A jam-packed beginning to July.
Last week was an extremely busy for both me and Ariana. It was packed with both errands as well as social gatherings.
Things started out with a Yankee game on Monday night. It was the Yankees vs Twins, and Clemens was pitching for the Yanks that night. He pitched pretty well and the Yankees won 5-1.
****
On Tuesday, after work I went to New Roc with Ariana, Jordan, Rob, Henry & Viviana to see Transformers on the Giant Screen. The movie was pretty sweet. I think it was as faithful an adaptation as could be hoped for, for a Hollywood movie. So we all enjoyed it.
After the movie, we decided to grab a late dinner at Tequila Sunrise and met up with Goombah and James there. So we hung out there for awhile, but then headed home as we had an early morning the next day.
****
Wednesday was the Fourth of July and my first of about 5 days off. So I started my day by watching the Annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. It was insane as Joey Chestnut absolutely shattered the world record and ate an astonishing (and disgusting) 66 hot dogs and buns! I watched with my mom and we were both just amazed at how these people can eat so much. Seriously, 66 hot dogs, that's a lot! Next time you're in the supermarket, grab 8 packs of hot dogs (which come in 8) and stack them up. Where the hell do you put all that??? That stack would be higher and even wider (if you did four and four) than most of our stomachs and chests combined. And that's not including the buns! Crazy!
After watching the contest, I picked up Ariana and then we headed over to Rob's place for a Fourth of July BBQ. As soon as I walked into the place, James came right over to me all like "dude, check out his backyard." So when I went to the back I discovered that it was freakin HUGE. Immediately a grin came to my face and when I turned around I saw my grin mirrored back at me in James face as he nodded. Then we were like "WeddingMania is SO going down!!"
We went outside to scope out the area and there is a perfect spot to put the ring. Rob also has a terrace with stairs and a walkway, which could be used as an entrance ramp. So I took pics of the place to show Chaz so we could all mark out at the possibility that this might really occur.
And I just have to mention that the rest of Rob's place was pretty cool as well. The entire inside of the house is like a time capsule back into the 70's. He still has those old school TV's that were attached to the record player and stuff (which my family also used to own when I was young). I felt like I was in the house from That 70's Show. There was also a basement area that reminded me exactly of Eric's basement from the show. All that was missing was us huddled in the circle, lol.
As for the Fourth of July activities themselves, it was a lot of fun. The girls cooked the food (which was delicious), we then played some touch football (and even though I sucked for the most part I did make one pretty good play). Then half of our group played a very long game of Trivial Pursuit while the rest of us played Guitar Hero and Wii Sports. Rob also had his original NES set up, so some people played a bunch of rounds of Mike Tyson's Punch Out.
Then, as soon as it was dark enough, we went outside for Joe and Jordan to put on a fireworks show for us, with the ton of illegal fireworks Joe brought with him. There was another house near us doing the same, so it was a bit of a battle between us, but we wound up losing cuz they had prettier fireworks than we did, lol. It was a lot of fun though. And at one point I had a great idea after seeing Joe set up a bunch of sparkler fireworks off on the edge of the terrace. So I asked him to do it again, but this time I went on the ground below the terrace to have the sparkler fireworks going off behind me, so I could pose like the wrestler's do at the entrance ramps with their fireworks. So that was pretty amusing.
****
Thursday was mostly a day of errands. I had to do stuff for my dad (bank and co-op stuff) as well as picking up the renovation permits from city hall in Mount Vernon for my own apartment.
Then in the early evening (around 5pm), I met up with Ariana and we went downtown. When we got there, we headed over to the 7-11 over on 42nd Street between 8th & 9th Ave, b/c it had been converted into a Kwik-E-Mart to promote the Simpsons movie. Henry had called to tell me about it on Sunday, so I was looking forward to going all week long. I brought my camera and we took a ton of great pics (which I will post links to in a post in the near future).
Then we met up with Patty, Joe, Pete, Kate, Bryan, Athena, Katarina and 2 of her friends to go see Avenue Q on Broadway. I had seen the play about two years ago, when me & Ariana had gone for our anniversary. It's such a fun show though, that I had been looking forward to going again for awhile. So it was really cool that I found such a good discount deal online so we could all go. I think we all had a great time that night, so it was a success.
****
On Friday, Ariana & I picked up Patty and Maryann so they could help us do more registry research and shopping. We did that for a few hours, and then we went to go grab food to bring back to Jordan & Maryann's place. We went to Pizza Pizza, which is the place I mentioned the guy's ordered "man pizzas" from a few months back during our Guy's Movie day. I got two slices of pizza: one was a bacon slice and the other was a BBQ Rib Slice.
When I started to eat the bacon slice, it was so packed with bacon that a lot of it started to fall off. So rather than having it go to waste, I took the excess bacon and put it on my BBQ Spare rib slice in order to make the Ultimate "Man Pizza." It was freakin delicious.
Then we just spent the rest of the night just hanging out. We wound up watching Idiocracy again, b/c Joe & Patty hadn't seen it. It was still hilarious the second time around: "Oww, my balls!"
"It's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave!" (You'll have to see the movie to get each of these quote, but trust me they are hysterical in context).
Before we left for the night we brought Joe & Patty down to our apartment to show it to them. So they'll be able to tell you all how it looked before we fix it.
We then headed home, b/c we knew we had a very long day ahead of us on Saturday.
****
We woke up pretty early on Saturday and headed down to Port Authority to meet up with Rachael. Then the three of us took a shuttle out to Giants Stadium for the Live Earth concert.
I was somehow able to score ridiculously good seats to the show. We were in Sec 130 in the first row. (Basically, we were right over the heads of the people on the ground, so it was a great view)!
The acts that performed (in order) were:
Kenna
KT Tunstall
Taking Back Sunday
Keith Urban
Ludacris
AFI
Fall Out Boy
Akon
John Mayer
Melissa Etheridge
Alicia Keys
Dave Matthews Band
Kelly Clarkson
Kanye West
Bon Jovi
Smashing Pumpkins
Roger Waters
The Police
It was an awesome event. I thought it was really well organized. There was something happening every moment. They had a revolving stage so as one band was playing the road crew was setting up the next band. So a band would play, the stage would turn, a video would play on the big screens of a song from one of the other shows around the world (mostly London) and sometimes someone would come out to talk about the environment, then a celebrity would come out to intro the next band and then the band would play- wash, rinse, repeat. So that was pretty cool.
Some of the celebrities in attendance were Kevin Bacon (I'm now just one degree!!), Petra Nemcova, Zach Braff, Rosario Dawson and Cameron Diaz. I was very psyched to see Braff (as you all know I'm a huge Scrubs fan), and seeing Rosario Dawson was cool as well b/c she's hot, and I enjoy the movies I've seen her in.
The band performances were awesome as well. Sadly b/c there were just so many bands and only about 8 hours to squeeze them into, each band only got about either 4 songs or 20 minutes (give or take).
Most bands got 4 songs in. A handful got maybe 5, b/c their songs are shorter and then we had a few who had less like DMB and Roger Waters that only got 3 songs in (b/c most of their songs are like 7 minutes each), and Melissa Etheridge who took the time in her set more to make a political statement than perform. So the song she played seemed to last about 25 minutes, lol. It was actually pretty interesting though.
The highlights for me were: AFI, who put on a hell of a set. I've seen them before and I know they are good live, but they really impressed me with how good they sounded that day.
-Fall Out Boy: I had never seen them before, so I was looking forward to their set and they did not disappoint.
-DMB: they're just always really good live
-Bon Jovi: Jovi in Jersey, 'nuff said.
And finally: The Smashing Pumpkins. As most of you know, I started going to concerts right after I began college. And every attempt I made at seeing the Pumpkins in concert was foiled in one way or another (I won't go into all that heartbreak right now). Then they broke up in 2000, so I was never able to see them. They were basically the one and only huge band that I loved that I never got a chance to see in concert. So when I heard about them reuniting I was very psyched! I initially wanted to drive out to the Virgin Festival at Pimlico Raceway to see them in August, but that seemed like it was going to be pricy and no one was really interested in joining me. So when I heard the Pumpkins were gonna be at Live Earth, they were the band that convinced me to buy a ticket (b/c the tix were actually quite expensive and if not for the Pumpkins I would not have bothered going to the show).
As for their performance itself, it was good. I won't say great b/c they opened the set with a brand new song that no one knew that was freakin 10 minutes long. They also played the new single. So literally half of their set was stuff people really didn't know and even though it was good, it's not the same as playing the classics. Luckily the other half of the set was Bullet with Butterfly Wings (which was awesome), and Today. So that made up for it a bit.
But in the end, seeing the Pumpkins only perform four songs was a huge tease. Now I can't wait to see them in a full concert. Hopefully, this new incarnation will stay together long enough for me to see them in a full set sometime in the near future. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.
So yeah, in the end, it was a great show, and even though the ticket was pricy, I thought it wound up being worth it for all the great acts we got to see- although I must admit, that as great of a lineup as we got, I was pretty jealous of the lineup that London got- especially Spinal Tap's set when they played "Big Bottom" and got the bassist from every band on the show to join them (as well as a few full bands such as Metallica). Quite awesome. But like I said, our event was fun, so I can't complain.
****
We took Sunday as our day of rest. We chilled in, but we did do some productive stuff by beginning to research wedding invitations. And that was pretty much the end of my busy week.
Things started out with a Yankee game on Monday night. It was the Yankees vs Twins, and Clemens was pitching for the Yanks that night. He pitched pretty well and the Yankees won 5-1.
****
On Tuesday, after work I went to New Roc with Ariana, Jordan, Rob, Henry & Viviana to see Transformers on the Giant Screen. The movie was pretty sweet. I think it was as faithful an adaptation as could be hoped for, for a Hollywood movie. So we all enjoyed it.
After the movie, we decided to grab a late dinner at Tequila Sunrise and met up with Goombah and James there. So we hung out there for awhile, but then headed home as we had an early morning the next day.
****
Wednesday was the Fourth of July and my first of about 5 days off. So I started my day by watching the Annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. It was insane as Joey Chestnut absolutely shattered the world record and ate an astonishing (and disgusting) 66 hot dogs and buns! I watched with my mom and we were both just amazed at how these people can eat so much. Seriously, 66 hot dogs, that's a lot! Next time you're in the supermarket, grab 8 packs of hot dogs (which come in 8) and stack them up. Where the hell do you put all that??? That stack would be higher and even wider (if you did four and four) than most of our stomachs and chests combined. And that's not including the buns! Crazy!
After watching the contest, I picked up Ariana and then we headed over to Rob's place for a Fourth of July BBQ. As soon as I walked into the place, James came right over to me all like "dude, check out his backyard." So when I went to the back I discovered that it was freakin HUGE. Immediately a grin came to my face and when I turned around I saw my grin mirrored back at me in James face as he nodded. Then we were like "WeddingMania is SO going down!!"
We went outside to scope out the area and there is a perfect spot to put the ring. Rob also has a terrace with stairs and a walkway, which could be used as an entrance ramp. So I took pics of the place to show Chaz so we could all mark out at the possibility that this might really occur.
And I just have to mention that the rest of Rob's place was pretty cool as well. The entire inside of the house is like a time capsule back into the 70's. He still has those old school TV's that were attached to the record player and stuff (which my family also used to own when I was young). I felt like I was in the house from That 70's Show. There was also a basement area that reminded me exactly of Eric's basement from the show. All that was missing was us huddled in the circle, lol.
As for the Fourth of July activities themselves, it was a lot of fun. The girls cooked the food (which was delicious), we then played some touch football (and even though I sucked for the most part I did make one pretty good play). Then half of our group played a very long game of Trivial Pursuit while the rest of us played Guitar Hero and Wii Sports. Rob also had his original NES set up, so some people played a bunch of rounds of Mike Tyson's Punch Out.
Then, as soon as it was dark enough, we went outside for Joe and Jordan to put on a fireworks show for us, with the ton of illegal fireworks Joe brought with him. There was another house near us doing the same, so it was a bit of a battle between us, but we wound up losing cuz they had prettier fireworks than we did, lol. It was a lot of fun though. And at one point I had a great idea after seeing Joe set up a bunch of sparkler fireworks off on the edge of the terrace. So I asked him to do it again, but this time I went on the ground below the terrace to have the sparkler fireworks going off behind me, so I could pose like the wrestler's do at the entrance ramps with their fireworks. So that was pretty amusing.
****
Thursday was mostly a day of errands. I had to do stuff for my dad (bank and co-op stuff) as well as picking up the renovation permits from city hall in Mount Vernon for my own apartment.
Then in the early evening (around 5pm), I met up with Ariana and we went downtown. When we got there, we headed over to the 7-11 over on 42nd Street between 8th & 9th Ave, b/c it had been converted into a Kwik-E-Mart to promote the Simpsons movie. Henry had called to tell me about it on Sunday, so I was looking forward to going all week long. I brought my camera and we took a ton of great pics (which I will post links to in a post in the near future).
Then we met up with Patty, Joe, Pete, Kate, Bryan, Athena, Katarina and 2 of her friends to go see Avenue Q on Broadway. I had seen the play about two years ago, when me & Ariana had gone for our anniversary. It's such a fun show though, that I had been looking forward to going again for awhile. So it was really cool that I found such a good discount deal online so we could all go. I think we all had a great time that night, so it was a success.
****
On Friday, Ariana & I picked up Patty and Maryann so they could help us do more registry research and shopping. We did that for a few hours, and then we went to go grab food to bring back to Jordan & Maryann's place. We went to Pizza Pizza, which is the place I mentioned the guy's ordered "man pizzas" from a few months back during our Guy's Movie day. I got two slices of pizza: one was a bacon slice and the other was a BBQ Rib Slice.
When I started to eat the bacon slice, it was so packed with bacon that a lot of it started to fall off. So rather than having it go to waste, I took the excess bacon and put it on my BBQ Spare rib slice in order to make the Ultimate "Man Pizza." It was freakin delicious.
Then we just spent the rest of the night just hanging out. We wound up watching Idiocracy again, b/c Joe & Patty hadn't seen it. It was still hilarious the second time around: "Oww, my balls!"
"It's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave!" (You'll have to see the movie to get each of these quote, but trust me they are hysterical in context).
Before we left for the night we brought Joe & Patty down to our apartment to show it to them. So they'll be able to tell you all how it looked before we fix it.
We then headed home, b/c we knew we had a very long day ahead of us on Saturday.
****
We woke up pretty early on Saturday and headed down to Port Authority to meet up with Rachael. Then the three of us took a shuttle out to Giants Stadium for the Live Earth concert.
I was somehow able to score ridiculously good seats to the show. We were in Sec 130 in the first row. (Basically, we were right over the heads of the people on the ground, so it was a great view)!
The acts that performed (in order) were:
Kenna
KT Tunstall
Taking Back Sunday
Keith Urban
Ludacris
AFI
Fall Out Boy
Akon
John Mayer
Melissa Etheridge
Alicia Keys
Dave Matthews Band
Kelly Clarkson
Kanye West
Bon Jovi
Smashing Pumpkins
Roger Waters
The Police
It was an awesome event. I thought it was really well organized. There was something happening every moment. They had a revolving stage so as one band was playing the road crew was setting up the next band. So a band would play, the stage would turn, a video would play on the big screens of a song from one of the other shows around the world (mostly London) and sometimes someone would come out to talk about the environment, then a celebrity would come out to intro the next band and then the band would play- wash, rinse, repeat. So that was pretty cool.
Some of the celebrities in attendance were Kevin Bacon (I'm now just one degree!!), Petra Nemcova, Zach Braff, Rosario Dawson and Cameron Diaz. I was very psyched to see Braff (as you all know I'm a huge Scrubs fan), and seeing Rosario Dawson was cool as well b/c she's hot, and I enjoy the movies I've seen her in.
The band performances were awesome as well. Sadly b/c there were just so many bands and only about 8 hours to squeeze them into, each band only got about either 4 songs or 20 minutes (give or take).
Most bands got 4 songs in. A handful got maybe 5, b/c their songs are shorter and then we had a few who had less like DMB and Roger Waters that only got 3 songs in (b/c most of their songs are like 7 minutes each), and Melissa Etheridge who took the time in her set more to make a political statement than perform. So the song she played seemed to last about 25 minutes, lol. It was actually pretty interesting though.
The highlights for me were: AFI, who put on a hell of a set. I've seen them before and I know they are good live, but they really impressed me with how good they sounded that day.
-Fall Out Boy: I had never seen them before, so I was looking forward to their set and they did not disappoint.
-DMB: they're just always really good live
-Bon Jovi: Jovi in Jersey, 'nuff said.
And finally: The Smashing Pumpkins. As most of you know, I started going to concerts right after I began college. And every attempt I made at seeing the Pumpkins in concert was foiled in one way or another (I won't go into all that heartbreak right now). Then they broke up in 2000, so I was never able to see them. They were basically the one and only huge band that I loved that I never got a chance to see in concert. So when I heard about them reuniting I was very psyched! I initially wanted to drive out to the Virgin Festival at Pimlico Raceway to see them in August, but that seemed like it was going to be pricy and no one was really interested in joining me. So when I heard the Pumpkins were gonna be at Live Earth, they were the band that convinced me to buy a ticket (b/c the tix were actually quite expensive and if not for the Pumpkins I would not have bothered going to the show).
As for their performance itself, it was good. I won't say great b/c they opened the set with a brand new song that no one knew that was freakin 10 minutes long. They also played the new single. So literally half of their set was stuff people really didn't know and even though it was good, it's not the same as playing the classics. Luckily the other half of the set was Bullet with Butterfly Wings (which was awesome), and Today. So that made up for it a bit.
But in the end, seeing the Pumpkins only perform four songs was a huge tease. Now I can't wait to see them in a full concert. Hopefully, this new incarnation will stay together long enough for me to see them in a full set sometime in the near future. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.
So yeah, in the end, it was a great show, and even though the ticket was pricy, I thought it wound up being worth it for all the great acts we got to see- although I must admit, that as great of a lineup as we got, I was pretty jealous of the lineup that London got- especially Spinal Tap's set when they played "Big Bottom" and got the bassist from every band on the show to join them (as well as a few full bands such as Metallica). Quite awesome. But like I said, our event was fun, so I can't complain.
****
We took Sunday as our day of rest. We chilled in, but we did do some productive stuff by beginning to research wedding invitations. And that was pretty much the end of my busy week.
1 Comments:
Damn I really picked a BAD week to move. I missed out on alot, well I'm back in the loop now with the apt almost ready. I'm off for vacation next week but will be back the week after. I really shot myself in the foot by not making those Harry Potter move ticket plans. I was like Do'h! When I read the email....
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