going.

They introduced themselves to us and asked our names. When my friend Yuta (pronounced just like the state) told them his name, they insisted on seeing his drivers' license because they thought he was cracking a joke at their expense. It turns out he was not joking, and when asked if we knew of the Mormon faith, he was the only one to say "No". Thanks, Yuta.

Elder #1: "So I assume you all know about Christ"
George and Daniel: "Sure"
Yuta: "My family is Buddhist. I don't know what I believe."

Again, THANKS YUTA.

When pressed, Daniel admitted he'd attended Catholic school, and I informed them I was more of a 'buffet theologian', to which Elder #1 responded "Cool!" much to Elder #2's dismay. They then asked if we knew about Mormonism, and I mistakenly said yes. Elder #2 then asked me to explain what I knew to Yuta. I don't really know how to spin a good yarn about crackpot playboys and Native Americans being dubbed Lamanites and "burned" into darker skin colors because they were spurned by God, so I abstained from explaining what precious little I know of their religion. I should have said something, I guess, but I just let them go on.

They began to wax about Jesus until my jerk side took over and I asked "And so where was Jesus from?"
Elder #2: "Jerusalem."
Me: "And when he died, he went to..."
Elder #2: "Heaven"
Me: "and then...?"
Elder #2: "Jerusalem, again."
Me: "... and finally to..."
Elder #1: "Well, our best guess is somewhere around Iowa."

I think Elder #2 sensed they had a Code 9 with my smart ass.

Elder #2:"You see," he continued, "God is all about answering your prayers."
I then prayed for a muffin.
Elder #2: "The Jews prayed and look what God gave them!"
Me: "Hollywood and banking! Oh, and the holocaust."
Elder #2: "Well, uh..."
Me: "Yeah, it was a pretty bum package deal."

At this point, Yuta said "Well, I think I know you guys can't drink, right?"
Elder #2: "We can do whatever we desire"
Yuta: "Sweet, let's go get smashed!"

They then asked the time, and when we informed them it was 9:05, they stated they had to be back at their apartment by 9:00. Daniel coolly responded, "I think you're gonna be late." and then once they were safely out of earshot, "F*ck those elderlies."

Still waiting on my muffin.

You beat me down

So it has come to this. I have been told I need to start up again, and even though I began to post and aborted once already, I feel it is time to return. The fact that Amanda (my lovely sister) told me I needed to write more made me feel both proud and a little creeped out. You can't tell mom any of this, you know that... right?

Well, the first order of the day will be to give a quick recent-life summary:
I started working for a good friend's family company, and have fallen in love with the job. Those to whom I've spoken recently know how much I love my work and my coworkers. It's given me a great deal of flexibility and travel opportunity, which is always appreciated. Even if you have to VPN in from your damn iPhone while sitting on the pier in San Francisco with friends, at least it's something enjoyable. Anyway.

Second order: Finishing the aforementioned aborted post. Everyone strap in, oh, and try not to let any of this end up in the Christmas letter, Amanda.

A few months ago, the crazy crew from my earlier "PT invades Vegas" post was back in town, dragging some new members in tow. I got the call late one evening that this was going down, and forced myself to drag my enfeebled ass out for the night. Or 5. Please note that my post is drawn largely off of random notes I threw in my phone so I'd remember certain points later. I will begin each section by copying the note, then will fill in the salient details. It will be a bit disjointed, so feel free to skip around.

Wednesday:
CIRCUS CIRCUS = WALMART
This needs very little explanation. The crew was staying at this gem of a Vegas getaway, and I'll admit I was a little in awe of its craptacularness. Yes, it's a word. Look it up. It wasn't the decor or any one particular odor per se, but more the clientèle. I'm not sure that's the appropriate word, actually... how about "herd"? With everyone in our party assembled, I think it's a fair bet that there were more cumulative IQ points within a 10 foot radius (we stand close) than could be located in the rest of the entire 10-story hotel.

In a word, it was awesome, though finding the garage is not an easy task. Especially when they closed the door you entered through and placed a bush in front of it. I spent close to an hour circling the casino trying to find the garage exit. It was like some messed up excerpt from the movie Labyrinth, only with less David Bowie and more hookers. Anyway, on to the meat of the post.

MARGARITAS = MAGIC
This note is from Wednesday night. I can only assume I'd had a rough day at work and only the quenching relief of pitchers of margaritas could extinguish the flames. There's nothing particularly amusing about this, other than the fact that I still had two days of work facing me and these guys were all on vacation.

DROVE HOME
I drove home.


Thursday:
BEERS, CHAMPAGNE, MOBILE BAR
I showed up in front of the Bellagio carrying a 7-11 bags full of 40s and a bottle of champagne. When I asked what I could pick up to bring everyone, the grocery list I ended up with had me checking out at a gas station with arms full of Olde English, Colt, and Clamato beer. Actually, the last one was my idea. A bad one. We drank the beer and champagne, watched the fountains, and had a great time. I learned that it is not best to open a well-shaken can of Clamato beer, because it will explode in what I can only describe as "clammy, tomato goodness" when opened.

SUPERMAN CAPE
Jon wore a superman cape. My friend Daniel questioned this. Daniel wore a pink argyle-patterned polo shirt. Jon questioned this.

Friday:
HOPE & FAITH
I stopped at the local grocery store to procure some beverages. I grabbed a small stuffed Peep at the checkout stand and perched it atop the Jack Daniels bottle. I asked the bagger girl what I should name it... she giggled and ran away. I asked the cashier for her name and she said, "Hope". I thanked her, and as I exited the store loudly announced that the drunken Peep that would follow us around all night was hereby christened Hope. I have been informed that her name may have in fact been Faith. All I know is that when we later tossed it into the fountains at Caesars, it seemed a lot less witty to say "Look--Faith floats!" Back to the story...

JACK & COKE FEST
Again we met in front of the Bellagio. Again I brought booze. Perhaps too much. I think I realized this when I almost got a hernia pulling the Coors "Cooler bag" out of my trunk. It housed a handle of Jack Daniels, various and sundry Coca Cola products, a 10lb bag of ice, and several Starbucks cups with appropriately-sized lids. We do it in style. We also do it quickly, apparently, because the handle was gone in half an hour. It was 9:45, and we realized that we had tickets to the 10pm Cirque-esque show La Reve at the Wynn, located a mile away. We ditched the bag and ran down Las Vegas Boulevard (LVBLVD to the locals). Running down the strip, we came to the realization that no matter how fast you run, Jack will always catch one of you.


DRUNKENLY POINTING AT PERFORMERS
Have you ever scored front-row tickets to an awesome show, then proceeded to reach out at the performers as they theatrically dance on the water's edge in front of you? Jimmy has. One chick (not Hope) actually busted up laughing when he did this and broke character. It wasn't too hard of a task, considering the character development for these things probably includes coaching phrases like, "Now if you were a goldfish, what would you think about Jung's theory of a multi-layered subconscious? Good-- Hold that pose!"

ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
If you're sober, you throw rock. If you're settling in, throw paper. If you're too drunk to operate more than two fingers, scissors is just about your only option. We all threw in our hands at the end of the show. Solid 'rocks' all around. Except Jimmy, who after two hours of Cirque Sobriety had managed not to metabolize an ounce of alcohol and proudly threw in his scissors.

(L to R: G, James[F], James[M], Jefe, Joe, Jon... though I think Jon and Joe occupy the same vertical area)
It's time to drink your way down LVBLVD, ladies and gentlemen. Tequila at the sketchy bar in TI? Done. Jaeger bombs in Mirage? Solid. Beer about ten feet away? We're talking paper territory in no time at this pace. I need to add that I'm pretty sure Joe took the lead in almost getting us kicked out for doing cartwheels in the casino. It was only once we went to Caesar's Palace that I rely a little more heavily on my notes and less so on my memory. Here goes.

SHADOW BAR, MIKE, WILD TURKEY
We met up with my buddy Mike and shot Wild Turkey. Anyone who knows this group knows that this is not a stellar idea. Mike then treated us to his favorite shot- lemon drops. Not the conventional Lemon Drop, mind you. This is the needlessly complicated Lemon Drop. You get a shot of citron, some sugar, and lime. It's a snakebite, with with a skirt. In my case, make it a really ugly skirt because I use Splenda. We're nearing scissor territory.

BIT A ROTUND CHICK
I'm not going to go into detail on this one. Suffice it to say, Happy birthday, make sure you send your fiance a copy of that one. SCISSORS!

LIMO DRIVER'S NAME
I called up Todd the limo driver for Treasures and told him to come on down to pick us up. He's cool, that Todd. At least that's what I kept calling him. He picked us up in a limo bus resplendent with stripper pole. We had one girl with us, and the odds were not stacked in our favor for this journey.

It turns out his name is not Todd. But we tipped well.

MERLOT
We went to Treasures where we chatted up a nice girl named Merlot and found out she's only doing this to pay for college. Heart of gold. It should be noted at this point that were are not skeezy weirdos who frequent these places- much like Tom's gay marriage proposal, this moment was primarily for the story. Heck, we brought a girl! That being said, there were some comments that equated being of decent moral fiber in these places to a quadriplegic watching porn-- stunned silence and a lot of awkwardness. I'm pretty sure that making quadriplegic sex jokes takes me out of the category of 'decent moral fiber', but I think that bridge is not visible in many of our rear-view mirrors.

David, a good buddy that works there, talked his way into getting the control booth to display "WELCOME DARTMOUTH AND VANDERBILT" above the main stage. I think I have to write the alumni newsletter about this achievement.

Oh, then I dropped a lit cigar. From the second story balcony. On a stripper. I ducked for cover, as I was sure we'd be engulfed in a spreading inferno of silicone and peroxide, but she just brushed it off like she was dusting indiscretions off her dead, dead soul.

JAMES DISAPPEARS
James disappeared. I had his suit jacket. Even though I had his cell phone in the suit pocket not an inch from my chest, I somehow believed that repeatedly calling it would magically reveal his location. It was not to be. We later found out that he walked (many miles, through nasty neighborhoods) back to Circus Circus. He can tell that story, though, as it is awesome.

BUSTED ASS, SLIDING CHAIR
I pushed out a chair so I could converse cordially with an acquaintance and failed to realize that it was on wheels. The chair shot about ten feet back, and I ended up planting my hind-quarters squarely on the floor of a strip club. I need to Purell my ass just thinking about it.

SUITE @ PARIS, KNOWING LOOK FROM ATTENDANT
Mike secured us a suite at the Paris hotel so we wouldn't have to drive home. When the guest services lady informed us there was only one room and it had a king bed, we shrugged it off and said okay. It was only when she gave me a weird quizzical look that I realized what she was getting at. I am not a boy toy, lady! Naturally to allay her fears and let her know it'd be a good 'ol hetero snore-fest, I gave her an exaggerated wink while Mike's back was turned. She laughed, but I think to this day Mike doesn't know why.

Saturday:
SNORE LIKE A WILDEBEEST
I was told that I snore like a wildebeest. I took this as a compliment, as usually my snores can be registered only by keenly-trained elephants.

WALK OF SHAME
My car was parked at the Bellagio, but my body was parked at the Paris. Around 9am, I roused myself and started the walk back to the car wearing Jimmy's suit jacket. I snagged a couple of mini Tabasco bottles from our food service cart on the way out. No idea why. Standing on the street corner outside of the Bellagio in full-on club getup at 9am on a Saturday is a pretty easy way to attract attention, and I sure garnered a bit of it. Drowsy, weaving, and barely connecting my feet to the pavement, I made it back.

MINI TABASCO INCIDENT
While I was trying to turn right onto LVBLVD, a straggling pedestrian stopped in the crosswalk to take a picture of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris. I honked politely. No response. I honked rudely. Again, no response. I figured the only way to attract the pedestrian's attention was by brute force, so I grabbed one of the mini Tabasco bottles from my pocket and hurled it in a "Hi, I'm trying to drive where you are walking. Please remove yourself" gesture. It struck gold. Man, she was pissed, but at least she moved.

FETAL POSITION
This is the only note I have for the daylight hours of Saturday.

TATTOOS
No, not me. Two members of our party got badass tattoos that glow only under black lights. Cool. We also attempted to bowl but the line was too long. That's it. Crazy Saturday night.

Sunday:
SUNDAY FUNDAY
We grabbed a sixer of Tecate and some Heineken and headed out to the Green Valley Ranch pool. The girl in our party had already left, so we were probably a sight to behold as we tried out Jon's kickass underwater camera... at a pool full of kids. Which leads us to....

JIMMY'S 'STACHE, GLASSES, HAIR
Slicked back hair, unshaved mustaches, and aviator glasses. At a pool full of kids. One intreped and obviously judgment-challenged child waved at us, and when we waved back. I don't think even the most sensitive high-speed camera on earth could have recorded the speed with which the mother swiped her daughter out of eye-shot.

TECATE
The following was said of our friend, the Tecate can: "Who doesn't love Mexican beer with Russian political symbolism? Drink up and lose your capitalism!"

IN-N-OUT
In one final farewell to the West Coast life, Jefe, Jimmy and I hit up In-n-Out burger. It's sad that this moment was probably the healthiest moment of my weekend, but that's what makes life worth living.

Again, I had a great weekend, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to chronicle it. I'll search for pics to accompany the stories, but I have a feeling that even I don't want to see them.

Under Construction

I have been told that I must begin contributing again to the blogosphere.

Holy crap, that sounds retarded.

Sweet. More to come.

It's been a long year

My, my, my... I am a bad little blogger, aren't I?

I clicked on this link on my profile for the first time in, oh, 7 months today. After reading my gut-wrenching bloggorhea on wanting to leave Vegas, I realized that this place hasn't been so bad to me, after all. I've since found a fantastic group of people to work with, and am slowly tunnelling my way into a lifestyle that's not wholly repulsive.

Of course, I leave for Breck on Saturday, and who's to say I won't flip out again?

Last weekend was spent in the company of some of my best friends, and I had a great time. Ross and Katie are officially a married couple, mazel tov, and I've been jerked back to the real world in record time. I'm mentally planning the reunion in my mind already, but that's neither here nor there.

Describing the weekend's events is proving a little hard for me, as some of them I am assuming are merely wild Jack Daniels-induced hallucinations. Needless to say, I had a great time connecting with my oldest friends, and getting to know some great new ones. I really wish I'd gotten to sleep in the Groomsmen pad for one night, if for no other reason than to relive the days of yore when Ryan would rattle foundations with his snores. Good times, gents, good times. Weekends like that make me wonder why I missed out on getting to know all these great people that were skirting the edges of my life for so long, but we learn from it and life moves on. I mean, once you go from a lackadaisical detante with a girl, to holding her ankles for dear life as she perches precariously out of a third floor window*, well, you realize the potential for a good bond was there all along.

As you've no doubt guessed, this post serves no purpose other than to take the previous drivel's place as my most recent post. I can't stand to have some morose crap stand as a testament to my bipolarity, so I'll leave you with these parting words: I'm content, or as Lindsay Lohan would say, "adequite". Here's to a fantastic 2006, and an even brighter 2007.

G

*Okay, so maybe she was perfectly balanced on the ledge, but that didn't stop me from being mildly concerned.

I have been chastised

The following conversation occured five minutes ago. Names and dates have been changed to protect the innocent.

Um, well, not dates.

*knock on my door*

Felicity McWillybottom: Hi, I'm Felicity McWillybottom- I live a couple apartments away. Have you been having parties the last few weeks?
Me: Yes. I'm sorry, were we too loud?
FMW: A little. I'm sorry to bother you, and I don't want to be a party pooper, but I just wanted to say something since I had to be up at 8am, and there was so much noise coming from your place...
Me: Oh-- I'm so sorry, I'll tell people to keep it down. There was a bit of a yelling match between two people last night and I asked them to leave. Sorry if it disturbed you.
FMW: All I heard was someone yelling, "F*CK YOU, HO!" outside my bedroom at 4am. I thought they were talking to me, since I'm a prostitute.
Me: *blank stare*
FMW: Well, and a cocktail server.


This complex never ceases to amaze me. The buildings are probably some of the nicest setups in the city, the people here tend to be of a higher caliber, and then bam... the hookers start moving in. I'm probably the only guy in the city who's been told by a hooker to stop screaming at 4am.

On Curling

I admit it: I've been watching the Olympics. That's not the shameful part, though-- I've been watching curling.

For those unfamiliar with the 'sport', it basically involves playing shuffleboard on ice. When it comes time to make a shot, the skip tells the rink how to make a draw by placing a stone in the house with aid of the lead, second, and third. Catch all that?

In English: There are ten thingies in a doodad, and you have 8 chances to roll your slidey pieces onto the targetish area per thingie. The other players that didn't throw the slidey piece use brooms to sweep away crap in front of them and control their speed. As you can see, I've picked up a lot. There are 70 minutes on the clock, and much like a game of ice-chess, you are given that set amout of time in which to plan and execute all your moves in a doodad. The score is calculated by adding up the number of the team's closest-to-the-center stones closer to the center than the opponent's closest stone. Yeeeah.

There are men's and women's teams, though I'm not entirely sure why. The US men's team usually executes all their moves with about 60 minutes remaining on the clock. Their captain/skip assesses the situation, makes and decision, and conveys his wishes to the guy throwing the stone. It's simple, fast, and apparently effective since they're now the favorite/

The women's team, on the other hand, has a couple issues. There's the ever-nagging "but what if?" chick, whose job consists of second-guessing the skip, offering useless opinions about hypotheticals, and crying. Then there's the cheerleader, who adds nothing but empty cranial real estate and a perky attitude. She's usually the one who says something like, "Good effort!", which is the last thing you ever want to hear because it basically means, "You suck and that's sad". She is, however, hot. This is important in the grand scheme of things.

The Japanese women's team is, uh, interesting. I think they were trying to kill eachother during their match against the British (don't get me started on them), but it was hard to tell. Instead of yelling "Woah!" or "Go!" to signal the sweepers to sweep or not, they yell "Neee!". That's it. Just Neee! I'm not sure if it's an inflection thing or something of the sort, but they seem to know what it means when it needs to be interpreted to mean different things. Neee! can mean "sweep harder", "stop sweeping", or "come give me an inappropriately-executed hug". All in how you say it, I guess.

Swedish women's team? Semi-awesome. Two bikini team transplants and two, well, curling team girls. Balance is key. That's all I can say about them. Oh, and they're good... I think.

I have absolutely nothing more to say on this subject, to be honest. Why I posted this, I'll never know. I just to get it out there in the open. Enjoy.

Life choices...

"Robbie- Call your mother, she's seriously concerned about your life choices"

This was the message scrawled on a dry-erase board outside the midway loading station on the Snowflake lift a few weeks ago. I laughed at it and thought, "Poor Robbie"... but part of me realized it's only a matter of time before the Luxor light dots the night sky with a message from my own mom. Why must I be the black sheep? This post is anything but inspiring, so feel free to skip it if you're only here for the funny.

Anyone who has asked me about life in Vegas has almost certainly heard the word 'vapid' pop up in more than a passing tone, and I'm finding it to be more and more true as the days pass. People here want jobs, not careers. They want money, not happiness. The city itself embodies all that is mundane and superficial about life, and I really don't think I want to have a big part in it. Sure, I could be a mover and shaker if I really put my mind to it (riiiight), but at what cost? My soul? Dignity? Intelligence?

My dad's parting words to me as I left Breck were, "Now's the time. You've got brilliance, talent, and drive. It's time to prove yourself" Yeah, way to set the bar low, dad. As much as I dispise hearing things like that, it made me really think about how I could possibly apply any of these so-called abilities to make myself successful in this city. That, of course, bred the question of what is success. That's where I get stumped.

Those words ringing in my ears, I spent the entire ride into Denver feeling as if my heart were being wrenched out of my body through my throat. To put it on more relatable terms, think about the last time you had to leave someone you loved dearly, and you knew you wouldn't seen for quite some time. As you are pulled away, your mind floods with all the memories of what made you truely happy, and that you won't feel that happiness every morning when you wake up until the day you are reunited.

Yeah, that feeling.

Of course it was partially about leaving my parents and friends in the town, but I've come to terms with being apart from them for so long that it's no longer an issue when I depart- I know it's just a matter of time. I'm under the distinct impression that what I was missing, what was causing me such pain, was the fact that I was leaving a life I really enjoy, a town I really enjoy, and people I really enjoy. These are pangs of saddness I don't feel when I leave Indy, Nashville, Boston, or wherever the bulk of my core friends may be. These are unique.

If people ask me, "where are you from?", they can expect about a ten minute answer. I have no idea, to be honest, but I know I'm not from Vegas. The only place in the United States that I've ever felt comfort in was in Breck. I've been there alone, and I've been there with family, and my feelings of belonging have never wavered. The community is tight, the people aren't superficial, and life just evolves at a different pace. Hell, I shaved twice in three weeks and never felt like I needed to impress a single soul... quite the polar opposite of Vegas. Indiana has never held onto my heart (nor my head, for sure), and Nashville was fun while it lasted. Vegas is basically a city with a tit-job and lots of makeup, but not much upstairs.

I've absolutely met quality people out here, but such a paultry number that I couldn't even fully populate one hand with fingers if I started counting. It's not for lack of trying, it's just a lack of common interests. People dream big out here, and 99.9% of them will ultimately fail at life, even if they succeed in their 'careers'. I need to not be one of them.

I suppose this is my long-winded way of saying that I need to move. Every time I leave my friends, I don't feel the saddness of loss, but rather the saddness of knowing I'm letting my brain atrophe the minute the wheels touch down on the tarmac. My friends out here know the glee I feel when my old Vandy, Duke, what-have-you friends come to visit, and the depression I plunge into at their departure. It's not so much the people as it is the feeling of belonging and companionship on something other than a superficial level. I need that. I don't need this.

Well, I don't want to bore the two people reading this any further, but I suppose every so often it's necessary to pour your soul out to no one in particular, and I figured I'd better do it while I still have some left to pour.

The question now for me is, where? I've long dreamed of moving to Breck, even when I was 13, because I love the town. I know I won't become a tycoon, and I know I won't be broadening my horizons, but I feel like this is a necessary step in the Unbearable Being of George. I firmly believe I can be monetarily successful anywhere I go, so why confine myself to this place? What would be wrong about living where I'm happy?I don't need a big city, and I don't need a thousand clubs. I don't need any of Vegas.

I need a small group of witty friends, a decent beer, and a place I'd be proud to call home. I'd settle for any of the three right now.

For purposes of making you want me

Someone who shall remain nameless IMed me today and asked, "what the hell do you do out there?", referring to Breckenridge. Since she asked so kindly, I have obliged. Keep in mind this was a short ski day, so there are a few more apres-ski activities. This isn't funny, either, merely informative.

George's Agenda
Monday, January 9th, 2006

The Skiing
7:45am- Wake up
7:46am- Realize it's snowed 8 inches of fluffy powder
8:13am- Borrow a set of ski poles from the Williams, as I managed to snap a carbon-fiber pole the previous day. Fourteen-foot falls from cliffs will do that *cough*
8:15am- We're the first jerks on the Snowflake Lift
8:30am- Spruce
8:42am- High Anxiety
9:05am- Rounders
9:30am- Bern's got cold feet, and mine hurt like hell. Vista Haus visit. Mmm.... coffee, hot chocolate, and a bottle of water I managed to spill all over myself. I believe we posed for a Starbucks ad... with really, really bad hair.
10:05am- Goodbye Girl
10:28am- Mach 1/7-Up, Me and Bernie respectively
10:55am- Mach 1
11:00am- Still snowing...
11:14am- Realize the Lift 6 line is ridonculous
11:15am- Lower Psychopath/Frosty's
11:25am- Mineshaft/Devil's Crotch, the two most oddly erotically-named slopes
11:50am- American/Goldking/Peerless. 6-8in of fresh powder, good grade, long run. Not bad for the last run of the season.

Apres-Ski
12:30pm- Game of "King of the Mountain" on the snow pile next to the house, in which Bernie is thoroughly dominated by my stellar snowball skills. Until he hits me in the face with one.
1:30pm- City Market, searching through bins of unpronouncable cheeses.
2:30pm- Hot tub. Beer. Still snowing. Did you know the hot tub has 29 jets? We counted/tested them all. Yup, they work.
3:45pm- Ross shows up and pelts us with snowballs while we're in the hot tub.
3:50pm- Brad's car apparently burns to ashes on the side of the road in Indiana. This has nothing to do with my schedule, but I thought it worthy of inclusion.
4:20pm- Coffee shop w/ Bernie, Ross, and Kates. Breck Coffee (Frangelico, Bailey's, etc. and some coffee), scrabble, and backgammon. I bow to Bern's skills at the dice, though I believe our record now officially stands at 2-2. Damn him and his double-6s.
6:00pm- Crepe from 'Crepes a la cart', which is actually a cart. How punny. Good crepe. Very good crepe. Still snowing.
7:00pm- Fondue. Good fondue. Very... you get the picture.
Current- Realize that I forgot to return the ski poles to the Williams.

After that, it was all about hanging pictures and watching inspiring shorts on ESPN about quadreplegic hockey players. I won't get the chance to ski the fresh powder tomorrow, unfortunately, as I am lazy and have not packed at all. I fly back to Vegas tomorrow, so you can all revel in my misery at leaving the good times and skiing that define the Breck experience.

I'm yawning like a Williams kid in drum class, so I'm out.

G

Taboo Cliche

For the sake of posterity, I have noted some of the events of the evening. When I say 'some', I mean just this one: Ross, Kates, Bernie and I played Taboo tonight. Below are some of the clues that resulted in correct answers.

B: If you eat this, it'll come back later
G: Corn!

B: She died, but she was really nice.
G: Mother Theresa

G: He's written a butt-load of books...
B: John Grisham

B: He can jump.
G: Michael Jordan.

G: Lazy people sit around all day and collect this...
B: Bottles?
G: From the government.
B: Oh, wellfare

Below are clues that resulted in not-so-correct answers.

K: These people aren't necessarily seen as normal, and are sort of weird...
R: Retards!
(Correct answer: Oddballs)

G: Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the blank
B: mouse!
G: It rhymes.
B: ...hat?
(Correct answer: Fiddle)

B: Small bulls (George heard this as 'bowls')
G: Rammikin
B: No, like... moo moo bulls
G: Cow bowls?

B: PETA people might be this
G: Annoying
B: No,
G: Liberal
B: Keep going
G: Stupid
B: They don't consume animals
G: Oh... Vegetarians.

Oh my, we are so amusing. It's time to hit the sack so I can ski tomorrow. Adios.

MADE ....to make people like me

Has anyone seen this ridiculous show on MTV? I know everyone has but wants to pretend they haven't, so in order to keep up appearances I'll give you a quick synopsis- Fat and/or ugly and/or handicapped and/or impoverished kid wants to do one thing: Make people like them through the cunning use of the "oh shit, there's a camera- be nice to the weirdo" tactic. It sucks. I've seen maybe 30 collective minutes of it, and all of them made me want to vomit all over the VP of Programming at MTV. I would, of course, video tape the entire ordeal and then sell it to MTV as a new show called "Vomitin' on the Veep"

On one show, a homely Minnesotan girl wanted to be a champion wakeboarder. She was overweight, had a seering crush on some kid at her school, had never been out on a lake, and was about as coordinated as me two hours into a beer pong game. Could they do it? Could MTV make her a star? Short answer, yes. Long answer, no. You figure it out.

The show contained all the requisite shots, you see. There are the "ohmigod, look at her" shots from the popular girls in the beginning, the "Rocky" montage, and the "wow, you've come so far in life in the past month- want to come to our neat kegger?" shots at the end. I like to call this Dante's Trifecta, cuz someone's going to hell for subjecting humanity to it.

I'm pretty sure this is what the passed script and shooting schedule looks like for an episode of this show.

MADE
Air date 3/12/06
Written by Satan & Minions

Narrative: "Tiffany is a poor, ugly lesbian from Nebraska. She wants nothing more than to be a cheerleader and get porked by graduation." -scratch the last part about porking. too transparent.

Let's get some stock footage of skinny girls pointing at fat girls and insert it here. Get one of those cool shots where we follow her down the hall and people pretend she doesn't exist, those are always fun. Find and interview the school's resident anti-lesbian chick. I know, I know, who doesn't like lesbians, but just get some chick with too much dark eye makeup.

Interview Clip: Focus the interview on how hard it is to be a "plus sized" girl in today's world. Try not to mention that she has bad acne, too. If we can, we should probably have her cry a little. Not a big cry, but one of those delayed cries where she talks about something heartfelt and then has to... take a break... and... cry... a little. You know? The whole "it's like we're not filming it because it's so real, but we are filming it" moments. God I love those.

Narrative: "Well, Tiffany. You got your chance. MTV wrangled up the best and the brightest of the cheerleading world to help you make your dream come true!"

btw, we need to try to find some losers who cheerlead for a living. Tell them we'll pay them extra to be seen with this chick.

Interview Clip: Get said losers to talk about how hard it is to be a cheerleader (hah) and that her BMI is too high or something. Give some sort of goal you can get 90% of the way to in 30 days... make sure she can't totally reach it, though. If it's a weight loss thing, we can always toss cheeseburgers at her during the last week of filming if she gets too close to success. Lists are good. If there's a list published on some teacher's door at the end (cast for a play, people who made the team, etc.) we can always get that 'disappointed, yet triumphant' shot at the end when she's not on it. I mean, I'm not trying to be negative, but have you seen this chick?

Shots of her training to be a cheerleader. Make sure she tries really hard stuff on her first day and falls flat on her face. Classic. Oh, and put her on a seaweed diet... yeah, that'd be funny. Get shots of her drinking seaweed. Someone gets a bonus if we catch her puking on film.

Interview Clip: Standard "I hate my trainer", "this is hard", "I miss my friends" stuff. Keep this going for about 30 minutes.

Insert the clips of people starting to notice she's lost weight, has a cleared-up complexion, is really cool, blah blah in here. Don't actually ask them to speak, just make sure you get good tight shots of them staring at her ass. Oh, and THIS IS PARAMOUNT: Make sure they know there's a camera on them!! If they don't know, they'll just be normal and blow her off. Pay the head cheerleader to tell her she shouldn't give up. Arrange for a party at our expense, make sure some cute guy invites her, preferably the one she has a crush on. Oh wait, she's a lesbian.. make it a cute girl. See if we can get them to kiss. No tongue or we'll have to show it after 10pm.

Interview Clip: "Wow, she's working so hard! I totally respect her now!" etc. Grab some stock footage if there isn't enough fresh crap.

Film the try-outs for whatever she's doing. It was cheerleading, right? Cool. Get some, uh, good angles. Pensive shots of judges are always key, as is making sure we show the entire routine of the one chick that's actually good. Get the fatty to look intimidated. I dunno, tell her if she fails someone will shoot Ronald McDonald.

Narrative: "...and now the waiting game begins. Tiffany has worked so hard for the past 30 days, but was it enough? She almost reached her goal weight, almost pulled off a back-handspring, and almost won her battle with psoriasis. But was it enough?"

NO! Hahahah. Man, people are suckers. Okay, um, there should be the list I talked about somewhere. See if you can get the coach posting it, then the girls running up to it the next day. PLEASE get me a close-up of the tear coming out of the corner of her eye when she sees she's not on it. Last time we had to settle for that shot of the back of that retarded kid's head when he realized he wasn't cast in Pippin. I'm not pointing any fingers, TODD, but maybe we should get a good director of photography for this one.

Interview Clip: Technically I'm not supposed to script this since that whole Laguna Beach fiasco, but I wouldn't cry if someone maybe fed her the idea for this line: "My best may not be good enough for them, but it's good enough for me." I tried getting that one-armed wanna-be gymnast to say it, but his best literally wasn't good enough for anybody-HAH... speaking of which, how creepy is it that his mom invited us to the wake? Anyway, make sure she's upbeat about being a failure. One of these days we should let a kid succeed. Nah.

Slow-mo clips of people cheering for the cheerleader, maybe get them to allow her to do one cheer during a game. God forbid she's the top of the pyramid, but she'd make a good base. Make sure we get an official cheerleading outfit for her, and have the coach present it as some sort of 'great spirit' award or something. Do they make those in XXL? Fade in random clips of her family and some of her weird goth/emo friends smiling. Have anti-lesbian chick from the first segment come up, cry about how enlightened she is, and hug her. Bonuses all around if she gives her a quick feel-up.

On second thought, this one needs a little more depth. Maybe some tragedy? Can we shoot her dog right before filming?

50 Ways to Bring Down a Commercial Aircraft (read up, Osama)

Cruising unconsciously at 38,000 feet yesterday, I heard a sound that shook me to the core of my being. It ripped me out of my sleep and made my heart race like that of a hummingbird on crack. A gunshot. And another.

I was sitting in the bulkhead, and it came from the galley of the 757. Right by the door to the cockpit. Once my eyes had once again acclimated to the light, I saw what had made the noise... the stewardess. She was throwing giant bags of ice on the floor to break them up so she could serve drinks. Is there NO better way to do this? Are you telling me that on a seventy-five million dollar aircraft, they couldn't find a way to break up chunky ice for the flight crew?

The damn machine can melt one-inch-thick ice caps off the leading edges of wings travelling at 450kts and 50,000 feet... but it can't break two cubes apart without scaring the living shit out of me.

And that brings me to my point: I hate jerks. That's right, jerks. Jerks are the reason we're throwing bags of ice on the floor. Why? No ice picks. Because of jerks with utility knives, the flight crew is only aloud to break ice with instruments that posess all the rigidity of osteoporotic femurs.

The first time I flew post-9/11, I asked for a lime with my club soda. "How do you think we're supposed to cut limes now?" was the response I got. I'm pretty sure my saying, "On the ground before they get to the plane?" wasn't helpful, but it should've been. I got upgraded to first class on a flight and was stuck using plastic silverware. Even the carrots in the dish had been dulled at the tip so as to pose no threat. This is ridiculous. I can think of fifty ways to take down a damn plane, none of them involving sharp objects. Are we going to start banning asthma inhalers? Pieces of fishing line? Cameras? Hats? Very small rocks? Not a chance.

All it takes is one guy to go all McGyver on an airplane, and we'll find ourselves in straight jackets sucking on endotracheal tubes. It's bad enough that I have to sit there eating my dull carrots with a spoon as I sip on a lime-free club soda, but general anesthesia I will not allow!

This post, much like my carrots, has no point.

Sage

I know I'm on vacation and shouldn't be posting, but my dad said something today that I had to jot down for posterity. Where else but the blog?

The scene: My nose is bleeding. Again. I am, if nothing else, a product of such screwed up genetics that I ended up with my dad's sinuses and my mom's feet (tiny pinky toe, too wide). As I shoved tissues up my nostril to stem the red tide, I made a comment to my dad that resulted in the following conversation.

"Of all things I could inherit, it had to be your nose"
"I'm sorry"
"...I guess it comes along with the rapier wit, right?"
"I'll take credit for that too."

He started to walk away, then turned around and said, "If you're going to be blessed with the ability to make people bleed, you should probably bleed a little yourself."

I had to write this down. Not sure why.

Time out

I'm headed to Indy for the next week and a half, so the odds of me updating this are slim. Of course, knowing the crowd I spend Thanksgiving with, I'll return with plenty to blog about.

One quick note: I requested my car pick me up at 6am. I was told "We'll be there anywhere from 5:45 to 6:15". You know, there's a BIG difference between 5:45 and 6:15, people. For example, one is in the "5AM" hour- which is typically known as the "Holy mother of God I want to go back to sleep" hour. 6AM isn't so bad. It is currently 5:13. Boo.

George

Justice

Karma police, arrest this man.

At the behest of Jon, I am making this post. I believe that given my last post, this one is appropriately named. Warning: This entry is somewhat crude.

Given the subject matter and tone of my previous entries, one could assume that my life out here boarders a bit on the unhealthy and hedonistic side, but that's only about 5% of my life in Las Vegas. Nobody wants to read about the day-to-day rituals of picking up dry cleaning, working, getting the mail, and paying my bills. See? Even that list was boring. I do, however, take care of myself while living here. If you don't count the three-week stint last February during which I had an emergency appendectomy, was diagnosed with strep, and caught the flu, I'm actually pretty healthy.

Each morning, I take a bottle of water and cram into it about 75% of my "needed for healthy living" vitamins, minerals, etc. This includes psyllium fiber, which I have been assured by the two doctors in the family is never a bad thing to ingest on a daily basis. I eat a healthy breakfast, drink my healthy-ass water, and start my day. Considering most of my friends start theirs with a Red Bull and a cigarette, I think this is a pretty healthy alternative.

Last night, I went to the store to stock up on my powdered goodness. I was a little distracted at the time and was pretty much on auto-pilot. Just pick up the fruits and vegetables for the week, grab the supplements, get two cases of water, and I'm on my merry way. Yes, I used self-checkout. I put everything away when I got home, again on auto-pilot.

After getting out of bed this morning, I started warming up my shower and trudged to the kitchen. Considering I am functionally retarded in the morning if I've not had my shower, this will always be the way things go down-- take note, ladies. You can't change me! Anyway... I grabbed an ice-cold bottle of water, poured in my little vitamin packets, and mixed in three heaping spoonfulls of fiber. It's about five times as much as I would normally ingest, but considering my day's plans included a lunch at a steakhouse and dinner at a BBQ joint, I wasn't planning on getting my fill naturally. Like I said before, you can never have too much of a good thing. As I scooped everything into the bottle, I thought to myself, "Self, that's a lot of fiber. Man, your system's getting detoxed today." After the last two weeks, it needed it anyway.

I chugged my Health in a Bottle and took my shower.

*grumble*

What the hell was that? My stomach's grumbling... odd. Oh well, off I go to get dressed and go to wor-

*grumble*

Okay, not cool.

I went to the kitchen to grab some Tums from the cabinet. Just FYI, apparently I'm genetically predisposed to getting an ulcer or GERD, so I chew a couple Tums each day. So far I'm the only one in the family that hasn't had either of the stomach acid-induced curses. Regardless... I opened the cabinet and grabbed the bottle of Tums and started to tap some out of the bottle when something caught my eye. The label of the fiber powder I use had been recently redesigned, apparently. Oh wait, that's not my normal brand. In fact, that's not fiber...

I had purchased and consumed three giant spoonfulls of laxative. Thanks Sean, you jackass.

[Insert 'shit really hit the fan' joke here. While you're at it, think of a witty ending to this post. I need to use the restroom.]

I am going to hell.

I've pretty much cemented this fact by merely living in Las Vegas, but I just had to post my confession to get something off my chest. Here goes.

During my Freshman year, Vanderbilt had a mandatory Community Service program for my major. You had to complete 1-200 hours of community service in the first semester, and write a reflection paper about the experience. My community service activities were pretty meager (built a wheelchair ramp, did dance marathon, some other activities, etc.) and I really had nothing on which to reflect. What do you learn from cutting 2x4s? I never met the woman for whom we built the ramp, so there wasn't much emotional attachment, and Dance Marathon at Vandy wasn't exactly something I would consider community service.

Anyway, since my offerings were somewhat banal, I decided to throw something into my reflection paper to tug a few heart-strings, and thus cement an A in the class. I threw in Sean. Sean, the blind 13 year-old from New York who came out to ski in Breckenridge while I was there on Spring Break. In my paper, I taught Sean to ski and "feel" the beauty of the mountains that he had only previously heard about. Sean said some pretty prophetic things, and was a great kid with the heart of a lion. Sean went to a "regular" school in New York, yet found ways to overcome his handicap. Sean taught me a lot about myself, and that the simple joys in life are the ones we should treasure most. Sean was a great kid.

Sean, of course, did not exist. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of blind kids from NY named Sean, but I'm pretty sure I didn't teach any of them how to ski.

As our professor handed our papers back after grading them, he turned to me and asked if I would mind sharing my experience. I had to read the paper to the class. A few of the girls in the class almost cried, and the teacher gave me the "slow clap" at the end, telling everyone they could learn from an experience like this. One of my friends in the class knew there was no Sean, and she had to leave the class because tears had formed in her eyes from supressing the laughter. As I said, I'm going to hell.

I had a solid A- in the class until this point (slept through a test), and I didn't claim the service as part of the course requirement. I didn't count the hours, I just threw it in for the story. In a world of wheelchair ramps and dancing for babies, Sean was more the icing on the cake.

So, that's the deal. I made up a handicapped kid and taught him how to ski. Sean, I'm sorry.

America, meet Darwin. Darwin, America.

Okay, so the real point of this post/blog/vent isn't necessarily one of life or death, but it should be. That's right, we're going to discuss self-checkout kiosks at the grocery store, or more appropriately, those who use them.

This entry was sparked by a comment made to me by the nice little woman who works at my local grocery store. "You are so proficient at these," she said "I'll make sure to let you go to the head of the line in the future." How kind. My sheer ability to be adequate has landed me a position ahead of what I can only guess is a steaming pile of mediocracy! Sweet! Why would she tell me this, you ask? Well, you probably didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway. That's the point of a blog.

The use of these machines is fairly simple in theory ("In theory. Everything works in theory. Communism works in theory").

Step 1: Walk up to the little stand with your basket. If you need a cart to haul around your crap, you have too much and should just go stand in line with all the other consumer whores.

Step 2: Scan your shit, put it in the bag. Make sure you put it in the bag, as the machine needs to register that you did, in fact, place it in the bagging area.

a) If it something like a case of coke, just press "Skip bagging" and place it back in your cart.
b) For unmarked produce, place it on the scanner, choose the name of the product, press enter, and place it in your bag.

Step 3: Pay.

Step 4: Leave.

Somehow, we have ended up with additional steps. I don't know how this happened, but it did. The following is based EXACTLY on what I experienced last night. Again for your convenience, I have outlined the new steps below:

Step 1: Bring your cart up the stand. Yeah, you have a cart-load, but you're super-smart and are fully capable of doing this yourself! I mean, if a low-level minimum-wage-earning tard can scan and bag, so can you!

Step 2: Stare at the screen. This could be more complicated than you thought. Do you want English or Spanish? Hmm.

Step 3: Ponder Step 2, choose option.

Step 4: Find a way to start over. You chose Spanish.

Step 5: Scan your bananas. Oh wait, no little barcode on them? Hm.

Step 6: Vacant expression with a hint of exasperation. Stupid technology.

Step 7: Press the "No barcode" button.

Step 8: Contemplate the meaning of the term PLU, ignoring that the screen tells you what it is. Search your bananas for this "PLU" thing. Don't find it.

Step 9: See Step 6.

Step 10: Choose "No PLU". You're so clever.

Step 11: Try to remember the alphabet song to figure out where on the list your "bananas" are. Feel stupid when you realize it's the second letter.

Step 12: Choose "plantanes", because the little picture looks like a banana.

Step 13: Wait. Why didn't it register anything? I have the bananas- they're right here in my hand! Why doesn't it know how much they weigh??

Step 14: Slam bananas down in exasperation. Notice it weighs them. Feel stupid, move on.

Step 15: Hear the voice from the computer say, "Please place your item in a bag". Put bananas back in your cart, triggering "Please put item in bag" dialogue again.

Step 16: See Step 6.

Step 17: On a lark, put bananas in bag. It worked! Okay, this will be easy.

Step 18: Scan items and place them in the bagging area, but not in bags. You're too busy for that, and your time is much too valuable. You'll do it at the end.

Step 19: Drag case of bottled water over scanner.

Step 20: Try to find a way to place the case in the bagging area.

Step 21: Succeed, but you're going to need new bananas.

Step 22: Notice "Skip bagging" option that pops up and lets you put the case in your cart. Sweet!

Step 23: Finish scanning items, begin to bag them.

Step 24: When you lift items to put them in a bag, that nagging "Unexpected Item Removed from Bagging Area" dialogue pops up.

Step 25: Press "Item removed", thereby letting the computer know you don't intend to put it in a bag.

Step 26: Place it in a bag.

Step 27: "Unexpected item in bagging area"

Step 28: See Step 6.

Step 29: Call over attendant.

Step 30: Look behind you, giving the "Gosh, computers are so stupid" expression to everyone behind you.

Step 31: Notice me glaring at you.

Step 32: Get the attendant to scan all of your things, pressing appropriate buttons when required, like a normal intelligent human being.

Step 33: "Aw crap, I forgot my credit card"

Step 34: See Step 6

Step 35: Walk away, leaving your crap.

So what we've essentially done is not remove the middle-man cashier, but we've added a step to the entire 'checking out' process. That step is called "retardation".

I politely informed the attendant last night that they should keep a lane open for those who are capable and show some sort of licensure to use the machines. She agreed, but giggled it off. Stupid bint. If I had my way, you'd get one minute to complete your transaction. If you exceed your time limit, you go back to the end of the line. You're welcome to try as many times as you'd like, but I'm fairly certain that most people will either give up or become marvelously fast after the one-minute time frame is established.

Also, those who exceed twenty seconds for more than one item will be rounded up and shot en masse. If you can't do this, I'd hate to see how you plan on functioning in the real world. This task is so simple and elegant. It was designed to save people time and reward them for being forward-thinking and competent. Instead, it's punishing those of us who "get it". Screw you, hippies, they don't sell Tofurkey Jerky here.

Yours truly,
The Grocery Store Nazi

How could I have forgotten...?

Very easily.

I've been informed that I left out some rather major events from this past weekend (See the entry two below this one), so to atone, I will make you read about them in a new post. All together now: WOOHOO

The first of a handful of glaring omissions would be Tom's impromptu decoration of the Imperial Palace sign. Though I wasn't present for the event, I later saw a picture that was described by Tom as today's "Moment of Zen". Cheeks full of bile, bent over the balcony, Tom let loose on the 'M' of the sign. To anyone standing below, this must have seemed like quite a surprise, though I can assure you it's no the first time it's happened. See the M on the sign to the left? That's the magic spot. It's about twenty feet tall, ten if them in serious need of cleaning.

I would say that the second glaring emission, er, omission would be what Jimmy later did to it, but we'll not rub out that story quite yet.

Since we're not counting that last blurb, official Omission #2 would have to be a snippet from a conversation had at the Forum Shops. In public. I must stress this.

A little background: Tom is a master of the hypotheticals. eg If you had to give up sex, or meat, which would you do? One of those questions attempts to discover if one would prefer giving up oral pleasure, or cheese. Though I am prone to giving these questions a little thought, Jimmy didn't need much before he fired off his answer:

"Cheese. I love me a good BJ".

This might seem like normal conversational banter for the typical college-buddy crowd, and it is, but it is typically reserved for times when said crowd isn't standing next to a FREAKIN' ELEVEN YEAR OLD GIRL. Jimmy thinks she was eleven, and I'm inclined to trust his instinct and experience in this area. We are all at fault for not realizing we were in a very public, very crowded area, but even this verbal ejaculation was perhaps not timed to perfection.

Omission #3: How long can man survive on edible panties alone? We never found out, but I'll be damned if we didn't think it to death. Again, I believe this was a public conversation. The question itself is not all that hard to answer, but the questions that followed gave the conversation a little more depth. My personal favorite discussion was flavors ("Aw honey, you bought tuna again?"), but we also discussed sizes, material composition, etc. I'm not sure if we ever resolved this issue. Jimmy? Tom? Comments?

Omission #4: An in-depth look at SEMA. We're not going to go very deep, but I'll give you some snippets. The first would be Merv's name badge, which if I'm not mistaken said "Marlene" or "Darlene"... something along those lines. Regardless, stocky jewish men don't typically take on monikers of Roseanne characters.

Next would be the amazing Toyota we saw outside. The thing had more bling than Chingy, a Louis Vuitton print, and had sequins glued to every exposed surface. I noticed the sultry Solara and stated that it, "looked like it was raped by a Bedazzler". Overhearing this comment and the subsequent laughter, Coolio got in the car and drove/bumped it away. Nice suspension, too bad you're only parking in two dimensions.

Second-to-last of the SEMA observations would be that Jon turns into a nervous little school girl around women signing autographs and taking hooker-esque pictures. You know, the whole 'wander around, kicking the carpet, half-glance' thing? The one guy I know who is never at a loss for confidence actually looked intimidated by them. That's probably because he's not used to paying for sex, so broaching the subject could've been potentially awkward.

Finally, there was the Saturn. Ah yes, t'was a warm yellow, like the twinkle of dew on marigolds in the morning... plus about two hundred feet of plasma screens. Have you ever watched Finding Nemo on the hood of a Saturn? No, not you, the movie. You should do it some time- it's great. This car epitomizes what cracks me up about car modification- $50,000 worth of crap on a $10 car. It used to be confined to the performance mods, but thanks to rappers, we now have TVs embedded in headlamps.

That should cover it for this installment, but rest assured I will keep you updated as new and interesting events come to light.

Waltzing with Neuroses

My friend Malida had a great experience today and wished to somehow 'blog' it. Since she's wholly inept when it comes to all things technology, I've been given permission to take up her torch and carry it to the finish line. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the tale of Creepy One-Date Psycho Inducing Extreme Cellphone Evasion, or as I shall refer to him from now on, CODPIECE.

Malida and CODPIECE went out for drinks a few months ago. Though I have no insider knowledge of what transpired, I can guess it went something like the following:

Malida: Hi, I'm Malida
CODPIECE: Hi, I'm creepy.

And it pretty much went downhill from there. Suffice it to say that the evening ended up with the old "Check out the cool scar I got when I was bitten by a pit bull as I served a Default Payment notice" routine that we guys are prone to telling when conversation gets slow. Of course, it was actually from a now infamous sporking incident at T-bell, but that's neither here nor there.

After sharing a drink, a laugh, and possibly some rohypnol, Malida and CODPIECE parted ways, exchanging cell phone numbers as they drew the evening to a close. CODPIECE thought he'd scored some hot ass. CODPIECE was wrong. Malida is a busy little bee, and neglected to call CODPIECE for a while, and by 'a while', I mean 'ever'. CODPIECE, however, did not give up hope.

Weeks went by as he left voicemail after voicemail, imploring her to call so they could again share drinks, laughs, and rufies. Unfortunately for CODPIECE, he would call to give 5 minutes notice of his potential dates, and that just didn't work for Malida. Who doesn't make plans for the evening these days... says the guy writing in his blog at 10:30 on a Wednesday night.

Finally, CODPIECE broke down our little Cantonese Cutie (Yeah, "cutie" was my first choice for a word starting with C) and she answered the phone. This was their conversation, word-for-word.

CODPIECE: Hey, want to grab some dinner later?
Malida: I can't, I have to pack for Sacramento.
CP: *cue insane voice* You're always busy when I call you. You're always doing your girls night out ...or you're in Vegas, when are you going to make time for me?
M: I'm a busy girl. I work a lot and I party hard. I'm not going drop my plans or my girls when you call and want to do something. If you want to spend time with me, you need to make plans in advance.
CP: I'm calling you at 7pm. Let's go to dinner at 9. That's two hours notice.
(Editorial note: You can almost see the psychotic glare in his eyes at these words)
M: Um... maybe you didn't hear me, but I can't go out tonight. I've got to pack for my trip tomorrow.
CP: Are... are you saying your trip is more important than me?
M: Do you really want me to answer that?

Cue hysterical laughter from Malida

CP: Well, when you get back, let's go to dinner.
M: I don't get back til next Wednesday, then I work on Thursday and Friday, and I'm leaving for Vegas on Friday.
CP: What?? Vegas again? See this is what I mean... you're always busy. And you never call me back. And when you do, you never leave a message. If you keep this up, I'm going to stop calling you
(Editorial note: This would be a perfect time to whip out the "is that a promise?" line, but alas)

Malida could not, at this point, contain her laughter. The 'ol "I'll stop calling you" trick apparently didn't work. His response:
CP: I haven't seen you since that one day we went out for drink. That was like 2 months ago. I invite you over and you never come. You have to put some effort in. If you dont' start making time for me, I'm going to DELETE you off my list!
M: Well I can't tell you what to do, I'm a busy girl. I'm not going to drop everything for you, so you do what you gotta do.
CP: I didn't ask for your opinion- I'm telling you what I'm going to do if you don't call me. I'm not going to talk to you on YOUR time, you have to make time to talk on my time.

Cue uprorious laughter from Malida.

At this point, CODPIECE wished Malida a safe trip. "Don't get too wild. I don't like wild girls." were his parting words. Well, they were going to be until Malida told him she's "nobody's girl". This illicted the death blow from CP, "I can see why. You're never around long enough to date".

Ooooh, burn.

Conversation over, right? Yeeeah, no. Here comes the text message!

"Since you like being single, I hope your[sic] single for life so you know how it feels to want someone and not have them. Goodbye."

Poor Malida. She was text-dumped by a guy she didn't even date. That has to hurt. Of course, me being the jackass that I am, I dared her (triple-dog dared her, actually) to text him back with a line I've always wanted to use- "Cool. See ya never". I know, I know, sophomoric at best, but it's the simplicity that makes it so effective. It's the 2nd grader's way of ending a relationship, and is not used nearly enough in today's society.

Malida has been deleted.

Sore

I'm going to dispense with the, "wow, it's been a while since I've updated my blog!" crap and get right to the point: I am sore. Mentally and physically. This post is going to be long, so don't start if you don't want to become emotionally invested.

This past weekend saw possibly the rowdiest crew I've had in Vegas, and I'm not sure if it would've been possible for me to have more fun. From Spearmint Rhino the first night (hi, mom) to a 6 mile hike through canyons on Sunday, it was overall a success in my eyes.

I'm just writing this as some sort of way to freeze fun in time, so my apologies if it doesn't necessarily flow too well. Take this as a journey into my journal, rather than a blog entry.

On Thursday night, I ventured to the airport to pick up Jon and Tom. After a few margaritas at Typical Airport Mexican Bar with Random Name, we headed to the Imperial Palace to drop off their stuff. Did that happen? No. Did we pick up Clint as he stood outside, swaying with a glass of bourbon in his hand? Yes. For the record, this is one of the first times I've ever let someone carry an open container of a liquid darker than water in my car. Sometimes you've gotta take a hit for the team.

We proceded to Nine Fine Irishmen at New York, New York (the stutterers' favorite casino). A check on the rollercoaster proved fruitless, as it had closed an hour earlier, but I was still able to steal the key from locker #21. Long story. At Nine Fine, we secured a table outside and began to drink what I like to call Real Beer. Smithwicks. Bass. Guiness. Black & Tan's. None of this namby-pamby Corona/Bud Light shit that people in this town seem to be obsessing over. The waitress was cool, I forget her name, but now have her number. Long story.

We met up with Jimmy, Jon's friend from Dartmouth, at Nine Fine, as well. Wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase tends to set you apart from the crowd there. Couldn't have fit in more with the personality, though.

Around one or two in the morning, we thought it would be a great idea to go to Spearmint Rhino. After cashing in our life insurance to get in, we wandered til a table could be found. This is no small accomplishment when half of Japan's aftermarket automotive industry is sucking up all of the leapord-print valour money can buy. As we later found out, it's also hard to get the hot blond to come over to you when Mr.Miyagi's waving $1,000,000 bills in her face. Damnit, we have personality!

Around sunrise, we parted ways and I went home. This is the first night of the weekend I went to bed when the sun had full-on risen. Apparently Tom and Clint thought it would be wise to go gamble til 7am. I'll admit there's nothing wrong with that.

On Friday morning, around 9:30am (after an hour and a half of sleep), I received a few calls from fellow G35ers in town, and from Jon. Oh yeah, there's that whole SEMA thing I need to do. Damn. I got to SEMA at around noon... no pass. I walked to the Media Registration in the North building, only to find it had been moved to the South building. To give you a little perspective, the North building is in Nevada, while the South building is located somewhere around Guadalajara. I flashed my snazzy photoshopped business card, my snazzy photoshopped tax license, and got my Media pass. Oooooh, all access.

Meeting up with the PT crew, I learned that Jon had agreed to have his head shaved with a tire-tread pattern. Why would you do that?? Oh yeah, he won $800 in free tires. Lucky bastard. I can't say I would've done it, but then again I'm Whitey McConservative. Point value awarded to Jon will be determined when I see what tires he gets for the Saab.

Post-SEMA, it was determined that a nap was in order. I concurred. We went to the IP where this plan was quickly thrown out. While we flipped through the 'hooker baseball cards' that the nice little illegals hand out on the strip, a few stood out: One which suggested a game called 'titty buster', and another which guarenteed you sophisticated ladies... in their 60s. This is when Merv ordered an Asian Lettuce Wrap from room service and Tom replied, "sounds kinky".

When the elders (This includes Jon and Matt) were down for the count, Tom, Jimmy and I decided to go gamble. Who else do you know, after all, who can both teach you how to play craps AND turn the table ice cold with just his mere presence? George, baby. We played at O'Shea's for a while, cramped into our tiny corner because the lady next to us had no depth perception. Fantastic. I kept praying that we'd establish a point and crap out just so she'd go broke and we could have her space. I've never seen someone last so long on $5.

I was done playing Tyhpoid Mary of the craps table, so we grabbed some grub and hit up... another craps table. Imperial Palace. I should have taken it as a dark omen when I almost lost an eye to a die thrown by a very aggresive player, but I try not to learn from history. One man at the table stood out a bit, but for entirely sketchtastic reasons. Jimmy made the estout observation that he would rub his nipple through his shirt before he threw the dice. I'd noticed that the dice hit the back wall before the felt (this means he threw them really, really hard), but I'm not one to stare at old men's nipples too often. I believe he was cristened "Sketchy McNipples" or something along those lines, and we made no bones about calling him that publically. The dealers at the craps table would actually move their hands in the air when he threw, as they didn't want to get hit. The pit boss came over and told him to tone it down, as he'd thrown a handfull off the table already, and hit a dealer and killed her. I may have made that last part up. This I did not, though: One of the dealers asked if I would kindly throw the dice so hard as to ricochet off of her boss's head. Nice.

Throughout our craps play, Jimmy and Tom inquired about the qualities one must posess to be a "Dealertainer". A Dealertainer is a blackjack dealer who dresses like a celebrity, and occasionally lip-syncs to a song while standing on a stage in the middle of the "Dealertainer Pit". Apparently you must be an entertainer first, then you will be trained as a dealer. They lip-sync, so I'm not 100% sure about what we're putting under the "entertainer" heading, but I'm sure it's something more substantial than shoving your dress full of kleenex to look like Dolly Parton. Tom decided he could do a great Madonna, and we all agreed.

After one incredibly hot streak where I rolled more 6s and 8s than you could shake a croupier's stick at (har har), I went as cold as ice. This will only make sense if you know how to play craps, but I rolled: 3, 12, 8, 7. Nice.

Back to the room with a belly full of beer, thanks to our waitress who was a little heavy on the eye shadow and a little short on the vocabulary. "Honey", "Baby", and "Sweetie" were the mots du jour.

Jon joined our haggard crew, and we were off to the Monte Carlo. We walked in, through, and back out to the car. It's that exciting. Our next stop was Fat Burger to get Jon some grub. As we sat there and Jimmy began to recall his rickshaw story, I started laughing hysterically. I'm not sure why. I think it was the combination of the hilarity of the story, and the fact that we were all sitting in Fat Bruger with a "Cletus" receipt on the table, and "I'm Every Woman" came on the jukebox next to us. This was the most insane case of the church-giggles I've had in a while, and while I wish I could tell you where it came from, all I know is that I was crying from laughing for no apparent reason. Sweet.

Around this time, Tom asked about gay marriage in Nevada. It might have been at some other time, but the time is not important here, people- it's the sentiment. I informed him that no, even Nevada doesn't allow that stuff. When asked why he posed the question, he said "because I would totally marry one of you guys right now". This concerned me until I heard the rationale: The story. Think about it. You would have THE end-all-be-all story for any party. Someone tells you about how they got drunk and fell on a cactus? Psh. "One time, I got drunk off Wild Turkey in Vegas and married a dude". That, my friends, is a story. This leads to a hilariously disturbing moment later in the evening, but that's for another time.

Procuring 40s was next on the To Do list, and that was done with relative ease. Of course, mine was Heineken and was really only about 30oz, but it's the thought that counts. Fo-dees in hand, we entered the Bellagio parking lot. We checked out the conservatory and Chihuly ceiling, all the while sipping our uber-classy beverages. Jimmy's was still in the paper bag.

Of course, what trip to the Bellagio would be complete without the obligatory fountain viewing? Merv, Matt, and Doc Kling were outside waiting for us, and after a couple shows they headed inside to catch "O". This is where our trails parted for a couple hours.

I left and met Malida at the Rio. We were supposed to party it up in a suite at the Wynn or Venetian, but everyone decided they wanted to go to PURE. Bad call, people. Bad. Malida and I instead headed back to my place in Henderson where I promptly did two things: Chugged a redbull, and tried to take a nap. In that order. Bad call, George. Bad.

An hour or so later, we were haded back to the Strip, where we parked at the Bellagio and met up with the guys. A friend out here had set up a line-skip, free admission, and free drinks all night at Coyote Ugly, so we ambled/sauntered/perambulated in that direction. The monorail/tram in the back of the Bellagio got us there relatively quickly, and we found ourselves passing the line and being led through employee- only areas to our private bar pretty quickly. What was step 1? Round of Jaeger bombs, s'il vous plait. Oh what the hell, let's have another round. And another.

From this point on, all reports are somewhat spotty, but I know I had a blast. Malida was a good sport and took the necessary compromising pictures with us (chinese fingercuffs, anyone?), and we decided to take some stupid pictures of our own. You'll see them some day during a political campaign I'm sure, so I needn't bother you with details *cough*

Jon, Matt, Doc Kling, and Mervis left us early on in the evening, as they were going climbing at Red Rock in the morning. Tom, Jimmy, Malida, and I however, were not. We pretty much cemented that fact when Tom ordered us a round of Wild Turkey shots. Michelle, our bartender, was fantastic. Quick to the draw with triple-pours, and she even warned us "You guys are going to be sick tomorrow with all this mixing". Jimmy's response to this statement was to order a Hypnotiq & Hennessey. My reaction to that will be described later. I was kindly told that our tab had reached an excess of $800. We didn't have to pay it, but at least we broke a good number. Not bad for 4 people, as 4 of them had left pretty early, and two of them don't drink.

We went to dance for a while, and Malida has reminded me that at one point her legs were wrapped around my torso as a guy behind me cheered and yelled, "Break her!" Tom, Jimmy, and I then got into a game of grab-ass with Malida. Apparently I slapped her juicy bee-hind and then implored my friends to follow suit. They did. Technically it's not harassment, as she grabbed us right back. I think she got her money's worth. That's all for my memories of dancing.

Finding our way to the tram was fun. Jimmy insisted, "I don't wanna ride the tram, I want to go HOME!". Calm down there, Cochise. Malida and I did some fancy footwork (albeit not much of it with our feet) while waiting for the our ride, then Tom and Malida showed off their stripper-pole skills on the tram. Pictures to follow.

We got Malida home, then went to the Imperial Palace. Did you know there's a breathalyzer built into their parking garage? Uh huh. We took that as a contest, and decided to try it out. Of course, we kept feeding nickels into the machine which clearly took quarters, so that should've been an instant failing grade. Seeing three twenty-something guys standing in a hallway blowing frantically into a wall-mounted machine would normally trigger some sort of physical or social alarm, but hey, this is Vegas. Up to the room, where I passed out for a good stint so I could get my car and drive home. By the time that happened, it was again sunlight.

Cumulative hours of sleep: 3.2

I returned to the strip around noon the next day, toting a bag of In-N-Out burgers and a Bud Light. Before I got there, Jimmy was dancing to the easy-listening that they pipe into the area outside the Forum Shops. I wish I had seen this, but alas I had to settle for pictures. A quick wander through the mall and attached Exotic Car dealership (Where they don't carry McLaren wife-beaters, as Tom found out after asking the sales rep) and we were off again.

Mandalay Bay is a must-see here, so we checked out The Hotel and Tom won some dosh at a slot machine. $32.50 off of a $2 investment doesn't hurt around these parts. The stomachs were grumbling, so we grabbed a seat at Georgio, a semi-posh Italian eatery in Mandalay. Sitting at the bar and looking like hell, we swapped war stories from the preceding evening and drank from the carafes of water that the bartender determined each of us needed. Somewhere around this point, Tom decided to go ask a sleezy man and his wife (or hooker) why they were pointing at us. Little did we know it was all an elaborate plot on his part. Sneaky Tom. Within ten minutes, there were shots of Wild Turkey on the bar in front of us, compliments of The Sleeze from Belize. After we had dispensed with them, Tom honed in on the next target: the hard-up, middle-aged female sales reps from the mid west who were drinking themselves to death at the bar.

I'll take this time to mention that I described the Hyp & Hennessey concoction as "poo warmed poo on poo, served with a side of poo". I also discovered that there had been a proposal the previous evening. Names of offending parties withheld for dignity and security purposes.

I wrote "free shots from old chicks" on my arm to remember this later, however the C and H fused oddly together, and I forgot to dot the I. I subsequently walked around with "Free drinks from old ducks" tattooed on me for the rest of the day. Jimmy had "poo warmed poo" written on his arm, so I didn't feel so bad.

After we had finished our food and Tom was still chatting up the Illinois division of Desperate Housewives, we joined him. I'm all well and good for twenty minutes of chatting up middle-aged ladies, but I want my booze if I am going to do it, so we steered the conversation in the direction of Jimmy 'needing a shot'. Of course the women were all-too keen to buy a round, so we graciously accepted. Let me tell ya, Solo Tequila- fantastic. Trying to hide your arm for half an hour because you've written something about old ducks on it, not fantastic.

Liza/Lisa/Wheezey, the lady who bought the shots, told us that her daughter would just looove us. And by 'us', she meant Jimmy. He flashed her Blue Steel from across the room earlier, and she had a dimple fetish. She gave her daughter's cell # to us, and Jimmy promptly called and left her a message. It should be noted that the woman, in describing her daughter, neglected to mention any mental acuity Stephanie (daughter of said ho) might possess. She did, however, let us know that her daughter was 5'2" (Tom had to correct the height at which she held her hand when she described this, as it was about 6 inches over his head), blond, and had a great body. Way to go, Pimp Mom. Jimmy gave her his card, which he'd been pawning off on unsuspecting porn-wranglers all weekend. It lists his profession as "Arbitrageur". She seemed to think this was normal.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is about the time her sister offered us drugs out of an Rx bottle, because she was a "freelance nurse" or something of the sort. I'm not in the habit of taking vicodin from kind ladies, I guess it's some weird thing my parents must have taught me. At least she wasn't making any bones about trying to get us impaired for purposes of molestation. It's not like she gave us an X-laced Jolly Rancher and said "here, little boy". It was a bottle of pills.

The realization that she wasn't buying another round set in, and we left. Since we were under a time crunch, we raced to the Bellagio by way of every casino we could stop in, only to find our party was no longer meeting us there. The time was 5:50, and we had dinner reservations at 6:30. So here I stand in shorts and a "Hope happens... one screw at a time!" shirt, and I realize I'm probably not in the appropriate attire for Smith & Wollenksy's.

Cut to me racing down I-15, getting home, changing, and being back on the strip within 30 minutes. I still beat the guys to the restaurant. Don't know how.

Our waiter was obviously going for the gold medal in the Schmuck category, but the food was pretty good. One dessert was described as coming with a wafer that was, "worth the dessert alone". I attempted to mention that he should have said, "the wafer alone was worth the dessert", but instead of correcting him I belched out, "Way to dangle your modifier". Only this group would laugh at that.

We had a fantastic dinner for Clint's b-day, courtesy of Mr. Parker, and then set sail for the Wynn. As everyone piled in the limo, I took Jimmy back to the IP and the airport. Did you know you can't get from the self-parking garage at Imperial Palace to the front door? I do now. It also took me about ten minutes to make this realization. Also, JetBlue flies out of Terminal 1, not 2. Sorry, Jimmy.

At the Wynn, we watched their water show, which I can only classify as "craptastic", and some of the guys played blackjack while I rested in the lounge with Malida and Ty. Noticing how soft and long the pillows were (8 inches wide or so, three feet long), I mentioned that it might be wise for me to saw off my leg and smuggle a pillow out of the lounge down my trousers. Three seconds later, a man whose leg had been amputated waltzed by. Well, he wasn't really waltzing, but you get the picture. I felt like a real winner.

2am. Tired. I left the Wynn and crashed into my bed so hard the neighbors thought I had fallen into the wall, which technically I had, but I bounced off of it into my bed.

The next day I met up with Matt and Jon to go hiking in the hot springs in Arizona. Hindsight being 20-20 and all, we thought the 6 mile round-trip trek, with hot spring soaking, would leave us enough time to get Jon to the airport at 8. It was 5. The drive to the airport is an hour. You do the math.

We ended up jogging down 90% of the trail. I had to call a halt to jogging activities when I rolled my ankle one too many times and determined that running downhill through a sand-and-shale-filled canyon with barely enough natural light to see three feet in front of me was not in my best interest. The view was worth it alone (ha ha), and the hot springs were amazing. Yes, it was night. Yes, we were blind for all intents and purposes. Yes, we were scrambling up and down rockslides. Yes, the Japanese tourist group we ran into thought we were insane. Yes, it was fun.

And yes, Jon made his flight, even with me playing Senor Drag-ass on the hike back out of the canyon. Matt actually crawled up the wall and jumped down next to me, screaming as I walked by. Beacause my heartrate needed that.

Over all, it was one of the most memorable weekends I've had. This Fall has been fantastic- my Nashville trip was too awesome for words, as was this one. I've really come to understand that there are some poeple in your life that will always just be real. No matter how much time changes our circumstances, it doesn't change who we are. Weekends like this make me wonder why I didn't dedicate more of my formative years to not being a douchebagel, but that's all water under the bridge.

And now for the kudos:

Hats off to the elder Burneys for having two sons that not only put up with my shit, but manage to be some of the most well-rounded people I've ever met in my life. Jon, of course, will always be the crazy influence in my life. We've determined that around every four years we get together and get stupid, I'll be happy to continue that trend, if not make it more often. Clint's definitely turned into exactly the guy I thought he would. That's a good thing. Anyone that can always find humor in sticking quarters up his nose, yet pull off the suspender/suit combo is bound for unbridled success in life. Though I've known James/Jimmy/Slappy for all of two days or so, I can honestly say I'm glad I can put him in the 'friend' category, and I've never met someone with a sense of humor so parallel to my own. Not sure if that's a good thing, but I feel like I spent a weekend with brothers I never had, and as Tom mused at Fat Burger, I'd be content to freeze moments like that in time.

Seacrest out.

Rain in the Desert

Here's a quick rant since I've not updated recently.

There was a monsoon in Vegas today. You know what the definition of "monsoon" is?

mon·soon ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mn-sn)
n.

1. A wind system that influences large climatic regions and reverses direction seasonally.
2. 1. A wind from the southwest or south that brings heavy rainfall to southern Asia in the summer.
   2. The rain that accompanies this wind.

My ass. First of all, I'm in Las Vegas, not Asia. Second of all-- rainfall? What the hell is that? It piddled at best today, and everyone went a-runnin' for the bread and milk. I think we had a total rainfall of about two ounces. It doesn't rain in the desert- it plops little drops of water every 6 feet or so. The back of my car is still dry, and I just drove four miles.

Riots. Stupidity. Maddness.

Have you ever seen it snow in Nashville? Ten times worse. I found a car parked on the street about a mile away from where I live, and there was a note on the windshield: "Please do not tow- had to walk home. Too much rain." So apparently WALKING in a 'torrential downpour' is better than driving at, oh, a safe speed.

Now I know where they got the idea for the name Rain Man.