Monday, August 30, 2004

Weekend recap... and more!

Had a pretty busy but fun weekend.

-Went to see Aida with Ariana and my family. It was a good show. Not as awesome as Avenue Q or Little Shop of Horrors but still good. We then went to the Stardust Diner on 51st which was fun also.

-Then yesterday I went with Steve, his friend Steve, and Ariana out to Mohegan Sun for a little bit of gambling and a whole lot of Heavy Metal as we saw Judas Priest at the arena over there. It was such an AWESOME show. 100 minutes of pure metal goodness. It was seriously one of the greatest concerts I've ever been to, and for someone who has been to 140+ shows, that is saying a lot. I'd without a doubt rank it in my top 5. You just gotta give props to Halford who is nearly 60 years old and can still hit those ridiculous metal wails and give a performance that would put most frontmen who were less than half his age to shame.

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On a completely unrelated note, I just felt like posting a couple of funny conversations and thoughts that occurred over the last week right here:

First, I forget how this conversation came up, but I was talking with Sheila and she mentioned something about how a female's "monthly visitor" gets synched up with the females they spend the most time with. Even to the point that their visitor could be quite late (upwards of 2-3 weeks) if they have changed the specific females they used to hang out with in order to synch up with the new ones they are most in contact with.

This was of course news to me... I believe my exact reaction was "whaaaaa?" She told me it's true though and to ask Ariana.

So I did and she told me, that it definitely can happen, which just led to me making jokes on how women's pheromones are apparently like a Nokia N-Gage. (Funny visuals in the same vein of those weird commercials popping into my head and all).

But seriously, think about it! It must go something like this- once a girl comes in contact with a new female for an extended period of time, their pheromones are all like "You're the 14th huh? Well I'm the 28th... looks like we gotta get to either the 7th or 21st... what? Mary over there is the 18th? Well the 21st it is!"

I'll prob get smacked for these comments when any of the girls in my crew read this (but then again, most of u reading this are prob the guys, so I might be safe for awhile) but seriously, I'm still kinda curious if this is true for the majority of chicks out there. So ladies out there, hear's the time to have your say, comment away! (Yes, I am quite aware this is a cheap ploy to get people to comment to my posts, so sue me).

-The other amusing thought (well to me anyways) was that I made the observation while passing a Chinese Food restaurant, that you never really see any actual Chinese people in any Chinese food places! Think about it, when was the last time YOU saw one?

I think the same goes with some other cultural type restaurants, do you see Mexicans at Taco Bell? I don't recall seeing many Indians at any KFC's or Pizza Huts either. ;-)

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Baseball has been very exciting lately, some close races (the AL and NL Wild Card especially) have kept my interest in baseball at an all-time high. And my Marlins are 4 games over .500 for the first time since the end of June. Not to mention that A.J. Burnett made a club record by striking out 14 batters yesterday in their game against the Rockies. They are only four games out of the Wild Card now, so I'm psyched for even more baseball fun. Now if the Yankees could only manage to get a few wins out of their starting pitchers (1 out of 15??? Pathetic...) I'd feel even better.

Wrestling has been decent as of late also (well except the Orton as World Champ thing, but oh well). Anyone else been watching (if so, comment!)? If not, then you should, it's quite fun.

Friday, August 27, 2004

Greetings Citizens!

I was torn whether or not to go to the Dane Cook show last night. It would have come up to about $30 altogether which really didn’t fit in my budget (especially since I had just ordered tix to see Stephen Lynch earlier in the day). But it was way cheaper than seeing him at Caroline’s.

In the end I decided to go, and met up with Sheila right before the show. We hit up the BK Lounge (Burger King to all u non-Dane-Cook-joke-knowing-people) for some food and then headed over to the Comic Strip.

We got there and met up with Marie and some of her friends but then we were hit with some not so great news. It wound up being a fundraiser for 9/11 so it was a bit more expensive than we expected. Four of the five of us weren’t sure if we could really afford it and were almost about to leave, but then Marie turned around and just wound up paying for all five of us.

I felt really bad about that, cuz I didn’t expect it (she did it before we even realized what she was doing). I at least made up for it later by putting my share of $30+ into the bill at the end of the night.

So yeah, it was a little more expensive than I planned but it wound up being worth it. There were like 8-9 comics that performed (each did about 10-15 minute sets, Dane did about a half hour). So it was pretty cool.

Here are some of my favorite jokes of the night (that I could remember, so it’s not much, heh). I also apologize for not knowing the comedians name’s to properly give them credit.

"Nothing smart ever comes after the word ‘dude.’ You never hear "Dude... scalpel." It’s always like "Dude! I just got my watch caught on my ball sac!!" [Although, who else can hear Joe Vozzolo breaking down barriers and using ‘dude’ in the doctor’s office?]

"So my friend calls me up to fix his computer. He’s all like "Dude, I can’t download porn!" So I’m all like "But don’t you have a really hot girlfriend?" He’s all like "my girlfriend doesn’t know shit about computers!"

****

Dane Cook also was not the final comic of the night. About 3 comics went on after him. Half our group left after the dude who followed Dane but then one of them returned a few moments later all like "They’re not allowing us to leave b/c u have to leave with the bill and everyone has to be together in the group." We were like "That makes no sense! There’s eleven of us (more people showed up after the initial 5), they can’t do that!"

Thankfully that was resolved and the rest of us stayed til the end, but once we got outside, we realized we should have left with the others b/c as we walked out, the rest of the crew was still there and they were all like "We were just outside here chilling with Steve Martin!!!" We were like "Waaaaah?!?!" Then they were like "that’s why we tried to get u to come out with us!!" We responded, "but u didn’t say anything about Steve Martin!! You were just like they were having a hard time letting u out! You could have mentioned that!!" .

So yeah, I was slightly bummed over the lost opportunity, but that didn’t last for long, b/c hell, it was a fun night regardless, and like I said the show was well worth it (it was over two hours long). So yeah, good times were had by all.

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In more late breaking news, I found out this morning that my mom got engaged last night to the man she had been seeing for awhile. While it wasn’t a complete shock (the question wasn’t if he was gonna propose just when), I didn’t expect it to be at this moment.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the situation. He’s a nice guy and all, but two things crossed my mind when they told me.

First was "damn them, they stole our thunder! Me and Ariana are supposed to be the next people to get married."

Second was- "this is gonna be awkward. There hasn’t been a dude in our house since my mom kicked my dad out when I was 5 years old." I just think it will be weird.

So yeah, just had to share that b/c it’s big enough news, that I really can’t NOT mention it to some degree.

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Comedy Goodness

Not too much to talk about today, other than the fact I just found out that two great comedian's are doing shows in NY very soon.

Dane Cook is actually doing a show tomorrow at Comic Strip Live for a very decent price, so I am very tempted to go. If you've never heard of Dane Cook, you need to visit his website (which has clips playing from his CD). Speaking of his CD- it's called Harmful If Swallowed and you should all buy it. Absolutely hysterical stuff.

The other comedian coming soon is Stephen Lynch. He is coming to Town Hall for two performances on Oct. 16th (at 8pm and 10pm). So I'm psyched for that too. You should also check out his website for some song and video clips and buy his Superhero CD. I promise you won't be disappointed.

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Speaking of comedy though... I was watching Raw last night and the Rock made a surprise appearance and man he was at the top of his game. He had some hilarious lines throughout the segment of the show he was in, but the highlight was definitely this:

(Referring to the ring announcer's pre-WWE days) "... yeah Lillian Garcia had a job before this. She worked at a sperm bank... but she was fired for drinking on the job."

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Oh, and have you people been watching the Olympics this year?? Last night was just crazyiness during the Men's High Bars final. The crowd went nuts booing the poor scores the judges gave that Russian guy. They went on for like 10 minutes and even basically forced the judges to change the scroes. I've never seen anything like that before. Amusing stuff.

This year's Olympics have just had a bunch of interesting things happening in them, so I'm glad I've been tuning in, and you all should too considering it's not over yet. Who knows what'll happen next.

Friday, August 20, 2004

Fun Links

Not much to talk about today so I'm just gonna leave u all with some fun links to check out.

First is one Henry sent me a few weeks ago. It's a mini movie clip (less than 4 minutes) of Spider-Man 2 done in Lego Style. It's done really well and is pretty funny. You can check it out here.

The second link is something Joe just sent out yesterday but I found pretty amusing. It's an opinion on the whole Atkins diet craze. It looks like it's done in the style of the Retarded Animal Babies (hey looky another bonus link) cartoon but I could be wrong. But anyways, it's pretty funny and can be found here. I would not advise you listening to any of these at work though (except the Spider-Man thing, that is clean).

Enjoy!

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Whoo!

First off, I gotta say that I love my job!

The past few days, we had the student lounge next to us opened up so we could watch the Olympics. Just on Tuesday, our whole office went in and watched pretty much the entire USA Men's Basketball team play Greece, and yesterday we went and watched some Women's volleyball and stuff. Now tell me, what other job would let u do that? Heh.

Speaking of the Olympics, I watched the big events last night also. Congrats to the "helium-man" Paul Hamm (ok did u guys HEAR this man talk after his gold medal win???), and to the USA Women's Swim team for not only capturing the gold but crushing the former World Record by like two seconds.

And in more good news in the sporting world, the Florida Marlins were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers last night and were down 4-2 in the 9th inning and were facing the nigh-unstoppable Eric Gagne...

... and they kicked his ass. They scored 4 runs in that inning to come back and win the game 6-4. That my friends, is awesome.

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Oh, funny story. I was watching Cold Pizza this morning and they scroll the scores and some news on the bottom of their screen (as is the custom of ESPN and ESPN2). Well one of their top stories was this:

"Black Bear found passed out in camp at Washington State Park after consuming 36 beers."

I found that highly amusing... oh man, I don't know if it's just me thinking this, but if someone got pics of that, you know it's got world-wide e-mail FWD written ALL over it.

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In other funny stuff. I'm sure many of you have either been to (or at least heard of) this website. It's been around for awhile, but I just was linked to it this past week. Basically, what this person did was take the old Public Service Announcements that used to air after the episodes of the G.I. Joe cartoon from the 1980's and redub them.

Some are pretty stupid, others are downright hysterical. I haven't gotten through them all yet, but I'm liking number 7 at the moment (there are like 25 altogether). Go check it out and have a laugh.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Family Guy returns!

Family Guy is back on Fox! They're starting it off with a marathon of older episodes tonight before the new ones start this season. To celebrate, here are some of my favorite quotes from the show:

Peter Griffin: Brian, there's a message in my Alpha Bits. It says 'OOO'!
Brian Griffin: Peter, those are Cheerios.

[Brian and Peter are putting a crib together.]
Brian: Okay, insert rod support A into slot B.
Peter: That's what...
Brian: If you say "that's what she said" one more time, I am gonna pop you.

Stewie: Did you forge my name? How dare you! Is this backwards "S" supposed to be cute? I'm going to crap double for you tonight.

Peter: ...Lois comes up to me wanting to know if she can get a job, and I was like: "I got a job for you right here" [points at his crotch]... this zipper's been broken for weeks, I've had to use a safety pin.

Teacher: In French, to say yes you say oui-oui.
[Peter starts laughing]
Peter: Oh, man, that's hysterical. (keeps laughing) Hey, what do you say for no, doo-doo? (laughs) Hey, I'll be right back. I've got to go take a wicked yes.
[I love that one... I've used it many times before, heh]

Want more? Check out this website full of the best Family Guy quotes.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Catching Up

Been over a week since I posted here. That'd be because I was on vacation and too busy doing other things to waste my time entertaining you people (heh, j/k).

But yeah my vacation was fun, I didn't go anywhere but I did a lot of fun stuff. Me and Ariana went to Six Flags on Tuesday to celebrate our hangout from 2 years ago and I got to go on the Superman ride (which I wasn't able to get to last year), so that was cool.

On Wed we finally took advantage of "Wacky Wednesday" at the arcade in New Roc City. Basically you pay $20 and you get unlimited use of pretty much everything (including Lazer Tag, the Virtual Rollercoaster, etc) for any 4 hours from 4-10pm. There is also a deal where u can pay $10 for 8-10pm. It was tons of fun, and I have never played so many arcade games in my life, heh. It's something I'd definitely like to do again with a group.

But the main highlight of last week (the 12th to be exact) was me and Ariana's 2 year anniversary. I took her to this awesome Japanese restuarant called Asahi (it's on 48th bet 8th and 9th ave, I HIGHLY recomend it) and then we went to go see Avenue Q on Broadway.

That show was freakin HYSTERICAL. Tix are a bit hard to get (I had mine for a few months now) but if you can somehow get your hands on some, it's definitely worth it.

We bought the soundtrack to it also as we left and even though we've only listened to it once, we were already able to sing along. Fun stuff.

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Oh I also forgot to mention that the Friday before, me and Ariana went to go see Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. It was an interesting look at the lives of the guys in the bands. Any fan of Metallica should go see it, they'd definitely get a kick out of it.

What made that night better though was that later on after we met up with Henry and John around St. Marks we went to this Sakebar over on, I wanna say 9th street (I may be off ask me later if u are interested)- called Decibel. They've got some great food there including Skewered Chicken mixed with vegetables. I forget the name they had for it there (obviously it's in Japanese) but it was good stuff and our main reason for heading over there. And though I run the risk of me sounding like a complete schill these past few paragraphs I must also say this is another place everyone should check out.

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Other than the Metallica documentary I wound up seeing like 3 other movies this vacation. I saw I,Robot which was "ehh" but i saw it for free so I can't complain, Collateral which was better than I would have given it credit for, but it was still lacking in certain areas (one of those being it was way longer than it had any right to be), and finally Sat night I went with a crew to go see The Village.

Now that movie SUCKED. I've seen and liked all the previous Shamalyan movies (especially Unbreakable) but this was just bad. The only part of this movie I enjoyed was the fact that I guessed the "surprise twist" like barely 30-40 minutes into the movie. Thing is it wasn't that big of a twist and also kinda took away from the enjoyment of the movie b/c it took away all the suspense of the movie for me, but hey, at least I guessed it and was damn proud of myself for it.

I did get some very good movie watching in despite the stuff in the theaters when me and Ariana spent one night in and watched both Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2 back to back. Now those are some quality flicks, heh.

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Watched Summerslam at Phil's on Sunday night. It was a pretty good show, but they let freakin Randy Orton win the damn title. My hate for Randy Orton has been notoriously on record amongst my friends who watch wrestling, so you KNOW I wasn't happy about that.

Last night on Raw helped make up for it though when Chris Benoit went into Crippler mode and beat the snot out of Orton for like 25 minutes and was looking like the Benoit from the mid-late 90's through that whole match. He still wound up losing (D'oh!) but at least it was in a better way than the night before. So I'm satisfied at the moment, but I hope they do something cool with the direction of the show.

I also found out that both Smackdown (a PPV) and Raw will be coming to NY in October, so I'm looking forward to trying to go to at least one of those shows. Anyone else down?

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I leave this post with one quote I found amusing and a paraphrase of a bit I saw a comic do on Last Comic Standing this weekend.

"And dissenting views may kindly report to my ass for kissing duty."- The Rick

"...Kerry has the election in the bag. He's married to Theresa Heinz. Kerry just has to do ONE thing to win this election. He doesn't even have to campaign. All he's gotta do, is one day before the election, go on TV and say 'Vote for me... or I take away the ketchup!"- Kathleen Madigan (and Hell yes I agree. Kerry should win anyways, but this would make it a lock, hell even Republicans need their ketchup).

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Fussy Eater (author's name unknown- ask my sis)

This is something a friend of my sister wrote and sent to her (actually it might have even been in his AOL or AIM profile). It's kinda old but I just ran across it recently and was lmao.

I just felt I had to share this b/c it applies to me so well. That and I think you all would enjoy it.

FUSSY EATER:

When I was a kid I was a, Fussy eater. Thats what they called it at our house.

"Hes a fussy eater."

"Fussy eater" is a euphemism for "big pain in the ass." They'd trot out some food and I'd say,"I don’t like that."

"Why?"

"I dont know. I know I don’t like it. And I know if I ate it I would like it even less."

"Well, I like it. Mmmmmm! Yum yum!"

"Hey, Ma. You like it? YOU EAT IT!"

Sometimes they would try to corner me with logic: "Well, how do you know you don’t like it, if you’ve never even tried it?"

"It came to me in a dream." Big pain in the ass.

Some things I didnt like cause the way they sounded.

"Don’t sound right to me, Ma. Say that again?"

"Asparagus."

"No, I don’t like that." Imagine. I got away with that for eight or nine years.

To this day, there are still some things I wont eat becuase of how they sound. Yogurt sounds disgusting. I cant eat anything that has both a "y" and a "g" in it. Squash is also badly named.

"You want some squash?" Sounds like someone sat on dinner.

"How would you like a nice tongue sandwich? Its made from slives of cow's tongue."

"Hey, Ma, are you fuckin tryin to make me sick?"

On the other hand there were some foods I didnt like because of how they looked. That seems a bit more rational.

"I don’t like that! It don’t look right to me. Did you cook that, Ma? Yeah? Is there a picture of it in the cookbook? I’ll bet it dont look like that."

Of course, some people will eat anything, no matter how it looks. I saw guys like that on the chow line in high school.

"Hi, boys! Whaddaya got? I’ll eat anything. What’s that called? Nevermind, gimme a whole bunch of it."

"Its rats asshole, Don."

"Well, it sure makes a hell of a fondue."

Not me. I dont eat anything I dont recognize immediately. If I have to ask questions, I pass. Im not at dinner to make inquiries. Gimme something I recognize. Like a carrot. I know I can trust a carrot. Now there are some foods that even though I know what they are, I still dont like their looks. Tomatoes, for instance. My main problem with tomatoes is that they dont look as though they are fully developed. They look like theyre still in the larval stage; thousands of little tiny seeds and a whole lot of jelly lookin slime. "Get if off my plate!" Its like that stuff at the end of an egg.

Of course I know its not the end of an egg....its the beginning of a chicken!! "ITS HEN CUM!!! EEEAAAAAAAGGGGHHH! GET IT OFF MY PLATE!"

Can't win em all... but you can win some!

Grr...

I found out that Alter Bridge (basically Creed with a new singer) was coming to Irving Plaza in Oct (I believed I mentioned this in the last post). I joined their mailing list and thus got a password for ultra pre-sale tix which started yesterday at 1pm. Sadly the thing sold out in like 4 minutes and I wasn't able to get any. So that sucked...

But then I come in this morning with another e-mail from them (which must've been sent yesterday after I left work) all like "we've decided to add ANOTHER presale for Irving b/c that one sold out in 4 minutes. It will be Thurs morning at 10am."

I looked at my watch...

10:24am

DAMMIT!!

I tried to get tix, but that was all in vain and I knew it from the start.

So yeah that sucked and now my only real chance is to get tix during the regular sale tomorrow, BUT I already have plans. First I gotta go fight some stupid parking ticket I got, and then after that me and Ariana were supposed to go to the city to go see Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. So I'm not gonna kill my day just trying to get tix for that show. Maybe I'll luck out and can go directly to the box office though, we'll see. Keeping my fingers crossed again.

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On to happier news. I went to the Yankees-A's game last night with the usual crew of Ariana, Christina and Rodrigo. It was a great game. Loaiza didn't pitch that well and the Yanks were trailing almost the whole game. But in the bottom of the 9th with the Yanks down 6-4, Sheffield hit a homer to tie it up 6-6. They couldn't get another run that inning though, so that meant- Free Baseball!!

Yeah, the game wound up going to the 11th with major scares from Mariano Rivera who let the bases get loaded with 1 out at one point, but he escaped that, thank god. And the Yanks pulled through and won it with a 2-run walk-off homerun by A-Rod. The crowd went nuts, and we all went home very happy.

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In unrelated news, some of you have probably heard of this by now but I was just informed of this by Alan on Tues when we went for lunch.

Apparently Trey Parker and Matt Stone are making a new feature film called Team America.

Basically it's a movie that bashes Bush, Kerry, Michael Moore, the situation in Iraq, terrorists, everything, in true Parker and Stone fashion. Oh and did I mention the whole movie is done with puppets?

String puppets mind you.

Do yourself a favor and read this review. And then check out the trailer for the movie here. It's quite a laugh. I for one can't wait to see it.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Wow, parents can be cruel...

Oh man, I was just doing some paperwork here at the office- which consists of me filing away the applications students fill out to join the program in folders and I just ran across one name that I couldn't believe. There is some poor child out there named- Mathew Mathew.

It's like I've heard of lazy names in the world before (ie. John Johnson, Tom Thompson, even a fellow Fordham alum named Stephanie Stephens who people called Ditto) but this is just SEVERE laziness/unoriginality.

I just had to share that...

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Speaking of stuff to share, websites are finally reporting on the whole Disturbed vs Finch fiasco from Rolling Rock. You can read the article from MTV.com right here.

I'd also check the Disturbed website and their message board and diary logs for a bit more info. I'm more inclined to believe Disturbed's side of the story. But you can all decide for youself.

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Going to the Yankee game tonight. It's against the A's (who kicked the Yanks asses last night). It's also the Yankee debut of Esteban Loaiza who'll be pitching tonight. Every other major pitcher that got traded recently had good first outtings for their new team, let's hope that stays the same for Loaiza.

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Lastly, the KOTOR game is a lot harder than any other RPG I've played in a long time, even with a strategy guide. Hell last night I'm walking along and the guide is nonchalantly all like "Kill the Mandalorians ahead, and approach the speeder." So I'm like "ok, sounds easy enough... But it neglected to mention that there were SIX of them all armed to the teeth (including one with 2 lightsabers) who killed my ass in like 2 seconds.

Even once I knew what to expect and armed myself properly I got killed about 5-6 more times before finally beating them. That NEVER happens to me in RPG's. I guess that's a good thing, it makes it more challenging but damn, it gets pretty crazy at times.

Oh and I earned yet ANOTHER lightsaber, giving me the option to put on in each hand and be all badass. So I'm quite happy about that.

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Another thing I'm happy about- tix for the Alter Bridge concert at Irving in October go on internet presale in a few minutes. Crossing my fingers in hopes of getting some. Wish me luck!

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

The Rolling Rock Town Fair Experience

This weekend I was away along with Ariana, Jordan, Gaetano and Goombah for a road trip out to Latrobe, PA for the Rolling Rock Town Fair 5. It was a huge 7 hour drive, but thank the good Lord that Jordan is awesome and had a portable DVD player, and so we wound up watching a bunch of movies during the whole ride there which made the trip seem to go by sooo much faster.

We wound up watching South Park the movie (which had us all singing along), Gone in 60 Seconds (which with the great stereo system Jordan has in his car, we could all feel the engines roaring and the fact that Jordan was practically matching the crazy speeds they were going in the movie, made for an interesting experience), the Dane Cook DVD of his unedited Comedy Central special (which was hysterical) and finally Old School, which is one of our generations greatest comedy's and of course had us laughing our asses off as we all quoted it like crazy throughout the movie.

Once we got to our hotel in Latrobe, we settled in and then headed out to a bar recomended to us by the hotel clerk.

We immediately made friends with the female bartender (even buying her and her sister like 2-3 shots) and everything was sooo cheap. It was funny, at one point the girl was all like "You're bill is getting pretty high, are you guys ok with that?" We asked her "What exactly is high?" She’s like "It’s about $96 at the moment" and we all laughed.

In the end the total bill came out to like $102.50 but for ALL the stuff we ordered it was a steal. Between all of us, we had home-made potato chips, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, 3 buckets of beer (six 7oz beers in each), 16 shots, about 3 bacardi type fruit drinks, and like about 4-5 regular beers (and maybe more but I can't remember at the moment).

Now in the city, getting all that would have been like $200-250, EASY. So we made out like bandits. We wound up giving her a great tip and we basically made a friend at that bar, and promised we would be back the next day (which I'm sure she was looking forward to). Those people now know New Yorkers are awesome tippers. We walked out of the bar all like ‘We would OWN this town if we stayed longer, heh." So that was cool.

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There is so much to say about the Rolling Rock Town Fair, both good and bad. I will start off with the bad (although it wasn't terrible and we got over those events quickly) and then move onto the good (which far outweighed the sucky parts).

The first annoying thing was that for the most part it freakin rained ALL day long until 5-6pm (and mind you the show was from about 10am-9pm), only stopping for moments at a time. But it was pretty much at least a light steady rain throughout the whole day, which made the fairgrounds ultra muddy (thank god the bleachers on the side of the stage had a covering, so that was a nice refuge) and also the mud provided us entertainment as we watched the insane people slide down this huge mudhill towards the stage (during the earlier parts of the show, more people were watching them and the mud wrestlers than the opening more unknown bands).

The second annoying part really got to me though...

Basically, we got to some seats in the bleachers and this chick is behind us chain-smoking like crazy and it was kind of annoying but whatever, nothing we could really do about it. Then this dude (prob her boyfriend) and his buddy come in (2 huge ass almost biker looking guys) and sit with her and THEY start puffing away. Thing is there was a little bit of a breeze so the smoke was blowing right in Ariana’s face and some ashes were getting on her. So she turned around to the girl and asked if she could point the cigarette away from her.

The girl didn’t say anything but immediately her boyfriend was all like "turn around" in a dismissive and derogatory manner. I didn’t hear it (I had earplugs in at the moment) but Ariana told me about it. The 2 guys were really too big for me to do anything about it though (not to mention it was a compromising position being at on metal bleachers and all), and at the moment, it was just us b/c Jordan, Goombah and Gaetano split off from us to walk around a bit.

But Ariana kept making comments to me about the smoking that were loud enough for the people to hear and at this point I had taken my earplugs out. And well the guy behind us said something about her bitching over nothing, and Ariana turned around and started yelling stuff like ‘Yeah I’m bitching about it b/c you’re blowing f***ing smoke in my face"

And then things just got ugly... a yelling/cursing match ensued, and I tried to keep the peace but the boyfriend was being an absolute dick. Ariana wasn’t even talking to him and both of us were trying to say that we were just trying to ask the girl nicely to point the cigarette away. But they were having none of it. The guy even was all like "you better shut up bitch or I’ll punch your boyfriend right here in the face." That had it for me, since we weren’t even trying to deal with him. More cursing ensued and at this point everyone was watching us (including security, which pathetically just asked if we would all calm down) and I was trying to convince Ariana quietly we should just move b/c it wasn’t worth it staying there. But the dicks were all wanting us to leave, so it was almost as if we were losing by leaving, which we didn’t wanna make it seem like, but in the end it wouldn’t have been worth it to stay. So we left, after some more cursing and moved a section over. But omg, we were just FUMING.

I had so many things in my head I wanted to say to those assholes. I’m normally not very good with coming up with comebacks and insults but I had a few good ones that came to me immediately lined up in my head but it took all I had not to say them b/c like I said the 2 dudes were way bigger than me, and also, we had to climb down these bleacher things right in front of them, so if I said what I was gonna say they could have easily just barely pushed us and we would have fallen and hurt ourselves pretty bad, so I kept it inside, but OMG did I wanna get them.

So I will vent what I would have said here, just b/c this is my blog and I can...

At one point the guy turned to Ariana and was like "Is this your first concert?!?! It must be b/c you don’t seem to know anything! We can f**king smoke all we like"

The immediate retort in my mind was "Dick, this isn’t her first concert, but even if it was that would still be more concerts than the amount of times you’ve had sex in your life... with women at least. By the way you and your boyfriend there make a cute couple. You totally have to be the catcher b/c you must’ve had something up your ass this morning to make you such a bitch."

In retrospect, it’s better I didn’t say that, cuz obviously that would have eroded into fisticuffs seeing as how irritable these guys seemed from the get-go, and that would not have been cool (although if the other guys in my group were with me, I prob totally would have said it, b/c we would have outnumbered them but alas, that was not the case).

So we moved and we calmed down. As I said before, it wasn’t worth it to start anything, cuz if we had we could have been ejected and that would have been a waste.

So yeah, as nice as I am, there are just a few things someone can do or say to me to make me explode, that was one of those things...

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Our fight seemed to trigger things on stage though, b/c as Finger Eleven was finishing and the stage was rotating for Finch to start their set, all of a sudden as the stage is still spinning the whole crowd could see a bunch of guys BRAWLING on stage. They’re on the floor and wailing on each other and crap. More guys jump in and at first the crowd didn’t know whether to think it was fake or what, but then security rushed the stage, but it was insane. We were able to tell that one of the bands involved was Finch, but we couldn’t make out who the other dudes were. But we saw one of the guys in Finch pick up a bass guitar and start hitting other dudes with it, but then he got taken down and it was just crazy, the crowd was going wild cheering. It was great.

But anyways, as Finch finished and left the stage, at this point we were in the bleachers and from that area we had a view of the side of the stage as well as to stuff from behind the stage. Well as soon as Finch left the stage ANOTHER huge ass brawl broke out, that only some of us up above could really see. But it was like 20+ guys just beating on each other, it was crazy. Eventually the fight moved behind a tour bus so we couldn’t see what was happening but we saw a bunch of security people running over there. So yeah that was totally amusing.

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Now for the better news. All in all, despite the fact of the rain and the annoyance of running into a few assholes at the show, the day was great. All the bands put on great performances, it especially kicked into high gear once Hoobastank came out and did a rocking 45 minute set of all their big hits and it just kept going from there. It was also very amusing to watch the mudpeople throughout the day.

As for a list of all the bands that played (in the order they performed too) here it is:

The Feds (a local act that won some contest to open the show)
Thornley
Three Days Grace
Finger Eleven
Finch
Sevendust
Hoobastank
Crystal Method
N.E.R.D.
Disturbed
StainD
Velvet Revolver

Each band played from anywhere to 30 mins (for the early bands), 45 mins (for the middle bands) and an hour (for the last 3 bands).
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Oh and we found out midway through the day that the band Finch was brawling with was actually Disturbed. The announcer hosting the event got on the mic and was all like "Well we can't NOT address what happened before, so for those of you keeping score, let's just say Disturbed 1, Finch 0"

Later on when Disturbed came out for their set, David Draiman (the lead singer) discussed the events in typical Draiman style (with lots of anger and even more profanity, heh). He was all like ‘We’ll beat your asses if u try messing with us again. We don’t care about jail, we’ll beat your asses send u to jail and when you get out, we’ll be waiting and beat the f**k out of you again and again and again. F**k Finch! F**k them right in the eye!!" It was awesome. I couldn’t wait to see how this would play out on music news and each bands respective message boards, heh.

As for Disturbed's set, it was the best of the day in my opinion, they totally got everyone in the crowd going which was awesome.

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We wound up leaving as Velvet Revolver was about to finish up their set. I was happy to hear them play "Fall to Pieces" and they also did some STP and GNR covers by performing "Mr. Brownstone" and "Sex Type Thing" which was very cool.

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Oh one very funny thing... as we were exiting the fairgrounds there was a group of 4 girls ahead of us. They were very butch looking girls. They were all super short (the tallest was prob only like 5'2), had short butch haircuts (one even had a mohawk), were all very overweight, and were caked head to toe in mud. As they passed the State Trooper at the main gate, he goes all like "We got us a group of trolls here!"

RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE GIRLS! It was hysterical, b/c he basically just said outloud what everyone around them was thinking. It was just funny that it came from the State Trooper. Me, Ariana and Jordan also said they could pass for Hobbits too (since some were barefoot at the moment too).

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And that was pretty much the day at Rolling Rock summed up very quickly (a lot more happened- like us going back to that bar and getting another great deal, but it's just too much to type, I think I got in the main points though).

Here are some fun quotes from the the trip that I just have put in for the crew though:

"Dude (to Jordan) I think we're lost."- Us (as we were trying to find the hotel from the concert)
"Nah, dude I remember this!"- Jordan (his response to every single road we were on... except EVERYTHING looked the same! lol)
"It's ok, Keep driving!! All roads lead to Rome!"- Gaetano

"What fer you driving a cop car out here?"
And "That’s the only kinda car I like to see stuck, a cop car... hyuck." - by some local Hicks who helped us get our car out of some mud in the parking lot.

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The trip back was good too. We watched more movies (finished watching Old School, then watched Road Trip, Office Space and Half-Baked).

It was great, during the part in Road Trip where they were in the school bus listening to Twisted Sister headbanging away and going nuts, we did the same in Jordan’s car (I even mimicked Seann William Scott’s crotch thrusting thing which had everyone in the car cracking up). Oh and mind you, Jordan decided to speed the car up at this point to 115 mph for that segment, which made it even more fun.

So yeah, all in all it was a really fun trip. I think a great time was had by all.

Monday, August 02, 2004

A bit out of order

I went to the Rolling Rock town fair this past weekend and started to write a blog to post here, but it's running a bit long, so I'll just finish it up later and post it tomorrow.

In the meantime though, I have to mention that this past Saturday was the 2 year anniversary of the time me and Ariana went to Great Adventure together and started our whole relationship. So Happy Semi-Anniversary to us!

Today is also the 2 year anniversary of me getting my new car (Happy Birthday!) AND the whole me and Ariana going out on "not a date at first but sure seemed like a date by the end" night, which also featured Jordan leaving the bar with TWO chicks, and leaving poor Matt to go home with his tail between his legs, heh (sorry Matt!)

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And omg, I have to mention that I JUST finished eating some pizza my mom made for dinner. This wasn't just any pizza though. Usually she makes regular or pepperoni, and lately she's been experimenting with Chicken. But today she made prob one of the greatest tasting pizzas... nay, one of the greatest tasting FOODs ever. It was garlic chicken and pineapple pizza. I wasn't very enthusiastic about it when she told me what was on it, but damn, once I started eating it, it was just sooo freakin good. Like wanna lick the plate clean good, heh.

I just kept thinking of that line by Will Ferrell in Old School: "It's just so good when it hits your lips..."

Congratulations to my mom the chef!

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Oh, I guess I should also mention stuff about all the baseball trades that happened (and did not happen) this weekend.

First off, sadly the Yanks did not get Randy Johnson (although I honestly wasn't expecting it), but they traded Jose Contreras to the White Sox for Esteban Loaiza. I don't know what to think of that trade yet. Contreras was good against average teams but sucked against good teams like Boston (who owned his ass). He had more and better stuff than Loaiza though. However, Loiza does have better control. So we'll see what happens. [And oh how I wish they were able to tack Heredia into that trade just to be rid of him...]

But in the end, the Yanks did crap. They're not in much of a better position than they were last week, so now we just gotta pray Brown and Mussina come back nice and healthy and stay that way.

However on the other side of the spectrum the Marlins made some awesome trades! They got an All-Star catcher in Paul Lo Duca (who can really help the Marlins young pitching staff) and a great middle reliever in Mota (to set up Benitez) and all they had to trade was their 5th starter (Penny) and Hee Sop Choi. But while it's sad to see them go, they got so much more in return. They also replaced Penny with a guy from the Padres who is pretty good, so I think they are set. The Dodgers basically just handed the NL East to the Marlins (for God knows what reason but I'm not complaining). So lookout Braves, here we come!

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Oh and in other good news, I didn't get to mention before but I finally earned my lightsaber in KOTOR (it's Blue!). So yeah, just had to share that.